New Academy rules require actual theatrical run for Best Picture eligibility
Movies looking for Best Picture consideration will need an “expanded theatrical run”
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Earlier today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made it official: Best Picture nominees must receive an actual theatrical run. To qualify for the 2023 race, contenders must fulfill an “expanded theatrical run” in “10 of the top 50 U.S. markets.” By expanding the rules, the Academy is essentially forcing every studio and streamer to play the same game and put movies in theaters around the country rather than a couple of screens in New York City and Los Angeles.
“As we do every year, we have been reviewing and assessing our theatrical eligibility requirements for the Oscars,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang in a joint statement. “In support of our mission to celebrate and honor the arts and sciences of moviemaking, it is our hope that this expanded theatrical footprint will increase the visibility of films worldwide and encourage audiences to experience our art form in a theatrical setting. Based on many conversations with industry partners, we feel that this evolution benefits film artists and movie lovers alike.”
The new guidelines are:
- Expanded theatrical run of seven days, consecutive or non-consecutive, in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets, no later than 45 days after the initial release in 2024.
- For late-in-the-year films with expansions after Jan. 10, 2025, distributors must submit release plans to the Academy for verification.
- Release plans for late-in-the-year films must include a planned expanded theatrical run, as described above, to be completed no later than Jan. 24, 2025.
- Non-U.S. territory releases can count towards two of the 10 markets.
- Qualifying non-U.S. markets include the top 15 international theatrical markets plus the home territory for the film.
Streamers have long done the bare minimum for Oscar consideration. When Netflix first entered the Academy Awards conversation in 2018 with Roma, the streamer dropped Alfonso Cuaron’s in less than 150 theaters to qualify. By the time CODA won Best Picture in 2022, it had no theatrical run to speak of, thanks to the pandemic when the Academy lifted rules on theatrical releases.
As usual, Steven Spielberg was ahead on this one. When Netflix began squeezing its way into the race, Spielberg stepped in, called Netflix’s output “TV movies,” and attempted to have streaming movies banned from the Oscars. “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” Spielberg said in 2018. “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.”
As Variety points out, the streamers likely knew this was coming. Amazon released Air on 3,500 screens. Not bad for a movie without a superhero but rather a marketing whiz that transformed a billion-dollar company into a multi-billion-dollar company. Likewise, Apple reportedly invested $1 billion to make theatrical releases happen. Later this year, they’ll pull a Netflix and release Martin Scorsese’s latest streaming picture, Killers Of The Flower Moon, in theatres.
Of course, the upside to this is there’s no downside. Unless there is a generational health emergency, movies should play in movie theaters if they want to be called the “Best Picture” of the year—at least according to the organization that gives out awards.
17 Comments
I really never cared about the Oscars but good for them (although this should have happened years if not decades ago). They have every right to do this and there has been an award for made-for-TV movies for ages, it’s called the Emmy. If a streamer thinks an Oscar is so important they can play by the Academy rules and make some extra money in the process. This isn’t about theatrical vs streaming or how great some random bro thinks his 4K giant TV is or how other people hate going to movie theaters. It’s simply an organization clarifying the rules of its own awards process.And once again, there’s an award for streamer films. It’s called the Emmy. Deal with it.
Kinda disappointed that Spielberg is willing to be that dumb.
This change isn’t going to keep films produced by and for streaming services out of the competition, it’s just going to force them to play in a few more markets; if Netflix, Amazon, Apple, et al. want a film nominated, it won’t take too much more out of their budget to meet the requirements.What I’m wondering is whether this will harm the chances of any of the micro-indie studios, or whether their offerings have been shut out of consideration by other factors anyway.
Exactly. This is gatekeeping for small production company. Some, like Wes Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos can get by this because several theatre/distributor will agree to have his movie because he already has fanbase and the backing of popular movie star. But others may not had the privilege.
If an indie film can’t manage to find enough of an audience to get screenings in more than a handful of cities, is it really deserving of Best Picture?
So you think “best picture” should be “most popular picture?”
Netflix will buy a few more theaters and keep a projector going in each 24 hours per day. Every original Netflix movie will eventually qualify.
I am confused, why was Roma being on 150 screens bad? When it looks like even with the new rules you only have to be shown for 7 days in 10 cities (70 screens) to qualify for an Oscar.
You mean they can’t use “won an Oscar” in their promotions for a movie being released soon?
For the most part, I actually like this. More movies in theaters is good in my eyes – there have been a lot of movies released on streaming that I feel would have been a good theater experience, so that means that they are more likely to end up in a theater near me.Other people’s points about indie movies is fair, and there are probably some other issues that I am too dumb to realize are issues. But in my selfish opinion, this is a win.
Once again, the Academy shows that they couldn’t care less about the actual quality of the film, just how many qualifications the film has to meet.
So this is more of Hollywood going “We want viewing movies to be inconvenient because the theaters experience is sacred, even when we’re supposed to be rewarding people for the quality of the films themselves rather than where the film was shown.”Seriously though, screw movie theaters and screw the people who want them to be the only option for viewing new films. I’d rather they launch an appropriately priced streaming service specifically for movies in theater than have to deal with sticky floors, broken chairs, inconsiderate strangers, dubiously clean bathrooms, and food that is priced like a minibar.
Is this really what Hollywood is doing/saying, though? Nothing in what I read above indicates that studios can’t release in theaters and on their streaming services concurrently. And even if the studio holds the streaming release, the time between theatrical release and streaming release these days is so short. Yes, they’re trying to protect theaters a little bit, but it doesn’t appear to be at the expense of people who want to stream movies.
It’s not what they’re saying (though film Directors are), but its definitely what they’re doing. With this, they’re basically gatekeeping major awards to things that go through their theatrical process, so even if someone were to make a movie that everyone considered ‘perfect’ but it was only available on Netflix, it wouldn’t be considered for academy awards until a deal for a theatrical run was made.
When you add in how studios were trying to adapt to streaming during the worst times of the pandemic and then how quickly they changed course and it’s pretty clear that something changed (and my belief it was from big name Directors freaking out). Even if the time between theatrical and streaming is decreasing, they are still holding the theater experience as something inherently superior.
Disney at least tried to legitimately offer a streaming option for simultaneous theatrical releases. They offered films like Mulan and Black Widow at a premium watch price on D+ that was similar to PPV. What they didn’t appear to do was adapt/revive the actor contracts since bonuses were sometimes tied to ticket sales and streaming didn’t apply to that. I think WB just put films on HBO Max as a method to increase subscriptions but they have been notoriously bad with money and general decision making despite having some solid franchises. Paramount was just weird about it in general until Top Gun proved people were still willing to go into theaters.
It just seems really weird to me that we had about 1-2 years of not ‘having’ to go to the theater to remain up to date on pop culture when it came to film, with several different models attempts to make it viable and then they there was a sudden swap back to the old ways that includes trailers outright specifying that films are theater only.
Again, I don’t see anywhere where these rules say that releases have to be theater only, so I’m not sure that you’re being forced to go back to a theater to see a film that otherwise isn’t available on streaming. Nowhere in these rules do I see that it specifies that films are theater only. The old rules required a very limited theatrical release. These new rules require a slightly larger theatrical release. Nowhere is streaming limited or curtailed. So I’m not sure what the problem is.
Your caption on the lead image… Thanks for the clarification.
Spielberg should have just said: let them submit to the Emmys
mic drop