The organization that bestows the Academy Awards says it is suspending plans to award a new Oscar for popular films amid widespread backlash to the idea.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says it will further study plans for the category. It wrote in a statement that it recognized that implementing a new award three-quarters of the way into the year created challenges for films that have already been released.
The film academy announced the new category for “outstanding achievement in popular film” last month.
It prompted an immediate outcry, with many inside and outside the film industry wondering how it would affect critically and commercially popular films such as Black Panther. The superhero blockbuster has been cited as a possible best picture contender, with producers launching an awards-season push. Critics of the Academy’s decision had feared, however, that a new category could stand in its way of the more prestigious prize. No traditional superhero film has ever been nominated for best picture.
The Academy had said films could be nominated in both the popular film and best picture categories.
“There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members,” the academy’s CEO, Dawn Hudson, said in a statement.
The award’s creation had marked the first introduction of a new category since 2001. It was part of a number of changes made following this year’s Oscars, which had the smallest US TV audience in the show’s history and highlighted films that were not blockbusters.
Other changes aimed at building the show’s audience included shortening the telecast to less than three hours.
Along with Black Panther, next year’s Oscar buzz is circulating around Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man and Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born, with Lady Gaga. The 91st annual Oscars will be held on 24 February 2019 in Los Angeles.