Let’s create an Oscar for ‘best blockbuster’

It’s rubbish to say the masses have no taste

When the nominations for the best picture Oscar were announced, not one movie from the top 10 grossing films worldwide was included. That’s a shame, but not surprising. Industry insiders have openly disrespected blockbuster films for years.

Oscar winner Jodie Foster recently said blockbuster superhero films are ruining American viewing habits — that “studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking. You get the best return right now but you wreck the earth.” She and other filmmakers erroneously believe the “masses” (that’s you and me) are not worthy of attention due to a lack of artistic taste. Pompous rubbish!

Far from ruining audiences, blockbusters like Wonder Woman often inspire them. These films also account for nearly all studio industry profits and salaries. That money often funds the production, distribution and marketing of many small art house films that industry insiders care so deeply about. There is something we can do now to better recognize the movies that spark such passionate interest and fill studio coffers. It’s time for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create an Oscar for best blockbuster.

Award seasons these days routinely lead to disappointment — among blockbuster filmmakers and crews who are not given industry respect, mass audiences who see the films they love snubbed, and TV network executives and the academy when viewers do not tune in. It’s lose-lose-lose.

When the 1997 blockbuster Titanic won best picture, more than 55 million viewers watched the Oscar telecast. When Moonlight won in 2016, only

33 million people watched. The difference in worldwide box office for these two films was $2 billion vs. $65 million respectively. In any other industry, the CEO responsible for such a massive decline in audience would be fired.

For most of the 1990s and early

2000s, the best picture Oscar went to a top 10 worldwide box office champ. These included Forrest Gump and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. But that changed dramatically by the late 2000s. The Hurt Locker won best picture in 2009 yet only made

$49 million worldwide and ranked 96th in box office, the same year Avatar ranked No. 1 and made $2.8 billion to become the all-time box office champ.

And so it went. The Artist ranked

60th in 2011. Argo was 36th in 2012, 12 Years a Slave was 44th in 2013, Birdman was 67th in 2014, Spotlight was

74th in 2015, and Moonlight was 98th in

2016.

While audiences flock to superhero movies and other blockbusters, academy members are selecting films of increasingly narrow interest. This year is no exception. The best picture nominees are The Shape of Water; Call Me by Your Name; Get Out; Phantom Thread; The Post; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Lady Bird; Darkest Hour; and Dunkirk. To put this into context, nearly as many people saw Beauty and the Beast last year than all nine nominated films combined!

Mainstream movie goers love grand films that are emotionally uplifting, where heroes win, romance blooms, strong morals are reinforced, happy endings are the norm, and political-social statements are rare. They crave escape. Academy voters increasingly prefer somber, real life narratives where lives are dramatic and messy, morals are ambiguous, heroes aren’t always good nor do they always win, and political and social statements are plentiful. And of course, the academy loves films with obscure narratives and those about show business itself.

Both blockbuster and art house films are of great value to the industry and society. But art house films overwhelmingly dominate the best picture category. A best blockbuster Oscar offers a remedy. The top 10 films with the greatest worldwide box office receipts would be automatically nominated for best blockbuster, and academy members would then vote for the one they believe has the greatest artistry.

That’s a win-win-win.

Gene Del Vecchio is an adjunct professor of marketing at the University of Southern California and author of Creating Blockbusters.