With a new CEO at the Academy, there’s now at least a possibility something can be done to make people watch the Oscars again.
It’s encouraging that Bill Kramer moves up from heading the Academy Museum, which sold 550,000 admissions during its first nine months in business. If he could get people to buy museum tickets, maybe Kramer can get them to watch the Oscars for free.
To boost the telecast’s ratings to where ABC’s advertisers will be comfortable paying super-premium prices will require changes the Academy’s prior leadership wouldn’t or couldn’t manage. The problem is those new far-flung Academy members’ idea of best pictures is a total disconnect from what the public thinks.
Last week’s MTV Awards hammered home which films actually resonated with moviegoers. Unlike the Oscars, whose voters’ rarefied taste is for indie dramas with shoestring budgets, MTV’s Golden Popcorn Bucket noms went to DUNE, SCREAM, SHANG-CHI, AND THE LEGEND OF THE 10 RINGS, SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (pictured), THE ADAM PROJECT & THE BATMAN. Spidey won. Only one MTV contender made Oscar’s best picture race — DUNE, which lost to CODA, which had virtually no theatrical run.
If Kramer can figure out how to get Academy members to include a few worthy popcorn pictures in their 10 best picture noms, Oscar’s plunging ratings will benefit.