But while Titanic was an anomaly, it was part of an important broader pattern. Many of the Best Picture winners of the 20th century were also the highest-grossing films of their respective years. “From 1927 to 1976, approximately 90% of the Best Picture Oscars were awarded to films that were among the top 10 grossing films that year.” As film historian Gene Del Vecchio wrote in the Huffington Post in 2014:. “Academy voters and the general public enjoyed serious romantic dramas like “Casablanca,” adventures like “Around the World in 80 Days,” historical dramas like “Ben-Hur,” and musicals like “My Fair Lady.” Our collective mindset and tastes were the same.
Del Vecchio claims that things changed in 1978, with Star Wars becoming a box office juggernaut while Woody Allen’s much smaller Annie Hall won at the Oscars. But in the 1980s and 1990s, it was still common for blockbusters to win Best Picture. In 1990, Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves grossed nearly $425 million worldwide (equivalent to $1 billion or £740 million today). In 1996, Robert Zemeckis’s Forrest Gump grossed $678 million (equivalent to $1.4 billion or £1 billion today). This may be why so many people watched the Academy Awards ceremony. In fact, they were interested in the nominated films.
Major changes since the Millennial generation
Now…not so much. In the ’90s, the combined worldwide box office receipts of all Best Picture winners were nearly $5 billion, but in the 2010s that number dropped to $2 billion. Looking at the statistics, it is worth noting that many Oscar winners in the 1990s not only made their fortunes, but it also cost them a lot of money. The average budget for a Best Picture winner this decade was $50 million. In the 2010s, the average dropped to $20 million.
From 2009 to 2012, Best Picture winners “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist” all cost about $15 million to make. And in 2010, when Best Picture went to Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (budgeted at $15m, grossed $50m (equivalent to £73m or £54m today)) over her ex-husband’s Avatar (budgeted at $237m and grossed around $3bn (equivalent to $4.3bn or £3.2bn today)), the writing was on the wall. The Oscars were no longer about expensive mainstream hits, and the awards ceremony no longer attracted large mainstream audiences. Last year’s winner, Anora, had a budget of just $6 million and grossed $58 million worldwide. As budgets and box office receipts for Best Picture winners decline, viewer numbers for awards ceremonies also appear to decline.
Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
