The category was stupid to begin with. If they think that people aren't watching the Oscars because not enough "popular" films are being nominated then they need to start nominating more popular films.The Academy Bushes Most Popular for "further discussion".
Oscars Nixes Plan For Popular Film Category Pending 'Further Discussion'
They have up to 10 fukking slots to fill in the Best Picture category. Maybe include a couple popular films in that mix instead of weighing so heavily to arthouse fare that most people have never heard of let alone actually seen.
In 2017 the nominated films were :
The Shape of Water
Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
It would have been perfectly fine for the Academy to toss out Three Billboards, The Post and maybe Darkest Hour and replace them with Wonder Woman, War for the Planet of the Apes, Coco and one other movie that was a box office/critical hit to round out the nominees to 10...maybe Thor: Ragnarok or It.
Then you would have people interested in the awards show because it would be a question of will a superhero movie win or a horror movie? That creates a whole new corner of the movie-going market who would now give a damn about the awards show who normally don't care.
Also the idea of a Popular Film category is dumb on its face just because the Oscars have nominated movies purely because they were popular before. Or are we all going to act like The Blind Side was some sort of achievement in cinema and wasn't just nominated because of Sandra Bullock's performance and the amount of money it made at the box office?