Although the film itself is not my personal cup of tea, I have been an early advocate for Everything Everywhere At Once - for a success in film awards circuit - as a professional gambler since December and building positions on it in Best Picture, Best Director & Best Actress markets for a while, believing that the arguments against it are based too much on historical patterns than on current zeitgeist and reality, which has often proven to be a thinking fallacy and what has often given value on the markets - people getting stuck in the past and trying to predict and build their arguments based on very rational history-based approach, instead of just sensing what is the current spirit.
We’ve seen it in global tv specials & political gambling markets happening it repeatedly.
For example, Trump was supposedly chanceless in 2016 because his win would have been against most historical elections patterns, he was too polarizing and flawed character for voters, not a traditional politician, to name a few arguments of his opposers.
Also, Ukraine was never supposed to win Eurovision Song Contest in 2022 because this type of act was doomed to get a low jury score, among other flaws it had fundamentally as a pure musical act itself.
All of these contradictory premises based mostly on the examples of the past, not counting in the most relevant aspect of how culture is always on the flux and the trends in it change over time. In the end, culture is a living and reflective organism which works on a constant evolution.
That’s one of the reasons why I have been an eager backer of EEAAO, since the negative sentiment feels not to be based as much on the current zeitgeist and cultural reality, as on over-rational thinking and on historian’s fallacy, also on comparison fallacy, while we’ve been repeatedly proven that things which have a lot of passion, force and hive-minded momentum behind them, often overcome the obstacles a rational mind sees to be on their way.
So far we have already a considerable amount of proof for Everything Everywhere All At Once generating a widespread passion behind it in artistic circles, as well for pleasing the crowd, and that’s what is essential when it comes down to voting.
Nonetheless, I have now cashed out the majority of my position on it in Best Picture market, mostly around the odds 1.38-1.41, simultaneously backing other potential contenders and longer shots, like Banshees Of Inesherin, Top Gun, The Fabelmans*, Tar and All Quiet On The Western Front.
Why?
While I guess it still should be a frontrunner for Best Picture, I don’t think the odds in the high 1.3s and low 1.4s are justified, and the risk-reward ratio at this stage speaks against it being a value.
There’s minimal new valuable information we have gained compared to when it was still trading at 3+ odds and there are still some potential cons for it to consider when it comes to Academy Awards and especially to Best Picture category specifically.
The Oscar nominations it received were mostly expected and Golden Globes (where it actually lost) and Critics Choice Awards are still rather correlative than causative for Oscars voting results compared to guild awards (and BAFTA) which are still ahead.
Current market sentiment has already pretty much priced in its tremendous success in upcoming guild awards circuit and the market seems to have decided that EEAAO is almost a lock to win the Best Picture, while realistically we are still in a very speculative and early phase (pundits have been off at this stage of awards season recently (e.g 2022, 2020 and 2019) more often than not).
Not so long ago I had a similar feeling myself as the current market sentiment but then I tried to distance myself from the current “bubble”, to see how much my expectations are speculative and influenced on a positive feedback-loop I am surrounded by and how much are they based on actual solid proof.
We’ve also repeatedly seen in the past how the “metaverse bubble” influences the market and predictions, while its demographics are different compared to actual voting body who makes the final decision for an event results.
For similar reasons, in 2020 US Democratic Primaries, Joe Biden was very underrated by the market, and Bernie Sanders overrated.
The “metaverse bubble” profile was heavily skewed to Sanders target audience and at an early stage of the race it also felt at some point that the race was pretty much over and Sanders would take it, while Biden was already out of competition (he was trading in 20s for a while). While there were other reasons to believe that as well, the online feedback loop definitely helped it to form in the first place.
It was already evident before the Primaries started that the market sentiment reflected more the age, values and opinions of Twitter and bettors themselves, and dismissed that it doesn’t necessarily overlap with the demographics and values of the overall voting body.
Hence, Biden was underrated by the market from very early on.
Political elections and film awards are different events, but they are still having a dynamical overlap as most mass events where people can vote, involving human perception, psychology and culture.
Few of the reasons making me cautious at this point about EEAAO considering the market odds:
1) Demographics. According to the survey made in 2014, the median age of an Academy voter was supposedly 63. While the Academy has made efforts since to diversify (and juvenilize) the voting body, it is still clearly older on average than the current representation we have seen for the overwhelming love for EEAAO.
There’s an actual proof (if we look at IMDB scores, besides anecdotal evidence) of older generations not having the same level of liking and understanding of the movie than younger generations (it has the highest drop on average score from younger to older age groups).
Hence, there’s a reason to be skeptical that the passion advantage EEAOO has over the field will be as big as we sense in the “metaverse” and the competition could be much tighter if we count in the actual demographic reality in Academy's voting body. Is there yet a clear evidence of it succeeding as much with an old audience?
We also see on IMDB that Everything Everywhere All At Once has a stronger female liking of the movie, while Banshees Of Inesherin has higher score among males.
While the gender rating gaps for the movies are small, the Academy voters are still clearly over-represented by men.
2) Preferential ranking. It’s potentially the most polarizing film in the Best Picture selection, as we can see it also on IMDB ratings where it has the 2nd highest 1* ratings % out of the films in competition (on a similar level as has The Power Of The Dog) and hence the preferential ballot for Best Picture isn’t as comfortable for it as the other categories where it is sufficient to just get the most votes. It will probably have the most nr1 rankings, but it will also potentially get a considerable amount of opposition and downvotes.
The film itself is rather over-the-top and has a solid basis for being polarizing, especially for more conservative voters.
It’s not a prestigious film in a puritist sense, it’s a “popcorn flick” to not be taken seriously.
I also did a bit of research on Twitter how the preferential ranking could play out and affect the results and even if we look at younger audiences preferences (compared to median age of an Academy voter), it hinted potential problems for the movie with preferential ranking system.
While it had overwhelmingly the most nr1 rankings in people’s preferences, it still had a tight race with Banshees Of Inesherin when it came down to an average ranking of the films.
Banshees was far behind with nr1 passion votes but it was more stable in people’s high top and didn’t get many downvotes.
It’s not exactly how the Oscars preferential ballot voting system works and my research wasn’t the most rigorous but it still points out some of the potential obstacles for it with preferential ballot.
Considering the previous shortcomings, I don’t think the recent odds for EEAAO around high 1.3s and low 1.4s for The Best Picture have been justified and I have been cashing most of my position out (while I haven’t touched much of my Best Director and Best Actress positions yet and I may back EEAAO again at some point for the Picture as well, if it feels like a value bet again considering the odds and all the new information) and I have backed some longer odds as previously mentioned.
EEAAO sweeping the board in DGA, SGA and PGA feels pretty much priced in already at that price (although yes, it can go to 1.2s or even a bit lower if it really takes all of them) while there’s no actual proof for it yet, it’s still in speculative level.
And even if it sweeps the board in the guild awards, there will be still some questionmarks on how will the preferential ballot play out for it, so at the current stage I think the odds around 1.77-1.82 would be more justified and make sense.
Considering my current positions in different markets, the guild awards results will be a win-win for me. If it succeeds my positions in other categories are in a good shape while I still have a small green on it for the Picture. If it doesn’t meet the expectations yet, my Best Picture book will be in better shape and it can bring more value to the market again, if to believe that it’s a type of movie which should do better at Oscars than with guilds.
This is not a financial advice and although I have had a lot of experience in betting on mass events where people can vote in general, film awards isn’t my main focus and I don’t consider myself an expert on it
Thank you Jonathan Kangasmaa, Miikka Anttonen, Marko Rakocija and Krzysztof Gondek for sharing their ideas
