New Academy Award Eligibility Regulations: Will Indie Films Suffer?
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
It’s midway through 2023, and any hint of awards season during the annual festival circuit rounds could only mean one thing: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is due to announce some way that they’re going to make a mess of things. After the first mostly-good ceremony in years (no controversial winners, no awful skits, just one uncomfortable The Little Mermaid ad placement that sticks out as the sore point of the evening), things couldn’t be left well enough alone. No siree Bob. Instead, after an independent film won Best Picture and swept up many awards, apparently things had to change. I’m not saying that Everything Everywhere All at Once caused this shift, but I feel like a certain particular film did.
To Leslie was the underdog film of the awards season when Andrea Riseborough wound up being nominated for Best Actress. This opened up an investigation that questioned how such a nomination was possible, and it was clear that Riseborough was championed by her peers for voters to consider her. Why not? Riseborough was terrific in this small film, and awards should be based on merit more than anything else. Well, the way that Riseborough got noticed didn’t please the Academy, but there was nothing they could do with her nomination. Should they just accept that part of the nomination and awards processes is to make a big stinking campaign that exhausts millions of dollars and plugs it back into the industry? Or should they let sleeping dogs lie? Well, they decided to do the latter and just let Riseborough stay nominated. There sadly wasn’t much of a chance that she would beat out Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett either way (the former ultimately won Best Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once, with the latter starring in Tár), so maybe the Academy rest easily knowing that there wasn’t any possibility for Riseborough to introduce the masses to incredibly small budget films like To Leslie: productions that can’t afford to flush millions of dollars away to schmooze.
Anyway, let’s get back to these regulations because I don’t think they directly correlate to To Leslie, but I think this circumstance had the Academy reevaluating its stances on theatrical releases. I believe a small film like To Leslie had the Academy finally addressing how the industry has shifted during the pandemic, particularly in the streaming era. Here are the new regulations that films have to abide by should they want to be eligible for Best Picture (taken from the official press release):
• Expanded theatrical run of seven days, consecutive or non-consecutive, in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets, no later than 45 days after the initial release in 2024.
• For late-in-the-year films with expansions after January 10, 2025, distributors must submit release plans to the Academy for verification.
• Release plans for late-in-the-year films must include a planned expanded theatrical run, as described above, to be completed no later than January 24, 2025.
• Non-U.S. territory releases can count towards two of the 10 markets.
• Qualifying non-U.S. markets include the top 15 international theatrical markets plus the home territory for the film.
Films that distributors want to make eligible for Best Picture consideration must have a long-enough theatrical run before heading to streaming. It seems innocent enough, especially since it makes sense that the Academy is trying to do its part to bring people back to the cinemas for more than just blockbuster franchise films. However, I firmly feel like there’s an underlying, loaded angle with this regulation: it prevents To Leslie and films like it from happening again. Think about it. If the answer wasn’t the millions of dollars being used for the campaign alone, then forcing a feature to have to play in theatres for a certain amount of time will.
Before I continue, I want to clarify that these rules only affect films vying to be nominated for Best Picture, as far as I know. To Leslie was only nominated for Best Actress, but I guarantee that this film and many like it try to get noticed during awards season to at least make more money back through word-of-mouth. Additionally, I know that money being spent on campaigns and releases only affects the Academy so much, but I do think it’s enough to get the Academy interested in making rules for this benefit.
I think first and foremost that independent films will be hit by these regulations. I mean the ones that don’t get picked up by major distributors like A24: the ones that need the most help with awareness especially if they are worth seeing. What sense does it make to make it more challenging for good films to be recognized just because they can’t afford to sit at the same table as the bigwigs? To Leslie was a better film than most of the nominated features last year, but many of these weaker films got by because of their budgets. To afford longer theatrical runs just isn’t something many indie companies can pull off, especially if their works will operate at a slower speed (to generate awareness and/or money back). For some teams and films, the awards season is all they have to even attempt to turn a profit. Even if they don’t have money on their brain, filmmakers make motion pictures for others to see them, so the awards season at least allows them to be seen.
There’s another side to this that hasn’t been discussed enough: films that aren’t mainstream blockbusters don’t make as much money as they used to. It may seem like bringing them to be released in theatres longer would help them make more money, but it costs money to distribute films, and the marketing for people to know these films are in theatres will be expensive as well. If anything, forcing films to play in theatres for longer may result in some companies experiencing greater losses because of how much more they’re having to spend to play ball. I’m not even talking about the smallest budgeted films anymore. This applies to many features. Last year’s Women Talking made back just nine million dollars to its budget of reportedly thirty-five million. Tár made twenty-nine million back whilst having spent twenty-five million to be made: a profit of four million isn’t that much in this industry. Women Talking had a sizeable theatrical duration in Toronto if not everywhere else, but I feel like its run ran over its staying power, given the fact that those who wanted to see the film in Toronto likely already saw it (I sure did fairly quickly). What would putting more money into a theatrical run and marketing accomplish in this case?
We have to face that we are in new territory when it comes to the film industry. Streaming makes motion pictures readily available yet it makes films less profitable. Longer theatrical releases sound like they would help, but. it won’t necessarily accomplish what the Academy and producers want in a post-covid world where streaming services — which are also having their bouts of hardship with losses, rights issues, the market spreading thin, and subscribers leaving — have been providing releases as quickly as possible. Punishing filmmakers that can’t afford to put money into longer theatrical runs and campaigns don’t seem like the way to go in the long run unless we’re hoping for a market that continues to only reward multimillion-dollar blockbusters and not much else. I don’t think that’s what many of us want. We already don’t like this new identity of the film industry. Originality is taking a hit, and with the market skewed towards the lack of risk with nostalgia and franchising, originality will only continue to suffer.
I hope I am wrong about how smaller films and original voices will be affected come the awards season, and these rules won’t even come into effect until the following Oscars (so not the upcoming 96th ceremony, but the 97th afterwards). Even so, I worry for the worst: the continued penalization of those that just want to tell an original story and be seen without having millions to splurge. Money shouldn’t continue to dictate the arts, and yet here we are.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.