The Oscar goes to…a movie that most people have seen

The Academy Awards are preparing to do something on Sunday that they haven’t done in a long time: give the top prize to a blockbuster film.

After years of favoring smaller films like “The Shape of Water” and “Nomadland,” Best Picture favorite “Oppenheimer” — which grossed nearly $1 billion at the box office — is heading toward big-movie dominance. Progress in status. The Academy Awards haven’t been held in twenty years.

You have to go back to Ben Affleck’s “Argo” (2012) to find a Best Picture winner that grossed more than $100 million domestically. Instead, the tastes of Academy voters have largely favored smaller, independently produced films like “Moonlight,” “Nomadland” and “CODA,” an Apple release that reportedly made zero hits at the North American box office. Last year, the scrappy, distinctly Oscar-unlike indie film “Everything Happens at the Same Time” played the role of an underdog during awards season until it became an unlikely Oscar heavyweight.

But even if “Escape from Tehran” earned $232.3 million in global box office revenue on a budget of $44.5 million and won three Oscars, it cannot be regarded as the inevitable result of “Oppenheimer.” To do that, we need to look back to the 2004 Oscars, where Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” – which grossed $1.16 billion and won 11 Oscars. It’s more like Christopher Nolan’s biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer is expected to get a clean sweep on Sunday.

Shifting movie preferences

It’s an even more remarkable reversal because it’s been 20 years since “The Return of the King” and the vast majority of it belongs to that blockbuster. This period includes Avatar, Black Panther, Top Gun: Maverick, The Dark Knight, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a shift in film culture that not everyone in Hollywood—including, most notably, this year’s Best Director nominee Martin Scorsese—likes. That’s certainly a factor in how Oscar voters have embraced less traditional choices in recent years, like 2020 Best Picture winner “Parasite,” the first non-English-language winner.

For years, blockbusters have underperformed at the Oscars — and the film academy has watched the trend unfold, with occasional alarm. After Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” failed to receive a best picture nomination in 2009, the Academy expanded the best picture category to include five films. (There are now 10.) In 2018, the Academy proposed a new “popular film” award, but it was rejected weeks later due to objections from Oscar voters.

This schism is as old as the Oscars. The first Academy Awards in 1929 split the top prize in two: Outstanding Picture (William Wellman’s dazzling World War I fighter action drama “Wings”) and Best Unique Art Film (F.W. Murnau’s silent masterpiece “Sunrise”) ).

When more high-rated movies are in contention for the Oscars, more people historically pay attention. The most-watched Academy Awards in history was when “Titanic” dominated the 1998 Academy Awards, winning 11 trophies. Some 57.3 million viewers watched James Cameron declare “I am the king of the world!”

Blockbusters competing for best picture

This year, the Oscar blockbusters “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” have not just one, but two billion dollars in box office hits. This is a record for a film whose ratings in recent years have been close to one-third of the ratings of “Titanic”. The TV series brings hope. . Last year’s ceremony was watched by 18.7 million viewers.

“It makes it ten times easier,” host Jimmy Kimmel said in a recent interview. “When no one has seen these movies – which has happened, including in my years of hosting – you have no basis for reference.”

The impact of a blockbuster on Oscar ratings can sometimes be exaggerated. More important factors tend to be longer-term factors, such as the decline of linear television and the overall fragmentation of pop culture. Year-to-year fluctuations are generally less dramatic. Almost as many people (42.1 million) watched Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby,” which won the 2005 Best Picture award, as the previous year’s “Return.” of the King) (43.5 million).

Still, “Bappenheimer” is a rare phenomenon that the Academy Awards – the two films have a combined 21 nominations – are eager to embrace. Especially since the success of these two films is in stark contrast to what most of the film industry is currently experiencing.

Both films were released as actors went on strike, a strike that has engulfed the industry in a drawn-out battle over streaming, artificial intelligence and the future of business. The labor conflict is not over yet either. This week, craft workers from IATSE and Teamsters Local 399 began talks with studios and said the industry will be watching closely even as the Oscars unfold.

More importantly, “Oppenheimer” represents a style of filmmaking that many fear is increasingly outdated at a time when Hollywood is struggling to find a way forward amid widespread shrinkage. With the exception of Netflix, everyone else lags behind in streaming revenue. Production delays caused by the strike will lead to a decline in movie attendance in 2024. The absolutely astonishing achievement of “Oppenheimer,” a three-hour audio drama that outperforms “Ant-Man” and “Aquaman” combined, is a bright spot and shines brightly.

“This certainly validates our confidence in the studio’s filmmaking,” Nolan said on the morning of the Oscar nominations.

The Academy Awards have always been a place where Hollywood celebrates its own ideals. Last year, Hollywood told itself with “Everything Happens at the Same Time” that yes, it could still be boldly original. When “Parasite” triumphed, it was a blow to Hollywood’s ever-expanding internationalism.

This year, Hollywood will pay homage to an old-fashioned kind of winner—a studio epic—with awe of what might have been and a sense of fear for what might have been.