It used to be rare for movies awarded the Oscar for “Best Picture” to rake in less than $100 million at the domestic box office. Today, it’s rare for “Best Picture” films to eclipse that box office figure with Oppenheimer, released two years ago, being the only one to do so since Argo in 2012.
There was not a single production given the most prestigious award in American cinema between 1997 (Titanic) to 2004 (Million Dollar Baby) that failed to rake in upwards of $100 million at the domestic box office, according to The Numbers data. The streak was broken in 2005 with Crash, which cashed in at roughly $55 million, and only five out of the 19 movies declared “Best Picture” ever since have exceeded $100 million in domestic box office revenue.
While the fact Netflix started streaming movies over the internet in 2007 no doubt dealt a blow to theaters on the eve of a major economic crisis, Americans still tuned in to the Academy Awards with peak viewership after 2000 reaching nearly 44 million in 2014, according to Statista. Ratings for Hollywood’s red-carpet event have declined ever since, with the awards never reaching even 20 million viewers over any of the past four years.
The Academy Awards might not be a public popularity contest, but at the same time, popularity shouldn’t count for nothing. Americans aren’t watching the Oscars anymore because fewer people are actually watching the movies Hollywood’s elites have presented the industry’s top awards to. Domestic ticket sales have never recovered from pandemic lockdowns as Americans stay home and stream beyond whatever theaters are releasing for $15 tickets and $10 bags of popcorn that cost $2 in the grocery store.
The movies awarded “Best Picture” more than 10 years ago are films which people today commonly still talk about. Most Americans are familiar with Forrest Gump (1994), Gladiator (2000), Lord of the Rings (2003), and Slumdog Millionaire (2008). But how many of our neighbors can explain what any one of the last 10 winning movies are about except for Oppenheimer? They can probably take a good guess about The Shape of Water released in 2017, but odds are there’s a better conversation to be had about Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and Braveheart (1995) than there is Green Book (2018) and Parasite (2019).
Will last night’s winning film about a supposed sex seller, Anora, be remembered for years to come? Not likely. The movie grossed less than $16 million at the domestic box office, one of the lowest totals ever for a “Best Picture.” The movie adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked, on the other hand, made more than $460 million at the domestic box office.
Money isn’t everything for artistic awards, but again, it’s far from nothing. By constantly rewarding movies the public seems less and less interested in, the Oscars have become another illustration of the disparity between academic “Rotten Tomatoes” critics and their general audiences. The end result is an Academy Awards program presented by Hollywood and for Hollywood with no real reason for most Americans to pay much attention anymore.
