This year’s Best Picture Oscar race is shaping up to be a battle between Netflix and Apple. Either way, it likely marks the first time the industry’s top honor has gone to a film distributed primarily online and not in theaters.
The competition between Netflix’s “The Power of the Dog” and Apple TV+’s “CODA” says a lot about the movie business in 2022. Movie theaters are still reeling from the pandemic, which has kept audiences away from theaters.
Meanwhile, Hollywood studios are making their movies available for home viewing exclusively, or much earlier than in the past, to compete with technology companies that offer streaming video services and fund their own movie listings and television.
Delivery
The Academy Awards, airing this Sunday on TNT, comes with its usual amount of pre-show drama. The awards were delayed a month after last year’s ceremony was postponed due to Covid-19.
Viewership for the ceremony has plummeted in recent years, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out the awards, is trying to cut down on the historically long time by handing out eight awards before broadcast.
That caused quite a stir, particularly among contenders in categories that didn’t make the cut, like film editing and production design.
The ceremony returns this year to its traditional venue at the 3,300-seat Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, after being held last year before a much smaller audience at a train station due to pandemic precautions.
Three female comedians, Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes, will preside over the ceremony, after the academy previously experimented without hosts. Producer Will Packer is trying to reach a wider audience by adding more music and sports stars as hosts, including skateboarder Tony Hawk and snowboarder Shaun White.
And “No Se Habla de Bruno,” the hit song from the Disney movie “Encanto,” will be performed live despite not being nominated for any awards.
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The academy has grappled for years with criticism that it shortchanges minorities, and has worked to diversify its nearly 9,500 voting members.
Actor Will Smith, who has never won an Oscar, is a contender this year for his portrayal of the Williams sisters’ father in “King Richard.”
And this year’s lineup includes four Black acting award nominees, including Smith, who is nominated for a third time.
Troy Kotsur, who played the father in Apple’s “CODA,” is considered the frontrunner for best supporting actor. He and he one of only two deaf performers to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Performance.
His “CODA” co-star, Marlee Matlin, was the first, winning in 1987 for her lead role in “Children of a Lesser God.”
Awards that could overshadow Netflix’s will to consecrate itself with an Oscar for best film: it has been close for the last four years.
Versus
The campaign kicked off in earnest with 2018’s “Roma,” which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won three, including best director for Alfonso Cuarón.
Since then, the streaming industry pioneer has made films with some of the industry’s most respected directors, including Martin Scorsese, David Fincher and Noah Baumbach.
And he has spent tens of millions of dollars campaigning for the Oscars, fighting back against criticism from industry luminaries like Steven Spielberg, who said made-for-TV movies shouldn’t be eligible for Academy Awards. Spielberg is nominated just this year for “West Side Story,” which initially appeared only in theaters. But now he also has a deal to do movies for Netflix.
“The Power of the Dog,” a drama about strained relationships in a ranching family in 1920s Montana, is the favorite to win best picture on Oscar prediction sites like GoldDerby.com. And “Don’t Look Up” (also from Netflix), a satire about a comet hurtling towards Earth, is also nominated.
In contrast, “CODA,” about a high school student who helps deaf members of her family, has been generating buzz lately, even winning the top honor from the influential Producers Guild of America on March 19.
“At some point, it’s the movie that wins your heart that ultimately wins the day,” said Erik Davis, editor of Fandango. “That’s one thing CODA has going for it, it’s a super moving movie that came at a time when a lot of people really need a soul hug.”
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