Barry Diller Says the Oscars and Movie Business are Dead

Breitbart Reports: Barry Diller has run two studios, Paramount and Fox, and believes (correctly) that the Oscars and the movie business are both dead.

“It’s an antiquity,” the current IAC and Expedia chairman told Firing Line‘s Margaret Hoover of the awards process. Citing the Riseborough Affair, Diller noted the internal collapse the movie and awards-show industry have long been suffering. “All awards ceremonies were based on this hierarchical process of a movie going to a theater, building up some word of mouth if it was successful, having that word of mouth carry itself over,” Diller said. “That path no longer exists.”

“The Riseborough Affair” noted above references Andrea Riseborough’s Best Actress nomination this year for a movie that made about $27,000 in theaters. She was nominated due to a social media campaign led primarily by name actresses like Kate Winslet.

Everyday people have no idea who Riseborough is. She might have turned in an Oscar-worthy performance but look at the disconnect between the nomination and the audience. In a certain way, moviegoers and Oscar voters used to work together to decide these nominations. Box office mattered when it came to Oscar nominations. Today, the Oscars are basically the Independent Spirit Awards.