NO LONGER POPULAR
Posted: 111818

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has put its new Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film category on hold for next year when they noticed the negative response to it. The new category was one of many changes planned for the 2019 Oscars. But some thought the new award was a glorified popularity contest and not a celebration of excellence. Academy president John Bailey told THR to explain their change of mind and try to justify the new award’s place by saying it’s not about falling ratings for the telecast but rather to get more mainstream movies back in the race: “I wasn’t expecting that kind of knee-jerk reaction, largely from journalists. I don’t know why that happened because these are the same people who have also criticized the Academy for being quote-unquote irrelevant and not actually addressing the taste of people that go to the movies. The same people who have criticized us for irrelevance and elitism now suddenly were the guardians at the gate, talking about the bowdlerization of the Oscars. The new award wasn’t some knee-jerk reaction to falling ratings or to ABC or to anything like that. It was real clear on the part of the board and the Academy that we needed somehow to make certain kinds of films eligible for new awards. Unfortunately, some people misinterpreted this as our laying down pipe for big mass-market franchise films.” The New York Times reported that a closed meeting was held with 54 members in attendance to vote on rethinking the creation of the category. Bailey was supportive of the new category but a few were totally against it such as Laura Dern. Steven Spielberg was said to be “uncomfortable” with category’s inclusion this year. So we will wait until the 2020 Oscars for new category but the 2019 show will be under three hours. Six to eight categories will be moved to being awarded during the commercial breaks; three of which will be the categories for short films.