After two years of allowing films to qualify for Academy Awards without a theatrical release, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this year restored a version of its longstanding requirement that films must be released in theaters to be eligible. And that rule will continue into the future regardless of the health of the theatrical exhibit, the Academy’s new chief executive said at a virtual news conference this week.
“We want to create a healthy industry, a healthy theatrical ecosystem,” Kramer said in response to a question from TheWrap. “And the way we can do that is by continuing our theatrical requirement.”
At the same time, however, Kramer acknowledged that AMPAS had made at least one major exception to that rule this year, allowing Searchlight’s Sundance acquisition “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” to qualify for consideration. Oscar despite going straight to Hulu in June. That exception, he noted, was made under the administration of outgoing CEO Dawn Hudson, whom he replaced in July.
“’Leo Grande’ was waived based on prior conversations,” Kramer said. “That was something the past administration committed to. You know, we’re getting into this, but I think you’ll always see a theatrical requirement in the future… The Academy needs to play a role in leading that discussion (on restoring theatrical exhibition after the COVID-19 pandemic)” .
Kramer, who came to the executive director job after two terms at the helm of the Academy Museum, also said the organization’s goals had changed when it came to broadcasting the Oscars, whose audience has dropped from 30 to 45 million regular viewers just six years ago. to a record low of 10 million in 2021 and 17 million earlier this year.
“We need to see the reality of how people watch TV and award shows,” he said when asked by TheWrap if the Academy would accept a new normal where the show didn’t come close to its old viewing figures. “Now there is a long queue for the show. Live on Hulu beyond the show. So we’re really looking at all the extensions, how many eyes are finally on the Oscars beyond the night.”
To that end, he said, “We’ve been talking to ABC from the moment I started (about) what the show is going to look like, and we’ve had incredibly productive and engaging conversations,” he said. “We feel very good about the direction of the program.
“That said, hosting the Oscars events is critical to us and very important to ABC. We’re working with them on both preshow and show-related ad sales to make sure that whatever we can do to help ABC bring great sponsors to the table, we do.
“It’s more mixed now… how people interact with content. I don’t think it’s one or the other. Ratings are always important to us. Our ratings compared to other award shows (remain) healthy, and we want (them) to stay healthy. We also want the extensions to the program to be great and allow people to participate in the awards in many different ways.”
At the 40-minute news conference, his first interview as CEO outside of one for an Academy publication, Kramer fielded questions from a dozen reporters from trade and consumer publications. Among the highlights:
• Discussed the controversial decision to hand out awards in various categories before this year’s Oscars broadcast began: “We want to see all disciplines recognized equally on the show,” he said. “That is our goal.”
• Expects the Academy to announce the producers of next year’s show “very soon”; that said producers will have experience in live television; and that they will be hired for a “multi-year partnership.”
• “A host is very important to us,” Kramer said. “We are committed to having a host on the show this year.”
• Acknowledged the problem of getting a mainstream audience involved at the Oscars when the Best Picture category is filled with independent films most audiences haven’t seen: “That’s the big question… We want to go back to a show that has reverence for film and for 95 years of the Oscars… There are ways to do that that are entertaining and authentic and tied to our mission to honor excellence in filmmaking,” he said.
“ABC does a lot of the marketing around the show, but we’re starting to really evaluate all of our brand marketing and social media activities. We have incredible reach, and frankly, the museum has only improved that reach a lot… So between now and the show, we really want to take a hard look at how we’re equitably promoting first-run movies across all of our social channels. That creates a great entrance to the Oscars.”
• He defended inclusion standards that will require movies to meet certain requirements to be eligible for Best Picture from 2024: “We’re not the only ones doing this,” he said, citing similar moves from BAFTA, the Emmys and the Grammys. “We are all thinking as an ecosystem: How do we create a more inclusive world of cinema? We have great support from our distributors, from the filmmakers. And we do not want to legislate art. We want filmmakers to continue making the movies they want to make.” Each of this year’s 10 Best Picture nominees, she added, would have qualified under inclusion standards.
• He sidestepped the issue of gender-neutral acting categories, which the Film Independent Spirit Awards recently introduced: “We’re doing due diligence… to see what that would look like, but there’s no plan at this time to activate that.” .
• He noted how AMPAS’s finances had changed because of the $40 million he said the Academy Museum has contributed over the past year: “The Academy Award and all the contracts surrounding the Oscar show used to generate about 95 % of our income before we opened the museum and we created a very strong development department tasked with generating diversified revenue streams,” he said. “All contracts related to the Academy Awards now generate 70% of our income.”
• He also dodged a question about whether the next Oscars show would address “the slap,” the shocking moment in this year’s show in which Will Smith took the stage and slapped host Chris Rock over a joke Rock told about the Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett. Blacksmith. “We want to move forward and have an Oscar that celebrates cinema,” he said. “That’s our focus right now. It’s really about moving on.”
