Strange thought: Will some museum members ever get an Oscar vote?

Looking back at last weekend’s lively three-day “Regeneration Summit” at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures – it was a celebration of Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971 Exhibition – I was overwhelmed by a wild imagination.

In the distant future – I mean far in the future, even after my brand new driver’s license expires – museum members, at least some of them, might get an Oscar vote.

To be clear, no one I know is talking about it. The current management of the museum and academy may rightly dismiss the idea as a pipe dream.

But time is a merciless beast. Let it gnaw at the bones of these intertwined institutions for a while, and voting rights for paying museum members might seem like an option. It would certainly be a handy way to support the museum while weaning the Oscars from their reliance on a dwindling broadcast audience — the Hoi Polloi, that is.

I think what we learned from the Regeneration Summit is that the film museum is more than just an exhibition space, a potential magnet for the many affinity groups that form a new film elite. The summit was intended to bring together filmmakers, scientists, fans and people hungry for food from a “market of all black women-owned pop-up food vendors” in a mini-festival of screenings, panels and events that broadly was conceived, like -minded people.

There is nothing wrong with that, especially if the museum does it over and over again for the many cultural subgroups that now yearn for their own expression in film. The gender changed. feminists. climate activists. International freedom fighters. Who knows? Maybe even old-time movie buffs and the faith community can get away for a weekend.

The thing is, the museum seems well equipped to capitalize on the film intensity in each of these groups. The culturally oriented exhibits can clearly stir passion.

Now the trick is to harness that energy and honestly make money from it.

And that’s where the appeal of an Oscar vote comes in.

Consider: Right now you can join the museum for $100 a year. This includes free entry to exhibitions, discounts and expedited check-in. Go to Patron level for $1,000 a year, and the perks include free entry to all shows, an annual reception, and invitations to nights out and celebrations, presumably the Regeneration Summit.

But imagine the potential of a “Super Patron” membership of, say, $1,500 a year, including the right to help nominate and select the Best Picture winner, and access to dozens of films screened in the Academy’s digital screening room.

Wow.

Just 10,000 such “super-patrons”—which would double the academy’s current constituency—would bring in $15 million a year, likely enough to fill a future gap between the museum’s operating costs and combined income and expected endowments.

Add another 20,000 — a total of less than a quarter of the pre-Covid attendance at Sundance — and the academy could shut down ABC variety tap dancing and its accompanying royalty every year. The awards can be made cheaper by the Super Engagements – a mixed pool of filmmakers and elite stakeholders – in front of a streaming audience made up mainly of like-minded investors.

The vast voting pool would certainly not land the dreaded pop Oscar.

Rather, the museum’s voters would be an intense and diverse group of self-selected cinephiles whose participation in the various festivals, summits and celebrations – plus money – entitles them to an informed vote. Instead of sitting on the sidelines and complaining about snot, they would be invited to step in.

Yes, it would be a rich party in the first place. But also current Oscar voters who pay $450 a year in academy fees.

As for the rest of us, we didn’t watch much when we had the chance. Maybe we should step aside and leave it to the insiders – at a price.