15 Academy Awards Facts You Should Know Before You Die

The Academy Awards Nominations are coming soon but here are Oscar facts you should know before you die.

Nominations for the 87th Academy Awards will be announced tomorrow, and with the Oscars in discussion in every coffee shop, Stephen Follows has written a breakdown on some unknown Oscar facts.

Here are the 1o biggest facts surrounding the Oscars

1. Oscar voters are 94% white,  77% male and have a median age of 62.
2. 56% of ‘Best Picture’ nominees were released in either November or December.
3. The cost of a ‘Best Picture’ winning Oscar campaign is around $10 million
4. Half of all the money spent on Oscar campaigns will go to advertising
5. A page 1 advert in The Hollywood Reporter during Oscar season costs $72,000.
6. Crash (2005) spent $250,000 on DVD screeners
7. PR consultants are paid $10k-$15k, plus bonuses of $20k per nomination / win.
8. It costs around $3,500 to prepare a Hollywood actress for the red carpet
9. Oscar nominated films earn average of $12.7m more than films not nominated
10. A ‘Best Picture’ Oscar win is worth $3 million in increased box office gross
11. A Golden Globe win is worth $14.2 million
12. The non-financial benefits to studios of an Oscar ‘Best Picture’ are worth $7m
13. Best Actor winners can expect a $3.9m salary increase
14. It’s just $500k for Best Actress winners
15. It is possible to predict the Oscar winners with a success rate of 77% for Picture, 93% for Director, 77% for Actor, and 77% for Actress

It is interesting to note that the Golden Globes is actually more valuable to movie studios than an Oscar. “A ‘Best Picture’ Oscar win is worth $3 million in increased box office gross; A Golden Globe win is worth $14.2 million”. Which is interesting since the Golden Globes has a history of scandals, and secrets. In addition, the Academy Awards is considered a bigger award than the Golden Globe. But analysis shows that it goes deep than that.

The cause isn’t certain, but there are two possibilities. The first is simply that, because Golden Globes occur earlier in the lifetime of the films they award, the impact of a Globe award is magnified. The second is that Golden Globes are in fact trial runs for the Oscar race, and films that get a nod in these trials end up getting massive free press as potential Oscar contenders. Both seem likely as contributing factors and are worth examining further.

But there is also a hidden benefit to the Academy Awards. “The non-financial benefits to studios of an Oscar ‘Best Picture’ are worth $7m”. A typical Oscar campaign costs $10 million but, movie studios pride themselves on winning an Oscar even though they end up losing $3 million following an Oscar campaign.

So when you compare his ‘value’ of $3 million for [an Oscar] win with the average cost of $10 million for the campaign, there doesn’t seem to be a clear financial reason for Oscar campaigns. So while it may not make pure economic sense to campaign hard for an Oscar there are clearly other benefits, including Hollywood politics, bragging rights and brand image.  Using the numbers above, we can value this ‘image’ enhancement at around $7 million per ‘Best Picture’ win. [source]

Basically, movie studios spend a ton of money for “bragging rights” and increase their “brand image”. The Academy Awards is a big business and business is booming.

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