By: Diana Tsakopoulos

Cristina Spano/New York Times

In the 1980s, the uproar of a trend about dividing film nominees into four quadrants according to age demographic began, and by the 1990s the term “four-quadrant” became a certified shorthand for describing mass appeal.  

For the first time since 1998, when it was last written in Hollywood trade newspapers two movies are nominated in this year’s Oscars award show to be “four quadrants or “quads’ ‘.

This was significantly interesting because over time we have witnessed the viewership for the Academy Awards decline. It was recorded that only an average of 10 million people tuned in to watch the Oscars. That is 1 million fewer viewers than those belonging to the National Dog show, according to The New York Times.

TV analysts report that the reason for declaring movies as quads, is because, once again, the Oscars has successfully included movie nominees for best picture that are more familiar to a greater and diverse audience to root for, unlike, “Nomadland”, “Moonlight”,  and “CODA”.  

“two colossal four-quadrant hits,” – Rich Gelfond, Chief executive of IMAX

The movies “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick” are very popular everywhere. Box office databases say that for the first time in history, the nominee pool for this category has included movies worth more than one-billion dollars in tickets.  

It is theorized that the increasing number of older TV executives in moviedom could explain the kind of sudden repopularizing of the term “four quadrants”, which seems to only prove their career experience and justify greater spending budgets on movies for streaming services.  

However, despite the antiquity of this term, I am once again somewhat excited about the Oscar nominees for the first time in years. I am tempted to schedule aside time to watch the award ceremony as a result, despite these movies being even near astounding (in my opinion). If the word ‘quad’ could revive everlasting, traditional entertainment, I am in favour of hearing it more often.

Works Cited

“At This Year’s Oscars, Two Films Hit All “Four Quadrants.”” The New York Times, 2023, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/10/business/film-industry-four-quadrant.html?searchResultPosition=6. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.

Cameron, James, et al. “Avatar: The Way of Water.” IMDb, 16 Dec. 2022, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1630029/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.

Cash, Jim, et al. “Top Gun: Maverick.” IMDb, 27 May 2022, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1745960/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.