Looking ahead to 2028, film awards are moving into the future

In the year 2525. No, it’s kind of like the lyrics to a cheesy pop song about Armageddon Time.

It’s 2028, a much more accurate reckoning that needs to emerge for anyone who relies on the shiny, complicated business of movie awards for a distraction or a living.

The smart people who run the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are certainly thinking about it. In a little-noticed addendum to their recently released fiscal year 2022 financial report, academy officials announced they had exercised an option to end their agreement to host the annual Oscar show at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. which is the last Dolby show of the year. 2032 is postponed to 2028.

The move cost the financially stressed Academy $10 million in projected revenue, but was deemed worth it. Now the awards show could enter its second century in a new location, beginning with the 2029 Oscars, God willing. Bigger, smaller, indoor, outdoor, your own museum, Disneyland, who knows?

Significantly, the new Dolby contract termination date coincides with a planned expiration of the Academy’s domestic broadcast agreement with Disney’s ABC. There he is again, 2028. Just around the corner. The academy has also been quietly talking about extending its overseas broadcast deal with another Disney company, Buena Vista International, from a 2024 end date to 2028, of course.

The alignment is not informal. Since April 26, 2021, when overnight television ratings showed Oscar audiences dropping by more than half to 10.4 million, any sane person — and Academy leaders think a lot — knew something was going to happen. Even last year’s drop in viewership to about 16.6 million viewers didn’t bring the Oscars back to their usual size. It’s now a smaller event and a possible nomination for Best Picture of one Avatar: The Way of Water or Top Gun: Maverick Nevertheless, nothing in this regard is likely to change in the current season. A little over a week ago The New York Times took the space on page one to remind us that few buy tickets for the insider favorites, right down to Steven Spielberg’s The Fables (or James Gray’s Armageddon time).

Barring a miracle, the next ABC deal will undoubtedly reflect the downsizing of the audience. A recent rumor has it that a 40 percent reduction in annual Oscar broadcast costs is not out of the question. Looking ahead to 2028, academia is clearly preparing for a new beginning. With the contracts in place, presumably the institution and its awards can adapt to its new reality: a different kind of show, new dates, real-time global streaming? Again, who knows?

It’s a good bet that the new direction will bring in new funds, whether from donors or brand deals or refinanced debt, well ahead of the hundreds of millions of dollars in capital payments due in 2030 and 2031.

With a view to 2028, the Film Academy brings order. Shouldn’t everyone in the prize game be doing the same thing?