Oscar Ratings & ‘Red Sparrow’ Sunk By Hollywood’s Liberal Trump Bashers?

Deadline ^ | March 8, 2018 | Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr.

[EdnaMode]

FLEMING: Why were the Oscar ratings down 19% to the smallest viewership level of all time? I found it a most satisfying show. Jimmy Kimmel and producers Mike De Luca and Jennifer Todd did a fine job all the way to the finish line this time, owning last year’s gaffe and ensuring it didn’t happen with foolproof 100-point type on each envelope. Kimmel was hilarious; the film montages and special presenters infused the 90th Oscars with a sense of film history. Compared to the men-are-bad funereal atmosphere of the Golden Globes, this show was fun but still managed graceful moments on race, sexism, and immigration in speeches by Frances McDormand, Jordan Peele and Guillermo del Toro.

So, what the hell happened to the ratings? One of my young staffers said his generation watches highlight clips on their iPhones; why sit through 3+ hours? Another theory is the roster of mostly specialty films limited audience appeal, a theory sure to be tested next year when the universally loved Black Panther competes for Best Picture. Then, I got a call from a left-leaning exec who posited another theory that rang the bell for me. “Just like the Jennifer Lawrence movie Red Sparrow, the Oscars suffered last weekend from the same problem. The Red State audiences were so polarized by Kimmel and Lawrence that they didn’t show up. Google Lawrence and Trump and you’ll see reams of stories where she just bashed the President, over and over. Kimmel didn’t do it Oscar night, but he does it five nights a week and so a certain part of the country would have expected it. It’s hard enough to get people to leave their houses to see anything but a superhero movie at a movie theater.

[packrat35]

Just like the girl from the Twilight series, once that ended her career tanked.

[longfellow]

That used to be the history channel.

[Snickering Hound]

So why is she paid so much? Hunger Games she was fine. I hated her as Mystique in the Xmen films.

They keep running that stat that movies with her in it have grossed $5.5 billion worldwide.

It's only in the past year with her putting out bomb after bomb that they realize that they could have plugged anyone into the roles she was playing.

[Trillian]

Genitals for rent. That’s sounds pretty accurate for the hollywood crowd. It’s a regular genital jamboree out there.

[minnesota_bound]

universally loved Black Panther?
163 people killed. So if Hollywood gives out awards to this bloodfest then they are being hypocrites yet again.

[pepsi_junkie]

At least part of the problem is that Hollywood doesn’t make many good movies.

They don't make good movies but they do make some that are entertaining, turn off the brain fun. But those aren't going to get any awards. The Rock is never going to get an Oscar but his movies make big time box office. On the other hand, the ones that do get awards are usually PC fare that nobody went to and never will (yeah I'm lookin' at you "Ten Years a Slave").

[Billthedrill]

Of course it’s about politics. The Academy awards used to be people watching actors and crews they admired awarded for movies they’d seen. Now at least half the audience gets to see actors and crews who hold them in open contempt awarded for movies that do the same. And the Academy membership and PR department seem to be incapable of figuring this out. It shouldn’t be a mystery to them - nobody is harboring any hidden grudges, and all they would have to do to understand what’s going on is to ask.