In this royal comedy, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz play two ladies at court who manipulate the diminished Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) to suit their own ambitions, and to judge from screen time alone, all three women are evenly matched leads. Yet to throw the three of them into the same best actress race might split the vote in what is shaping up to be a very competitive category.

The film’s distributor, Fox Searchlight, has come up with a unique fix: The studio is positioning Colman as the sole lead and the marketing will suggest that voters consider Stone and Weisz for supporting slots. While that order upholds the royal hierarchy, it seems outrageous to argue that Stone and Weisz are not the protagonists of “The Favourite,” since they do all of the film’s plotting.

Still, with this strategy, Fox Searchlight is probably mindful of Oscar history. No movie has placed more than one woman in the best actress category since Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis were nominated for “Thelma and Louise” in 1992, yet a twofer is so common in the best supporting actress category that “Up in the Air,” “The Fighter” “The Help” and “Doubt” all managed it in the last decade. To split up the women of “The Favourite” in this fashion may be the only way to get all three nominated.

The supporting-actor gambit feels more questionable when it comes to “Green Book” (Nov. 21), a 1960s road-trip dramedy with Mahershala Ali as a virtuoso pianist who hires a lightly racist palooka (Viggo Mortensen) to serve as his chauffeur while touring the Deep South. “Green Book,” based on a true story, wouldn’t work if these two actors were anything less than equals; in fact, during the film’s centerpiece scene, Ali’s character argues to a bigoted restaurateur that he deserves the same seat at the table as Mortensen.

But Universal will push Mortensen as the film’s sole lead, while Ali will contend in the supporting-actor category. I’m told that Ali made the choice himself, based on the fact that he enters “Green Book” 15 minutes later than Mortensen, and this distinction may earn him his second Oscar (after his supporting win for “Moonlight”). Ali is that strong in the role, and his screen time will swamp other contenders in his category. It’s the same strategy that was used by Viola Davis, who positioned herself as a supporting actress for “Fences” and won her first Oscar, even though she’d previously taken home a lead-actress Tony for the same role on Broadway.