The reason for the shift was not a mystery to those who follow the business of film-releasing: It was the Golden Globes. The ceremony on NBC the previous Sunday had been watched by more than 18 million people, who basically were treated to a sparkling commercial for “1917″; the film won the top prize of best motion picture drama while Mendes landed the trophy for best director. Universal used the attention to springboard its way to a phenomenon. The modest war drama would ultimately gross $385 million worldwide, the most for any original Hollywood film released that year.
On Monday, the Globes were canceled for 2022. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the marginal group of correspondents for overseas outlets that votes on the 77-year-old prizes, had recently seen its lack of diversity and alleged ethical lapses laid out in the Los Angeles Times. That led to protests by prominent actors including Scarlett Johansson and planned boycotts by Netflix and Warner Bros. — and, now, NBC pulling out of the January telecast from the Beverly Hilton, effectively killing it.
Its future for 2023 and beyond remains unclear, turning on whether the HFPA enacts a reform plan. The group has pledged to become more diverse and stamp out studio perks that critics say amount to vote-selling.
But the fact that the show has existed for so long, and may even soon come back, suggests that canceling a Hollywood institution is both costlier and more complicated than it appears. Hollywood’s awards economy is a complex architecture. And for all the eye-rollingthe HFPA receives, the Golden Globes is a central pillar holding it up.
“Everything matters. Even this,” Ava DuVernay, the prolific creator behind Paramount’s “Selma” and Netflix’s “When They See Us,” wrote on Twitter. “The ripple effects echo through our industry, especially for Black artists and artists of color. Kudos to all the activists, artists, publicists and executives who took a stand to make this so.”
But even as they concede a needed and overdue change for a long-besotted group, many in Hollywood’s business-affairs and marketing departments are privately worried about the cancellation. The Globes may be overseen by 87 people with decidedly borderline credentials. But its lustrous brand is a highly effective promotional tool that has, suddenly, disappeared.
“The scariest thing for studios is now there’s no nominations to promote over the holiday moviegoing period,” said Matthew Belloni, the former editor of the Hollywood Reporter who now teaches at the University of Southern California. “That’s always been the huge value of the Globes — you can run ads during the Christmas corridor.” The Oscar nominations don’t happen until January.
In interviews, eight influential people across Hollywood including studio executives, producers and so-called awards consultants all shared essentially the same view: The Globes may have major issues that require a long hiatus and reset. But not having them still poses a big challenge.
“I cannot tell you all the films and TV shows over the years that got a financial boost from the nominations and wins,” said a prominent Hollywood marketer who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity.
A Washington Post analysis conducted this week found that over the past 15 years, the winner of best film drama at the Globes has averaged an additional $6 million in box office receipts the weekend after the win compared with the previous weekend.
What’s more, the attention can help a studio land Oscars from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which votes on its awards after the Golden Globes airs. In six of the past 10 years, the winner of either the Golden Globes award for best motion picture-drama or best motion picture-comedy/musical, the top two film prizes, has gone on to win the best-picture Oscar. This is not because the HFPA and academy membership overlap — they don’t — but because many academy members are watching the show and taking note of the winners.
The Globes also have a kingmaking effect on the television business. Because of the way the calendar falls, the Globes are often a bellwether for new television shows ahead of the more mainstream industry-chosen Emmys. Globes voters will take a series that debuted after the Emmys springtime deadline the previous year and give it a top award in January, helping to set the show apart for voters — and viewers — otherwise inundated in the era of endless television.
Nascent shows such as “Mad Men,” “Transparent” and “Homeland” all notched best-series wins at the Globes before they won or in some cases were even eligible for Emmys; the victories sent the shows on a publicity rocket ride and propelled their broadcasters — AMC, Amazon and Showtime — to more viewers and subscribers. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Disputes between the HFPA and television networks are not new. CBS severed ties with the Globes after a scandal in 1982 in which a Wall Street mogul was accused of bribing voters to win an award for his wife, Pia Zadora. And NBC previously parted ways with the ceremony in 1968, reacting to an FCC claim that the awards misled the public. The Globes were still handed out for a number of years without a TV broadcast, a turn less likely here.
One big reason that Hollywood studios like the Globes is that, unlike many modern award shows, the telecast has actually retained its audience.
In the 15 years from 2005 to the pre-pandemic year of 2020, Academy Awards viewership slid nearly 45 percent, from a robust 42 million to 23.6 million average total viewers, according to Nielsen.
The Globes, in contrast, actually gained viewers during that time, rising from 16.9 million in 2005 to 18.3 million in 2020. The telecast in many years has been one of the most popular non-NFL shows on TV, behind only the Oscars and Grammy Awards.
That popularity has fireproofed the Globes against years of criticism — and now makes it less likely the show will go away permanently. NBC is said to be eager to bring the show back, and many of those boycotting have left room for a return, tying it to the reforms.
Asked about the future of the show, a spokesperson at publicity agency Sunshine Sachs, which represents the HFPA, issued a statement on behalf of HFPA president Ali Sar. “Right now, our only focus is implementing the comprehensive plan for reform that we overwhelmingly voted in favor of last week,” it said.
An NBC spokeswoman, Allison Rawlings, declined to comment for this story, pointing to a network statement that read: “We continue to believe that the HFPA is committed to meaningful reform. However, change of this magnitude takes time and work, and we feel strongly that the HFPA needs time to do it right...Assuming the organization executes on its plan, we are hopeful we will be in a position to air the show in January 2023.”
The economic engine of the Globes telecast itself is complicated.
NBC pays about $60 million to the HFPA and production company Dick Clark Productions, owned by the entertainment company MRC, for the rights to air the telecast. The HFPA and Dick Clark split the revenue roughly equally.
Dick Clark executives badly want to keep that $30 million flowing in, said a person familiar with the company who was not authorized to speak about it publicly; it is a rich sum for a relatively inexpensive production staged in a single hotel ballroom. An MRC spokeswoman, Emily Spence, declined to comment for this story.
NBC’s investment is not hugely profitable given that telecast ad revenue in recent years, according to research firm Kantar Media, has hovered around $50 million. But the network recoups its investment in other ways. For instance, it can freely promote its new winter prime-time shows to a very large audience of built-in entertainment fans.
NBC holds rights to the Globes until at least 2026.
The Hollywood trade publications — including Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and the Wrap — also rake in money for Golden Globes ads, which flood in during the all-important fourth quarter for both film and television. That money could now evaporate; it’s uncertain if studios will shift those dollars to other shows.
Studios, meanwhile, will feel the pinch from the Globes cancellation in a particular way this year. The Globes is the only major film award show that sets aside a top prize for best musical, and 2021 is expected to be a highly lucrative year for movie musicals. Three major titles are set to come out before the end of the year: Warner Bros.’ adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s and Quiara Alegría Hude’s “In the Heights”; Universal’s film version of the Broadway smash “Dear Evan Hansen”; and Disney and Steven Spielberg’s new take on “West Side Story.”
A producer behind several big recent Hollywood hits agreed the HFPA needed reform, but said the populist sensibility of flourishes like separate best comedy/musical categories was also valuable, undeniable and possibly irreplaceable, unless the Oscars were willing to toss aside tradition and add new categories. The show also offers the specter of stars imbibing at dinner tables, a good fit for a viral age.
The Hollywood marketer, meanwhile, said that after a year in which there were many award shows but a dearth of movies to fill them, the industry may now have the opposite problem: too many movies but not enough award shows.
“[It will be] two years in a row of unprecedented challenges,” the person said.
The Globes’ absence also will have an economic impact beyond Hollywood. Alex Darbahani, who owns KLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services, a popular black-car outfit in Los Angeles, said the 10 days leading up to the Globes — with stars ferried into town and to various media and brand appearances — produced $460,000 in revenue in 2020 that he now has no immediate way to make up.
When a writers’ strike eliminated a traditional Globes in 2008, one firm estimated it would cost the Los Angeles economy — from florists to publicists, catering services to cleaning crews — a total of $80 million. That figure has likely grown as events around the show have expanded.
“People think the Golden Globes are the cherry on the cake,” Darbahani said. “But really it is the cake.”
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