With strikes settled, Hollywood is diving into an uncertain awards season
The actors’ and writers’ strikes that have crippled Hollywood studios for half of 2023 have thrown many corners of the business into disarray, particularly that bizarre annual orgy of self-congratulation known as awards season.
The season usually starts at at least average pace at the moment. Critics’ first “best of” lists will be arriving soon, featuring Q&As, screenings, red carpet events, past film festivals, late-night talk show appearances, and much more in Los Angeles, New York, London, and London. parts in between.
Not this year. Oh, people are certainly jumping into the trap of the propaganda machine now that union restrictions on promotion have ended ahead of expected final ratification by SAG-AFTRA members. Puck pointed to Bradley Cooper, who wrote, directed and starred in the film Artist, band leadera Netflix-backed biopic of conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein.
Within hours of the SAG-AFTRA strike being settled, Cooper joined CBS Sunday Morning An interview with members of Bernstein’s family, who have already dismissed complaints of potential anti-Semitism about Cooper’s prosthetic nose and his Gentile background in portraying the Jewish classical music star.
Cooper wasn’t about to pass up a high-profile media opportunity to allay those complaints and promote his latest do-it-all project. But his activity in joining the interview is not unusual. There’s certainly little time to waste on those projects hoping to garner some glory and gold statues over the next few months.
Among the questions facing the industry: How much will traditional studios spend on awards this year, given their need to dramatically cut costs and generate profits from their broadcast operations? How long will Netflix, AmazonAMZN and AppleAAPL continue to rely on awards as an indicator of quality as they build their streaming and other ventures? The many questions bring this awards season to many shifts and changes.
The disruption most closely related to the strike occurred at the Emmy Awards, the biggest night in television. The strike typically takes place during about the 10 days of September, pushing the Primetime Awards to January 15, usually in the middle of the film awards ceremony.
However, even amid the strikes, Emmy voting continued, with the results of the final round closing in the summer. How those long-ago songs will sound when they’re released six months later will be its own kind of drama. Will any viewers notice or care, given the poor operation so far?
At least Fox, which holds the Emmys this year, chose someone from its stable of talent, reportedly Anthony Anderson, to actually host the event, which is something of a victory.
The Golden Globes, once an unexpected but relatively accurate prediction of Oscar gold, have finally locked down a new broadcast partner after years of scandal, boycotts, blackouts and restructuring. After several offers and significant cuts to previously exorbitant licensing fees, the Globes will be held Jan. 7 on a new network, CBS, and on the ParamountPARA Plus streaming service.
The most important thing in this last line is the word “broadcast”. The show’s remaining audience is almost certainly heavily concentrated among older viewers who are CBS’ core audience, rather than on streaming.
The broadcast date makes for pretty “normal” timing for what has traditionally been the first big awards ceremony of the season. This year, it would be nice to see the Globes’ place in awards strategists’ playbook, after being blacked out for a year in 2022 and boycotted by publicity, thanks to operations and acting scandals when the organization was known as Hollywood. Foreign Press Association.
Last year’s broadcast on former longtime partner NBC generated very low viewership ratings, with just 6.3 million people, according to Nielsen. By comparison, the 2020 broadcast, which took place two months before the lockdown, attracted 18.3 million subscribers.
Penske Media is now controlled by Golden Globes LLC, as is the Globes’ production company, Dick Clark Productions, as well as a long line of trade publications that rely on awards announcements: Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, IndieWire, Gold Derby, and even Hollywood Life, which focuses on Celebrities (disclosure – in my past life, I wrote for three of these publications).
Will this vertical integration force statue-hungry studios to pour more money than usual into Penske properties to kick off this crazy awards season? Will publicists continue to cling to their stars, or will they decide it’s time to forgive and forget?
Despite all the uncertainty, the globes still at least have a place where millions can theoretically watch them. It could have gone the way of the Penske-owned Billboard Music Awards, which were held Sunday night on the company’s website, ahem, mute notification (Taylor Swift won top artist and nine other awards, if you’re wondering; Morgan Wallen is back Home 11 more).
Now you have to find someone to host the Globes, which may be no small task, given the show, timing and dire state of the industry. Also, will a prolonged strike at the Beverly Hills Hilton and other hotels prevent stars from crossing picket lines?
Other awards shows have had their own challenges, like the Critics Choice Movie Awards, which have been left searching for sponsors while trying to build a more credible early-season alternative to the Globes among the media-voted awards shows.
Of course, there is another set of considerations: what voters will vote on for the Academy, Guilds and other awards. on me? Some big movies scheduled for fall releases have been postponed, and the theatrical release business remains a striking shadow of itself. The two biggest films of the year in terms of box office were Barbie And super mario bros movie, With only Barbie It’s likely to attract a lot of Oscar love.
Barbie It’s certainly a feel-good contender, though it will face serious contenders for Best Picture as “Barbenheimer” Regiment Oppenheimer From director Christopher NolanArtist, band leader, Martin Scozzi moonflower killers, And celebrated smaller projects such as Cord Jefferson american fantasy, Alexander Paynethe holdovers, Todd Haynes may december, And Ava DuVernayOrigin.
Disney’s Pixar, usually a reliable source of animation and music love for the Oscars, has received disappointing feedback on its latest project. The same can be said for Marvel films, although MCU projects are often noted in visual effects and other artistic categories.
As Hollywood gets back together, it could be the most memorable awards season in decades. The uncertain future of awards shows, once a stalwart of streaming, is also the result of a company trying to figure out what it will look like when things finally settle down again.
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(tags for translation)Golden Globes LLC
