Peter Bart: A24 Covets Oscar Haul, But Its Leaders Are More Skittish Than Ever About Spotlight
17.03.2023 - 00:53
/ deadline.com
Now that the noise has subsided, were there any helpful takeaways from the Oscars?
If you ask the leaders of A24, the distributor that swept six categories, their answer would be the same as it was six years ago when Moonlight was the surprise winner. “Can’t think of a thing to say,” is what they said.
A24 likes to surround its victories with the sounds of silence, as they made numbingly clear when last I had a sit-down with them (they resist sit-downs: more below).
But there were, in fact, some questions to be asked after this year’s Oscars. Would the field of contenders hopefully be emboldened next year? Not really, according to early evidence: Witness the odd absence of hype for future hits on the Oscar show, even on the pre-show.
Disney and its subsidiary ABC took advantage of the moment to hustle The Little Mermaid and Universal ran an ad for its nuclear movie Oppenheimer, but otherwise there seemed an odd quietude about next year.
Has the infusion of new (principally overseas) Oscar voters energized the Academy? Or affected its taste?
Not really, but improved ratings suggest that the show will be around through 2028. Ratings edged up 12% this year to 18.7 million. The all-time low was 10.5 million in 2021.
HBO scheduled the season finale of its zombie drama The Last of Us against the Oscars, a further reminder that awards shows are no longer scary competition. Ad prices are higher for the Super Bowl or postseason football.
RELATED: Oscars TV Review: Ceremony Tries To Move Past The Slap With Conventional But Cheery, History-Making Night
A study of 4,400 filmgoers by the Wall Street Journal suggested that few viewers had even heard of the Oscar contenders this year, except for the Avatar/Top Gun/Black Panther