The Academy Museum to Celebrate First Anniversary With THE WIZ Screening

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will celebrate its one-year anniversary on September 30 with a special screening of The Wiz (1978), the beloved Motown version of The Wizard of Oz (1939), which was shown with a live orchestra accompaniment on the museum's OPENING DAY in 2021.

Director Sidney Lumet followed a string of Oscar®-winning 1970s classics with this lavish adaptation of the popular Broadway musical The Wiz, noted for its lively score and all-Black cast. The Academy Museum's first anniversary screening of The Wiz will feature live dance performances by the Debbie Allen Dance Studio youth performers.

In its first year of operation, the Academy Museum sold more than 700,000 tickets, presented 535 individual film screenings, and hosted 137 education and public programs, many of which featured notable film artists. Half the museum's visitors were under the age of 40 and half identified as belonging to underrepresented ethic and racial communities. The Academy Museum Store also launched to great success, with over $6 million in sales both in-store and online. Additionally, the museum launched a publishing imprint and debuted three catalogues for its temporary exhibitions Hayao Miyazaki and Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971, as well as the gallery Director's Inspiration: Spike Lee, in addition to releasing the first season of The Academy Museum Podcast. Over the past year, the museum's membership has grown to more than 24,000 and the website saw 2.2 million unique visitors.

Jacqueline Stewart, Director and President of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, said, "We are thrilled with the success we've seen in the museum's first year and grateful for the warm welcome we have received from the communities of Los Angeles. The extraordinary commitment we received from our generous donors has far surpassed our expectations, both in financial contributions and in gifts of important materials which are expanding our collection. The foundation of supporters the museum has cultivated, including visitors of all backgrounds and our growing family of Academy Members, will help us continue to flourish and to serve our mission of advancing the understanding, celebration, and preservation of cinema."

Bill Kramer, Chief Executive Officer of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said, "Since our founding days, the Academy has dreamed of opening a museum that would bring the artistry of filmmaking and the Academy's unparalleled collection to the world. We could not be more thrilled with the success of our opening year, and we are deeply grateful to the Academy Museum team, the Academy Museum Board, our Academy Board of Governors, and all our Academy members who helped to make this possible."

Brendan Connell, Jr., Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at the Academy Museum, said, "Since opening our doors last year, we have built an amazing staff of over 350 employees, operated a LEED Gold Certified building, two state-of-art theaters, and welcomed visitors from far and wide to experience all the museum has to offer. Our exhibitions, screenings, education programs, store and restaurant have enabled us to engage and deeply connect with our visitors in a multitude of ways. We hope visitors will return again and again, because this year was just the beginning."

In its inaugural year, the museum's exhibition offerings included Stories of Cinema, which spans 3 floors and 18 different galleries; Backdrop: An Invisible Art; The Path to Cinema: Highlights from the Richard Balzer Collection; The Oscars® Experience; Hayao Miyazaki, the museum's first temporary exhibition spanning seven galleries that ran from September 30, 2021 to June 5, 2022; The Pixar Toy Story 3D Zoetrope; Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971, which spans seven galleries and opened on August 21, 2022; and Isaac Julien: Baltimore, which was programmed in conjunction with Regeneration and opened on August 21, 2022. Upcoming exhibitions include: Hollywoodland (opening Fall 2023) and John Waters: The Pope of Trash (opening Fall 2023). Updates to our ongoing core exhibition Stories of Cinema include The Art of Moviemaking: The Godfather (opening November 3, 2022); Directors Inspiration: Agnès Varda (opening November 3, 2022; object rotations in our Identity, Story, Inventing Worlds and Characters: Animation, and Academy Awards History galleries; and new vignettes in the Significant Movies and Moviemakers gallery (opening in February 2023) which will showcase the films Casablanca (1942) and BOYZ N THE HOOD (1991), plus a focus the life and career of the documentarian, visual artist, journalist, and activist Lourdes Portillo.

The museum's programming includes a robust schedule of screenings, discussions, and public programs including in-gallery programs, virtual programs, school tours, symposia, panels, book signings, and more. Special guests have included actors Angela Bassett, Ellen Burstyn, Laura Dern, Sally Field, Harry Hamlin, Doug Jones, Diane Ladd, Nia Long, Eva Longoria, Malcolm McDowell, Al Pacino, Talia Shire, and Denzel Washington, ; directors Charles Burnett, Jane Campion, Matthew A. Cherry, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo Del Toro, William Friedkin, Haile Gerima, Barry Jenkins, Spike Lee, Gregory Nava, Mina Shum, Jill Sprecher, Gus Van Sant, and Chloé Zhao; cinematographers Guillermo Navarro and Bradford Young; visual effects artists John Dykstra and Richard Edlund; comedian John Early; writers Suzanne de Passe and Laura Esquivel; artist Tacita Dean; archivist Serge Bromberg; editor Mary Sweeney; makeup artists Howard Berger and Tami Lane; production designer Wynn Thomas; and labor organizer and activist Dolores Huerta.

Community-centered engagements are integral to the Academy Museum's mission. In its first year, the museum connected with more than 30 Los Angeles-based community organizations in addition to County Supervisorial districts and City Council offices. In addition to providing free admission to all visitors who are ages 17 and under, the museum has delivered more than 3,500 complimentary museum general admission tickets to Angelenos. The museum's free community days welcomed communities historically excluded from museum settings and art institutions and attracted more than 2,500 guests. The museum has extended its commitment to community beyond its walls, allocating more than a quarter of a million dollars to community investment, contributing directly toward local economies by retaining community organizations as producers, creators, and thought partners.

The Academy Museum also added many acquisitions to its expansive and growing collection. Halle Berry donated the Elie Saab gown she wore to THE ACADEMY AWARDS in 2002, the year she made history by winning the Best Actress award for Monster's Ball (2001). Jamie Lee Curtis donated clapperboards for films including Halloween (1978), Trading Places (1983), Blue Steel (1990), and True Lies (1994), in addition to donating scripts to the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library. Designer Isis Mussenden donated the costume worn by Christian Bale in American Psycho (2000). Production designer Ida Random donated the set model for the Cook Ranch, New Mexico, created for Silverado (1985) and used subsequently for other Westerns. Sound Mixer Phillip Bladh donated sound equipment used by Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal (2019). Meg Ryan donated the coat she wore in Sleepless in Seattle (1993). FilmNation Entertainment donated costumes designed by Nancy Steiner worn by Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman (2020). Producer Lynn Harris donated the sword used by Wesley Snipes in the Blade trilogy (1998-2004). Makeup artist Howard Berger donated life casts of actors including Linda Blair, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg. Designer Natalie O'Brien donated the costume worn by Sheila Vand in A Girl Walks HOME ALONE at Night (2014). Costume designer Jenny Beavan donated the jacket she wore when she won Costume Design for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Lucy Liu donated costumes she wore in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Watching the Detectives (2007), and The Man with the Iron Fists (2012). The museum also purchased matte paintings by Albert Whitlock for Marnie (1964) and Frenzy (1972) and the costume worn by Jennifer Lopez in The Cell (2000), designed by Eiko Ishioka, as well as the hat worn by Nancy Kwan in Flower Drum Song (1961).

The Academy Museum Store enjoyed ample traffic on-site and online to reach more than $6 million in revenue in its first year. The store features merchandise designed and produced by Academy members and Los Angeles- and California-based artists and designers including costume designer Ruth E. Carter, Brain Dead, Wayne Perry, Susan Kare, and Bricks & Wood. Nearly half of the merchandise was created exclusively for the store, which collaborated with 30 artists to develop unique products. Among the five top-selling items in the first year were the catalogue for the exhibition Hayao Miyazaki, a print from My Neighbor Totoro (1988), the Lego® Oscar, the Academy Museum logo crew-neck tee, and the Ruby Slipper bag designed by Jeremy Scott for Moschino in collaboration with costume designer Arianne Phillips.

The museum launched a book imprint and published three catalogues based on the exhibitions Hayao Miyazaki and Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971 and the gallery Director's Inspiration: Spike Lee. All the publications were co-published with DelMonico Books and distributed worldwide by D.A.P. Artbook.

The Academy Museum Podcast launched its first season of ten episodes in partnership with Southern California Public Radio's LAist Studios. The first season, And the Oscar® Goes To..., focused on ten key Academy Award® ceremonies and included special guests actors Halle Berry, Laura Dern, Whoopi Goldberg, and Mo'Nique; producer Reggie Hudlin; and activist Sacheen Littlefeather.

The Academy Museum has become a home for Hollywood's first-run film premieres. In its first year of operation, Ambulance (2021), Belfast (2021), Being the Ricardo's (2021), House of Gucci (2021), Last Night in Soho (2021), and more, premiered at the museum.

Fanny's Restaurant and Café at the Academy Museum was brought to life by restaurateurs Bill Chait and Carl Schuster with generous support from the Fran & Ray Stark Foundation. Named after Fanny Brice-the legendary movie, vaudeville, theater, and radio star portrayed by Barbra Streisand in her Oscar-winning role in Funny Girl (1968)-the striking two-story, 10,000-square-foot space saw more than 150,000 guests in its first year for lunch and dinner service and hosted a number of high-profile private events.

Image Credits: (TOP L-R) Photo from the Academy Museum's Tactile Filmmaking workshop. Photo by Kyra Saldaña / Las Fotos Project; Academy Museum Oscars® Viewing Party, Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby. Photo by Betsy Youree, ©Academy Museum Foundation; Photo from the Academy Museum's second annual Community Day, Deaf West Theatre dancers Erika Chirino, Dani Duran, and Raquel McPeek. Photo by Al Seib /© Academy Museum Foundation; (Bottom L-R) Photo from "Legacy Conversation: Laura Dern with Diane Ladd," in the David Geffen Theater. Photo © Academy Museum Foundation; Photo from the OPENING DAY at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, September 30, 2021. © Academy Museum Foundation; film still from The Wiz (1978).

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