by Nathaniel R
Regular readers know that we put our Punditry hat on and whip out the foggy crystal ball each year about this time. The reason is an attempt to predict the Oscar nominations nearly a full year in advance each season. We tend to do alright at this admittedly silly endeavour (silly because 90% of the films haven't yet been seen.) But 2020 is different. Perhaps you've noticed that movies haven't been opening for a full month now and all filming stopped in Hollywood. Some pre and post-production business is still happening in Hollywood but in very limited work-from-home capacity. In the twenty years of running The Film Experience we've truly never seen anything like this!
However, we wish to sound a note of optimism that you generally won't get elsewhere on the web due to the click-bait happy tone and echo chamber hysteria so many sites opt for. We don't feel there's any reason to assume that the Oscars will be cancelled. Here's why in five reasons...
Reason 1. History. They've never been cancelled.
In 92 years (nearly a century people!) nothing has ever stopped the Academy from continuing forward. Now, they have been postponed three times (Los Angeles flooding in 1938, the Martin Luther King Jr assassination in 1968, and the attempt on President Reagan's life in 1981) but never by more than a week. It's a remarkably sturdy brand. We say sturdy because people have been declaring them "Over!" for as long as we've been alive and they keep on chugging and remain the highest rated awards show in the world (by a considerable margin, too). World War hasn't stopped the Oscars. Terrorism hasn't stopped the Oscars. Political asssassinations haven't stopped the Oscars. Weather hasn't stopped the Oscars. Declining ratings (though nobody ever notes that the ratings are still absurdly high in context) haven't stopped them.
Reason 2. Timing. Oscar's calendar will prove helpful.
We can't imagine that a pandemic will stop them, unless it had occurred during the peak of the season. COVID-19 politely waited (at least in the US) until the previous Oscar season had wrapped and Parasite had won its historic Oscars before it began to wreak havoc.
The Tony Awards are in dire shape of course but here's the very obvious very marked difference: The peak of the harrowing pandemic's disruption in the US is happening EXACTLY during the American theater's busiest window and the epicenter is the home of the Tonys, New York City. Each year from about February through May dozens of new Broadway shows open in a very small geographical radius, hoping to nab Tony nominations and buzz for the televised ceremony in early June. It's not, in spirit, much different than the glut of film releases that happen from October through December, hoping for Oscar gold in February. The Oscar calendar year runs January 1st to December 31st exactly while the Tony calendar runs roughly June through May though dates vary from year to year. In both cases the bulk of the contenders wait for the last few months of the season to show their faces, hoping to be fresh in the memory and/or in the sudden infatuation stage of love's cycle when it comes to the voters.
Reason 3. The Emmys provide a Test Run.
Though we wish the Academy were more confident in their own estimable powers it's been easy to notice over the past decade that they're strangely looking to lesser-rated awards shows for cues on how to operate. The Emmys calendar runs summer to summer (a bit similar to the Tonys though roughly 100,000 times as many things are eligible) but their ceremony is held in September. While pessimistic projections of the coronavirus's impact suggest that it will continue to haunt us all year, the Emmys, unlike the Oscars or the Tonys, are handing out awards to a piece of the showbiz pie that doesn't involve physically having to go somewhere in crowds to see a thing.
Emmy FYC campaigns are taking much different more subtle shapes this year due to the lack of events and schmoozing but there'd really be no reason to cancel the awards since the eligibility window has provided a ton of art that everyone can judge from home. It's possible that the Emmy Awards will be postponed or be less festive in some production way or less of a live everyone-in-Hollywood-attending kind of way but they will go on.
Reason 4. That production halt. What about that?
One of the more convincing arguments as to why everyone should worry that there won't be an Oscar ceremony in February 2021 is that Hollywood abruptly halted production on just about every movie a month ago. The theory goes that movies will just not be ready to open by the end of December to qualify. Sometimes post-production is a lengthy process. Etcetera etcetera. This theory ignores the fact that some people in Hollywood are very fast. Hell, it would be just like Clint Eastwood (who turns 90 next month) to film a movie in November 2020 and have it in theaters the next month in time to qualify. It also ignores the fact that many movies aiming for the tail end of the year (Dune, West Side Story) or that were aiming for summer blockbuster status are already completed and/or don't have that much post-production work to endanger a release IF Hollywood reopens their work places in late summer or early fall.
This theory also ignores the fact that there are dozens of movies opening every week all throughout the year in a usual year but the Oscars largely ignore anything that opened before October! Provided that movie theaters reopen by October, the Oscars should be fine in terms of enough eligible content. Generally speaking upwards of 600 movies are released a year with around 350-400 of them being Oscar eligible (i.e. jumping through the right paperwork hoops to qualify). That's a far higher number than Oscar used to have to choose from. Here's a chart from Stephen Follows on the number of film releases in US cinemas over the past few decades.
Far more movies are released now than in recent decades in Hollywood. So if they only had 120 or so options in 1980, why couldn't they proceed to judge 2020 on, say, 1/4th of what they judged 2019 on?
Reason 5. Campaign worries -- but Oscars already FYC you at home!
Though the Academy loves to note that they believe in the theatrical tradition, they have long since succumbed to the at-home experience. A long long time ago they started providing their members with the chances to view the movies at home rather than in cinemas via VHS screeners then DVDs then Blu-Rays and now either of those plus online viewing links. There are sometimes one or two films in a season that won't budge on "you must see it in the theater" but the bulk of movies get very expensive ad campaigns that are meant to reach people within their homes: screeners, swag, print and onlline advertisements.
Even if campaigning or promotional events are muted for this upcoming season (very possible) the FYC spirit will remain in Hollywood. Everyone loves those gold statues.
Our April Foolish Predictions will begin tomorrow. Stay tuned.