Popular film category brings backlash for Oscars

LOS ANGELES—Big changes are coming to the Academy Awards, including the addition of a popular film award category and the promise of a shorter ceremony in an effort to combat declining viewership and criticisms that the awards are out of touch with the mainstream.

John Bailey, the newly re-elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and film Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in an email to members Wednesday morning that the Board of Governors met Tuesday night to approve the changes, which also included bumping the 2020 ceremony up to Feb. 9. The date for the 2019 show, Feb. 24, remains unchanged.

“We have heard from many of you about improvements needed to keep the Oscars and our Academy relevant in a changing world,” Hudson and Bailey wrote.

The new film category quickly drew negative attention, with “popular film” becoming a trending topic on Twitter by Wednesday afternoon.

Actor Rob Lowe tweeted that “The film business passed away today with the announcement of the “popular” film Oscar. It had been in poor health for a number of years. It is survived by sequels, tent-poles, and vertical integration.”

The addition of the popular film category, a clear effort to attract a larger audience to the ABC broadcast by honoring bigger and more seen films, led many to wonder whether a film like “Black Panther” would be ineligible for best picture and relegated to the popular film award because of its size and success, or lead to inadvertent segmenting by film academy voters.

Ratings for the 90th Academy Awards earlier this year fell to an all-time low of 26.5 million viewers.