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Does Deathly Hallows Have a Shot at Best Picture?

Awards season is right around the corner! What are the chances of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 being nominated--or even winning--Oscar best picture? --DJ Campus, via Facebook
/ Source: E!online

Awards season is right around the corner! What are the chances of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 being nominated--or even winning--Oscar best picture? --DJ Campus, via Facebook

How do I put this without having avada kedavra muttered over my head?

Let's start with a caveat: If you're a rabid fan, don't read any further...

WATCH: We're livestreaming the NYC premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Monday @ 6 ET/3 PT

...because Oscar watchers don't like the odds for Deathly Hallows--at least, not for the first part, which debuts Nov. 19.

For one, the critical consensus on the series, overall, has been good, but not extraordinary. And that's important, awards watchers tell me.

"The chances are nil that it will win," Sasha Stone of the Awards Daily blog tells me. "To get nominated it would need extraordinary reviews from the critics. Usually they're just OK, but to break out of the mold, with of all of the previous films not getting nominated, the critics would make the difference."

Second, the Academy tends to--with some very rare exceptions--reward mostly non-family fare. You know: paralyzed boxers, bandy-legged horses shooting for the moon, pillow-faced wrestlers.

And, as dark as the Potter series may be getting, it's still more on the kiddie side when compared with, say, The Lord of the Rings or even the Toy Story series.

"It's still seen as a group of genre family movies, for better or for worse," says says Patricia Chui, managing editor of MovieFone.com, which follows the Oscar race.

Now, here's one ray of hope for you.

There is, Oscar watchers agree, a chance--small but real--that the second half of the Potter finale, due out in July, might be nominated.

"The series has been such a reliable paycheck for Hollywood all of these years," Stone reasons. "It won't go unnoticed when it finally closes things down for good."

Think my B!tchlings agree with me? Hear what they have to say on my new podcast.

(Originally published November 14, 2010 at 8:01 a.m. PT) PODCAST: It's free! It's weekly! Subscribe on iTunes!

PHOTOS: Life Beyond Harry Potter