But when is one of those able to bleed over into actual award consideration, such as The Dark Knight or Logan?
I guess it depends on how well written and well directed it is? Like Dark Knight and Logan were legit good movies and had a lot more deeper themes than Deadpool and Fast and Furious will ever have.
Apparently the Academy is still working on these guidelines. They're probably having this exact same conversation now.
But there's still no point because it's undermining the art. Black Panther shouldn't get a consolation prize (it shouldn't get a prize of that kind in general, but still).
what metrics are they even gonna use to measure this? box office or user scores of platforms such as imdb and rt? because that really sounds like the best idea ever lol
It's simple - declining ratings, ABC who help fund the show force their hand and made them impose the 3hr time limit and now this 'popular film' thing.
Granted, yes there is absolutely an issue with how awards season works today being essentially a conveyor belt for AMPAS-bait. A few exceptions slip through like Get Out or Fury Road or likes of Titanic/ROTK back in the day but really, how did The Martian get into the BP race? It did the festival circuit and released in the fall. Which is what First Man and ASIB are doing as we speak. Fuck, even Dunkirk did TIFF. It's all about campaigning, campaigning, campaigning and catering to the voters. They opened up BP to 10 after TDK and what happened: the preferential ballot was introduced and then it's back to just being awards-bait-marketed films again. Basically, to solve this issue it'd take quite a while to say the least and you'd have to interrogate the very way awards season it put together and prognosticated too. ABC wanted a quicker solution and they got one. So: mixed feelings.
(also, that's just IMO, people saying that BP or WW should be/have been nominated BP purely due to their cultural phenomenon virtue - that's where this new category comes in)
On the tech categories being cut down at the end - it's all a slippery slope from here. BAFTA have been doing this (2hr time limit) plus a tape delay for years because of the BBC wanting Countryfile and/or Call the Midwife at their usual times. Clearly ABC pointed to that as an example....
Basically with both of these things - the interests of the casual watchers and us as movie fans (or movie reporters/the industry) are diverting to such an extent that really the best thing is for the Oscars to divorce themselves from broadcasting. How do they do that and find appropriate funding for the ceremony? Do it like The Game Awards where the studios chip in in exchange for trailer debuts? Pay Per View? But in any case, stuff like this is the only way for these nakedly ratings-chasing changes to stop/be reverted.
