The Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film (or the Academy Award for Best Popular Film) was a proposed award to be presented annually by the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...

(AMPAS). It was announced as a new category by the Academy on August 8, 2018. The following month, AMPAS announced that the award would not be presented at the

91st Academy Awards The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2018 and took place on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, ...

as planned. It would be postponed to "examine and seek additional input regarding the new category".

History

On August 8, 2018, the Academy announced a proposal to establish a new category reflecting outstanding achievements in "popular" film, being the first new category announced since Best Animated Feature Film in 2001. Although no details were provided, media outlets suggested that the category was intended primarily for

blockbuster Blockbuster or Block Buster may refer to: *Blockbuster (entertainment) a term coined for an extremely successful movie, from which most other uses are derived. Corporations * Blockbuster (retailer), a defunct video and game rental chain ** Bl ...

films with mainstream appeal. Films nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film would also be eligible for

Best Picture This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

. The following month, the Academy announced that the award would not be presented at the

as planned. It would be postponed to "examine and seek additional input regarding the new category". In November 2018, Academy president John Bailey confirmed the award was created in direct response to the Oscars telecast's diminishing television ratings. He hoped it might still be instituted. "Even after a stake was driven through its heart," he said, "there's still interest." He drew a comparison to the separate Best Picture awards presented at the

1st Academy Awards The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and hosted by AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks, honored the best films from 1 August 1927 to 31 July 1928 and took place on May 1 ...

, where ''

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'' won Outstanding Picture and ''

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'' won Unique and Artistic Picture.

Reception

The announcement of a Popular Film category was met with backlash from journalists and Academy members alike. Many viewed it as a conspicuous attempt to pander to mainstream audiences, in the hopes of increasing annual ratings. The category was criticized for diminishing blockbuster films' chances at receiving a Best Picture nomination. The name of the category was further criticized, with "popular" suggesting that films nominated in other categories were unpopular or not of interest to mainstream audiences. Bob Chipman at ''

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'' said that the frontrunner for the inaugural prize would be '' Black Panther'', a film with a predominantly African-American cast and, considering its prominence within African-American culture, would effectively receive a "

separate but equal Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protec ...

" Best Picture award. By contrast, Gene Del Vecchio, author of ''Creating Blockbusters'' and who is on the faculty of the USC Marshall School of Business, has been a proponent of an Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement among Blockbusters for quite some time. His opinion appeared in an April 2014 '' Huffington Post'' article, then again in two 2018 articles for ''

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'', one in March and one in August, and finally in a November 2019 column in ''

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''. He said that a Best Blockbuster Film category marks a "return to the roots" of the Oscars. From the 1940s to the 1970s, the Best Picture Oscar went to a top-10 box office blockbuster nearly nine times out of ten. Comparatively, Best Picture has not been awarded to a top 10 box office film since 2004.

References

External links

Oscars.org
(official Academy site)

(official site)
Oscar.com
(official ceremony promotional site) {{Academy Awards lists Academy Awards Proposals in the United States