How Much Does It Cost to Win an Oscar?
In this Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary, we pull the curtain back on the multimillion-dollar industry aimed at swaying members of the Academy.
The Oscars are undoubtedly the Super Bowl of arts and entertainment—but in more ways than one. In addition to judging movies, it’s also a brutal financial battlefield where studios spend tens of millions of dollars trying to persuade the Academy to pick their film. So, given all the expenditures on advertising and public relations and screeners, how much does it cost to win an Oscar?
No one is sure exactly. “Oscar campaigning is kind of a dark art,” says Bloomberg’s Chris Palmeri. “Nobody wants to talk about what they’re spending or how they’re spending it.” In the Bloomberg Originals mini-documentary How to Win an Oscar, we explore the four pillars of Oscar campaigning, the fuzzy math and the notorious battle that gave Oscar campaigning its start.