The slap heard around the world (recapped here) was also likely the only reason many people even realized the Oscars were happening Sunday night.
Heading into the evening, viewership was lower than ever – down 80%+ from its all-time peak in 1998. Pun absolutely intended, the show needed a slap in the face.
Why are the Oscars so boring anyway?
In large part, the boredom associated with today’s Oscars is the result of its focus on dramas when the genre accounts for just 5% of ticket sales, per Bloomberg.
Not to discredit Apple’s Best Picture win for Coda, a 1st in the streaming space, or great films like The Power of the Dog, — but throw Gal Gadot, Ryan Reynolds, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in Red Notice and that’s where the eyeballs go.
It’s also why Amazon is spending $465m for just one season of a Lord of the Rings show, and not on a Marvelous Mrs. Maisel cinematic universe.
The bottom line?
To put it bluntly, fewer and fewer people have reasons to watch a Hollywood ordeal about movies they’ve never seen, that goes 40 minutes over its 3-hour runtime (on a school night), when you can just check Twitter after to see what you missed.
As for us, we were intrigued by the nominee gift bags filled with $137k+ in redeemable vouchers for things like liposuction and Scottish land. That, and this series of TikToks making fun of the Oscars (here, here, and here).
