In “John Wick 4,” Keanu Reeves’s titular character fell down 50 flights of stairs during an action scene. Tom Cruise rode a motorbike off of a mountain and into a free dive for real in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.”
Apparently neither of these incredible feats — or the great action-star performances surrounding them in those respective films — was enough to earn either actor the People’s Choice award for “Best Action Star.”
Instead, that honor went to the highly controversial actress Rachel Zegler on Sunday for her role in “Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.”
The choice of winner for the award — which was made via an online popular vote — has baffled many.
Keanu Reeves fell down 50 flights of steps and Tom Cruise drove a motorbike off a cliff though https://t.co/FswQW8IEEZ
— Heavy Spoilers (@heavyspoilers) February 19, 2024
Let me get this straight Tom Cruise drives a motorcycle off a cliff, and Rachel Zegler sings to a bunch of CGI snakes and wins action star of the year?! 😂 pic.twitter.com/oUziuzoVrX
— The Toxic Avenger (@sambluemanning) February 20, 2024
So, Rachel Zegler won the action movie star of the year at the peoples choice awards, no, I’m not joking. pic.twitter.com/9HLl1zXcgg
— Nate, or, Mr H Reviews (@MrHreviews) February 19, 2024
Would you have voted for Zegler?
Yes: 1% (5 Votes)
No: 99% (681 Votes)
One analyst even speculates that Disney may have rigged the award to boost Zegler’s profile. Popular YouTuber and financial analyst Valiant Renegade made his case in a YouTube video posted on Tuesday.
The YouTuber read through the People’s Choice Awards’s voting rules, explaining how easy they would be to manipulate.
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“This voting can be heavily manipulated. This is a vote that is decided by who can get the biggest group of friends to show up and just bang away at the keyboard religiously, each and every day, during the voting window,” he said.
“If you were the Walt Disney Company and you had already spent $200 some-odd million filming ‘Snow White,’ a live-action remake of it starring Rachel Zegler, who then stuck her foot in her mouth and effectively sank the production to the point that Disney had to pull it off of their release shelf and move it back one entire year for massive re-shoots… you might just want to raise the specter and public sentiment of its principal character, Rachel Zegler.”
Another theory the YouTuber postulated is that the voting audience is much like the award show’s in-person audience — mostly made up of young women.
Zegler found herself smack dab in the middle of controversy last year thanks to comments she made about Disney’s upcoming live-action “Snow White” remake.
After being cast in the titular role, a series of interviews with Zegler criticizing the original films for not being politically correct enough went viral — and not in a good way.
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Zegler called the timeless animated classic “extremely dated,” and “weird.” She also described the story’s prince as “the guy who literally stalks [Snow White].”
Following the backlash to Zegler’s comments, Disney announced it would be delaying the movie a full year, pushing back its release date from 2024 to 2025.
