Steven Spielberg Wants Netflix Movies Disqualified from the Oscars

Posted by on March 4th, 2019   Filed under: Industry News
Source: Variety

spielberg

After the Oscars last Sunday, many people were left wondering how Green Book could pull off a Best Picture win when Roma had seemed like such a clear favourite. Although there are many factors, one of the big ones seems to be a reluctance on the part of old Hollywood to let Netflix win the Academy’s biggest award. Steven Spielberg, in particular, was said to be campaigning hard for Green Book behind the scenes and now he is continuing to push for streaming services to be excluded from the Oscars. Last year Spielberg stated his stance on the matter as follows:

“Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie… You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”

Netflix released a statement of their own on Twitter this week:

We are hearing that Spielberg will bring the matter up for discussion at the Academy’s post-Oscar meeting in April. It’s worth noting that Netflix has been following all of the Academy Award qualification rules up until now with two or three week qualifying runs in theatres. They do not, however, respect theatrical windows that most exhibitors have set. Clearly there is a fear that Netflix is giving people even less reason to go to a theatre, but the fact of the matter is that awards movies have simply become more and more niche over the past decade or two and are now more financially viable on streaming services. Do you think Spielberg has a point or should Netflix movies be allowed to compete at the Oscars?



  • ThisGuy01

    In about two years every studio is going to have their own Netflix-like streaming service producing original movies.
    If the Oscar rules aren’t changed no one is going to have incentive to risk the costs of giving anything a proper theatrical release outside of the guaranteed super-blockbusters.
    If the rules aren’t changed in five years it would be easy to imagine a world where all the Best Picture nominees are all films that never played in more than 50 theaters worldwide for the minimum number of weeks required.
    It’s basically Spielberg arguing if you want an Oscar you have to give a film a proper theatrical run but everyone is doing bad reporting about this.
    Twitter is doing the worst where it’s all people who can’t look past today just sharing that dumb Simpsons “Old Man yells at Crowd” meme or calling Spielberg a racist but Twitter has always been a garbage fire.

  • Sean

    Reading more about it, I didn’t realize that when Netflix does theatrical runs they just rent out the theatres and keep all the money for themselves. That seems like a problem. And they don’t report box office results and all that stuff.

    But if Spielberg is just worried about all the Best Picture nominees getting only a small theatrical release, I think we’re already there. Hard to argue that Roma is only a “TV movie” too.

  • ThisGuy01

    I do think that’s definitely bad bit of phrasing. But, it’s also important to keep in mind that Netflix didn’t make ROMA. It’s a very strange outlier in Netflix’s library and it’d be best if people stopped treating it like a representative of what Netflix does. Cuaron made the movie with Participant Media (who strangely enough ALSO made Green Book) and Netflix only got involved when the movie was finished and they were able to outbid other distributors who wanted to own it – had A24 got ROMA you know it would have played in over 1000 theaters nationwide – because Netflix didn’t have to worry about the cost of distributing it. But, the way Netflix is wisely selling it to the world is “No one would finance this movie until we, the protectors of cinema, came along and made it happen!” which is gross.
    Someone was going to buy ROMA. I don’t think that was never in question. It’s the next film from the Best Director Oscar winning director of GRAVITY. It was never going to be a blockbuster but that’s just what the film inherently is.

    I don’t know. This is a very complicated issue and I think Spielberg is looking ahead to the near future. I don’t even care about the Oscars – they’re a dumpster fire – but producers want those awards so they’ll give certain movies a real theatrical run if they think their film has a chance. If they only have to give the film a half-assed 4-walled run in a couple of theaters for three weeks and then drop it on a streaming service to save money most moneymen are gonna go that route. If it wasn’t made by A24 (who have been bought by Apple and will start making streaming stuff for their upcoming service) and was released today I don’t think MOONLIGHT would have been given a real theatrical run for example. Had that been a Netflix movie they probably would have just dumped it online alongside six new seasons of Netflix Originals, eight new sets of stand up & the next Velvet Buzzsaw. Netflix certainly wouldn’t have given that a theatrical run because it was by some no-name (at the time) filmmaker.

    Either way, I’m Team Spielberg but that’s because I still like going to the movies to see a variety of things and while I enjoy them I don’t just want to go to the movies to see the new MAN movie – AquaMAN, BugMAN, WhateverMAN.

    Netflix killed Blockbuster. Now they’re working on theaters. They can’t do it alone but when Disney+, WarnerBrothers, Sony, Apple & more have streaming services putting out new original movies in the next two or three years it wouldn’t be inconceivable seeing theaters becoming a place where you only go to see the next Marvel or DC Universe film only.

    Shrug. Complicated issue. I just wish the world didn’t treat it as “Old Man doesn’t know what he’s saying”.

  • Sean

    Agreed, I think there is a legitimate debate here but the general public is so invested in Netflix now that it’s hard to convince them otherwise.

  • ThisGuy01

    My comment was marked as spam.
    That’s…. odd.

  • Sean

    Netflix has spies everywhere

  • Jake

    “Steven Spielberg, in particular, was said to be campaigning hard for Green Book behind the scenes”

    That makes sense now. I was curious why Peter Farrelly had thanked Spielberg in his Oscar speech.

  • Matt the Kiwi

    Great summary of the debate! I’m also team Spielberg – keep best picture for cinema releases. Maybe it’s more for nostalgia than logical reasons but I hate the prospect of theatrical releases becoming irrelevant.

  • rusinchicago

    good article by tribune. best point IMO is nobody in Academy goes to movies – they all watch screeners…at home, on their tv….
    http://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=3b06519e-a706-404c-81e1-feab2deaa5a3&fbclid=IwAR3gKq_kqD8DaAdIbW9net3eWWsVCBCh3kLjlgsx_zyiMCmuW6WnCE0Eptg

  • cloberts19

    Subscribing to a streaming service is much more cost-effective for these people than going to a theater to see only one movie.