The Big Picture - ‘Tenet’ and the Oscars Are Delayed. What’s Next?

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

The release of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ was pushed back, setting in motion a domino effect for the rest of the summer movie slate. Sean and Amanda discuss when we’ll be back in movie theaters. Then, they address the changes announced by the Academy to improve diversity in future Oscar nominees, why the number of Best Picture nominees has expanded to 10, and what the extension of the eligibility window means for awards season. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about movies. There are so many movies and there is so much news about movies happening right now, Amanda. Three months have gone by and virtually nothing has happened. We've been inventing episode ideas. We've been forcing arguments. We've been trying to stoke conversation

through this very strange time in history. And then all of a sudden, across 72 hours, all the news happened to us. We're going to talk about as much of that news as we can, specifically everything that's happening with the Academy Awards, awards season, what the show is going to look like for the next 14 months. But first, we got to talk about a movie that maybe we will see soon, though I still have my doubts. I'm talking, of course, about Tenet. Amanda, we got some news about Tenet, which is that the movie will be moving two weeks into the future, from July 17th to July 31st. This news was delivered on Friday. First impressions of something that we long speculated about. Well, as I shared with you on Friday, happy birthday to us, because it moved to our shared

birthday week, which is pretty funny, but also then immediately raised the question of, will we be having a birthday party at the movies this year? And I think we're going to talk about that on this podcast. You and I aren't really sure. Yeah, there's been a lot of speculation about what's going to happen. Tenet has been, as you've maybe heard on this show, the sort of the stalking horse for the movie industry. Christopher Nolan's 10th film was meant to reopen movie theaters. And I think there was a little bit of doubt from people behind the scenes, but the publicly

Warner Brothers had indicated that this was going to be the movie that was going to do it for us. And Christopher Nolan in particular, we know, who is a longtime advocate of the movie going experience, the in-theater experience, feels very strongly about this. So they did decide to make a change. You know, that change of only adding two additional weeks to the release date strikes me as insufficient. And I say that not as an epidemiologist or an immunologist or even a person that is sophisticated about what's happening with the state of COVID-19 beyond what I read in the newspaper every day. But we're talking about six weeks from today. And it just seems highly unlikely that a mass number of people will be entering movie theaters in six weeks. And it seems highly unlikely that movie theaters will

even be prepared to account for, at best, that 25% number we've heard about seating capacity. So the announcement, while on the one hand heartening, I think for people who love movies, who love Christopher Nolan movies, who are excited about the idea of Tenet, who are excited about the idea of getting back to this thing that we care about so much. This is great. On the other hand, I don't know. This might be a it's kind of a scary birthday party. Yes. I'm still not sure that it's a birthday party that's going to happen. I interpreted the date change. Well, I tried to make sense of it two ways.

I can't really tell whether it's, as I agreed, the two weeks just seems kind of meaningless, ultimately, in terms of the scope of COVID-19. As I understand it, I should note that I also am not an epidemiologist and I just read the newspaper as best I can. I wondered whether it was kind of like a token will give theaters two extra weeks to kind of get their act together because right now all of the major theater chains seem to be targeting an end of June, early July opening according to those local restrictions, as you mentioned. And so for Tenet to like, maybe there is some sort of reasoning that thinks that there is a difference between one week of adjustment and like three to four weeks of adjustment. That is, I don't, I had to do a lot of my own mental acrobats just then to try to make sense of it. Cause I honestly don't

think that makes a ton of sense, but I wondered whether that was the reasoning. I, the other possible explanation is like, is this just kind of kicking the football down and it's the first move of several moves. And this is kind of them recognizing that the, the, the theater world and, and Warner brothers and, and the world at large is possibly not as equipped to handle movie theaters right now as they might like to be. There's wide speculation that Warner Brothers specifically is not comfortable with this and that they are doing it on behalf of Christopher Nolan and their relationship and respect for

Christopher Nolan, who is really the signature filmmaker in their stable, barring maybe Ben Affleck. Can I say, and so that came from the New York Times piece by Brooks Barnes and Nicole Sperling, who are fantastic reporters. And I love everything that they do. And I really honestly feel like that's Warner Brothers trying to be like, it's not us. That I just, and I'm sure that that is exactly what they were told. And I'm sure there was a lot of anxiety at Warner Brothers because they know they have this extremely expensive movie from one of their marquee directors.

And they don't want to lose Christopher Nolan. But also, they don't want to be responsible at all. And so they're just they're trying to get out in the world. You know what? We're nervous, too, as if that absolves them of some of the responsibility. Yeah. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of blame shifting across the industry over the next several months.

We we've hardly talked about on this show, the timetable for when production may resume on films, but that's also a significant part of this. It's also a significant part of the conversation we'll have about the Oscars. And then the other thing is that this has a meaningful impact on all other movies that are going to come out because Tenet was thought to be the movie that was going to open theaters. Warner Brothers on Friday announced that

since the film is moving to the 31st, what they're going to do on July 17th is re-release Inception on July 17th in its place as a 10-year celebration. People know how I feel about Inception. I was going to say, Sean, will you be there on Friday morning? You know, I have committed myself to re-examining my relationship to Nolan's movies. I started with Dunkirk and I'll be going all the way through all of his films, some of which I like. But I thought

that that was an interesting gambit to the point that you're making about giving theaters a chance to slowly acclimate to the new reality of their business. And there's really not going to be a lot of, there's not much sunk cost in putting Inception in theaters for a couple of weeks while waiting for Tenet to come around. So that was an interesting announcement. That does mean, though, that as of right now, while we're recording, the movie that's really going to open movie theaters wide is Mulan, which is slated for July 24th, though there's not a single person I've talked to that thinks that that date is going to hold. You're shaking your head. You don't think so either. I agree. You have talked to me, but I

also do not think it will hold. Which is funny because I've heard there's a little bit of both sides-ism about this, which is that one, there are a lot of families in this country who have been cooped up for a long period of time and they're eager to go out and have something to do with their children. Now, I'm not sure that taking anywhere from one to nine children wearing masks into a movie theater to see the live action remake of Mulan sounds like a good or safe time. But I do understand that this has been a very stressful time for parents and that they're eager to find something to do to just change the pace of their life. So I guess we'll see what happens with Mulan. I don't think we're going to be inviting Mallory on the show anytime soon to talk about Mulan, even though that was our plan.

We will at some point, but I don't think it's going to be the week of July 24th, which was, I mean, you know, it was the kind of understood wisdom in the weeks leading up to this, like that Disney did not want to be first. And now they are. And we'll see. We're recording this on June 15th. So and things change pretty quickly. But I would be surprised if it's July 24th. I wonder if the studios could do this over again, if they would do anything differently. Because Disney was one of the first to act. I think it was Universal that was the first to act

moving Fast and Furious 9 to April of 2021. But I feel like Disney moved Mulan and Black Widow fairly quickly. Yeah. Well, I think the very first was James Bond. That's right. You're right. And then which was which was recently like moved up five days, which again, seems pretty arbitrary and also like it won't hold. I don't really

understand. People just seem to be like moving calendars around. Yeah. If you're a calendar watcher, this has been kind of a kind of a confusing time. I mean, dozens and dozens of movies have already moved into 2021, but then some have moved back somewhat. And so getting a sense of kind of what is the 2020 film slate is quite confusing. In addition to moving Inception two weeks, we then saw Warner Brothers move Wonder Woman from August to October, which makes sense. October has always seemed to me personally closer to the time when these businesses would start to come back in full. Then again, I just listened to a podcast that indicated that the second wave in the fall

is even scarier than we thought. So there's so much unknown and so much ambient danger around this stuff that it feels hard to even have a definitive opinion about anything, which makes discussing it, let alone releasing these movies, challenging. Yeah, I am very puzzled by it. And this is all part of a larger conversation about how we're all handling COVID-19. And I would say that there is a certain amount of uncertainty right now in general, and standards are very different depending on where you live and how you're like local government or even how you relate to this news

because it is at some point it seems like we've moved on to like the personal decision phases of this um so that's true generally but i just keep coming back to the idea of the movies being such a specifically fraught experience in COVID-19 because it is just an inside space for an extended period of time. And again, I am not an epidemiologist and I don't understand, I don't know everything, but what I do understand generally is outdoors better than indoors. And also that there is a replacement there, like that at some point, the risk here is so not worth it because you can watch movies at home. We've been doing it for three months. It hasn't been as fun. I complain about it every day, every time we do a podcast, because it's boring and it doesn't have that feeling of like something to do, you know,

as you mentioned with parents taking kids to Milan. And I like, I miss that as much of anyone. And I think movies are as important as anything in terms of how we see ourselves and how we understand the world and experiencing things together. I believe in all of that. And also I can watch them in my home. I just don't understand the risk. And it's, it seems so strange to me that we're at a point where just a lot of really large corporations are just betting all of their money on people being willing to take that risk on their own. I don't know how you get past that, especially with the uncertainty in terms of the science and the fall and everything else that's going on. I think that there is arguably a meaningful reflection in these distribution companies and these movie theaters in the way that the governments, the local governments, the state governments, the federal governments make decisions there.

Once we enter the realm of freedom of opportunity, which is what some states have been enacting over the last three to four to six weeks, you're right. It puts the decision-making power solely in the hands of citizens. And with no restrictions, there's significant complications. We've seen in states like Texas and the Carolinas, which reopened, some would say prematurely, the cases have risen over time. It'll be interesting to see if places of business like movie theaters that are indoors will even be open when we get to July 31st, especially if cases continue to grow.

There's so many unknowns around this. And this is, it really has not radically changed. It might've felt two weeks ago like it was radically changing. But if we look at where we are now, it has not radically changed from where we were when we first had a conversation about Tenet and the future of opening theaters up.

So one thing that I did notice that I think is interesting is I think that there are sort of two sacrificial lambs, for lack of a better phrase, to this experience that are coming before Inception reopens and before Tenet comes and before Mulan comes. There are two movies slated right now for July 10th. I'm sure most listeners are not familiar or aware of these movies that are coming But one is called unhinged which we've joked about before the russell crowe road rage drama Which was gonna come on july 1st and be the first film to officially start the summer for july 4th weekend When inception excuse me when tenant moved it moved to july 10th And sony also has a film called the broken hearts Gallery, which is also coming on July 10th. I haven't even seen a trailer for The Broken Hearts Gallery. It's coming out in three and a half weeks. But those two movies, they're just,

they're guinea pigs. And we've seen, you know, some solid numbers for a handful of films for drive-in movie theaters. But these movies are meant to open in however many hundreds or even thousands of theaters are going to be in however many hundreds or even thousands of theaters are going to be open around the country. Are you going to be going to see the Broken Hearts Gallery in a movie theater on July 10th? I am not because I, like you, had to do some Googling as to what the Broken Hearts Gallery is before we did this podcast. And I also could not find a trailer. I have a very cynical take on these two movies in general. And I don't want to endorse anything that I'm about to say, but it does seem like these are

two movies where even before COVID-19, people might not have gone to theaters to see them because that's just the nature of our movie watching behavior now. And I do wonder whether there is a certain marketing attempt to be the first movies back in the hopes that people do have that. I just want to go to the movie theater. And for me, I don't see it as a risk and I need something to do. And so I'll go see this random Russell Crowe movie that I literally never would have paid a dollar for otherwise. See, that's exactly the kind of movie that I would have paid $6 for at home. But I'm so unlikely to go to a movie theater to see that movie. And I think a lot of people will agree, but you're right. There is Unhinged gets to be the movie that spawns a thousand think pieces about whether or not movie theaters should

be opening up anytime soon because of the success or lack thereof of that movie. And I do think to an extent, Tenet and Warner Brothers are also playing that game a bit in terms of tying it to opening movie theaters. And, you know, we have done multiple podcasts at this point about Tenet and whether people will go see it and whether it'll open movie theaters. over that inherent risk of like, is it safe? But just also awareness of movies for something as large as Tenet usually requires like several months of advertising and specifically during sports games and other big ticket events that don't exist right now. So the marketing machine isn't there.

And it, again, cynical, not endorsing it, but it does seem to me a little bit like they're hoping that by being the first big movie out, they'll catch that wave of enthusiasm and interest. That date strikes me as very interesting, too, because while we saw, say, the PGA Tour come back officially last weekend, we know most likely, though not certainly, but most likely the NBA is going to come back at the end of July. There was obviously some pushback from players that met last Friday and some concern. And things can evolve in that story. But the NBA in particular, in the start of the NBA playoffs, is going to be closely stitched to this. The same way that it would have been used very specifically to market tenant to audiences. A movie starring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson from Christopher Nolan is prime marketing material for fans of the NBA, for

folks like us. So the fact that the NBA could be back on July 30th and in its first game or first series of games, which will have massive audience numbers based on the audience numbers from The Last Dance and The Match 2 and these handful of sports events that have been dotted through the calendar through these three months. We know that a lot of people are going to be tuned in to, I don't even know, Bucks, Wizards, you know, who knows what game we're all going to be checking out.

But a lot of people are going to be watching. And so with all those people watching, they'll have more awareness of Tenet. And maybe they'll even be, you know, I remember being kind of emotionally coerced into feeling like I need to see a movie. Since I've started covering this space much more aggressively, I don't have those feelings in quite the same way. But I think a lot of movie fans are just like, oh yeah, I need to be a part of this. And I wonder if that power will still hold despite

everything, all of the circumstances happening in the world from COVID-19 to the protest movement that is happening to everything that is going on in the world. I wonder if people would be like, I do need to go be a part of this movie so that I can be a part of the conversation. Do you think that people's emotional calculus has changed in any meaningful way since everything that's happened? I mean, yes, in the sense that people are in their homes and they're feeling isolated and they're cut off and they want to be a part of something. But it's interesting, as you were describing, watching that first NBA game and what a big deal it will be.

My understanding, and again, also not an NBA expert, but that you'll be watching it on TV. There will not be fans there. There will be an intense quarantining system in place. So there's a real difference between participating in something on your TV screen from the comfort of your home and going to a movie. And honestly, in a lot of ways, being so aware of all the precautions that the NBA is putting in place to bring back games that you can watch,

would, I think, make people slightly more aware of the risks inherent of going to, say, a movie theater. I don't know that if it's one-to-one, even if you're having that intense shared cultural experience that we all crave right now. Yeah. And we saw this weekend, more so than any other weekend in the history of movies, what happens when you put mainstream movies that are largely designed for movie theater release into the world. Now, it's a little bit difficult to evaluate the data. Later this week on the show, we're going to talk about The King of Staten Island, which is Judd Apatow's new movie starring Pete Davidson.

That movie was offered to audiences for $20 on VOD. We also talked last week on the show about Defy Bloods, which was a film that was made for Netflix. Though I suspect if we were not going through this period, that movie would have received a theatrical release of some kind because of Spike Lee and because of the nature of that movie and the awards campaign that is contingent upon that movie. Instead, the release date was pushed up, no theatrical release. And then the third film, which I assume you did not check out, and I only checked out briefly, was Artemis Fowl. Yeah, I was wondering if we were going to talk about this.

Am I going to have to watch this at some point? I looked at the schedule last week and then I was like, I, well, in full transparency, a few weeks ago, my thought was, why don't we have an Artemis Fowl conversation? Why don't we invite a bunch of the parents from The Ringer onto the show, talk to them about what they're showing their kids in quarantine and make all of them watch artemis fallon talk about it so that was my plan and i always think it's amusing to make you watch a kid's movie anyhow

yeah but but then um on a quiet friday night after after my wife fell asleep i fired up artemis fell and uh it's uh it's not what you want Fowl. And it's not what you want. It's just, it's not what you want. It's quite bad. I would argue it's worse than what critics have told you, which is that it is atrocious. So I don't think that that's an episode we're going to do. So I'm not sure you need to watch this film.

Oh, good. Oh, that's great. That's great news. There we go. Full of exciting movie news on a Monday here on The Big Picture. Yeah. I mean, that movie falls into an interesting category of YA adaptation, of which I'm not familiar with the source material at all. And there have been a number

of movies like this over the last 10 to 20 years. Ender's Game comes to mind. That's another a book that I wasn't familiar with, but there was a big kind of splashy release starring Harrison Ford that also greatly disappointed fans. I think Artemis Fowl really disappointed fans in a pretty big way. I think Zach Cram wrote about that on The Ringer today as well. And the reason that it disappointed them in part, I find to be kind of fascinating, which is that the Artemis Fowl character is like a kind of an unlikable supervillain and he's not your classic hero archetype and Kenneth Branagh decided to dispatch with that he is of course as the director of Artemis Fallon tried to just make him a little bit more neutral and likable which is literally

I think the point of that story if I'm reading things correctly so in addition to that and Josh Gad just just being oh no being deeply troubling in this movie, I won't go into detail. I think that we can stay far away from Artemis Fowl. I say all of that to say to you that we basically got three different examples of the at-home movie experience this weekend. We got the movie that was planned for Netflix, which came directly to us from Netflix.

I think it's certainly better than most of the movies that go directly to Netflix and more interesting and more worthy of examination. We got the movie that was planned for theatrical release from a major filmmaker that went to VOD, which we've seen a little bit over time during this period. And then we got the movie that was planned for theatrical release, but that basically got kicked to a streaming service because it wasn't good enough, or there was fear that it would bomb at the box office office or there was kind of a cutting your losses thing going on. And just from your perspective over the weekend, did you feel like anything really dominated the conversation? Did any of those three feel loud the way that a movie, maybe not like Tenet because that's unfair to compare it to, but

the way that a movie, a June release normally would in your timeline or amongst your friends. No, though, I think that that's a little bit more to do with everything else that's going on in America right now, that it's just, we have some very serious central conversations, whether they're about the protest movement or what's going on in Atlanta, or just, or COVID-19, or, you know, those are, that is the central cultural thing. And so I, you know, my, my movie nerd friends, I heard from one person who watched the Spike Lee movie and, and you and I and Chris Ryan talked about King of Staten Island, though I hadn't even watched it yet. So that was useless from my perspective. I did catch up. So it seems like honestly kind of just how the sort of normal slightly, you know, niche cultural experiences now, which like different people seeking out

different things that are interesting to them. Yeah. Let me ask you this. I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should go to the Telluride Film Festival. And I feel like this is very connected to some of this tenant anxiety. The Telluride Film Festival is happening the first week of September over Labor Day weekend. And I went last year and it was time of my life. One of the most enjoyable things I've done for work ever. And it's a beautiful city. They put on obviously an incredible festival. Many people think it is the best American film festival. It's very intimate. Telluride in particular has been very progressive and aggressive about handling COVID-19. But again, this would be an experience in which I spend all day sitting in a movie theater with strangers, many of whom have come

from out of town. It's unclear what kind of testing protocol there will be. Telluride is very different from the other film festivals in that you have to buy a ticket. All attendees must buy a ticket, even if you're in the press. So that ticket's already been bought and paid for. My lodging has already been bought and paid for. So in theory, I can go.

This would be, I guess, five weeks after that tenant date. If you were me, would you go to the Telluride Film Festival? Well, that's an interesting question just because I also know how your psychology works. And I know your relationship to, you know, the packages that have been brought kind of, I can only see it in terms of the general value, you know, the non COVID value of the film festival versus the COVID value of the film festival. And I think film festivals are obviously a celebration of movies, which is a thing both you and I like and Telluride's obviously, um, very beautiful and you like mountains

you specifically Sean. I do. So you get to be in a beautiful place with like mountains. You specifically, Sean, like mountains. I do. I love mountains. So you get to be in a beautiful place with like-minded people seeing movies before everybody else and then get to talk about them. And there is a communal aspect of that and there's an energy aspect of it. And there is also these festivals do really important work in terms of making sure that some lesser known directors and movies get seen. They're kind of the finders for a lot of the movies that we talk about on this podcast. So that all has like significant value.

You can do everything except the communal part of the Telluride experience and the mountains. I'm sorry about the mountains. Like in Los Angeles or at home, you, I mean, you just can't, it's just, and again, it's because like we have the technology and there are a lot of things in this world right now that you can't replace at your home. And, and, and it is also a little bit of a loss for the, the lesser known filmmakers who won't get discovered though. Again, hopefully if Telluride, you know, if it happens, then it happens. And you, Sean, weren't finding and programming the

Telluride Film Festival anyway. But also if not, then hopefully they can do what Cannes did and, you know, make some sort of selection so that people can then seek them out in their own time, as most people would do anyway, because most people are not at a film festival. So my thing is just, it's very hard again. And I feel this way about going to a movie theater and I feel this way about a film festival. It's very hard to rationalize this specific activity because we have the ability to replace most of it without endangering a lot of people, whether it's theater workers or other people in the theater at a screening. And, you know, I know that has trade-offs in terms of also theater workers and people at the screenings need to also be employed. And that is a real problem. So I, and I don't

really know how to balance that, but I, I just, I find it hard to justify. I've said that 15 different ways. But on the other hand, it's a little bit, it's your job to an extent. I mean, it's your job to see the movies. It's going to be both of our jobs to see Tenet. Like it's actually our job to see Tenet at some point, because how else can we do this podcast? And other people will go see it and talk about it.

So we're missing out and not doing our jobs as well as we could, which is not acceptable to either of us. So I don't know. It's a conundrum. You mentioned what the Cannes Film Festival did, which we haven't had a chance to talk about, which I thought was interesting, which is that they essentially had the announcement of the films that would be participating in this year's Cannes, though they did not actually hold the festival. And they didn't show any of the films. You can't see any of the films anywhere. They just identified that these films were selected for the festival and that they would have that kind of classic Cannes insignia in front of the film when they run it,

whenever they end up running it in art houses or in major theater chains around the world. And there were some obvious films that were on the list there like Wes Anderson's, what is that? French Dispatch. The French Dispatch. Thank you. But there were other films like the new Lea S. Carrick's movie, which apparently is unfinished, which did not make the list. And then there was some speculation, well, did some people not want to be a part of this year's Cannes Film Festival because of the circumstances, because people couldn't see it, because it couldn't get that hype that you're talking about, that conversation, that aspect of discovery that is so key to these festivals? You know, South by Southwest did a very modulated, very reduced version of virtual screenings through Amazon. But it was, I mean, it struck me as less than one-tenth of the slate that was supposed to appear. And it seems like a lot of people opted not to participate because they were afraid that it would limit their ability to

participate in an actual film festival and have that promotional boost that so many of these films need. And I really don't mean to diminish that in saying that film festivals are replaceable. They're not. All of this involves a certain amount of loss in terms of or giving things up. It's not how we would want to see and celebrate films. Yeah. In the context of the world right now, it's a very modest sacrifice to have your film stream or not stream. But in the context of the world of movies and art, you make things for a specific venue. You want to see it in that venue.

And that venue could be a festival or just theaters in general. And so there is this, it's just a very complicated and unlikely to be settled issue in the near future. And as you said, I mean, I think you and I will probably be going to the movies in July. And that's very complicated for me personally, because people know where I stand in terms of my relationship to germs and just my general concern about this entire epidemic. And that's a little complicated to me because we have a lot of people who listen to this podcast. And if they want to keep listening, you know, I hope that you don't put that much stock by what we do. And like, please live your own life. Like, God, don't listen to anything I say ever in terms of your life choices. But, you know, it's at some point there's just like a domino effect of everyone's just kind of like, well, OK, I guess we have to do this because Christopher Nolan wants us

to see everything in a big screen, which all respect to Christopher Nolan, who is a tremendous director, even though Sean, you know, has good days and bad days with his work. And I won't dispute. He's a tremendous director. And, and,

and I think, you know, he has the kind of, you want a director to have like a lot of say in terms of how their work is made and how it's produced. But when it becomes an issue of public health, it's, it. It's a lot to ask. As we cast forward, we probably should discuss everything that's happened with the Oscars because all of these things are interconnected now. This is all one big story of what the movie industry is for the next 12 months. And on Friday, we got

news that there were two fairly significant changes happening at the Oscars. The first was a little bit less defined than I think some people wanted it to be. But in an announcement that the Academy shared, they planned to set up a task force to, quote, develop and implement new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars eligibility by July 31st, 2020. So I guess we'll get more information about that on the same day that Tenet is released, theoretically. And what that will mean is difficult to say. Likely, it means that the people who participate in the making of the film, the marketing of the film, the advertising of the film, but most specifically the production, that there are standards of inclusion. And so that those films are broadly considered up to these standards of

diversity that have been created. Now, the Academy has obviously been going through this kind of fascinating and convulsive experience over the last 10 years where it is attempting to get less old, less white, less nationalistic, and much more international, and expanding the pool of people who can participate in voting for the Academy, in the experience of being a part of the Academy Awards, and just growing the general interest in the show. And so to me, that last part is where this is a little bit sticky because, you know, if you are more cynical, and I can be cynical about these things, I think a lot of these choices are made certainly to reflect the moment and to reflect the kind of the pain and the frustration that everybody is

experiencing right now. And also to account for the fact that to grow, you have to appeal to more people and that all the 80-year-old men are dying and they're dying the way that all people die over time. And if interest in the Academy Awards does not grow over time and it has not been growing over time, then what do you do with this award show that is this big and important machine to so many different partners across the world? So on the one hand, inclusion is incredible and important. And we're all very mindful that it's something that needs to happen. I think most specifically in the industry and not in the awards game, but those two things are interrelated. So, you know, I'm sharing a lot of kind initiatives without having actually like thought through the initiatives and thinking also of the best popular Oscar. But, you know, if you announce that, hey, we're going to present some standards to address diversity and inclusion at a later date, what that is implying is that you have

not thought about the standards to address diversity inclusion up until this point. And on the one hand, that's like probably true. So I, the, the Academy is like, is at least being honest. And I think in general, I'm for doing something both at the Academy and at the movies in general, you know, because we talk about it every year with Oscars so white or the lack of female directors nominated, or it's just, I mean, it is a constant problem, but more generally to the, this, cause I, you always get so nervous about the ratings. I know you're so nervous about the Oscar ratings. And so as, so as ABC, which I understand. So, so, so are the big corporations that want to make a lot of money. Um, I have always been slightly less nervous just because I think live TV is just not going to grow.

I mean, we're just here we are. At some point this year has been accepting some of the technological realities that have been upon us for some time. They have definitely been accelerated by COVID-19 and other events. But you mentioned that certain members of the Academy are dying. You know what else is dying? Movies. Movies are dying. And we need someone to advocate for them. And to the extent that the Academy, which for all of the nights of the year that it's not focused on the Oscars, is about advocating for movie history. And, you know, it's building this big fancy museum that is supposed to be for movie history. And, you know, it's building this big

fancy museum that is supposed to be about movie history. And it does a lot of work to preserve the last hundred or 150 years of Hollywood. So I am okay with the Oscars being like, now we're going to be about preserving movies and advocating for movies, which is an art form that is like being encroached upon. I feel like the last five years, all of the Academy's positions have been organized around, we can't control the box office, and we can't control this, and we can't control that. So we just have to make due to the outside forces. And I understand that's true to an extent, especially where money's involved. But the Oscars are made up Like the Academy is totally made up. It's a group of people where they get to decide

who's in it and who's not. The rules, they get to decide who's not. At the end of the day, it's like trophies for movies. So why not like put your elbow in it and start trying to have like take a little bit more action

in terms of what the Oscars look like and how they reflect both what movies are and what people who care about history want movies to be. I'm okay with it. I agree. In general, the mission over the last 10 years has been a great one. I think specifically when Cheryl Boone Isaacs became the president of the Academy, she obviously implemented a lot of change that is taking effect in terms of the voting body and what kinds of films are recognized. There's still this almost dissonant experience though,

where Moonlight wins and then two or three years later, Green Book wins. And it feels like for three steps forward, it's five steps back at times. And so in a way, there's obviously been progress made. We just talked last week about the Board of Governors vote and the fact that Ava DuVernay and Lynette Howell-Taylor and more women and more people of color are now a member of the Board of Governors, which is more meaningfully going to change how the Academy implements these plans, these ideas about inclusion. And I think that most of them are all in good faith. But I do worry about the quote-unquote ratings,

like you say, not because I care how much money ABC makes from the Oscars, but I do care about that made-up award. I do care about... Because it's the closest we have to a kind of historicity of this filmmaking thing. And it is utterly imperfect. It is, in many ways, it is defined by its imperfection. And if you go back and look

through the history of the shows that we have at times on the show over the years, a lot of the time they're just getting things wrong. But in getting things wrong, we can kind of learn about where the mistakes were too. And that's part of what I like about them. So to have something like this be meaningful, I guess it's all sort of built on a cynical gambit over time. And so this is maybe it's just one more slightly cynical gambit to increase the historical aspect of the awards. I agree with all of that, but it's just like, I don't know. We might as well try. I mean, the Oscars are a mess. And I think, you know, we have spent a lot of the podcast and especially the Oscars portion of the podcast, which I care too, like making fun of the Academy and being like, you can't trust anything the Academy does.

And it's a group of people who like never see the movies and don't, you know, only, and why not try to change that? Why? Because you can. And, and I, like, I admire the And I admire that they are trying to change it. It's obviously going to be rocky. There are going to be starts and fits and things that work and things that don't work. And anytime you have a very complex voting system, things even get trickier. But I'm open to it because something,

like things do need to change, not just in the Oscars, but just also in movies in general. I agree with you. Specifically, some other changes that happened is that they implemented a new set of term limits around some of those governors, which means there will be more turnover amongst that body that, you know, the Board of Governors is largely responsible for making key decisions around the show, not just when the show airs or when the show, who hosts the show in conjunction with the producers. But when something like the popular Oscar mandate is suggested, the governors are a

part of that conversation. The governors were also a big part of a couple of other decisions that were made, specifically the decision to fully expand the pool of Best Picture nominees to 10 total nominees. So this is slightly confusing, but let me try to just provide a little bit of context. In 2009, after a slew of less successfully rated shows, the Academy made the decision to expand the pool to 10 total nominees, 10 Best Picture nominees. Two years went by, and then they made a decision to reduce that to a variable number between five and ten best picture nominees now since they made that decision there has not been ten nominees there's only been eight

and nine i believe maybe one time in that period there's been ten but i think it's only been eight and nine over the course of just about a decade so this decision helps in terms of its ability to include more a more diverse array of films. You and I can speculate about what were the films that were kind of left on the cutting room floor over time. Many people have speculated, for example, that Knives Out was the movie that likely would have taken the 10th spot last year, but did not get it because only nine films qualified based on the voting rules. So now we have 10 total, which means more movies. Remind me again how you feel about the five movies versus five to 10 movies versus 10 movies total. I like 10 movies. Why

not? I know that there are purists and there are people who I don't really care. Why not? Like, again, it's all made up. I think it's all made up. And I do honestly think that having different types of movies you know more spaces allows for different types of movies and that both like brings people in but also kind of reflects like a larger scale of what movies can be and possibly over time you can redefine um what what is a best picture nominee and how we understand it because for so long it was it was just two war movies and three costume dramas. And that was it. And that was your best picture. And in a lot of ways, I think we were so resistant to the idea of a popular Oscar, number one, because they announced it without any thought. But number two, because we believe that movies that would be eligible for a

popular Oscar should just be included in best picture. So add some more, you know, let's, let's do it. That's where I am. I'm with you. If there's an opportunity to talk about more movies, I want to be able to talk about more movies. I want to get, I want to get more international films in the mix. I want to get more films from people of color, more films from female filmmakers. And also just, I think one of the things that the Oscars really needs is more movies that don't seem like Oscar movies. You know, I think that

Judd Apatow was on Bill's show last week talking about, or maybe it was on the Rewatchables, just talking about how awards work for comedies. The Oscars has never really gotten that right. You know, it's never really

gotten right how to award international cinema up until about last year when Parasite won, you know, it's never really gotten right how to award action films. It's never really gotten right how to award. I mean, the superhero movie conversation is ongoing and kind of fascinating. I don't think that there are any superhero movies in the near future that

are going to be necessarily competing in the way that something like Black Panther did, but maybe I'm wrong about that. And maybe expanding to 10 means that, I don't know, we get Black Widow, Black Widow at the Oscars. What do you think? I'm looking forward to Black Widow whenever we finally get to see it. So all of this is leading to the kind of the last and final change that was announced. Interestingly, 72 hours after these other changes were announced, news broke on Sunday night that it seemed like the Oscars was going to get pushed. And then on Monday morning, we learned that in fact, the Board of Governors had agreed

to push the Oscars back from a February date to April 25th, 2021. Now, this is not the first time that this has happened. If you look back at the other moments in which the Oscars has previously been delayed, they're pretty significant. In 1938, the flooding in LA led to the postponement of the Oscars. In 1968, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led to a postponement. And in 1981, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan led to the postponement. COVID-19, this extraordinary moment in time certainly seems worthy of those other moments. It does kind of fuck with the general notion of what a year is and what a year and accomplishment in movies is. And unfortunately for my lizard brain, like this is how I organize the year.

So- I think that's the most Sean shit of all time. Yet, you know what else fucked with the concept of a year and time? COVID-19. Sean, you've been inside for three months, okay? Do you know it's June? It's like, I haven't gotten dressed since March.

Like a lot of things are on pause, okay? Like the way that we measure and understand time and our connections to our other people in our lives and our communities and our sense of selves, it's like all been changed. So they wanna move the Oscars, a made up award ceremony two months so that they actually have movies to give awards to.

That is just common sense. Thank you, Academy. A thing I never say on this podcast. First of all, I'm wearing a shirt with a collar today. I'm incredibly proud of myself. I'm wearing running clothes. Yeah. And so with this extension, it means the eligibility window for Oscar movies has been extended to February 28th, 2021. Obviously, normally the eligibility window is December 31st of the given year. And so the way that we even organized this show- You're so mad. Your nostrils are flaring. Your nostrils are flaring. You're just like-

I'm not mad. A calendar year ends on December 31st. Like, I know, okay? I would not say that I'm mad. I would say that the Academy has taken upon itself to disrupt the Roman calendar, you know? And I don't know what to do about that. I'm just not sure how to mark time if I can't mark it by what's happening in terms of the big holiday releases in Oscar season, you know?

Unfortunately, my brain is fucked up and that's just how I am. So I'm trying to negotiate. There is a slightly more serious aspect to this, which is that this decision, while certainly noble and making an effort to account for not just the films that were finished and held back,

but more specifically films that need to finish to qualify and otherwise would have been finished to qualify, which I think is noble and decent and the right thing to do for a lot of these films and a lot of these artists that are going to be recognized. And as much as we joke about the Oscars, the Oscars can completely change someone's life, career, everything. And I don't just mean Steven Spielberg. I mean, people who win Oscars for short films, who win Oscars for things like production design or hair and makeup. These categories

propel people to greater exposure, greater potential for success. So all that stuff matters. It does, however, discount a lot of the films that we have seen over the last three months. And to indicate necessarily that the films that have come out over the last three months are sort of don't count, and in many ways, maybe are not worthy, I think it would have been a fascinating experiment to just say, the movies that are going to VOD, those movies are worthy too. You know, Never Rarely, Sometimes, Always is worthy.

You know, The Assistant is worthy. There are movies that we've talked about. First Cow is worthy that we saw that came to theaters or came home. King of Staten Island, say what you will about it. I actually think there's like a credible awards case for a couple of people in King of Staten Island. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to be nominated,

but, you know, Bill Burr and Marissa Tomei, we'll get into that when we talk about the movie. But I was like, these are pretty awesome performances in this movie. So it's not as if there isn't anything happening that shouldn't be a part of this. And what I think this announcement does is it feels like it puts a red circle around March through June or July and says, like, don't worry about this stuff so much. Now, you also have pointed out many times that

movies that come out between March and June never really get nominated anyway. I mean, not to bring Twitter into this, but you responded to this news with a joke on Twitter about Bad Boys 3 no longer being eligible for an Oscar. So like you also understood a little bit that the movies that were released in the first six months of this year, number one, traditionally, that's a not successful time to launch an Oscar movie. There are notable exceptions, but also that they just didn't release as many movies. I mean, they did release a lot of movies. We did a whole podcast about some great movies that were released on streaming

but it did feel like the studios and distributors were playing that Oscar game a little bit and anticipating, okay, well, this will make sense on streaming and we probably won't lose that much in terms of a future Oscar campaign if we release this now um with all respect to uh natalie wood what remains behind uh which i just is still i remember the whole thing because it's a redundant movie title anyway so i it i think you're right that it it kind of admits publicly that the Oscars season kind of starts now or even starts in a few months, probably starts in September.

Though in reality, Oscars season always started in September for 80 to 90% of the movies that were campaigning for Oscars. So in that sense, you're giving a couple extra months. Yeah, there are some interesting side ramifications of that. There are a handful of films that premiered at Sundance, for example, that were tabbed for Oscar. Crip Camp, for example, was tabbed for Oscar. We just saw Defy Bloods was moved up to June. And now it will have an extended period of time to live in the

consciousness. It'll have about eight or nine months as opposed to six months to sit in the consciousness for voters to decide whether it's worthy. And is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? I think it's unclear. We saw On the Record hit HBO Max a few weeks ago, and that's a film that people have thought could compete for Best Documentary. Will that movie be a distant memory? And will all the docs that come in September, October, November, December, but then also January and February, also have a part there?

Will there be a Sundance Film Festival again in January that then distorts this in some way? Because, I mean, we just saw, for example, the Taylor Swift documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and then appeared on Netflix a week or two later.

And that would have been before, if it were happening next year, it would have been before that eligibility window closed. So you could also have films that were leaning into the 2021 release date slide into this space. Will people respect that?

Will they sense weakness and then try to strategize around it? There are all of these little, this whole episode is about dominoes and all of these dominoes falling. And it's all this big circular collection of layers and layers of dominoes. And you tip one and then all of a sudden everything falls back and back and back. I don't know. I mean, do you think that people will now be strategizing against this and trying to say like, oh, well, this category is soft, so I better get in there on February 27th? It's possible, though, again, there's so much we don't know in terms of production and finishing movies and extending that window, as you said, was as much about a lot of movies that aren't

quite done. And, you know, in the same way that we spent a large part of this podcast talking about, are we really going to go to see Tenet on July 31st? It's like, is every movie really going to go back into production in the next two months? Is that going to go perfectly? Are there not going to be any further setbacks? We don't really know. So to me, the extra two months is just a little bit of room to give people different ways to try to solve this problem because there are so many hurdles in the movie production and distribution process in the next six months and again we like we don't know what's going to happen we don't know what's going to happen in terms of COVID-19 we don't know what's going to happen in terms of movie theaters

we don't know you know and and we don't know also you could see like how campaigns are going to work. We don't know whether we're going to have campaigns. We don't know whether they're going to be any events. Then, then what happens if everything's online, does it matter whether you released your movie in October versus March? If you can figure out the like right campaign and you can figure out the right, like zoom panel or whatever. I think there's like, there's a flattening of time there that is very upsetting to calendar worshipers like yourself, but that I think it could look really different. So everything that we said about Oscar season starts in September, maybe not.

Do you think that every single other awards body and voting group will follow suit because the Oscars is obviously the pace setter. It's the conclusion of this massive apparatus. And certainly like the Golden Globes falls into that category and SAG and the DGA and these award shows that we talk about, but also the Critics Circle Awards and who goes first and who goes second? And when does AFI announce their 10 best films of the year? You know, will all of that stuff move into February because of this decision or January? How do you think that's going to play out? I would assume so. I mean, that has been the case in terms of, I believe it was the Oscars who first announced

the changes to their eligibility window in response to COVID-19 and then the Golden Globes and SAG Awards. Their Golden Globes might have done some of it first, but I think the Oscars were the leader and everyone else kind of took cues from them. Golden Globes is also a special example of there is no point in having the Golden Globes if you can't have all the celebrities and tables in a room. Because the show is the point of the Golden Globes. We all make relentless fun of their actual awards giving process and decisions. So with what is an Oscars show and or what is a Golden Globe show is a question that is looming and that was not resolved this morning. I that one one thing I've been watching is the Emmys, which is really different

because the Emmys are currently scheduled for September 20th. And I think there's a real difference between September 20th and April 25th in terms of COVID-19 and just what we'll know and how we can prepare. But for now, the Emmy ceremony itself is still scheduled for September 20th, and there's no details on how they're doing it. But they did recently move their creative arts Emmys to they'll do a virtual version of it. And they're not having having the governor's balls at the Emmys. So it seems like the Emmys are scaling back on the in-person events. And, you know, and they had already already considerably scaled back the for your consideration panels and events around it. So that'll be interesting to watch just in terms of what it predicts for the Oscars.

Yeah. And to that point, we also learned that the Board of Governors Awards will not be happening, which typically takes place in the fall. And that's sort of a key hobnobbing event where the Humanitarian Award is given out and the Thalberg Award is given out. And last year, folks like Lena Wertmuller and David Lynch were honored and Wes Studi was honored. And it's unclear this year who's going to be honored. There's a rumor going around that Sean Penn is going to be recognized for his humanitarian work and win the Herschel Award, which I am a fan of Sean Penn as an actor. I find, I would find that to be a fascinating choice by the Academy to honor

a white savior. That just doesn't seem like the right move right now. I would, I also, I admire his humanitarian work and would also agree with everything you said. And also just want to be like, remember when Sean Penn interviewed El Chapo, which was like the first thing I thought of when I read that. Anyway, it's just, it seems like we could pick less complicated people to award. Yeah, I agree. Let's just give Spike Lee another award. Let's find a way to recognize recognize somebody's work who is meaningfully

representative of the moment which is not to take anything away from sean penn but sean penn is very wealthy and has a lot of exposure in the world and has been recognized many times in fact he's won best actor at the oscars twice so you know he's got some oscars already um forgot about that second one yeah yeah so but without something like the board of Governors Award, which is a hobnobbing event, and without these FYC panels, and without some of these parties, do you think that the Oscars might more meaningfully recognize, at least from our perspective, what we view to be worthy films and not films that ran the best campaign? I would like to think so. I don't know why I'm so optimistic on this podcast. And I'm just like, wow, the future and everything is, you know, humanity and common sense and ideals will triumph when I know that's almost never the case.

But a real zag from you. I don't know. I do think that moving it away from the intense focus on, because Academy events and a typical campaign is about just like pandering to Academy members. And you're focusing on the Academy members as opposed to the movies. And something where you focus on the movies instead of the members, number one, that naturally means you have to think more to the movies and something where you focus on the movies instead of the

members number one that naturally means you have to think more about the movies and also you got to make the voters come to the movies instead of the movies going to the voters and that's an interesting um another not rule change but kind of system that was announced for next the next academy season the 94th oscar season is that the they're going to create like a quote quarterly viewing process and basically create a streaming site and make it possible for academy members to watch the movies presumably for free because they all love a free movie screening um who among us yeah well it's true i i should not, you know, cast stones, but they will make it technologically possible for Academy members to keep up with movies and watch them and it's screening throughout the year as opposed to that like mad rush at the end of the year when people are just seem to like cram for the Oscars and only watch the ones that certain people told them to. So in that sense as well, that's of like putting the focus on the movies instead of the voters.

And you have to hope that if more people are actually seeing the movies, then there is some sort of change. And also the people who don't watch the movies are not included in the process as much. One thing I couldn't really suss out from that announcement specifically, which I think in general is a good thing, is will it be mandated that you watch the movie? That seems important. Yes. And they have that on certain, I believe in the international

language film, it is now mandated that you have to watch all of the submissions or the nominees in order to be able to vote. It didn't seem like that in this initial announcement, though, again, they love to just announce things without all the rules in place. And also it's for next year. So maybe there's time to put it together. But I got to say, just if they can actually make it easy for people to watch movies, never underestimate the benefit in just making it easy for people to consume stuff. People are lazy, and I count myself in that. I've just been like, oh, I can click on this? Okay, well, now I'll watch it.

I think that that goes a long way. I agree. I it's so funny because you know this award show as you very perceptively point out is more or less a secret club that is run and does not have to operate with any transparency if it does not want to and as it increases its transparency it increases its vulnerability for us to ask for more and so me as a person who you know not only covers this space and is interested in its history, but is just immensely invested in it on a day-to-day basis, if I hear something like, oh yeah, we're starting a quarterly viewing process, rather than say like, bravo, well done. I'm like, yes, but how will you track whether or not all of your members have watched all

of these films? And how dare you build a process without giving me all the information? They don't owe it to us. They don't owe us anything. And yet I find myself demanding things about this ephemeral award show. I think that it's a good idea. I don't want to demand, but I would request that the Academy just really think through all of its announcements before it makes them. Let's put a review board in place. We're making a lot of changes. Let's do one more. I just think that would be great for everybody. But I remember Kevin Hart.

Remember Kevin Hart, Oscar host? You know, remember Brett Ratner, Oscars producer? Yeah, there's a there's a long history of decisions made. Ill considered and roll back. Yeah, maybe maybe they can get better. This seems slightly. They already seems slightly they already are they already are seems more considered even though it's like the you know you don't want to see diversity tk in anything but it's otherwise it seems like they are like taking this seriously and to what i was

saying earlier like kind of embracing this idea of okay this is our is our awards show and our organization and our industry to change. And I am glad to see that, even though I agree, it's risky to do that because it does invite more questions, as you said, especially from people like you who are just going to be keeping spreadsheets of how many movies every single Academy member watched. Because what you want is all of that information to be public. You want it to be on Letterboxd. I would love that. I think that would be great for the Letterboxd platform.

I think accountability is important. And I think if somebody like Ava DuVernay is on the board of governors, she is almost certainly going to bring more accountability to the process. We know just from the way that she has engaged with Hollywood in the last 10 years that that's important to her. And so I expect that that will continue to change. I think I was really just making that observation, not to say that the Academy owes me anything.

They owe me nothing, but more just that I have a problem. You know, I'm being self-critical. Like, I got to figure out what's wrong with me and why this matters so much to me. Well, but I think that's good. The flip side is that the Academy needs people to care about it, right? The Academy needs people to care about it. It needs people to care about the movies. Movies freaking need people to care about them or otherwise we're just going to be watching like four hour formless TV shows on

streaming that are called movies for the rest of time. And that makes me really sad because I don't like doing that. I like movies. And then every once in a while I watch TV when I have some time. But so in a way, the fact that they are inviting people to have weird opinions like you have on it is I think it's good because that's a different type of inclusion that is inviting people to invest in the process. And they need people to invest in it to survive and in order to then be able to do the work they want to do to preserve movies so we don't all just have to watch the Snyder Cut. Will Snyder Cut be nominated for Best Picture? What do you think?

No. Okay. Thanks for entertaining that in a serious fashion. A lot has changed in a very short period of time. I think a lot more is going to change. I think one of the great unknowns here is Tenet is going to open in a movie theater. I feel confident in saying that

if not on July 31st, we're going to see it in movie theaters. But will there be more and more and more and more films that decide to go to streaming, particularly if things around the country don't improve or if there is a second wave in the fall?

You know, at what point does Fox Searchlight decide the French Dis French dispatch is just better off in your home for 20 bucks? Is that I do you think that we'll be doing shows about that in two months? Yes, because I think if you'll recall, going back to the Oscars, when the Oscars announced their kind of streaming caveat because of COVID-19, that it was, I believe the language was for the foreseeable until further notice. That's what it was. It was until further notice movies will not have to qualify with a theatrical run. And, and then there was remember that second tier of once the theatrical run qualification is reinstated, they only have to run in one. They can run in one of several cities. So when does that kick back in? Do we know? I don't think that's been announced yet. And is that going to

kick back in with Tenet? Because I don't think Fox Searchlight is going to give up an Oscar run. But then once you have to do a theater run, then you have to start the whole war with the theaters and the theater chains again, who are still kind of saber rattling about AMC in particular is like, we still don't have any universal movies on our upcoming slate. Now, I think that that's just negotiating in public. I think everybody is going to come to some sort of agreement that it's probably more beneficial to universal than it is to AMC. But that will work out because that all of those people from a business perspective need to be back in business. But there's still a lot to be determined.

We're going to be covering it very closely as things evolve. Later this week, we're going to have at least one more episode, maybe even two. But we intended to discuss The King of Staten Island today, and there was just too much on our plate. So we're going to talk about that new film and the wider work of Judd Apatow. We're going to build a Judd Apatow Hall of Fame. Amanda has just rolled her eyes lightly at that idea. It was just a wide... I have watched a lot of Judd Apatow films this weekend and a lot of films that Judd Apatow has produced. So I did my homework and I'm ready to build a Hall of Fame of sorts. It is a staggering body of work and we'll be breaking it all down on the show. And then

maybe later this week, we'll also be talking about the best movies about making movies. So stay tuned to The Big Picture. And thanks as always to Bobby Wagner. Thanks, of course, to Amanda. Thank you.