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Awards
Variety: 2024 Oscar Ratings: Academy Awards Audience Rises Slightly to 19.5 Million Viewers
The 96th annual Academy Awards ceremony drew 19.5 million viewers on ABC Sunday night.
Per the time zone adjusted fast national ratings, Sunday’s telecast drew 19.5 million viewers and a 3.8 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic airing from 7:00-10:29 p.m ET. By comparison, the 2023 telecast drew 18.8 million viewers and a 4.0 rating in the final tallies. That means this year’s show was up just shy of 4% in total viewers but down 5% in the key demo. It should also be noted this year’s show started an hour earlier than it has in years past.
Still, the 2024 telecast was the most-watched Oscars since 2020 and marked the third consecutive year of viewership growth. The 2021 telecast, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, drew an all-time low 10.4 million viewers. It rebounded in 2022 with 16.6 million, followed by last year’s 18.8 million.
Release Calendar
Variety: Robert Pattinson’s ‘The Batman Part II’ Delayed a Year, Sets New 2026 Date
The gritty comic book sequel “The Batman Part II,” in which Pattinson will become the Caped Crusader again, has been postponed a year, from Oct. 3, 2025 to its new date on Oct. 2, 2026.
In addition to the move, Warner Bros., the studio behind the superhero tentpole, has shuffled around other titles on its release calendar. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride,” starring Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley and Peter Sarsgaard, will take “The Batman” sequel’s old spot on Oct. 3, 2025. And “Alto Knights,” a mob drama starring Robert De Niro as two different mob bosses, has relocated from Nov. 15, 2024 to March 21, 2025.
The studio also added the latest film from director Paul Thomas Anderson to its schedule, slating it for Aug. 8, 2025. The movie, labeled by Warner Bros. as “An Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Event Film,” will be released in Imax. Little is known about the project, though it features the sprawling cast of Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and Alana Haim. Production on Anderson’s latest is underway in California, where nearly all of the filmmaker’s movies are set.
Deadline: ‘Monkey Man’ Stomps Into SXSW As Dev Patel Gets Standing Ovation At World Premiere
“This is a film that simply demands to be seen in a theater with a huge rockstar audience,” said Peele, who after seeing the movie pivoted to his theatrical output deal at Universal after Monkey Man was originally set up at Netflix, which took the film’s global rights for $30 million. Now it has a big-screen release set for April 5.
The Hollywood Reporter: Stephen King Movie ‘Salem’s Lot’ Moves from Theatrical to Max
New Line parent company Warner Bros. Discovery will debut the vampire thriller on the streaming service Max later this year, the company said Tuesday.
No date was given, but sources believe a fourth quarter release is likely.
Veteran horror scribe Gary Dauberman, known for writing the It and Annabelle films and for helming Annabelle Comes Home, wrote and directed the movie whose distribution plans have been in flux since WarnerMedia, which owned New Line and Warner Bros., merged with Discovery Inc. in spring of 2022. The movie was originally due to hit theaters in September 2022, then after the merger, it was moved to April 2023. Later, it was taken off the theatrical release schedule completely.
