Michael Cieply: Thought For A Hot July – Why Not Shake Up The Oscars With a “Midsummer Rule”?

deadline.com:

It’s July 1, summertime, a hot one. Political storms threaten. In West L.A., one of the awards-friendly billboards on Wilshire is blank; another is selling spring water.

Not a moment to be worrying about the Oscars. Or is it? Last year on this date, the eventual Best Picture winner Oppenheimer was just three weeks away from its domestic release, and construction fencing down by the beach was already plastered with atomic-blast posters zeroing in on the big prize. (And Barbie would arrive with it.) For what it’s worth, the ensuing Oscar ceremony saw a 4.3 percent bump in its domestic audience, to 19.5 million from 18.7 million the year before.

On July 1, 2022, moreover, Everything Everywhere All at Once had been on screens for 14 weeks, with a long run yet to come. (And Top Gun: Maverick had been running hot since Memorial Day.) The following March, when that fan-driven film won the top Oscar, the broadcast saw viewership jump 11.2 percent, from 16.6 million the year before (when tiny CODA won, as the Covid-depressed audience rebounded).

Granted, two blips don’t make a trend, even in the hair-trigger world of contemporary Web journalism. But they certainly prove that the early-to-midyear release of sophisticated yet popular movies can only help the Oscars.