Netflix has spent years and millions upon millions of dollars to try to win an Oscar for Best Picture. It came close a number of times, particularly with 2018’s “Roma” and 2021’s “Don’t Look Up” and “The Power of the Dog,” all of which earned multiple nominations, and none of which picked up the ultimate trophy.
Then Apple (APPL) scored the Best Picture Oscar on its first try, with last year’s win for Sian Heder’s “Coda,” about the child of deaf parents who wants to become a singer but doesn’t want to leave her family. That same year, the film’s star Troy Kotsur won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
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While Apple didn’t manage to pull off back-to-back Oscar wins this year, it was still a big achievement for a streaming company to win for Best Picture, and its understated 2022 drama “Causeway” earned actor Brian Tyree Henry a nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
But now, the streaming service has announced a pivot that may surprise some onlookers, but should delight movie goers.
Apple Is Planning To Invest Heavily In The Theatrical Experience
For years, theater owners and cinephiles have worried that seeing movies in actual movie theaters might become a lost art or a generational touchstone that dies out, as people prefer to stay home and stream films, only leaving the house for blockbusters.
But at the same time, Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN) and other streaming services tend to produce a lot of original films, and some are much better than others.
This fire-hose approach means even great streaming originals don’t get the attention they deserve. That's part of the reason that Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) CEO David Zaslav has said the company will stop making direct to HBO Max films, as he believes films need to be in theaters first to attract people’s attention, and then they’ll be of more value to the streaming service.
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Now, Apple is looking to bolster the cinematic experience, in hopes that it will raise the profile for its streaming platform Apple TV+, and perhaps get more people to watch its films. (It might also help quiet people who complain that the only thing in theaters anymore are superhero films.)
The company has announced plans to to spend $1 billion annually to produce original films, which will have theatrical releases in thousands of cinemas running for a month at a minimum. Some streaming services have been known to put potentially award-worthy films in theaters for a few days in order to qualify for Oscars, but this is a much different endeavor, it seems.
As noted by The Verge, the move can be seen as an attempt to “get audiences used to thinking of Apple Studios and Apple TV Plus as serious players in the movie game.”
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Will Martin Scorsese’s Apple Film Get A Theatrical Release?
Apple is reportedly in talks with other studios about partnerships concerning distribution and other logistics issues.
Matthew Vaughn’s thriller “Argylle,” starring Dua Lipa and Henry Cavill, and Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” historical drama, starring Joaquin Phoenix, are said to be contenders for theatrical release.
Apple TV+’s biggest Oscar hope for the year is Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of David Grann’s nonfiction true crime book “The Killers Of The Flower Moon,” which will star Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro and recent Oscar winner Brendan Fraser. Netflix gave Scorsese’s last film “The Irishmen” a theatrical release ahead of its Oscar campaign, and it would be very surprising if Apple didn’t go the same route here.
