The 96th Oscars ceremony, taking place on Sunday, March 10, will attempt to make us believe in the resurrection of Hollywood cinema, after the announcement of its demise in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the summer of 2023, the American film industry stocked up on optimism with the double success of Barbie ($1.44 billion in box office receipts, of which $636 million in the United States alone) and Oppenheimer ($957 million, including $329 million in the US). The two feature films by the Warner and Universal film studios (as opposed to streaming platforms) were well received by audiences and critics alike. The stock of good cheer hasn't entirely dissipated, and for one evening, the illusionary renaissance will be prolonged.
The two films, directed by Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan respectively and combined under the moniker "Barbenheimer," earned a total of 21 nominations. Barbie demonstrated that commercial entertainment (with its beginnings as a toy) could be elevated to the level of a work of art, while Oppenheimer showed that an abstruse subject made up of atoms and history was capable of attracting crowds. For a few weeks, everyone wanted to believe that it was still possible to base the American film economy on box-office success.
The fate of other nominees tells a different story. Financed by Apple, Martin Scorsese's film Killers of the Flower Moon (with 10 nominations) cost over $200 million but grossed $157 million, of which $68 million came from the US. For a traditional studio, this would have been a catastrophe. For Apple, whose pockets are deeper than the Mariana Trench, it's an investment designed to recruit subscribers for its platform.
American audiences had three weeks to see Nyad on the big screen, which earned Jodie Foster a fifth nomination (for Best Supporting Actress) before Netflix put it online. With its 260 million subscribers, the platform does not deviate from the position established by CEO Ted Sarandos that the movie theater is merely a showcase to attract media attention and to enable the productions shown to acquire a notoriety that still eludes those released directly on streaming platforms. And it is an operation that has to be carried out in the shortest possible time. For Netflix, a viewer at the entrance to a movie theater is a subscriber who has deserted their sofa.
Amazon's platform Prime Video and AppleTV+ allow their productions to have a life across the Atlantic – often in partnership with legacy studios (a term for the remaining studio system that once governed Hollywood) and established distributors. But their international reach is found almost exclusively online. Cord Jefferson's acerbic comedy American Fiction, nominated in five categories (including Best Actor for Jeffrey Wright), would once have been displayed at the entrance to cinemas the world over. But the film arrived without any fanfare on Amazon's platform in France.
You have 49.47% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.