Seth Rogen Says Hollywood Needs to Stop Trying to Make People Care About the Oscars

"I don't get why movie people care so much if other people care what awards we give ourselves," Rogen told Insider.

He went on to compare the Oscars to awards in other industries. "I don't care who wins the automobile awards," he noted. "No other industry expects everyone to care about what awards they shower upon themselves. Maybe people just don't care."

The Academy Awards used to be one of the biggest television events of the season, but that was in a different time when there were only three major broadcast channels and no handy little devices that could tailor our entertainment experience sitting in our pockets.

As media viewership continues to fracture, the Oscars certainly aren't the only thing seeing declining ratings. Pretty much everything on television, save perhaps live sporting events, has seen dramatic declines in viewership.

It also doesn't help that fractured viewership extends to the movies themselves. Those blockbuster films that are part of our shared cultural experience are notoriously ignored by the Academy, while studios and theaters are barely giving the time of day to those more art house films that the Academy loves so much.

More and more, this leads to nominations in major categories filled by films and performances most people haven't seen, or in many cases, even heard of.

It's probably been since 2004, when "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" swept the Oscars, that a blockbuster film was contending in so many major categories -- and even then, the trilogy's entire cast was shut out of any awards consideration, as if genre fare just can't produce quality acting.

Even this year's crop of nominations failed to recognize "Dune" director Dennis Villeneuve despite the film picking up ten total nominations, including one for Best Picture. It's also worth noting that none of the actors in the film were nominated, either.

If these are the films that people are watching in large numbers, and these are not the films and performances that are getting honored when Hollywood is setting out to give itself awards, as Rogen put it, then its no wonder the general public is losing interest in the ceremony itself.

"Maybe they did for a while and they stopped caring," said Rogen of the general public. "And why should they?"

Nevertheless, the Academy keeps tweaking the formula to try and boost ratings. Last year's Covid-impacted show hit its lowest viewership yet, with fewer than 10 million people tuning in. It's their hope that a return to a hosted format -- the first since 2018 -- will help.

No host has yet been announced. The Academy Awards are coming to NBC on March 27.