How the "Popular Picture" Category Could Change The Oscars

Image via Getty/Frazer Harrison

While it is relatively easy to run a campaign for a film’s production designer and supporting actor simultaneously, what does running a campaign for a popular film that is a potential Best Picture contender look like? Would an Academy member second-guess a film that is leading the popular race, thinking its mass-market acclaim makes it a poor fit for Best Picture? Would a voter think that a fair way to split a close ballot would be to vote for one film for Popular Picture and another for Best Picture, depriving a blockbuster of Oscar glory?

The discussion of popularity versus quality is one that has rankled critics for ages, and asking every Academy member to make the distinction feels like a recipe for disaster.

In the age of the popular picture, we have to imagine that every movie that grosses in triple-digit millions is going to run a For Your Consideration campaign. One of the great joys of the last few years has been seeing films like Lady Bird and Moonlight not only go the distance but sometimes take home gold. 

With every Marvel film and summer tentpole elbowing around for attention at the various banquets and galas that lead up to Oscar night, will this mean that indie distributors like A24 (Lady Bird, Moonlight, The Florida Project) and Annapurna (The Master, Phantom Thread, If Beale Street Could Talk) simply can’t compete in the new landscape?

Furthermore, the business model of these indie distributors is somewhat dependent on Oscar nominations, which can increase a film’s box office by an order of magnitude. If these few breakthrough films fall out of the ecosystem, how many fewer indies will these companies take chances on?

Cinephiles wait all year for the November-December movie season. With the summer blockbusters out of the way, you can expect that movies like I, Tonya, Jackie, and Call Me By Your Name will get their time to shine at the multiplex even if they don’t take home the big prizes. 

With the rise of the popular film, will we have to get used to seeing the next installment of Jurassic World as it makes a vainglorious attempt at an Oscar run, pushing out the movies about minor British nobles and drug-addicted substitute teachers that pair so beautifully with sweater weather?

What makes a film popular? You could argue that it is a mix of box office success and critical acclaim, but how do you formalize that in the nominating process? Will there be a box office basement for those hoping to qualify as a popular film? If an indie movie or period piece goes crazy and makes a ton of money is it “popular?”

Last year, Dunkirk made $188 million, Get Out made $179 million, The Fate of the Furious made $226 million, and Kong: Skull Island made $168 million. Are all of these popular movies? 

Say we set the basement at $100 million. If this were the case, The Post, Lady Bird, John Wick: Chapter 2, Blade Runner 2049 and The Big Sick would all not qualify as popular movies. 

Anyone who knows the creativity of studio accounting knows where this ends. If the Academy says you have to make $100 million to qualify for the popular category, a shocking number of films will be making $100 million...at least on paper.

Unless the plan is just to rotate the Oscar back and forth between Marvel, Star Wars, and DC movies (lol, though Suicide Squad is an Oscar winner), then any attempt at defining popularity is going to be very difficult.

Since its release, the buzz around Black Panther as Marvel’s first Best Picture contender has been steadily growing. Whereas the conversation would have been an interesting Oscar subplot, with the addition of this category, all eyes will be on Wakanda. 

Of the blockbusters released this year, Black Panther is the most obvious contender for the new popular category, as it is actually good. Now, if the film doesn’t make it into the Best Picture race, commentators will wonder if it’s assured popular nomination hurt its chances. If it gets into the Best Picture race, people will ask if it only got nominated because it was a Popular Picture shoe-in. 

It’s hard not to see the creation of the popular picture category at this moment as a kind of “Black Panther insurance.” If Black Panther wins this category and is left out of the Best Picture race, this new category will be used as a participation trophy or consolation prize, yet another attempt to obscure the Academy’s pathetic record when it comes to diversity.

The Academy should be put in the position to either nominate Black Panther for Best Picture or don’t. And be prepared to live with the backlash that comes with a real decision.

There was already little chance of Black Panther being taken on its own merits rather than as a referendum on our political moment. Now it is assured that the film’s Oscar performance will act as political and cultural litmus test instead of being evaluated on things like Michael B. Jordan’s acting or Ryan Coogler’s directing. 

And this won’t fix anything. 

Ratings are down everywhere. Critics and pundits of all stripes love to blame their pet issue: television is too political, football players shouldn’t kneel, they don’t make ‘em like they used to, blah blah blah. But, the reality is that ratings are down across all types of television because television has a lot more competition than it used to. 

This isn’t going to change. 

It may be true that the Oscars are losing their relevance, but that’s because event television generally, and awards shows specifically, are losing relevance. In 2018, watercooler moments happen on Twitter, not around physical watercoolers. If Academy brass were to spend energy thinking about how to make the show resonate in the Internet age, they would be better off. Instead of trying to fix a broken show, they should think about how the show could utilize streaming, social media, and technological advances to modernize the overall Oscar experience.

Adding one category and trimming the runtime isn’t going to bring viewers back to the Oscars. The reality is that viewers are never coming back to television period. Instead of trying to save the Oscars as a television spectacular, the Academy would do better to recognize that the era of the television spectacular is over. 

Instead of thinking about the most popular movie, the Academy should be thinking about what their popularity means in the era of Instagram and smartphones. While it’s hard to say what the ideal Oscar experience looks like, a three-hour pageant filled with ham-fisted variety bits and self-righteous monologues is certainly not the perfect vehicle to celebrate cinema in the 21st century.