Why Hollywood is desperate for Golden Globes return

The Golden Globes may be coming back from the dead.

After the 2022 awards show was banished by NBC — over a lack of diversity as well as alleged ethical mis-steps — Hollywood is now buzzing that it might be back in 2023. And some insiders are thrilled.

“I do make a bonus if our project wins,” said an awards campaigner for a top streaming platform. “If the Globes go by the wayside, I could be out thirty grand a year.”

Indeed, finances are the main factor driving the Globes’ possible return

“For our purposes, it would help to have them
back on the air. If your client wins, they get press, more money, we make more money, the project makes more money. It sets you up for Oscar and Emmy attention,” a talent agency pro told The Post.

But, that same source pointed out, there is squeamishness about letting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group behind the awards, off the hook too easily and looking like a hypocrite.

“[The HFPA] cornered the market on political incorrectness. They rarely nominated Black projects or actors,” the talent agency pro said. “Maybe they can pull their s–t together in
time and meet industry demands. No one wants to be associated with lack of diversity, corruption, payola, bribery. Not that the rest of Hollywood isn’t full of that, too.”

The difference, of course, is that the HFPA was publicly called to the red carpet on it.

Tom Cruise returned three Golden Globes after the HFPA’s dirty laundry was exposed by the LA Times in February 2021. The paper reported that the group had zero Black members and a poor track record of nominating actors and directors of color. The HFPA was accused of shady payments to members that could run afoul of the IRS. Past president Philip Berk was accused of racism and sexual assault. And celebrity publicists complained of shoddy behavior at actor junkets.

“Their questions were mostly inane. Some downright insulting. Many times, they hadn’t even seen the film. Some said sexually inappropriate things,” one journalist who witnessed it first-hand at press junkets told The Post. “Actors like Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo went back and blabbed to their PRs. That’s one of the demands: that [HFPA members] conduct themselves more professionally [around stars].”

Shonda Rhimes, Kerry Washington, Judd Apatow, Alyssa Milano and Amy Schumer were among the celebrities to publicly criticize the HFPA in the wake of the revelations.

The HFPA was issued warnings and new protocol by a group of Hollywood’s major publicity agencies —including 42 West (Cruise, Martin Scorsese), ID-PR (Christopher Nolan, Sean Penn), True Public Relations (Scarlett Johansson), The Lede Company (Reese Witherspoon, Will Smith), Imprint PR (Jessica Chastain, Sydney Sweeney), Rogers & Cowan/PMK (Jamie Foxx, Denzel Washington) — who ultimately decide if stars should attend or not.

With newly installed president Helen Hoehne at the helm, the HFPA committed to shape up — including assembling at least a 13% Black membership.

In July, Todd Boehly of Eldridge Industries — who also co-owns the Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers and is chairman of the Chelsea Football Club — stepped in as the new CEO of the Globes, announcing plants to “modernize the awards” and separate the HFPA’s charitable and philanthropic arms as non-profits.

Eldridge also owns Dick Clark Productions, which has produced the show for decades, so Boehly’s got a a vested interest in the Globes happening.

There’s at least $60 million annually at stake to be split with NBC to air the Golden Globes (the group is said to have netted $30 million, some of which was distributed
to members). That’s a lot to lose — not to mention the ego trip of being able to help decide the rates, fates and new open gates for nominees and winners.

On Aug. 9, the Hollywood Reporter said that NBC was “zeroing in on an air date of Tuesday, Jan. 10.”

Asked about an air date, James Lee of Strategy PR, one of the two crisis publicists now handling the HFPA, told The Post: “We do not have an announcement yet.”

“No comment at this time. An announcement will be made within a few weeks,” said a rep at NBC.

But a Deadline source countered that it was “not a done deal,” with that publication reporting their is no evidence yet of a full ethical reboot.

The Publicists Guild did not return a request for comment.

But something would need to happen soon, according to one awards coordinator: “To get stars in a room and nomination dates set up, a date would have to be announced by late September at the latest.”

Matt Belloni of Puck, the movie industry’s must-read newsletter, is ready for the show’s return.

“I’m definitely in the pro-Globes camp. The boycott raised some great issues and caused the HFPA to change a lot of its antiquated ways,” he told The Post.

In fact, he thinks the change agents may be unfairly using it to their advantage. “The publicists behind the boycott — who, by the way, run companies that are even whiter than the HFPA — are using the issue as a power play to eliminate press conferences and other things they don’t like, because they don’t control them. I do think NBC will bring the show back, but there’s still a question of whether publicists will recommend that clients attend. Most will, some probably won’t,” Belloni said.

“Basically, all awards shows are kinda silly and arbitrary, they exist only to promote the work. So who really cares who owns the company behind any one show or producer?”

Belloni also pointed out one more potential conflict: “If Tom Cruise is nominated for
‘Top Gun 2′” — the kind of splashy, A-list popcorn movie the Globes usually loves — “it will be hard for him to attend since he publicly gave back his previous awards.”

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