He’s completely wrong and is just looking to protect his films from competition. I’m surprised by the poll results, I would have though it’d be 90%+ on #2.
Huh? The question of whether Netflix films deserve to be considered for awards is completely orthogonal to providing box office information. I’m with Yokeroo who cares?
I haven’t given a FF about the Oscars for 10+ years, and Spielberg and other like-minded Hollywood moguls are just trying to maintain their “air” of exclusivity, their brand of “special.”
I’d rather watch a movie at home anyway, though my recent (~2 years or so) movie-going experiences have been much better than ever, due to my local theater going “Dine-In” with a decent menu selection and drink service. But ticket prices are still more than I pay a month for Netflix.
And Netflix gives me movies and series that I like, that I can watch over and over again, pause, rewind, or just stop and go do something else and then come back and pick up right where I left off.
The times, they are a changin’, and old-school Hollywood doesn’t like streaming services reaching into their pockets by stealing viewers.
As I understand it, the reason reporting box office numbers matters is that the theater owners want that information so they can make business decisions. The Hollywood Reporter has an article about this, in which they’re discussing Netflix’s next big prestige release, The Irishman, directed by Martin Scorsese. The article says, “Scorsese wants a wide theatrical release for his more than $125 million gangster movie, and two industry sources with knowledge of talks between Netflix and theater owners tell The Hollywood Reporter that the streaming company is working to get him one. To do so, Netflix will have to expand the three-week art house theatrical window it pioneered amid controversy this awards season and will have to allow theater owners to report box office numbers, which the streamer did not do for Roma.”
No idea whether this should matter to Yokeroo.
[Moderating]
I fixed a typo in the thread title, which should hopefully make that at least less confusing.
I’m inclined to say Netflix movies should count. The main difference between a Netflix movie and one for theatrical release is the screen size, and how many people it reaches. It may be enough of a difference in art form to create a movie that looks good on the big screen vs a movie that looks good on a home screen. However, all the other nominees mail DVDs to the voters, so it is not a distinction that the other nominees are making. The ease of watching Netflix means it is likely that all things being equal, a Netflix nominee will likely be seen by more people than a theatrical release, which might be an advantage, but I don’t see it as an unfair one.
I kind of see his point. The Oscars are for cinematic releases. The end run of limited cinematic releases to qualify seems a bit disingenuous, especially if I wanted to see something in a cinema and it didn’t come to my town.
On the other hand, I don’t really care about the Oscars above “what should I watch if I have limited time?”
I voted no but I don’t like it.
I agree objectively that the award doesn’t serve the public’s desire for this competition but that’s really not what the Oscars are about.
They are a promotion for the movie industry which includes the movie theaters. The goal was to promote their movies with the goal of putting butts in the seats. The seats that their distribution partners need to stay in business.
Streaming services work against this and maybe one day may kill theaters entirely but I can’t blame their content partners not being eager to aid that along. It is a promotion that they created out of whole cloth and it’s not like someone else is prohibited from creating their own award.
It seems that the streamers don’t want to put in the hard work of promoting themselves via their own promotions but would rather take a shortcut at the expense of the theater owners.
Now, I don’t often go to movies so like I said, I voted no but I don’t think it’s right.
I refuse to participate in a poll with so many spelling/punctuation/grammatical errors.
Didn’t something like this happen with art, especially painting? Ah, yes, here: Academic art - Wikipedia
You start with an art form then an organization forms around it to determine what’s best then that organization gets ossified into a navel-gazing traditionalist dinosaur that loses credibility. The French New Wave in the '60s was a conscious effort to move away from similar traditionalist tendencies: French New Wave - Wikipedia
It made do with smaller budgets and was responsible for breaking cinema out of its stuffy, stodgy Academy/studio system which is what Netflix is doing. Spielberg should know about that; He gave Truffaut, the main director associated with the movement, a role in Close Encounters of the third kind.
It’s like OP had a stroke in the middle of drunkposting while typing his post on his phone with mittens.
One of the reasons I don’t care about the Oscars is that very rarely have I ever heard of the nominees and even more rarely have I seen one and liked it. If the Oscars wanted my viewership they would change the rules to require wide release probably with at least 50% of theaters carrying the movie for at least a week. I don’t have netflix and mainly watch hulu or prime for my streaming. I would let each of the streaming services count as 50 movie theaters towards the 50% number or let them provide viewer numbers so that they count more exactly towards the number of theaters.
I understand the desire to protect the sanctity of an art form. But this is just short-sighted and selfish. I’m not saying there it should be a free for all of any movie made being eligible in a given year, but trying to skirt Netflix doesn’t seem like an artistic decision. It feels like a BUSINESS decision.
Why should the Oscars prop up the failing movie industry? Making certain movies be in theaters helps theaters, not movies. Or hey… what about showing them in that nifty new museum they told us about in the show? No? Then it’s DEFINITELY about business, not artistic integrity. Learn from all the other industries (including video rentals) and try to survive this. Fight it and you’re going to drown and look foolish doing so.
Also, Netflix and Amazon have the time and resources to feature stories that feature actors and directors and writers that are marginalized or ignored. Taking away the prestige from Netflix just means more trophies for Spielberg et al and less for the up and comers and and minorities/women.
But surely his motives are pure and he’s not just another boomer (sorry, boomers) trying desperately to hold onto all the pieces of the game, making sure no one else can play lest they get in his way, as he sees his way is not the future, but the past.
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This argument has been going on since at least the 1950s, when television first started becoming successful
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The Oscars belong to the movie industry and they can do with it what they want.
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It’s not like the Oscars actually mean anything. They’re just a part of the industry’s publicity machine. They were never designed to truly honor excellence in the art form.
I agree with Spielberg. The streaming sites are doing a cheap end-run around the industry. They should be competing at the Emmys against HBO original movies (and Starz, Showtime, etc…), not the Oscars.
It is a business decision, yes, but the skirting is currently being done by Netflix/Amazon/Hulu. If the Oscars change their rules, they wouldn’t be skirting Netflix, they’d be ending Netflix’s skirting.
Because that’s their sole reason for existing.
The same can be said about HBO, and HBO original movies have never had any problem with competing at the Emmys. Which is where TV movies compete.
Streaming movies are TV movies, and as such they should compete at the Emmys. They have some very good TV movies, for sure, but they are still TV movies. Exactly the same as HBO.
I can’t click on any option in such a poorly written poll.
Netflix, Rakuten and Amazon are doing more to introduce the world to everybody else’s work than either television or movie theaters ever did. I find it hilarious that right now one of Netflix’s offerings in Spain is the Colombian remake of a Spanish hit TV series. My foreign coworkers have mentioned La casa de papel to me more often than my Spanish friends; it seems as if all of France has watched it. Those two happen to be series, but I also see Bollywood offerings and British or French comedies that I would never find in a Spanish theater.
According to the Wikipedia article Duel (Spielberg’s first film) first aired on American broadcast TV and then later got a limited overseas release. Under the current AMPAS rules, it would have been ineligible for Academy Award contention. That doesn’t mean it’s not a movie, just that it wouldn’t have qualified for this particular award. (Note that I have no idea what the rules were in 1971.)
The only real difference in made-for-TV movies as opposed to “theatrical” movies is the act/commercial structure. The narrative is designed to be broken into segments. The pacing of the action is structured for regular stopping points. That’s about it. There are some amazing films, as good as theatrical releases, that work in this format, Duel being just one of many.
Should they be eligible for Oscars? I’d say no. They can be happy with Emmys.
But the world is changing. What do you do with a well made film that is only seen on streaming services? One that is designe3d to be watched on a phone? What awards should they get?
Can you fix the ones in the poll, too?
Eh, if Netflix cares that much they can spearhead the Streamy Awards and see if people care enough to give them weight.