The 40th edition of the Golden Raspberry Awards, also known as the Razzies, will take place next weekend. The nominees are formally announced the day before the Academy Awards, so this year they will come out on February 8, 2020. In addition to the selection of Worst Picture, a lot of other awards mirror the Oscars, such as Worst Leading Actor, Worst Leading Actress and Worst Screenplay. Others that stray a bit include Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel. We have the current 2020 Razzies odds for Worst Picture, as well as thoughts on some of these cinematic catastrophes.
2020 Razzies Odds, Preview & Predictions
Having a hissy fit. #Oscars2020 pic.twitter.com/zc6VZlfoT3
— The Razzie® Awards (@RazzieAwards) January 13, 2020
- Serenity +400
- Replicas +500
- The Professor, Hellboy +700
- The Hustle +800
- A Madea Family Funeral +900
- Glass, Poms +1000
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Godzilla: King of the Monsters +1200
- Aladdin, Rim of the World, The Upside +1400
- Brightburn, The Intruder +1600
- Uglydolls +1800
- Men In Black: International, Wonder Park +2000
- After +3300
- What Men Want +4000
You would not expect to see names like Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway associated with the top favorite on this list, but Serenity delivers in ways that you might not expect. The premise is this: McConaughey plays a fisherman who is offered $10 million by Hathaway, a femme fatale who wants to get rid of her sadistic husband. All McConaughey’s character has to do is feed the corpse to the sharks. McConaughey’s character, Baker Dill, is an Iraq veteran who takes tourists out on charter cruises to catch a tuna he calls “Justice” or the “beast.” However, he has a fit if any of them get close to actually catching the fish, because “Justice” belongs to him. Hathaway’s character is the mother of his child, and she comes back asking for help. Things don’t get any better from here. This is definitely a smart bet despite the relatively low value.
Right after McConaughey’s name, we see Keanu Reeves starring in the second favorite, Replicas. Reeves plays a neuroscientist who clones his family in the aftermath of a deadly car crash, sliding their memories into new bodies (think The Sixth Day with even less acting quality). However, he only has three pods, but he has a wife and three children, so he has to choose which two kids to bring back — and wipe everyone else’s memories of their lost sibling clear. The budget for this film was $30 million — including Reeves’ salary — but it seems to have been shot in one house and one middle school quality laboratory. This is a strong contender, but it doesn’t have the bathos of Serenity, try as it might.
Further down the list is Brightburn, which actually seemed interesting until the very end. The premise involves a child with a story much like that of the young Clark Kent. He lands in the backyard of a farm family, with a secret chest full of powerful things that his parents lock away from him, and he grows up to find his superpowers growing. Instead of coming to support Truth, Justice and the American Way, though, his powers involve destruction of everything around him. His parents have a shot at redeeming him, but the acting (the only recognizable name attached to this is Elizabeth Banks, who went on from starring as Brightburn’s mother to hosting the game show Press Your Luck, trying to fill the gargantuan shoes left by Peter Tomarken) is dreadfully predictable, as is Brightburn’s response to a combination of tween angst and a malevolent gene pool. One wonders whether anything will be able to stop Brightburn if his parents fail to do so, and that quandary is what is hanging over the viewer at the very end, wondering if the scriptwriter simply ran out of gas at an extremely crucial point in the story. This is your “dark horse” among these darkest of horses.
