Oscars 2022 - It’s Not A Popularity Contest [Parrot Analytics]

Monday, 28 March 2022, 6:44 am
Press Release: Parrot Analytics

For the first time, Parrot Analytics reveals our demand data on the Academy Award races for Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Actor, demonstrating the gap between the Academy’s and the public’s movie and talent preferences ahead of tonight's Oscars ceremony.

The Best Picture nominees all rank in our ‘Outstanding’ category of audience demand. While this does place them in the top 3% of movies across all platforms with US audiences, none of them appears in the top 10, and the majority are well outside of the top 50.

When it comes to demand for the acting categories, actors who started out in youth-oriented and beloved genre IP titles have amassed a larger base of cross-generational fans who create more demand as their career progresses than actors who have mainly stayed away from larger IP projects, but have been recognized by the Academy for their prestige roles.

Andrew Garfield and Kristen Stewart are by far the most in-demand nominees for the major acting categories. But it was their starring roles in the Spider-Man and Twilight franchises, respectfully, that have helped them build devoted fan bases over the years, more so than the roles for which they are nominated this year.

Most of the Oscar-winning actors who are nominated again this year appear towards the bottom of the most in-demand nominee charts, further evidence that the tastes of the Academy voters and those of the American public remain far apart.

US Demand for Best Picture Nominees

The Best Picture nominees all appeared in the top 3% of movies by demand with US audiences over the last 60 days. Only Dune, with 32.8x more demand than the average movie in the US, achieved 'Exceptional' demand, placing in the top 0.2% of all movies.
See below for the demand multiplier and overall ranking for each Best Picture nominee with US audiences:
- Dune: 32.8x more demand than the average movie in the US; #14 most in-demand movie in the US
- The Power of The Dog: 27.1x; #26
- Licorice Pizza: 24.9x; #32
- Nightmare Alley: 21x; #46
- West Side Story: 18.2x; #66
- Don’t Look Up: 17x; #78
- Drive My Car: 16.2x; #90
- King Richard: 15.6x; #98
- CODA: 14.2x; #116
- Belfast: 12x; #168

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For context, see below for the 10 most in-demand movies with US audiences during the same time period:

Demand for Spider-Man: No Way Home (154.2x) was 369% higher than demand for Dune, the most in-demand Best Picture nominee.
It should come as no surprise that the most in-demand movies with American audiences are largely superhero and Pixar movies.
Pixar movies are nominated for and usually win Best Animated Feature, but superhero movies are notoriously left out of the discussion for Best Picture, despite their widespread commercial appeal.
The Movie Demand data overall reveals just one way in which the Academy and the American public have vastly different tastes. A look at demand for the top acting categories reveals another.

US Demand for Best Actress Nominees

Kristen Stewart (32.8x more in-demand than the average talent in the US) is the most popular Best Actress nominee by far, which makes sense given that she has appealed to younger and more active online audiences since her starring role in the Twilight movie series starting in 2008.
Jessica Chastain (23.2x) won this category at the SAG and Critics Choice awards, and is looking to win her first Oscar. Doing so could help vault her from the ‘Outstanding’ demand category into ‘Exceptional.’
Interestingly enough, the three nominees who have already won Oscars - Nicole Kidman (16x), Penelope Cruz (6.1x), and Olivia Colman (2.7x) - are the three least in-demand nominees with American audiences over the last 60 days.
Cruz has appeared in some Hollywood blockbusters, but the Academy has mostly recognized her for Almodovar movies that have a much smaller footprint in the US.
While Colman certainly has a fanbase - nearly triple the demand of the average talent - the data shows she is perhaps the perfect embodiment of an individual talent whose performances appeal directly to Academy voters, and less so to the general public.

US Demand for Best Actor Nominees

Andrew Garfield’s appearance in three high profile movies this year - The Eyes of Tammy Faye (co-star Jessica Chastain is up for Best Actress), Tick, Tick… Boom! (for which he is nominated for Best Actor), and most importantly Spider-Man: No Way Home (by far the most in-demand movie in the US) - has undoubtedly fueled his rise to the top of the Best Actor nominees.
At 46.2x, demand for Garfield is 89% higher than second-place Will Smith (24.5x), and 125% ahead of fellow 2022 nominee and two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington (20.5x).
Should Benedict Cumberbatch (15.2x) win for The Power of the Dog he’ll certainly see a post-Oscars bump. However, that will pale in comparison to the rise in demand he’ll see following the release of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness later this Spring. Popular IP helps boost an actor’s demand much more than prestige awards shows.
Oscar winner Javier Bardem (4.6x) is at the bottom of the Best Actor nominees by US demand. This makes sense as he has appeared in more Academy-friendly movies, and fewer blockbusters over the years than the other nominees. He and his wife Penelope Cruz, a Best Actress nominee, are also from Spain, so even though they are universally beloved by the Academy, the average American consumer is less familiar with their work.

Parrot Analytics

Global television demand measurement

Parrot Analytics is the leading global content demand analytics company for the multi-platform TV business. With the world's largest TV audience demand datasets, the company currently tracks more than 1.5B daily expressions of demand in over 100 languages from 200+ countries to reveal the content consumers engage with and watch the most across platforms.

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