The Academy's Summer Blockbuster Bias

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is notorious for its biases when it comes to awarding the Oscars each year. Most notable among those are the ones against Comedies, Horror Movies, Action Movies, and a strange bias against visionary directors who were ahead of their time such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese(combined Best Director wins: 1). More recently, a new bias has surfaced against Summer Blockbusters. Will the Academy be able to look past its biases this year in order to seriously consider a technologically innovative Summer Blockbuster like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes? What about the bias against Superhero Movies which could affect another one of my favorite Summer Blockbusters of the year so far, Captain America: The Winter Soldier?

Both Captain America: The Winter Soldier(currently #1 at the domestic Box Office) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes(currently #12 at the Box Office and climbing) are excellent movies that deal with very serious real world issues, something the Academy loves. Captain America presents a plot about government overreach that draws a parallel to Edward Snowden's NSA leaks and the ongoing debate about using drones to eliminate enemy targets. Apes presents a glimpse of what the world could be if humanity's violent, self destructive nature runs its course. This couldn't be more relevant than this week, with a commercial plane carrying nearly 300 people being shot down in Ukraine, with the Israeli Army invading the Gaza strip, and with the child refugee crisis at the U.S. border. Will these serious topics be enough for the Academy to take notice of Captain America: The Winter Soldier & Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, two high-quality Summer Blockbusters that have reached mass audiences worldwide?

By no means should these films consider their nominations a given, especially with strong Oscar-bait contenders from visionary directors and perennial Academy bridesmaids like Wes Anderson - The Grand Budapest Hotel, Richard Linklater - Boyhood, David Fincher - Gone Girl, and Christopher Nolan - Interstellar(combined Best Director nominations: 2, both for Fincher). For me, at least, both Dawn of the Planet of the Apes & Captain America: The Winter Soldier and their respective directors, Matt Reeves and the Russo brothers, measure up to these serious movies and rightfully deserve some Best Picture consideration come awards season.

There was a time when the movie that won Best Picture at the end of the year would also be at or near the top of the Box Office charts, but that was a long time ago. In fact, 12 of the 15 highest grossing Best Picture winners(adjusted for inflation, of course) premiered prior to 1977. Avatar, the highest grossing movie of all-time, came close to winning Best Picture in 2009(undeservedly, mind you) but it actually lost to the lowest grossing Best Picture winner in Oscars history, The Hurt Locker. In fact, 5 of the 10 lowest grossing Best Picture winners(adjusted for inflation) have been released in the past 10 years, including last year's winner, 12 Years a Slave.

In 2008 we got the infamous Best Picture snub of The Dark Knight, at the time the 2nd highest grossing movie of all time. This forced the Academy to increase the number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to a maximum of 10. Initially, this helped Summer Blockbusters such as Inception & Toy Story 3 receive the Best Picture nominations they deserved. What ended up happening was that it watered down the meaning of the words "Best Picture nominee" by opening the door for lousy crowd pleasers such as The Blind Side & Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close(Seriously Academy, just because Sandra Bullock appears in a movie it does not mean you automatically have to nominate it for Best Picture). Whatever meaning the words "Best Picture nominee" have left, this year's smart, high-quality, High-Grossing, Summer Blockbusters would love to see them in front of their titles come awards season.

Only one Summer Blockbuster from 2013, The Great Gatsby, was awarded with an Oscar at last year's Academy Awards. Gatsby finished the year at #18 in the domestic Box Office rankings. Of the 17 movies ranked above it, only two, Frozen & Gravity(Sandra Bullock again), won at the Oscars, and neither one of those was a summer release. Only one of the new millennium's Best Picture winners has finished the year ranked atop the Box office charts: 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which was also not a summer release. Of the previous 20 Best Picture winners, only 2 have been Summer Blockbusters that finished the year in the Top 10 of the Box Office charts: Forrest Gump in 1994 and Gladiator in 2000.

Since those Best Picture nominations for Inception & Toy Story 3 in 2010, none of the Summer Blockbusters that have finished the year in the Top 10 of the Box Office charts have been nominated for Best Picture. The rule change brought upon by the Dark Knight snub in 2008 has actually done more for Low-Grossing films such as The Hurt Locker in 2009 and others after it like Winter's Bone, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and another Best Picture winner, The Artist, while snubbing critically acclaimed Top 10 Box Office Summer Blockbusters such as The Avengers and Star Trek, among others. Let's hope that trend changes this year with at least one Best Picture nomination for either Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes(Apes being more likely since it avoids the Academy's Superhero Movie bias).

There is a chance that both the Captain America & Planet of the Apes franchises will have to wait for the third installments of their respective trilogies to be released in order to receive some Best Picture recognition from the Academy, a la Lord of the Rings(Here's a tip: Don't release them in the summer!). That would mean that those third movies would have to somehow improve on what were already excellent second chapters to their stories, themselves improved from the first chapters. As we learned with the Dark Knight trilogy, improving on an excellent second chapter is no easy task. Whatever happens with the next installments in these franchises, it's safe to say that both Captain America: The Winter Soldier & Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will be remembered as Summer Blockbusters of the highest quality and, as of this writing, as Two of the Best Movies of 2014. I sure hope it stays that way until Oscar nominations are announced in January so we can also remember them as "Best Picture nominees".