Conventional wisdom states that Leonardo DiCaprio is finally going to win his long overdue Academy Award this year for his performance in Alejandro G. Inarritu’s intense drama The Revenant.
Bookmaker Bwin, however, thinks there may be a surprise in store.
They have crunched the numbers and decided that Michael Fassbender is more likely to scoop the Best Actor gong for his performance as the title character in Steve Jobs.
The Bwin research pointed out that only three leading men since 2000 have won Best Actor when their movie also won Best Picture. Given The Revenant‘s success at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs, this statistic certainly counts against Leo.
They also found that only one of the last five winners has been American, with the likes of Brits Eddie Redmayne and Daniel Day-Lewis among the recent victors, as well as Frenchman Jean Dujardin.
This would be DiCaprio’s fifth Oscar snub, following What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? in 1993, Blood Diamond in 2005, The Aviator in 2007 and The Wolf of Wall Street in 2014.
What do you think about this research? Is anything going to stand in Leo’s way at the Oscars 2016? Let me know in the comments section.