The 81st American Film and Television Golden Globe Awards ceremony will be held on the evening of January 7 local time, and will be broadcast live by CBS, and the streaming platform will be Paverage+. This year's host is relatively little-known comedian Jo Koy.
Joe Coy will host this year's Golden Globe Awards
After the restructuring, the composition of the judges is more diversified
After all kinds of changes, this year's Golden Globe Awards have been completely reborn, the most significant point is that it has changed from the original non-governmental organization to the nature of the enterprise. This summer, the 80-year-old scandal-ridden Hollywood Foreign Press Club announced its dissolution, and its tangible and intangible assets, including the Ballon d'Or, were acquired by the Eldridge consortium owned by Dick Clark Productions and Todd Boehly, the new owner of Premier League club Chelsea. Later, the Penske Media Group, which holds many media resources such as "The Hollywood Reporter", "Rolling Stone" and "Variety", joined forces with the Eldridge consortium to acquire all the shares of Dick Clark Productions.
The top of the Golden Globe Awards has also been replaced by Tim Gray, a veteran media personality who has worked in "Variety" for more than 40 years, and Helen Hoehne, the original president of the Hollywood Foreigners Association and the chairman of the Golden Globes after the dissolution of the Foreigners' Association, no longer holds any real power.
In addition, the jury of the Golden Globe Awards has also been completely changed due to the dissolution of the Foreign Journalists' Association, and the diversity has been greatly improved compared to the past. Today, there are more than 300 Golden Globe judges from 76 countries and regions. Among them, in addition to the nearly 100 old members of the Foreign Journalists Association, more than 200 new judges come from Europe, America, Asia and Africa, and there are many members of Armenia, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Serbia and Tanzania and other relatively small film countries.
And the judges now make up 47 percent of judges, 26.3 percent of Latinos, 13.3 percent of Asians, 11 percent of African-Americans, and 9 percent of Middle Easterners. That is, the so-called ratio of white and non-white judges has been reversed to about 4 to 6. It can even be said that the current Golden Globe Awards are more radical and diverse than the composition of the Oscar jury. Therefore, some media predict that among the results of the Golden Globe Awards to be announced tomorrow, non-English works such as the French film "Falling Trial" are likely to have unexpected performances.
"Fallen Judgment" poster
The new awards are expected to boost viewership
Now that it has become a for-profit organization, the Golden Globe Awards ceremony will definitely pursue more ratings. Historically, the ratings of the 2004 Golden Globe Awards reached a peak of 26.8 million views, relying on the high popularity of the big winner "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King". In the following ten years, the average viewership of this show basically remained around 17.6 million, until the double blow of the new crown epidemic and the media's exposure of the shady scenes of the Foreign Journalists Association left only 6.3 million viewers at the Golden Globe Awards ceremony held in early 2023.
In an effort to regain lost ground, they came up with the idea of a "box office achievement award" this year. According to the rules, a film that grosses more than $150 million at the annual box office, and at least $100 million of that comes from North America, or is confirmed by a so-called "trusted industry source" to have comparable online ratings, will have a chance to win the new award.
As of early December, a total of 21 new films for 2023 have been eligible based on box office receipts, and "Taylor Swift: The Times Tour" is one of them. If the film is really likely to hit the Golden Globes at that time, it is bound to make its fans turn on the TV and set the remote control on CBS, which will greatly increase the ratings of this gala.
"Taylor Swift: The Times Tour" poster
Taylor Swift posted a Weibo to celebrate the nomination for the Golden Globe Awards
In addition, the Golden Globes also have a new stand-up comedy show special award, which can also be said to be quite chic. After all, stand-up comedy shows have always been popular with audiences in the United States, from Ellen DeGeneres to Jimmy Canmore. However, the important industry awards that were given to them have been absent for some reason. At the Emmys, stand-up comedy was relegated to the category of outstanding variety specials, and it was a bit of a stretch to compete for the trophy with live music shows like "Adele One Night Only."
Now, the Golden Globe Awards list them separately, and just increasing their popularity is a big score. The six shortlisted shows this year include "Amy Schumer: Emergency Contact," "Chris Rock: Selective Rage," "Ricky Gervais: The Last Stand," "Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love," "Trevor Noah: Got It Done," and "Wanda Sykes: Just To Be Funny," and all of them are indeed hits.
However, due to drastic changes in internal structures and personnel, this year's Golden Globe Awards will not award lifetime achievement awards in the film and television category. Last year, the two awards were awarded to Eddie Murphy and Ryan Murphy, respectively. It remains to be seen whether they will become the last two Golden Globe Lifetime Achievement Award winners, which means whether they will resume next year or the year after.
The $500,000 package broke Hollywood records
Another big news at this year's Golden Globes is that the price of the package has risen to $500,000, a new record in Hollywood history. After all, according to the 2020 statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau, only 2.9% of U.S. households earn $500,000 a year. For these Hollywood stars, as long as they come to present an award on January 7, or successfully get a trophy, the value of the gift package they receive is more than 97.1% of the families in the United States in minutes.
In fact, the number of places in the package is predetermined. There are 83 awarders and winners, and all they get on the spot is a "gift list", and then they can slowly choose what exactly they want. Some prizes, such as a five-day, four-night luxury yacht tour in Indonesia, have something for everyone, but there are also prizes that are just one and may depend on who gets the most out of it.
The $500,000 price tag is far more than the value of the packages that have been given away by previous Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe and Grammy Award organizers. According to reports, the planning and operation of the gift package is handled by the famous American luxury magazine "Robb Report", which includes as many as 35 kinds of extremely luxurious products, non-physical prizes include membership in private jet services, free accommodation provided by luxury hotels such as Ritz-Carlton, and the above-mentioned five-day and four-night luxury yacht package in Indonesia with a price of $50,000, and a star tattoo artist service of Brooklyn Eva Studio worth $2,500.
In addition, the package includes $2,000 worth of Komos tequila, $69,000 worth of Colombian emerald earrings, $1,500 worth of Opie Way custom sneakers, $250 worth of Brad Pitt co-branded skincare line Le Domaine cream, $545 worth of Russian caviar, and more. The most expensive unit price is a six-bottle set of Château Libert wines, which is claimed to be the most expensive red wine in the world, with a market price tag of $193,500 and only one set in the gift list.
In the past, whenever such news was made public, there was always a hot topic on the Internet about whether the celebrity receiving the gift should pay taxes on it. According to the relevant tax laws in the United States, it stands to reason that the star who receives this $500,000 gift package needs to pay about 37% of the tax, which is indeed a large expense. In order to solve this problem, the gift bags given by the organizers of various events are actually various redemption gift certificates, and only when those celebrities actually choose to redeem one of them, the corresponding tax will be generated.
Michelle Yeoh was also invited to attend the awards ceremony
Finally, some media ridiculed that the Golden Globe Awards are no longer as glamorous, and they may not be as attractive to Hollywood stars as before. Who can win the award and who doesn't, I guess everyone doesn't care as much as they used to be. On the contrary, the Golden Globe Awards themselves, which have just changed their courts, should be very concerned about whether they are successful or not. If you want to talk about the ratings, I'm afraid you have to at least return to around 10 million viewers before you can barely start to recover.