Is 'Deadpool' an Oscars contender? You bet your chimichangas it is.

Deadpool is not winning the Oscar for Best Picture -- not happening, nope, never, no way -- but a series of recent developments have us wondering: Could it be nominated?

Could a disturbingly vulgar, hyper-violent superhero-rascal movie stand alongside La La Land, Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight on Feb. 26 at the Dolby Theatre? Is this like a Brexit/Trump presidency thing happening right before our eyes?

Ehhh, probably not. And yet ...

Despite its decidedly antithetical Oscar pedigree, the surprise box-office blockbuster from Fox/Marvel suddenly has all the markings of a potential nominee. Put it this way: If a "serious" movie had all this loot in its bag already, we'd be calling a nomination a killshot:

• A Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical or Comedy

• A Writer's Guild of America nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay

• A Director's Guild nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Filmmaker

• A Producer's Guild nomination for Best Picture

• And now, a bona fide "For Your Consideration" campaign by the studio (see video above)

What it all means

While a Golden Globe nomination isn't that much of a stretch for Deadpool -- the Hollywood Foreign Press tends to skew populist by way of its two-category system -- those last three nominations are pretty significant. The Hollywood guilds make up a major segment of Academy voters, who turned in their nomination ballots Friday.

The Producer's Guild, in particular -- known as a fairly reliable Oscar prognosticator -- nominates 10 films outright. Deadpool made that cut this week, putting it in the same company as Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Lion, Manchester by the Sea, Fences and Moonlight. (Some significant "awards" movies did not make the list: Jackie, Silence, Loving and Sully.)

The Writer's Guild nomination from last week is slightly less significant; its split categories tend to make more room for popcorn movies -- Guardians of the Galaxy and The Dark Knight came before it in this category as superhero outliers -- and some significant contenders were ineligible by way of its arcane rules.

For its part, the Directors Guild slipped Tim Miller into its "first-timers" category, though both categories combined only make up 10 movies.

But if you look at the whole enchilada here -- Golden Globes, three out of four guilds, a real campaign -- it's easy to at least imagine Deadpool being called out when Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 24. Especially since Academy voters who might be itching to do something mischievous had their feelings more or less validated by those guild nominations.

Working against Deadpool: The nominations ballots only have five slots total. This, despite that as many as 10 films can be ultimately nominated under the Academy's "preferential ballot" system. That means any single voter who wanted to include it would have to leave off a whopper of a deserving "prestige" film.

Interestingly enough, Oscar predictions aggregator GoldDerby has Deadpool way down its list of Best Picture contenders, at No. 20. That puts it behind a pretty big group of films that got zero guild nominations: Sully, Florence Foster Jenkins, 20th Century Women, Patriot's Day, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Birth of a Nation and Zootopia.

Even if Deadpool isn't getting nominated -- it's probably not, right? -- it might be time to reshuffle that lineup. And even if Best Picture isn't in the cards, an adapted screenplay wouldn't be out of the question.

In any case, might be a good idea to wear the brown pants on nominations morning.