After two years of allowing films to qualify for the Academy Awards without a theatrical release, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences earlier this year restored a version of its longstanding requirement that movies must be released into theaters to be eligible. And that rule will continue in the future regardless of the health of theatrical exhibition, new Academy CEO said in a virtual press conference this week.
“We want to create a healthy industry, a healthy theatrical ecosystem,” Kramer said in response to a question from TheWrap. “And the way that we can do that is by continuing our theatrical requirement.”
At the same time, though, Kramer acknowledged that AMPAS had made at least one prominent exception to that rule this year, allowing Searchlight’s Sundance acquisition “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande“ to qualify for Oscar consideration despite going straight to Hulu in June. That exception, he pointed out, was made under the administration of the outgoing CEO, Dawn Hudson, whom he replaced in July.
Bill Kramer Named CEO of Oscars Academy
“‘Leo Grande’ was grandfathered in based on previous conversations,” Kramer said. “That was something the past administration committed to. You know, we’re easing into this, but I believe you will always see a theatrical requirement moving forward … The Academy needs to play a role in leading that discussion (about restoring theatrical exhibition after the COVID-19 pandemic).”
Kramer, who came to the CEO position after two stints heading the Academy Museum, also said that the organization’s goals had changed when it comes to the Oscars telecast, whose viewership has fallen from a usual 30-45 million viewers as recently as six years ago to an all-time low of 10 million in 2021 and 17 million earlier this year.
“We need to look at the reality of how people are watching television and awards shows,” he said when asked by TheWrap if the Academy would accept a new normal in which the show did not approach its old ratings figures. “Now there’s a long tail of the show. It lives on Hulu beyond the show. So we’re really looking at all of the extensions, how many eyes are ultimately on the Oscars beyond the night.”
To that end, he said, “We’ve been talking to ABC from the minute I started (about) what the show is going to look like, and we’ve had incredibly productive and engaged conversations,” he said. “We’re feeling really good about the direction of the show.
“That being said, the event-izing of the Oscars is critical to us and very important to ABC. We’re working with them around the ad sales connected to both the preshow and the show to make sure that anything we can do to help ABC bring great sponsors to the table we do.
“It’s more blended now … how people are engaging with content. I don’t think it’s either-or. Ratings are always important to us. Our ratings compared to other award shows (are) still healthy, and we want (them) to remain healthy. We also want the extensions of the show to be excellent and to allow people to engage in the awards in a lot of different ways.”
In the 40-minute press conference, his first interview as CEO outside of one for an Academy publication, Kramer answered questions from about a dozen reporters from trade and consumer publications. Among the highlights:
• He discussed the controversial decision to hand out awards in a number of below-the-line categories before this year’s Oscar broadcast began: “We want to see all disciplines equitably acknowledged on the show,” he said. “That is our goal.”
• He expects that the Academy will announce the producers of next year’s show “very soon”; that those producers will have experience in live television; and that they will be hired for a “multiyear partnership.”
• “A host is very important to us,” Kramer said. “We are committed to having a host on the show this year.”
• He acknowledged the problem of getting a mainstream audience invested in the Oscars when the Best Picture category is full of indie films that most of audience hasn’t seen: “That’s the big question … We want to return to a show that has reverence for film and for 95 years of the Oscars … There are ways to do that that are entertaining and authentic and are tied to our mission to honor excellence in moviemaking,” he said.
“ABC does a lot of the marketing around the show, but we’re starting to really assess all of our marketing branding and social media activities. We have an incredible reach, and frankly, the museum has only greatly enhanced that reach … So between now and the show, we really want to take a hard look at how we’re promoting first-run films in an equitable way on all of our social channels. That creates a great lead-in to the Oscars.”
• He defended the inclusion standards that will require films to meet certain requirements to become eligible for Best Picture beginning in 2024: “It’s not us alone doing this,” he said, mentioning similar moves from BAFTA, the Emmys and the Grammys. “We’re all thinking as an ecosystem: How do we create a more inclusive cinematic world? We have great support from our distributors, from filmmakers. And we don’t want to legislate art. We want filmmakers to continue to make the films they want to make.” Every one of this year’s 10 Best Picture nominees, he added, would have qualified under the inclusion standards.
• He sidestepped the question of gender-neutral acting categories, which the Film Independent Spirit Awards recently introduced: “We are conducting due diligence … to see what that could look like, but there’s no plan right now to activate that.”
• He noted how AMPAS’ finances had changed by the $40 million he said the Academy Museum has brought in over the last year: “The Academy Award and all of the contracts that surround the Oscars show used to bring in about 95% of our annual income before we opened the museum and created a very robust advancement department tasked with bringing in diversified streams of revenue,” he said. “All the contracts around the Academy Awards now bring in 70% of our income.”
• He also sidestepped a question about whether the next Oscars show would address “the slap,” the shocking moment on this year’s show in which Will Smith walked onto the stage and slapped host Chris Rock over a joke Rock told about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. “We want to move forward and have an Oscars that celebrates cinema,” he said. “That’s our focus right now. It’s really about moving forward.”
