Producers and investors want movies to be as successful as they can be, for the Bennies. Having a film win an Academy award greatly bolsters this success. Producers and investors will NOT want to approach the creation of any movie which doesn’t have the chance of winning an Oscar, no matter how good the movie concept and quality. This requirement will kill good movies.
It used to, no more. The first time I noticed how little it helped a film was when they gave the Best Picture Oscar to Crash. The next day, I was in Target and they had the dvds of Crash out in front by multiple registers. I went in there a couple of days later and the same amount were still sitting there, and this went on for a week, and they finally just removed them.
They are already giving Best Picture Oscars to films that no one saw and no one wants to see. They just did it recently with that film about the woman and the fish man she falls in love with. Can't remember the title. No one saw it before the Oscars, or after.