October is the New December
"In 2004 the Academy Awards show was moved to late February, the Golden Globes and other awards programs went even earlier, and the studios had one [less] month for their movies to benefit from Oscar-related publicity," reports Chicago Tribune entertainment reporter Mark Caro in a piece that basically says that October is the new December as far as the Oscar race is concerned.
"So instead of going wide with movies in January and even February of the following year, the studios began releasing many of their Oscar contenders well before New Year's to help them gain traction with awards voters as well as the public.
"Of last year's best picture nominees, only Letters From Iwo Jima was released after October. For the others -- The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen and Babel -- the Oscar 'bump' was felt in DVD sales. 'The studios are still doing their Oscar pushes, but in years past they used to start at Christmas, and now they finish at Christmas,' said Tom Bernard, Sony Picture Classics co-president."
That's not true -- they keep campaigning until the Academy's Oscar nomination deadline time, which is on or about January 20th. (Or something like that.) And then it's on to Phase Two.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 4, 2007 at 6:18 PM
comment #1
The Hey
says ...
The purpose has always been to make sure that as many of the Oscar nominated films were playing first run as possible.
The alternative is to get the DVD out as close to awards night as possible if the film is an almost sure thing like "The Departed". But in this case the film was known to probably be a hit regardless of any awards won or lost.
I feel that the rule should change so a film must be shown in at least 5 markets for at least 2 weeks to be eligible. (With exceptions, of course, for smaller distributors and docs). One week qualifying runs in 1 or 2 markets, IMHO, cheating the system.
Posted by The Hey
at September 4, 2007 7:00 PM
comment #2
erniesouchak
says ...
The Oscar contenders are definitely being released earlier, but at my publication, which gets a lot of Oscar-campaign ads, December and January are still the big fat books, and Jan. is fattest.
Posted by erniesouchak
at September 4, 2007 8:03 PM
comment #3
corey3rd
says ...
The DVD is the way to go when it comes to the post nomination time. There are enough people who go out of their way to pick up the five best pic noms to take home.
Posted by corey3rd
at September 4, 2007 8:21 PM