2023 Emmy Forecasts: Top Opening Sequence

author: FutureCar Staff    

After winning the 2022 Emmy for Best Main Title Theme Music while not even being nominated for Best Main Title Design, "The White Lotus" has now been given a shot at the latter honor and stands as a strong contender in what has shaped up to be quite a competitive contest. The fact that all five of its challengers are new programs gives it the sole distinction of being the first multi-season series to vie for this prize since "Abstract: The Art of Design" and "Westworld" did so in 2020.

Along with "The Last of Us," "The White Lotus" is one of two HBO shows in the current Best Main Title Design lineup. Netflix also has two chances at victory with "Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities" and "Wednesday," while Apple TV+ and Prime Video have one each with "Hello Tomorrow!" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," respectively.

In order to nail down the likeliest outcome of this tight race, let's take a closer look at each nominee. Be sure to visit our predictions center to make your own picks in this and 29 other Creative Arts Emmy categories.

"Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities" — Creative Director: Mike Schaeffer

Each of this horror anthology series' eight episodes begins with a unique minute-long introduction by the titular Oscar-winning filmmaker that precedes this intricately designed title sequence, which is mesmerizing enough to make one completely forget about the "skip intro" button. As viewers are taken through tunnels decorated with wildly macabre objects, they are afforded a bit of necessary time to digest each prologue and build their anticipation for the spine-tingling tale they are about to witness.

"Hello Tomorrow!" — Creative Director: Ronnie Koff

With Apple TV+'s "Severance" having taken the gold here last year, the platform's only hope of scoring a second consecutive win lies with this new series. Before letting viewers feast their eyes on the many technological wonders within its retrofuturistic setting, the show's title design team (which includes 2022 "Candy" nominees Koff and Lexi Gunvaldson) cleverly tease its premise with this 45-second opener. As the camera pans up, scale models of various kitchen and cleaning gadgets and even a floating car are displayed before a rocket ship zooms straight out of frame, symbolizing the endless possibilities of human innovation.

"The Last of Us" — Creative Directors: Andy Hall and Nadia Tzuo

Tzuo is looking to achieve her first Emmy victory following three losses in this category for "American Horror Story: Freak Show" (2015), "Feud: Bette and Joan" (2017), and "Pachinko" (2022). Here, she and her colleagues pay homage to the "Last of Us" video game's opening sequence by spinning its monochrome microscope footage into a more vibrant visualization of a fungal virus rapidly spreading across the entire United States and beyond. Just before the title card appears, the animated segment ends on an especially poignant note as two of the toxic tendrils morph into silhouettes of the show's main characters.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" — Creative Director: Anthony Vitagliano

Vitagliano, who has spent most of his three-decade artistic career as a greensman, was previously nominated here in 2006 for his work on the first season of "Ghost Whisperer." For this series, which takes place in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth thousands of years before Frodo Baggins was born, he and his team rely on the centuries-old Chladni figures technique to create kinetic imagery out of vibrating sand. Over the course of 90 seconds, "Lord of the Rings" fans are treated to beautifully simple renderings of some of the franchise's most recognizable emblems, including the nine rings for mortal men and the eye of Sauron.

"Wednesday" — Creative Director: Aaron Becker

This Tim Burton production's opener, much like the entire series, is designed to entice both Addams Family enthusiasts and viewers lacking prior familiarity with the creepy, kooky characters. Before each episode about the titular dark-minded teenager begins, the show's comically spooky tone is established by a spellbinding array of purple-hued illustrations of Wednesday's psychic visions that include an expansive graveyard, a full moon behind thick clouds, and a guillotine being used on a teddy bear.

"The White Lotus" — Creative Director: Katrina Crawford

"The Rings of Power" main title directors Crawford and Mark Bashore's second shared 2023 nomination comes for their newest "White Lotus" sequence, which improves upon the first season's by using newly made Renaissance-style paintings to metaphorically depict each major character and storyline. By incorporating an enhanced version of Cristobal Tapia de Veer's Emmy-winning title theme and using almost no animation, these artists craft a sophisticated and fittingly epic representation of this chaotically melodramatic season.

So, what will win the 2023 Emmy for Best Main Title Design? It's important to keep in mind that, over the past decade, this award has more often than not gone to shows that have each conquered at least one other category. With the exception of lone nominee "Hello Tomorrow!," that shouldn't be a tall order since every other contender is in the running for five or more additional Emmys. Another factor working against "Hello Tomorrow!" – and "Wednesday," for that matter – is one that also seems to have tripped up presumed 2022 frontrunner "Only Murders in the Building": just two comedy series ("United States of Tara," 2009; "Bored to Death," 2010) have been honored here since the start of the 21st century.

The many ways that past winning sequences differ from each other make it hard to define the academy's collective taste when it comes to this area of TV art and practically serve as proof that the category's votes are consistently closer than most. One thing that can be discerned from analyzing the last decade's winners and losers is that a sequence like that of "Wednesday" that primarily consists of floating objects probably won't obtain enough support and will likely come up short against one that smartly incorporates human figures, as "The White Lotus" and (to a lesser extent) "The Last of Us" do.

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FutureCar Staff