And the award for Most Desperate and Unnecessary Move to Reel in More Viewers goes to… the Academy Awards!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced last week it was making significant changes to its television broadcast. A major change includes trimming the notoriously long-winded program to three hours (thank you!). That means certain categories will be presented during commercial breaks (looking at you, Best Sound Editing).

The most-buzzed about change, though, was the announcement of the creation of a new category, “Achievement in Popular Film.” Yeah, the Oscars has made a category for blockbusters, in particular Marvel Universe movies, which have taken over the business of Hollywood ever since Robert Downey Jr. proclaimed he was in fact “Iron Man.”

This is all a ploy to get more mainstream movie fans to watch the Oscars broadcast.

These are the millions of people who watched acclaimed blockbusters such as “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Skyfall,” “Mad Max: Fury Road” or “Wonder Woman” but didn’t watch the Best Picture winners from those same years —  “Argo,” “Moonlight” and “The Shape of Water.”

The decision reeks of desperation. It also reflects once again how the Academy is trying to have its cake and eat it too — which it has done with two previous changes.

The Academy had long shut out, or rather looked down upon, animated films in major categories. The lone historic exception being Walt Disney Picture’s now heralded classic “Beauty and the Beast” earning a Best Picture nod.

But with animated movies becoming a billion-dollar industry by the end of the 1990s, helped by multiple other studios not named Disney or PIXAR making hit movies, the Oscars created a new category to honor animated movies “Best Animated Feature,” which was won that inaugural year by “Shrek.”

Unlike the big green ogre of that movie, this decision does not have layers like an onion.

For many, that decision was a blatant way to appease fans of the genre while also ensuring that the coveted Best Picture nods wouldn’t be taken up by cartoons. The Academy couldn’t allow the latest Harvey Weinstein-produced and marketed overrated drama to lose its spot to a film featuring a talking dog or fish or dinosaur.

The Academy likes to point to the fact that both Disney & Pixar’s “Up” in 2009 and “Toy Story 3” in 2010 received Best Picture nominations. The counter argument is that only occurred after the number of nominees were expanded from five to 10 — yet another ploy to get more viewers while also saving spots for major awards for smaller films.

The result of the expansion has seen a seismic shift in what films take home Best Picture gold.

From 1988 to 2007, the Academy’s top prize went to 15 movies that made at least $100 million at the box office, the threshold for that period for a movie achieving blockbuster status. Four others (“Schindler’s List,” “Braveheart,”“The English Patient” and “No Country for Old Men”) all made at least $74 million, which was still considered a hit movie — if not a blockbuster.

The only outlier in that two-decade period was “Crash” in 2005 that made only $54 million.

The previous 10 years, though, has seen a shift away from box office smash hits to more art-house or festival films for Oscar’s most coveted prize.

Of the 10 most recent Best Picture winners, a mere three have crossed the $100 million threshold, which is not what it used to be, and the last one to do that was the historical drama “Argo” from 2012, which can be best explained by the public’s need to see a bearded Ben Affleck in a tweed jacket.

In fact, five of the Best Picture winners made less than $50 million, and the truth is that part of that has to do with the subject matter.

Despite being moving, and in some cases remarkable pieces of cinematic art that deserve recognition from millions, movies about a newspaper uncovering the sexual abuse of children (“Spotlight”) or a silent film honoring the silent film era (“The Artist”) or a black comedy about an aging former film superhero (“Birdman”) are all films that do not put butts into seats. And if they don’t put butts in seats, they obviously are not getting people to sit in front of the TV to watch the Oscars.

This year’s Oscars telecast was the third consecutive year of declining ratings and was the lowest-rated telecast in history. Part of that is the fact that the way we consume television has changed vastly in the past five years, and the days of any event like the Oscars being watched live by 50 million people is long gone.

Instead of creating a new category, which you can bet the farm will be filled with Marvel Universe movies (my money is on “Black Panther”), maybe the Oscars should change their approach to the awards season.

“Forrest Gump” and “Silence of the Lambs” were already out of the theaters for several months when they took top honors, but most of the Best Picture winners of late are films that most audiences have never seen because they are on the festival circuit until December, and typically don’t get wide release until nominations are awarded. Then, the public has just two weeks to see them in a theater. In some markets, they won’t get to see the film until after the Oscars are broadcast, or not at all.

The days of banking on people to tune in to see who wins, and then go watch that film in the cinema is over. If people haven’t seen the film, or rather aren’t that familiar with the actors in said film, then why are they going to be emotionally invested into watching the telecast to see if that film wins an award?

Having increased the Best Picture nominees from five to 10 should have fixed this issue. That gives the Academy a large group of blockbusters and indie flicks duking it out for top honors. So there’s not really a reason to add another category, and the addition just comes off as a move trying to keep “Black Panther” from getting a Best Picture nod.

Yes, recent Best Picture winners were not box office smash hits but that doesn’t take away from how great they were. “12 Years a Slave” is still a phenomenal movie even though it made only $56 million.

It is also a knee-jerk reaction to declining ratings and guess what? This run is just cyclical and it has happened before.

“Kramer vs. Kramer” won Best Picture in 1979 and it grossed $106 million, but the next three winners, and four of the next five (“Ordinary People,” “Chariots of Fire,” “Gandhi,” and “Amadeus”), all made less than $59 million. A few years later, “The Last Emperor” took home gold and made a mere $43 million.

The following year “Rain Man” won top honors and made a whopping $172 million.

So like I said, it is desperate and unnecessary. Perhaps Hollywood just needs Dustin Hoffman to have another critical box office smash to turn things around. Oh wait … making another category is probably the only choice they have.

RAYMOND PARTSCH III is the managing editor of The Daily Iberian.