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Academy Awards adding a "Best Popular Film" category. Good or bad idea? Academy walks it back, won't be presented this year

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Black Panther getting snubbed from Best Picture on its own terms honestly would've been less humiliating for them than resigning it to a category that is more or less a pity award. "You don't like any of the 9 artsy movies we nominated for Best Picture? Well here ya go, nerds! This one's for you."

Edited by filmlover
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Plenty of Blockbusters have won Oscars.  A lot of people forget Star Wars" won 7 Oscars in 1978  (But lost the Big Awards to "Annie Hall").   Most of the time, Blockbusters get the Tech Awards.   "Aliens" got 2  (Sigorney was also nominated for Best Actress in a Sci-Fi Role) ,  Jurassic Park got 3 , "Inception" got 4, "Terminator 2" got 4, "Matrix" got 4, "Avatar" got 3.  The Issue I have is the Elites on the Board of the Academy is trying to have it both ways.  The "Animated Film" Oscar made sense because animated films needed their own recognition.  The problem is they spent years disrespecting the artistic value of Blockbuster Films basically saying most are "popcorn fluff" and not real again "High Art".  

 

They are trying to bring in audiences of Popular Films while not having them compete with other films.   "Titanic" won 11 Oscars and that was a huge Blockbuster.   Blockbusters should be able to compete with Indie films artistically if the people who judge them would just be fair.   Remember when E.T. got nominated for all those Oscars but got shut out of the Major Categories by losing to "Gandhi".   Most of the time when the Academy had the chance to elevate the Blockbuster, they would shun it.  So you can't in 2018 now say "Oh, they are worthy" when for over 40 years you've constantly said they weren't.   As for the "Disney Did this", it's two fold.  Yes they want their Blockbusters to have a better shot at awards but it's also again a Ratings ploy to help boost viewership by bringing in genre fans who probably skip the Oscars.   

Edited by filmscholar
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10 minutes ago, filmscholar said:

Plenty of Blockbusters have won Oscars.  A lot of people forget Star Wars" won 7 Oscars in 1978  (But lost the Big Awards to "Annie Hall").   Most of the time, Blockbusters get the Tech Awards.   "Aliens" got 2  (Sigorney was also nominated for Best Actress in a Sci-Fi Role) ,  Jurassic Park got 3 , "Inception" got 4, "Terminator 2" got 4, "Matrix" got 4, "Avatar" got 3.  The Issue I have is the Elites on the Board of the Academy is trying to have it both ways.  The "Animated Film" Oscar made sense because animated films needed their own recognition.  The problem is they spent years disrespecting the artistic value of Blockbuster Films basically saying most are "popcorn fluff" and not real again "High Art".  

 

They are trying to bring in audiences of Popular Films while not having them compete with other films.   "Titanic" won 11 Oscars and that was a huge Blockbuster.   Blockbusters should be able to compete with Indie films artistically if the people who judge them would just be fair.   Remember when E.T. got nominated for all those Oscars but got shut out of the Major Categories by losing to "Gandhi".   Most of the time when the Academy had the chance to elevate the Blockbuster, they would shun it.  So you can't in 2018 now say "Oh, they are worthy" when for over 40 years you've constantly said they weren't.   As for the "Disney Did this", it's two fold.  Yes they want their Blockbusters to have a better shot at awards but it's also again a Ratings ploy to help boost viewership by bringing in genre fans who probably skip the Oscars.   

Except nobody's gonna tune into a 3 hour show just watch to one category that will be presented and rewarded in less than 5 minutes.

 

Also, if Disney wanted their blockbusters to be actual contenders, they could, you know, campaign instead of just settling for tech nominations.

Edited by filmlover
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8 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Except nobody's gonna tune into a 3 hour show just watch to one category that will be presented and rewarded in less than 5 minutes.

 

Also, if Disney wanted their blockbusters to be actual contenders, they could, you know, campaign instead of just settling for tech nominations.

 

I agree, this is what most studios did as far as dealing with Blockbusters.  Shoot for the Tech Awards.   They are hoping with this new category it opens the door for Genre Fans to be interested.   Before they didn't care because again it was just "Tech" awards but now that "Infinity War" or "Black Panther", "Jurassic Park" or "Star Wars" can now be in a separate category they are hoping it will bring in those fanbases.  It's short sighted IMO but I see exactly what they are doing.  Like I said, I don't have a problem with new categories, the "Animated Film" category worked great but this one is very disingenuous clearly.   I'm sure George and Steven are both laughing somewhere, they would of dominated this award in the 70' and 80's if it existed.    How would people feel if "Phantom Menace" won?  It was the Biggest movie of 1999, lol.  

Edited by filmscholar
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I wonder how they plan on going about presenting these categories that will now be presented during commercial breaks, because obviously they're not gonna invite somebody famous to present an award that won't be seen. It would be nice if they brought back previous winners in the tech categories to present them (which they never do), but it's more likely ABC will just trot out no1curr actors from their own shows.

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15 minutes ago, filmlover said:

I wonder how they plan on going about presenting these categories that will now be presented during commercial breaks, because obviously they're not gonna invite somebody famous to present an award that won't be seen. It would be nice if they brought back previous winners in the tech categories to present them (which they never do), but it's more likely ABC will just trot out no1curr actors from their own shows.

Probably just the host announcing winners.

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5 minutes ago, Jessie said:

why cant the acadamy just get their best picture winners correct for a change instead of adding pity awards. if they need to make a whole new catagory to please the viewers then they have already becomr irrelevant

AMPAS/Grammys/Emmys/Etc are irrelevant. They will never get ratings back because awards show format is outdated and nothing can change that. It's really simple. Older generations that used to enjoy such shows are no more watching cause they fell out of touch with people who appear on those shows. It's all Who Hell He/She to them. Younger generations simply don't care for this type of entertainment period. IMO, they should cancel the telecasts and just announce winners in the press and that's likely going to be the case for all awards down the line. More people watch snippets on YT anyway than the whole thing. 

Edited by Valonqar
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Nowadays these awards shows are trying so hard to get that "viral" moment and none have succeeded (aside from the Best Picture snafu last year, obviously). Every year they keep trying to top that pizza bit from when Ellen hosted several years ago and haven't come close to matching it. That celebrities-crashing-movie-screening bit this past year was especially painful.

 

FWIW I don't think we've had a truly memorable Oscar show since when Hugh Jackman hosted almost 10 years ago. Yeah, we still had those completely unnecessary montages celebrating every single movie (literally) that came out that year and the even more unnecessary "musical" tribute, but at least that show was snappy and engaging (that The Reader shade in the opening number to this day: :rofl:) and didn't feel so anonymous.

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15 minutes ago, filmlover said:

Nowadays these awards shows are trying so hard to get that "viral" moment and none have succeeded (aside from the Best Picture snafu last year, obviously).

true and therein lies the problem. Viral moments go viral after the fact, so that doesn't help the ratings as people catch up on snafu's on YT/Twitter. Not to mention it doesn't pay off to nod off through interminable 4+ hours for 1 viral moment that a) may not happen and b) will be splattered all over YT/Twitter anyway so why suffer through the slog? 

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I get why other shows go for viral moments or publicity stunts, but the Oscars are an annual show, not like Colbert, James Corden or John Olivier who are on consistently. If there's a moment that goes viral, people can tune in to the next show immediately and they can probably gain viewers that way. For the Oscars, is anyone going to remember some viral moment from a year ago when the next ceremony is airing? NOPE lol. Most people who actually watch the Oscars can't even tell you what movie won Best Picture last year or who hosted.

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They need a ceremony that can be done in 60-120 minutes, commercials included.  No one wants to spend almost 4 hours watching the ceremony.  Just like sports has found that they need to speed up the games/matches (see tennis now with a shot clock at the US Open), the Oscars needs to speed up drastically to keep the newer generations...

 

PS - I did tell my spouse all about this, and he (a former watcher who hasn't watched in at least 10 years) also agreed that he doesn't feel like listening to the drabble from winners...give him the winners and move on to interesting stuff...

 

Although another idea to get folks to watch - run the ceremony from 8-9pm (in an hour) and then pay the winning movie some large fee (maybe find a large corporate sponsor or two) to be shown on network tv with "limited commercials" or "commercial free" right afterwards...that'd be an incentive to get viewers in on the networks:)...yes, some movies would have to be in an edited form to make networks, but again, if you know all the nominees, you can pre-do the work and then just drop in the winner as you finish the show...I'm sure there are tons of issues with this, but it's spit-balling an idea to keep viewers...kinda like the Superbowl spends the whole game hyping the uber-awesome Primetime show that follows to keep you in the ceremony the whole time (b/c you don't know exactly when it will end)...

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1 minute ago, Rebeccas said:

I get why other shows go for viral moments or publicity stunts, but the Oscars are an annual show, not like Colbert, James Corden or John Olivier who are on consistently. If there's a moment that goes viral, people can tune in to the next show immediately and they can probably gain viewers that way. For the Oscars, is anyone going to remember some viral moment from a year ago when the next ceremony is airing? NOPE lol. Most people who actually watch the Oscars can't even tell you what movie won Best Picture last year or who hosted.

I feel like they're going to get Jimmy Kimmel to do it every year because he's easy due to his ABC connections.

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This will backfire SO bad if they don't nominate BP in both.

 

And you know, they could've stayed relevant had they not been so snobby. Why not push for Zootopia or Inside Out, both of which are universally acclaimed, for BP? How many comedies have been contenders in the last decade?

 

Get Out, Dunkirk and Logan did well for blockbusters, La La Land and Fury Road too. But there are some hits that are indeed better than the bland shit they choose to nominate each year.

 

If they're gonna have them indie choices, they gotta settle for the small indie crowd.

 

Also, fuck that they're not TV all the categories. If people wanted to to watch Jimmy Kimmel they would watch his show, not the Oscars. 

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