The lines around what a movie actually is and how it will be released theatrically may continue to blur and become as foggy as London in the 1950s if Netflix pulls off a stunner come Oscar Night.
Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma via Netflix
Usually as we reach this point in Oscar season one or two films have separated themselves from the pack and are clear Best Picture front-runners. When I previewed this race back in October I mentioned this was one of the most wide open competitions in recent memory. Fast forward to the waning days of 2018 and the picture still remains cloudy and, in an odd way, this could turn out to be the greatest Christmas present ever for, of all companies, Netflix.
The streaming service partnered with Academy Award winning director Alfonso Cuaron ( Gravity) on Roma, a black and white drama that chronicles a year in the life of a middle-class family’s maid in Mexico City in the early 1970s. The company made the film available to its streaming customers in mid-December and it has been omnipresent on the service for the last two weeks. This came after a limited theatrical break that did not include any of the major theater circuits as chains like AMC, Cinemark and Regal/Cineworld refuse to play films that don’t adhere to the commonly accepted 90 day video/streaming window.
So what does this all have to do with the Best Picture race? Well, Mr. Cuaron has spent the past several months proclaiming publicly that his film would be receiving the wide release the company promised and privately hoping his film would not only receive a Best Picture nomination but also go on to win the coveted prize come February. The first half of that thought process has not come to pass. The film’s November/December theatrical release didn’t reach much past select art houses in the U. S. In addition, Netflix doesn’t report theatrical (or streaming, for that matter) revenues, so the company couldn’t take advantage of the publicity that comes from huge per location averages the way The Favourite, Eighth Grade and Free Solo did in 2018.
