Voting, spending and more: Everything to know about the 2024 Oscars
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — The 96th Academy Awards are happening in Hollywood on Sunday, March 10, 2024, so here’s everything you need to know — and some extra fun facts.
There are 120 nominees across 23 categories for the 2024 Oscars, according to the Oscars website. “Oppenheimer” leads the nominations with 13 total, “Poor Things” has 11 nominations and “Barbie” has eight.
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How much do the Oscars cost?
WalletHub broke down the numbers for the Oscars — in part using data from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — and released its Oscars facts report on Feb. 29.
The total cost for the ceremony itself is $56.9 million, and the 50,000 square foot red carpet — which reportedly takes 18 workers 600 hours to install 30 rolls of carpet — costs $24,700, according to WalletHub.
Each gold-plated Oscar statuette has an estimated value of $400, and Hollywood reportedly spends more than $100 million on awards-season lobbying each year, WalletHub says.
The most expensive look in Oscars history was Cate Blanchett’s 2014 outfit (with a cost of $18.1 million) and the most expensive jewelry worn was a $30 million Tiffany diamond necklace donned by Lady Gaga in 2019, according to WalletHub.
If not aiming for the most expensive look, WalletHub reports the average attendee’s ensemble costs about $1.5 million — but a first-time attendee would cost about $266,000, while an A-list actress averages about $10 million.
If a couple were to attend the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, WalletHub reports that would cost more than $100,000 — but the value of an Oscars goodie bag is about $125,000.
A 30-second ad during the Oscars costs 73% less than a Super Bowl ad, coming in at $1.85 million, WalletHub says.
How does voting work for the Oscars?
It costs about $20,000 to stream one film for voters, while the physical copies of years past would cost more than $1 million per film, according to WalletHub.
But how does voting work?
“Voting on all achievements shall be restricted to active and life Academy members,” as stated in a 40-page document detailing the rules for the 96th awards.
The Academy says most categories are nominated by its members in that corresponding branch — so actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors and so on.
“Voting for nominations and awards shall be by secret ballot,” the rules say.
Everything — from nominations voting to finals voting — is done with online ballots, according to the Academy.
Preliminary voting for the 2024 Oscars began on Dec. 14, 2023 and ended on Dec. 18, 2023. The shortlist was announced on Dec. 21, according to the Key Dates page of the Oscars.
The nominations were announced on Jan. 23, 2024, with finals voting beginning Feb. 22, 2024, and ending Feb. 27, 2024.
For the finals voting, all categories are on the ballot for all voting members. Once everything is in, only two people from the accounting company PwC (formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers) know the results prior to the opening of the envelopes onstage.
After a 2017 Oscars mishap — in which the Best Picture was mistakenly said to be “La La Land” instead of “Moonlight” — WalletHub says five new rules were added to prevent the same type of error from happening again.
Four of the rules involve the accountants from PwC, including rules restricting their usage of cellphones or social media, requiring that they have the list of winners memorized and having the accountants practice what to do if anything goes wrong, according to WalletHub.
“All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees,” the Academy says.
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Which movies are nominated for Best Picture in 2024?
WalletHub says the average increase in domestic box office sales for a Best Picture winner is $7.8 million.
The 2024 nominations for Best Picture are as follows:
“American Fiction”
“Anatomy of a Fall”
“Barbie”
“The Holdovers”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Past Lives”
“Poor Things”
“The Zone of Interest”
Out of the 10 nominees for Best Picture, four of them are less than two hours long, with the average duration of the nominees being 138 minutes, according to WalletHub.
The nominees with the lowest budgets (“Past Lives” and “Anatomy of a Fall”) have the highest ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, WalletHub says, with both films having a 96%.
Of the eight nominations “Barbie” received, none included Greta Gerwig for directing or Margot Robbie for actress in a leading role — causing many to say they were “snubbed.” However, Robbie was still recognized as a producer for “Barbie” in the Best Picture category.
Justine Triet is the only woman nominated for Best Director in 2024, and is just the eighth woman in Oscars history to be nominated for a directing award, WalletHub says. However, 33% of 2024’s Oscar nominees are women, making it the highest percentage in three years, according to WalletHub.
WalletHub also says none of the acting nominees for 2024 were nominated last year, and 10 of the 2024 nominees are nominated for the first time.
What are other facts about the Oscars?
The Oscars will be televised in more than 200 countries and territories, according to WalletHub. The average amount of viewers of the 2023 ceremony was 19.9 million, which was an 8% increase from 2022, WalletHub says.
Additionally, WalletHub says the Academy added 398 new members in 2023, with 40% of those new members being women and 34% of those new members being part of an underrepresented racial/ethnic group.
An Oscar winner for Best Actor/Actress typically sees a 20% boost in pay on their next film, according to WalletHub — plus, in eight out of 10 years, WalletHub said an actress who won a Golden Globe for Best Actress has also won the Oscar.
Projected ad revenue for ABC on Oscar Sunday is more than $120 million, according to the findings from WalletHub.
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