- Black Panther just got nominated for
a Best Picture Oscar, and that's a really big deal.
Just 10 years ago, The Dark Knight was snubbed
for a Best Picture nomination.
It was a huge blow to superhero fans,
highlighting the gap between popular films
and award-winning prestige films.
The public outcry led the Academy of Motion Pictures
to expand its Best Picture nomination category
from five films to 10.
Still, it took 10 years before a superhero movie
found its way into the Best Picture arena.
- I am not dead.
- So what happened between 2009 and this year's
Black Panther nomination?
To understand, we have to look at The Big Picture.
The term "blockbuster" as a reference to a hit movie
dates back to the 1940s, but Steven Spielberg's
1975 thriller Jaws gave it a whole new definition.
The summer it was released, people lined up
around city blocks trying to get tickets.
It dominated the box office all summer.
In May 1977, Star Wars: A New Hope was a similarly huge hit.
The era of the summer blockbuster had arrived.
Every major studio wanted a piece of the summer action.
The new breed of blockbusters didn't often compete
for Best Picture at the Oscars,
but they would win things like Best Visual Effects
or Costume Design.
But summer blockbuster season is starting to disappear.
Now, big-budget escapist spectacles come out all year round.
2019 is poised to be one of the biggest blockbuster years,
with an adventure-packed calendar that spans all 12 months—
a lot of which are superhero films.
But it wasn't always this way.
Since the 1980s, superhero titles have increased
exponentially, and they only first started
appearing en masse in the early 2000s.
X-Men, The Hulk, and Sam Raimi's three Spider-Man films
all skyrocketed to the top of the box office,
breaking records and setting a new tone for what
blockbuster films could do for studios.
Disney, seemingly realizing what was happening
to the calendar year, made some major investments.
It acquired Pixar, Marvel Studios, and Lucasfilm
over the course of six years.
Warner Brothers also shifted its focus
toward grittier, more openly adult-focused
superhero movies.
By the time The Dark Knight rolled around in 2008,
superhero movies were reaching a wider
and more dedicated audience.
It was the first time the Academy was forced
to take notice of superhero movies
as Best Picture contenders.
People largely consider the Dark Knight conundrum
as a snub because of the intense fan backlash that arose.
The Dark Knight was hailed as one of the most provocative
films of 2008, by both critics and fans,
who were used to cutesier, more colorful movies.
- Why so serious?
- The Dark Knight turned the genre on its head,
and kick-started a conversation about
what a superhero movie could achieve.
Marvel Studios has released 20 movies since then,
and its immense financial success has pushed
Warner Brothers, Sony, and Fox to compete.
Superhero movies now own every calendar spot,
meaning studios have to book openings
during the offseason as well as the summer.
Black Panther, the first superhero movie
with a majority black cast, opened in February 2018
and immediately started breaking box-office records.
As superhero movies overtook film culture,
it became a wake-up call for the Academy,
which was already being criticized as ignorant.
Conversations around promoting diversity
in mainstream films has become a talking point
around the Oscars in recent years.
Movements like "Oscars So White" in 2016 —
when no black actor, writer, or director
was nominated in major categories — forced the Academy
to radically change its own makeup.
The organization added a wave of new members,
and looked outside its usual nomination patterns.
But Black panther wasn't a shoo-in.
With the Oscars' steady and dramatic decline in viewership
and anti-Oscar social media campaigns,
the Academy knew it was time for another change.
It tried launching a "Popular Film" category
to acknowledge fan favorite movies,
without having to place them in the Best Picture category.
It was similar to when the Best Animated Feature category
was introduced.
But the Popular Film announcement didn't go as planned.
The backlash was so immediate that the Academy backed down
almost instantaneously.
People considered Black Panther one of the best movies
of the year, not just the most popular.
They wanted to see it celebrated as such.
It took 10 years, but the Academy realized
that if they continued to ignore superhero movies,
they'd be ignoring modern movie culture as a whole.
They were celebrating a version of Hollywood
that average moviegoers weren't participating in.
They risked looking elitist.
Black Panther, which was a monumental success
and one of the most culturally groundbreaking movies
of the year, became the ideal movie for the Academy
to regain its relevance.
But superhero movies aren't the only new competition
for Best Picture.
Netflix also just got its first Best Picture nomination
with Roma.
And actually, the streaming service released
Bright with Will Smith, trying to make a streaming version
of a summer blockbuster.
Disney plans to launch its own streaming service
later in 2019, and will be investing in more
big-budget content, and so will competing services
like Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix.
Prepare for a whole lot more superhero buzz
at the box office, and on your laptop,
and at awards shows.
Black Panther is just the start.
It took decades of superhero movies to get here,
but this may be the beginning of something much bigger.
Thanks for watching.
And if you like this video, you'll probably like
our other Big Picture video on how Disney
is actually forcing Netflix to change.
And as always, like and subscribe.