The Golden Globes make a play for relevance with new categories

The answer to “How are we going to give an award to Top Gun: Maverick?!” has arrived, one year too late. The Golden Globes, already grasping for relevance even before controversy nearly wiped the ceremony off the map, has announced two new award categories for film and television. At least one of them has a decidedly populist bent: “Cinematic and Box Office Achievement in Motion Pictures,” in addition to “Best Stand-Up Comedian on Television.”

Let’s get the more inoffensive category out of the way first—sure, why not give an award for a performer in a stand-up special? The rules for eligibility on this one include doing “Traditional stand-up comedy performances of at least 30 minutes” on a recognized media platform (“broadcast, basic and premium cable, streaming, and pay-per-view cable”), per a press release from the Globes. Think: John Mulaney for Baby J on Netflix, John Early for Now More Than Ever on HBO, Chris Fleming’s Hell on Peacock. Comedians tend to have a strong presence at awards shows, including and especially this one; last year’s host was Jerrod Carmichael in the wake of his critically acclaimed special Rothaniel. In other words, this category feels valid and slots in well for the Globes.

“Cinematic and Box Office Achievement in Motion Pictures” is another story. The aim is “to recognize the hard work and innovation that goes into making a film that is both a blockbuster and artistically exceptional,” in the words of Golden Globes president Helen Hoehne. A film is eligible if it receives “a box office receipt total/gross of $150 million, of which $100 million must come from the U.S. domestic box office, and/or obtain commensurate digital streaming viewership recognized by trusted industry sources.”

Time and again, the awards circuit has tried to figure out a way to incorporate the big, money-making movies into their typically more niche nominee pool. That’s because, as the Globes’ Executive Vice President Tim Gray put it, “These films have typically not been recognized among industry awards, but they should be.” (Surely it has nothing to do with how no one wants to watch your awards show.) Yet no awards show has figured out a way to do it that hasn’t gone embarrassingly wrong. In 2018, the Academy Awards quickly walked back a new category for “outstanding achievement in popular film” after facing immense backlash. In 2022, the ceremony introduced fan-voted awards that went to Army Of The Dead and Zack Snyder’s Justice League; most of the votes reportedly came from bots, a controversy that was overshadowed by that other big thing that happened at the Oscars that year.

To make a long story short, merging awards season with the box office has been bumpy at best. One might argue that making big bucks at the box office is its own reward, and the smaller art house films usually represented at the Oscars and Globes are more in need of the boost one can get from being nominated. One might also argue that the category is almost unnecessary this year when the biggest box office success stories have been critically acclaimed auteur-driven work. Even so, this Globes news has been met mostly with a shrug so far. Unfortunately for the Golden Globes, that speaks more to the reputation of the ceremony and the makeup of its voting body than how people feel about a “blockbuster award.”