According to Deadline, her ‘Cinderella’ movie -- which was released straight to Prime earlier last year -- is supposedly leading the race for the #OscarsFanFavorite category that the Academy cooked up out of nowhere ... apparently in a bid to boost ratings and include mainstream popcorn flicks somehow.

Indeed, a lot of folks are also screaming “What?!?!” on the bird app, obviously wondering ... how can this be???

No shade to CC, Billy Porter and James Corden ... but their take on the fairy tale classic wasn’t well-received by critics, and (mostly) ditto for normies who actually watched it. It goes without saying -- "Spider-Man: No Way Home" was the clear crowd-pleaser this year, proven at the box office with record ticket sales.

So ... what gives? Well, per Deadline, it would appear folks tracking these numbers on the Academy’s site/Twitter see a trend ... rabid fan bases swooping in and flooding the digital voting booths for their heroes and icons. In this case, it seems Camila has quite the following online -- and they appear to be catapulting her to the top on just their love for her alone.

The outlet says there was actually a huge push for "Zack Snyder’s Justice League" -- which has a mega stan culture all its own -- but since it’s a redo, it unfortunately isn’t eligible.

'NWH' is the close second at the moment, and there’s still several days to vote before the show starts later in March. But don’t worry ... there’s no real stakes here, no actual hardware will be presented to whichever film wins this made-up category.