Leonardo DiCaprio Oscar losing streak looks like it may be snapped this year, according to South African data scientists, Principa.
In case you didn’t know, Prinicpa happens to be the data science company that accurately predicted 91% of the 2015 Rugby World Cup match results, including South Africa’s loss in the semis.
Now, using the same tactics it did with the sports tournament, it says DiCaprio will finally be able to place a golden Oscar in his trophy cabinet for the Best Actor award this year when the ceremony takes place next Sunday, the 28th February.
Prinicpa also predicted the winners for the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, the awards’ most anticipated categories.
Here are its predictions:
- Best Picture: The Revenant – winning by a very slim margin over Spotlight
- Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio – winning by an 8 fold margin over Matt Damon
- Best Actress: Brie Larson – winning by a 6.7 fold margin over Saoirse Ronan
- Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu – winning by a very slim margin over George Miller
How did the Principa team predict this? Here’s the breakdown:
“The team have collected and analysed data spanning back to 1935 to find patterns which could help identify strong predictors of the winners. Thanks to the predictive power we’ve observed within the bookie odds and previous wins, we can make our predictions with a high-level of confidence,” Principa said.
“We learned from our Rugby World Cup initiative that when we build different models off data sources and then combine them, our predictions tended to be more accurate. As a result, for our Oscars initiative we’ve built a model off 80 years of data and then a model off more recent data and combined the two instead of using one model,” it added.
The company said the Oscars over the years have shown an affinity for movies based on true stories (The Revenant is also based on true events).
Over half of the nominated movies in any of the four main categories this year are based on a true story – the highest percentage of nominees in this genre to date – and it’s been steadily increasing over the decades.
“Regardless of how accurate our current predictions end up being on Oscar night, we have identified some very interesting patterns and trends, which reveal how our tastes are changing and how certain variables or characteristics tend to make up an Oscar winner. The data tells a story and as data scientists, we serve as story tellers,” Principa concluded.
