The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
announced last week that they would be creating a brand new Oscars category: Outstanding achievement in popular film.
And although the decision has been widely panned by pretty much everyone,
Get Out star Lil Rel Howery believes that it is a great idea that will help the Academy “upgrade some things they’ve been doing for the last 70 years.”
“It’s about time,” Howery told
The Hollywood Reporter. “If that had happened last year,
Get Out would’ve won the Oscar. We made more money than everybody else’s movies.“
Jordan Peele’s horror blockbuster took home only one Oscar in 2017 for the best original screenplay, despite receiving wide critical acclaim and
grossing over $255 million at the global box office. For Peele, the film became the
highest-grossing title ever for a feature debut from a writer-director with an original screenplay.
Howery added that the new category will have a much larger effect on the industry; especially for Black films that often perform well at the box office but fail to win awards.
“That would make you go see movies like
Girls Trip — comedies that are always pushed to the side that actually do better than most of these action films,” he said Sunday on the red carpet of the Teen Choice Awards.
As for the Academy Awards show itself, Howery has some advice on how to kick it up a notch: “They need to change the energy of the show. It needs to be more fun.”
