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HOLLYWOOD – Tom Sherak never forgets that movies are for the masses.
The veteran marketer turned new president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences started in showbiz driving around states like Maryland and West Virginia, persuading middle Americans to book such Paramount movies as “The Godfather” and “Love Story” into their small-town movie houses.
“They were all real people, postal workers or sanitation workers who also owned the one theater in town,” he says. “I’d go and meet them at their lunch hour and tell them about the movies.”
Forty years later, Sherak’s taste still tilts to the broadly popular. Last year, he voted for “The Dark Knight” for best picture. And now he’s bringing his populist instincts to the most august institution in Hollywood, the academy.
His goal is to make the March 7 Oscar telecast fun, not just for tuxedoed stars, but for the folks at home.
“We’re putting on a show, and that has to translate to millions and millions of people. I think what happened last year is that the show inside the Oscars, inside the Kodak, was incredible, but at home it played differently. We have to make it more fun,” says Sherak, 64.
Even before becoming chairman in August, as head of the awards review committee he was a prime mover behind the bold decision to open the best picture race from five nominees to 10.
To many, the overhaul plays as a bid to make room for the blockbuster (or, specifically, comic-book fare) that has been largely shut out of academy consideration. More important, the more popular Oscar nominees tend to bring a bigger viewership to the Oscars broadcast, whose ratings have been declining for 20 years. Last year’s show did bump up 13 percent, but that still made it the third-lowest-rated show in Oscar history.
The decision to open up the race comes on the heels of another Sherak imperative – he was a vocal supporter of the academy’s 2008 move to air film advertising during the event. The Oscar telecast provides the vast majority of the academy’s budget – $73.7 million in the 2007-08 period, its records show.
Sherak insists that broadening the Oscar race was nothing more than a gambit to shake up the status quo.
“The point of it was to do something,” he says. “We need to not be afraid to try things. We need to be positive. The people who are against the idea say, ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ Then we won’t do it again.”
“The academy is in a mood for change,” agrees former president Sid Ganis. “The academy has not always been in the mood for change. The academy has been austere, but it’s not these days. It wants to change. It’s time.”
In his new role, Sherak played matchmaker for the Oscar producers, Bill Mechanic, one of Sherak’s former bosses at Fox, and director Adam Shankman, whom he knew only through his movies, such as “Hairspray” and “Bedtime Stories.” After meeting for lunch, the unlikely duo agreed to join forces. Sherak urged Mechanic and Shankman to consider hiring two hosts for the show, so each could play to different constituencies. Mechanic and Shankman ultimately settled on Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.
Sherak has been a member of the academy for two decades, yet he nominated Tom Hanks to replace outgoing president Ganis. “(Hanks) said he didn’t have time, so he withdrew his name. Then an ex-president nominated me,” Sherak says.
He thought about withdrawing, but his wife convinced him that he needed a new “challenge.”
