“The Oscars are What Hollywood Pretends it Does”
Maybe you don’t want to read another think piece on why the Oscars don’t matter. But here is another one, this from economic standpoint. And I suppose that argument could be made. In my continuing conversations with Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino, however, he insists that the Oscars do matter, even money-wise. Sure, it’s been a long time since the top of the box office was reflected in the Oscar race, and it’s been a long time since going to the movies at all was a regular adult activity, but Oscar buzz can make the difference between someone seeing your movie and not. It matters to actors who still want to do great work and have to find projects that enable them to do that, and most of them can’t and won’t put on a superhero outfit and dumb it way down for the target demo. It matters for writers/directors who still have something to say. In their own way, the Oscars are keeping the quality of film alive, even if they don’t get it right every year. But they should stick to ten movies or go back to five. Ten ensures more popular and diverse selections get in. Five makes it a more exciting race (unless they pick bad movies). Anyway, here’s investigative reporter Edward Jay Epstein on the Oscars:
How do the Oscars fit into Hollywood’s scheme to reclaim their profits? The Oscars have less and less to do with Hollywood every year, and that’s been going on for the last decade. It’s more like the Independent Spirit Awards—the movies being nominated aren’t the studios’ movies, because you can’t nominate Harry Potter or a comic book sequel except for best effects or makeup, which doesn’t matter. The Oscars are not what Hollywood does, the Oscars are what Hollywood pretends it does. Back in 1950, Hollywood really did make those movies, movies for adults, those based on books.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a perfect example: the book is doing fantastically, but the movie will make no money whatsoever. It’s good for the book industry, good for the authors, good for the directors and actors, but it has nothing to do with the business of Hollywood. Harvey Weinstein could win five awards, and next week his company could go bankrupt, because there’s no connection between the money flow and the honors.
So Hollywood releases Extremely Loud in October with minimum audiences—the major audiences are in the summer, that’s where you get your $100 million opening weekends. If you bring out a Batman or a Spiderman or a Harry Potter, there’s enormous audience awareness. But if you bring out a movie like Ides of March, it isn’t a sequel and you won’t have the audience to open it on thousands of screens. As theaters move toward digital distribution, which will allow movies to open on as many as 30,000 screens at a fraction of the cost, it means studios will move even further toward comic books and sequels.
So what’s the continuing appeal of the Oscars?It’s debatable—the [TV viewing] audience has shrunk over the years, I think the Grammys audience is bigger than the Oscars audience now. People want to see the outfits, what the women wear on the red carpet, they want to see the celebrities and the host’s opening routine, but most moviegoers haven’t seen any of these [nominated] movies. That’s why they expanded the Best Picture field from five to 10 movies. But almost no one in the U.S. has seen the foreign films—they don’t even have to be shown in the U.S. to be nominated—and no one in the world has seen any of the short films—I don’t think anyone in the world would know where to find them. Then you have these 10 Best Picture nominees, and 95 percent of the country hasn’t seen them, except maybe for the Steven Spielberg picture.
Fact checking for Mr. Epstein – The Help is the only movie the country has seen — with a profit of $165 million, The Help trounces the competition. War Horse hovers at around $70 million. Ditto The Descendants and Moneyball. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which they failed to nominate, made $100 million. But it’s not the Spielberg picture. It’s The Help.
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It’s not the Spielberg picture, it’s the one from the Spielberg company!
Not sure I understand
a) What is the point or purpose of Mr Epstein’s “findings”? Is he advocating we get rid of the Oscars? More evenly scatter release dates? Adapt more books for the screen?
b) If, as he says, audiences don’t go to the movies anymore, what does it matter who the Academy nominates and awards? That’s their business – we are invited to watch.
c) Why the need to assign an “investigative reporter” to this story? Sure doesn’t require the digging and risk-taking of Watergate. (and who was his mole – his deep throat – for this highly classified information, a bit of which he got right?)
If I raad this correctly, he is saying that the Oscars should be about what Hollywood actually does, rather than what it pretends to do.
Personally, I agree. There are awards worthy films that reflect the actual product of the film industry. They are the films that should get most of the noms and wins. IMO.
If the Academy ciontinues this way the Oscars will continue to lose their meaning. The National Book Awards may identify the best books, but only a fraction of a per cent knows or cares. Hollywood has always been about mass audiences – as novels once were.
I’m sure having the possibility of 10 nominees boosts box office and popularity for some movies that otherwise wouldn’t have.
A movie like Bridesmaids will last longer in the conversation even if it has a remote chance of garnering an Oscar. And that possibility will lead more people to go out and see it.
It’s like adding the Wild Card in baseball. It brings that many more cities into the playoff picture, thus boosting revenue, as slim as their chances might be.
Unless, as in football, your the last seed New York Giants.
If I raad this correctly, he is saying that the Oscars should be about what Hollywood actually does, rather than what it pretends to do.
Sasha is a lady not a dude
Watch how this becomes a The Artist-bashing spree SMH
This.
Despite the myriad of problems with the Oscars, it’s all about the fueling of Hollywood, the procurement of funding for quality films, and the elevation of stature for talent.
So even if this year turns out record low ratings, the crop of “Oscar potential” movies released turn out to be duds, and the nominated films barely see a box office bump, the Oscars are still sustaining the projects going for quality rather than sheer profit.
The Hwood film industry revels in loathsome, cheap, materialistic, degrading cliched junk – and in truth, they don’t see anything wrong with it, largely because for the most part, they are addicted to fame, money, ‘newness’ – which leads to these movies.
Hollywood, the whole thing (music and movies) is clearly dying out. Something will take its place, maybe even using the same venues. Having coked out tramps simulate satanic rituals on awards shows is chilling and boring – at the same time!
After almost thirty years of unrelenting corporate bilge (initiated in the 80s, it seems) it is a pleasure to watch the audience either fade away from revulsion or download illegally, with some levity, trash they were told to pay for.
These movies are social conditioning devices that are WAY out of date.
‘The Help’ is SO tired. HELP!
Well, The Help is at just about 170 domestic (207 worldwide and growing).
War Horse is appraoching 80 (and has 135 worlwide total, with many markets to come).
The Descendants has 75 (143 worldwide and growing).
Hugo is creeping up on 70 (and 107 worldwide, growing), but that budget
Moneyball is over 75 (108 worldwide and growing).
Midnight in Paris is at 56 (148 world wide).
Bridesmaids has 169 (and 288 worldwide!).
Dragon Tattoo is at 101 (220 worlwide and growing).
And The Artist will be at 30 by the end of the week (and has 62 worldwide).
All of these totals (except Hugo) have exceeded the double-the-budget rule to be in the GREEN — most of them by A LOT.
Sure, these numbers are nothing like last year’s. But I think things look pretty OK to me.
And about The Artist, if it wins big next weekend, I can see it getting to 40 mill or beyond, and nearing 100 worldwide. That’s phenomenal for a 15 mill budget, black and white silent foreign film. And it’s a hell of a lot better than, say, The Hurt Locker 2 years prior.
Original, non-franchise films are released in multiplexes each and every weekend. The two films absolutely dominating the box office right now are Safe House and The Vow, two original, star-driven adult-skewing genre films. The Ides of March did get a wide release and it was seen by enough people to make it profitable. The problem is that the Oscars outwardly avoid recognizing the mainstream fare that is artistically successful and resonates with audiences, judging mainstream fare inferior by the very virtue of their populous intentions. As such, it’s not just the likes of Bridesmaids or Harry Potter that suffer. We are now in an Oscar environment where Moneyball was considered a dark horse BP contender purely because the studio positioned it as merely a darn-good adult drama as opposed to a designated piece of so-called Oscar bait. Especially with the Academy possibly (apparently?) going back to the 5-nominee rule, the era where a mainstream popcorn film like The Fugitive being nominated purely because it was among the year’s best films, or a G-rated family film about a talking pig being nominated purely on the strength of its unexpected awesomeness, is long over. It’s not that the studios don’t make good mainstream movies anymore. It’s that their very ‘mainstream-ness’ is considered a strike against the when it comes time to hand out year-end awards.
I’m almost more excited about the red carpet than the awards this year. Not kidding at all.
Yep, no Deathly Hallows this year and next year we can probably kiss The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit’s chances (unless nostalgia influences the old fart Academy to vote for it like they did with LotR) goodbye as well.
I really hope the Academy goes back to 5 nominees for best picture. It is such an honor if your film ends up in that group. The 10 or whatever number cheapens that category and the award itself.
Well isn’t that a good thing that the Oscars and the Hollywood machinery are two different things? Its good that Hollywood keep making entertainment movies while the Oscars keep picking up the small ones and lift other kind of artists into the center of attention.
What I would love is that the Academy will start to specially mention and honour those who did a remarkable job but did not get any nominations: 5 performances by an actress, 5 by actors, 5 directors, 5 movies and 5 newcomers of the year in the beginning of the show. Total of 25 people on stage named and given a warm applaus. tops 5 minutes of the ever lasting Oscar show
I want the big films to be better…. and for the Academy to recognize to respect the audience – by not writing off genres and films for young people.
I want the Academy to recognize to respect the audience – by not writing off genres and films for young people.
Bob Burns, You’re so right. I don’t see why this is so much to ask. Fundamental respect for the audiences who make all these rich white guys so rich in the first place.
I’ve seen so many movie-writers pooh-pooh this week’s news about the breakdown of the Academy’s demographic data — but even if it’s something we all always assumed, the actual numbers are a stark reminder of the reality we’re dealing with.
Of all the precursors, critics awards, box-office, marketing, FYC hype and everything that goes into the Oscar race — there is nothing more important that the most obvious fact: If voters don’t watch a movie, then it’s not getting in the game.
When I saw Midnight in Paris in theaters it was as if a tour bus had been making the rounds of retirement villages. When I saw Drive, there was not a single person under 35 in the theater.
We hear the argument: “The Academy don’t have a bias against fantasy films! Just look at the 30 nominations for the LotR trilogy!”
Try to recall when we saw The Lord of the Rings in theaters. We could scan the seats and see hundreds of older people in the theater, right? People who grew up carrying around paperback copies of Tolkien in their backpacks as teenagers. The reason it’s easy to find picture like this on the internet is because those books had a cult following ever since the 1960s. The tattered editions were treasured.
Try to imagine hundreds of 62-year-old men standing in like to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It’s absurd.
This summer, when we all go to see The Dark Knight Rises, would we not think we’ve wandered into the wrong theater if we saw that only 2% of the audience was under the age of 40?
So we have to bear that in mind. It would behoove us to look around the audience when we go see movies in the theaters. What type of person has bought a ticket?
If we don’t see older people in the audience, then that movie is going to face an uphill battle at the Oscars.
Because 70-year-old white guys like to watch the History Channel. Not Project Runway.