This is the way Hollywood can be saved

There was a time, not too long ago, when watching the Oscars on television was something families looked forward to doing together.

It was a rare opportunity to see world-class performers at the top of their craft; or living legends stepping momentarily out of retirement to bask in the adulation of generations of fans. And usually, there were at least a couple of movies you cared about and wanted to see win.

It was magical stuff. And it only happened once a year.

But today, between a glut of awards shows (it seems like there’s one every couple of weeks, these days) relentless, in-your-face celebrity culture, and increasingly niche and obscure films being honored… well, it’s not surprising that audience numbers for the Academy Awards continue to drop.

In 2005, twenty years ago, the 41 million viewers tuned-in to watch the Academy Awards. Last year, it was less than half of that, 19.5 million. (This year’s Super Bowl, for comparison, reached an average 127.7 million viewers.)

The Oscars serve as a powerful illustration of the wide-spread sentiment that Hollywood is out-of-touch with the rest of America. That the values we see represented in films seldom reflect our own values; and the stories we see on screen are often completely foreign to our own experiences.

Whatever the cause of the disconnect, it only seems to grow wider with every passing year. One plausible explanation is that Hollywood is trying to serve two masters: the public and their peers.

There are two open secrets in Hollywood: The first is that the less restrictive the rating, the better a movie tends to perform at the box office. So a PG-13 film is generally more profitable than an R-rated film; PG movies tend to be more profitable than PG-13; and G-rated movies are the best performers overall.

The second is that for any film to be considered a serious contender for the “Best Picture” award, it needs to have an “R” rating. These are the oh-so-serious, “art” films that Hollywood loves to congratulate itself over. They seldom gain traction at the box office, and most people aren’t even aware of their existence until the nominations list is released. That’s why Films like Anora, a “Cinderella story” about a sex worker which definitely deserves the R-rating due to its graphic sex scenes, nudity, explicit language, and drug use – but grossed less than $40 million at the box office – end up on the list of nominees.

This sets up an immediate and inherent conflict between competing interests; one that is readily apparent when you compare the list of Best Picture nominees against the list of top box office performers.

The most noteworthy thing about many of the titles nominated for “Best Picture” is their near-total obscurity: Nickel Boys grossed only $2.7 million; Emilia Perez, only $15.4 million; I’m Still Here, $27.3 million; and The Brutalist, $36.6 million.

By contrast, the single-most profitable film of 2024 was the G-rated Pixar film, Inside Out 2, which grossed $1.2 billion in box office. Five of the top ten most profitable films of 2024 are at least arguably family-friendly.

There is a third way; and it may be the only way Hollywood can save itself and the Oscars from the weight of its own irrelevance, and that’s by bridging the gap between “serious” Oscar-worthy films and something families can feel comfortable watching together.

There is a glimmer of hope in that two films (notably, neither one is rated “R”) managed to achieve popular success and critical acclaim: Wicked (Rated PG) and Dune: Part Two (PG-13).

And there is also hope to be found in a handful of studios producing high-quality pro-faith and pro-family content, like Angel Studios.

In 2023, Angel Studios released Sound of Freedom starring Jim Caviezel, which went on to earn $250 million, but it was completely shut out by the Academy.

Since that film’s release, Angel Studios has been on a roll, churning out inspiring films that can be safely enjoyed by most family members. Films like Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot, based on the inspiring true story of a small East Texas community that rescued 77 at-risk and difficult-to-place children from the foster care system; and Bonhoeffer, about the life of German pacifist and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who resisted the Nazi regime during World War II and was ultimately executed.

Angel Studios is just one of a number of fledgling studios but as far as The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is concerned, they might as well not exist at all. And that’s to the Academy’s own detriment, because these studios are showing Hollywood a way forward.