Jurassic World just beat The Avengers box office tally to become the third highest grosser of all time (when you don't adjust for inflation) which has Awards Daily wringing its hands over what the Academy should do to better honor the types of films people pay to see. As you may have guessed The Film Experience has strong feelings about this topic (including suggested new Oscar categories) all of which we will share with you right now...
One suggestion that's been floated before is two effects categories, rather than just one. That'd be "special effects" -- i.e. on set, mechanical or "practical" effects split off from "visual effects" which is the green screen and off set work like computer generated imagery. Currently 'special' effects are eligible for the standard 'visual' effects prize but are rarely nominated. I'm not sure we need that distinction as worthy efforts in special effects are increasingly augmented by visual effects but I would be in favor of demanding a full 5 slot category for Makeup and Hair (it should already be the same number of nominees as other categories since every film uses that department). I'd also add Best Stunts as a worthy new category if we're expanding the craft categories in such a way that would be bound to honor more blockbusters. But that's as far as TFE is willing to take this line of thought in endorsing new categories. Add a "Best Blockbuster" and you've basically become The People's Choice or look as desperate as the BFCA did when they started acting "Best Action" categories. All respect for your institution will die!
See, we've heard this argument countless times and in fact we discussed this in short just a week or so ago when Ghost had its 25th anniversary and we wondered which Blockbuster Best Pic nominee was your favorite. I know this is an unpopular opinion in the internet age of "lambast the Oscars at every turn because they're 'out of touch''' I think AMPAS does a pretty good job of honoring the right blockbusters already. When they do honor juggernauts that everyone sees it's usually because the films are widely regarded as very very very good (I don't care how much anyone whines about it, EIGHT nominations for The Dark Knight is honoring it in a big way) or work in some inarguable way even if they don't scream "classy!" (Ghost, Fatal Attraction, The Sixth Sense). I fail to see how Jurassic World qualifies on either front so I hope they do ignore it. People don't even agree that its visual effects are worthy (and when you can't surpass a film made 22 years ago in that department...) so why give it nominations?
If we really want the Academy to honor films that make money that are from non "Oscar-style" genres, than we should all be fighting for Mad Max Fury Road -- which has absolutely stunning craft work and is not in anyway coasting on the nostalgia of earlier superior films - not Jurassic World, which only has a stunning gross to recommend it.
If you wanted genre movies honored, fight for QUALITY not who made $$$
Frankly, the larger problem with Oscar is not that they ignore films that make a ton of money sometimes. The problem is that they have such large genre biases that they don't always notice the high quality efforts within the more frequently money-making genres (action/sci-fi/fantasy/horror, etc...). And if they started honoring films just because they made money, they wouldn't even catch the highest quality efforts in those categories either, is what I'm saying. Horror and Sci-Fi offer perfect examples. If you equate box office with quality you run into huge problems in the audience-friendly genres too; The Babadook and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and maybe Ex-Machina this year, would still be ignored by the Oscars under this line of thinking and absolute shit movies would be forced to carry the "Best" tags for their genre in their places even though they aren't remotely Great Movies.
There's a reason people still care about the Oscars and it's precisely because they do have standards... however misguided and contradictory those standards are from time to time / film to film. If what people really wanted from the Oscars was the rewarding of box office, then the Blockbuster Awards (remember those?) or The People's Choice Award (yeesh) would be what people obsessed over each year and could never let go of.
They aren't.