AMPAS(LOS ANGELES) — Remember that Chris Rock Oscars bit in 2016 where Rock, that year’s host, quizzed people on the street as to whether or not they’d seen that year’s Academy Award-nominated movies? And it turned out that many people hadn’t even heard of the movies in question, let alone seen them? Well, that may soon change.
Perhaps as a reaction to last year’s ratings for the 90th annual Academy Awards, which were the lowest ever, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tweeted today that a new category is “being designed around achievement in popular film.”
What’s more, the ceremony’s 2020 show will air earlier in the year: February 9; by comparison, the 2019 show will be held on February 24.
The most welcome piece of news, though, is that the Academy says it will take steps to battle the show’s tendency to run long — way too long, in many cases — and create a “more globally accessible, three-hour telecast.”
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