When the Academy Award nominations were announced, there were ten nominees for best picture (above the usual five) and the category included both small movies and large commercial successes. The biggest movie nominated in that enlarged category was “Avatar,” the highest grossing movie of all time. Even though the James Cameron movie is not the best movie nominated (it’s actually not a good movie, either), its box-office gross and several other factors give it a real chance of winning the best picture Oscar.
In that race, many people see the competition coming down to “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” the two movies with nine nominations each. According to the LA Times, “Over the last 20 years, the movie with the most Academy Award nominations has won best picture 15 times.” Now that “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker” have received the same number of nominations, the award could go to either without much surprise. Although “The Hurt Locker” seems to be the front-runner for critics based off high-profile previous award shows, “Avatar” still has a lot going for it.
Firstly, the special effects in the movie are fantastic. Few can deny that the visual aspects of the film are great and stand out as one, if not the, best thing about the movie. Secondly, many film critics have enjoyed the film and many in the industry have noted their support of this film giving this movie critical backing, both inside and outside of Hollywood. The film also has a liberal message about preserving the environment at all costs that some voting members could show appreciation for by voting for it.
Lastly, the film has been a box office success. A huge box office success. Its enormous gross could help bring more viewers to the Oscar telecast. A lot of people watched the “Titanic” Academy Awards, so one could assume that due to the comparable popularity of “Avatar,” more viewers will tune in this year to see if it wins. Far fewer people will have seen “The Hurt Locker” by the time the Oscars air. Although many critics believe that “The Hurt Locker” was a stronger film than “Avatar” (and I agree with that analysis), what would be the political consequences if “The Hurt Locker” beat “Avatar” in the final showdown?
If the Academy Awards broadened their scope to include ten movies this year allowing more commercial successes to be nominated, what would it say if on Oscar night if the popular movies still lost out and a small, low-grossing Iraq war movie won? It is definitely possible that the ratings for this year will spike because of “Avatar” and the interest in the best picture race. It is also very possible that all of the bigger movies will lose and “The Hurt Locker” will win the biggest race of the night.
If that happens and the Academy repeats the same experiment of having ten best picture nominees and commercial successes get nominated alongside smaller movies, will the fans of the commercial successes nominated still watch the show next year? Will they still watch even if they think that the popular movies will still lose and the smaller less-seen movies will win? Is the Academy willing to accept lower ratings in the future if “Avatar” loses?
Entertainment Weekly’s Dave Kerger compiled a list of Oscar trivia that is helpful in analyzing the box office difference between “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker”. “If Avatar wins Best Picture, it’ll be the highest-grossing winner ever (obviously),” Kerger writes, whereas if its main competition “The Hurt Locker” wins, “it’ll be the lowest-grossing winner ever.”
As an MSNBC piece pointed out, in 1998, a similar battle took place between a critically-acclaimed film and a blockbuster epic. That article noted that “Critical consensus that year strongly backed ‘L.A. Confidential,’ a movie about Hollywood itself. ‘Titanic’ still sailed off with an extraordinary 11 awards, including best picture.” So it seems like Cameron has been in this battle before and he has emerged victorious from it. Could he pull off such a victory again, partly because of “Avatar”‘s commercial success?
Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman recently explored the idea of “The Hurt Locker” beating “Avatar” this year in a fascinating article. He wrote the following about the role of commercial success in the Oscar battle:
The vulgar way to put it would be: Hollywood, in the end, is all about the bottom line, and so a movie that doesn’t ‘perform’ isn’t eligible, according to the industry’s core values, for the most coveted of honors…A Hurt Locker victory would open the door to a new definition of Oscar glory, a defiant celebration of artistry over commerce. A win for Avatar would be, in its way, a definitive assertion of the same old same old.
Although I liked movies like “Up” and “Up in the Air” far better than I liked “Avatar” or “The Hurt Locker,” I agree with Mr. Gleiberman. “Avatar” may have earned enough money to be the box office leader in the world but that and the other attributes of the film should not be enough to win it the best picture Oscar.
We’ll have to wait until the envelope is opened to find out if “Avatar” does win. Until then, let’s hope that the Oscar ballots are not being filled out by inhabitants of the planet Pandora.
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