The Golden Globes are lost.
They’re adding two unnecessary categories. The first one is Best Box Office Hit. To qualify for this category a movie must have made over $150 million worldwide, $100 million domestically. So, basically, “Barbie” vs “Oppenheimer.” Clearly a desperate attempt at ratings.
This is just a repeat of the “Popular Movie” Oscar, which failed miserably and quickly got axed the following year. Zack Snyder won that award after his legion of fans invaded the Academy’s voting page.
The Globes are also adding another category, Best Performance in a Stand Up Comedy on TV. It’s nice to see stand-up comedians getting their due, too bad they have to be associated with the Globes.
This announcement comes on the heels of last Friday’s ouster of three voting members. Munawar Hosain, Aniko Navai and Howaida Hamdy — the latter was caught publishing antisemitic rhetoric on social media. No reason was given for the dismissal of the other two.
And so continues the strange story of the Hollywood Foreign Press; 65 of the original 90 members remain. These last few years, the HFPA has been steeped in controversy over their lack of Black members and reports that some of the membership were taking bribes. The HFPA voting body swore they made internal reforms to appease to the demands. The desperation to repent by the HFPA felt embarrassing and pathetic.
The HFPA added 103 non-member voters this past year, from around the world, including six from Nigeria. However, none of them were invited to the show – they couldn’t afford to come and the Globes didn’t offer help despite the organization having net assets of close to $79 million.
A Puck report in the summer had mentioned that no network wanted to air The Golden Globes. The awards show has now become too toxic to broadcast. This meant that CBS, Fox, Netflix, Amazon, ABC/Disney+/Hulu, Apple, Turner and Roku all reportedly passed on airing the 2024 show.