The Academy Awards are still raising awareness of Hollywood’s top films, but not in theaters
At the start of the 95th Academy Awards, host Jimmy Kimmel praised this year’s nominees as a batch of films that audiences saw “the way you intended them to be seen: in a theater.”
For nominees like “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Elvis” and the night’s biggest winner, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” that was true enough. But their box office success happened well outside of awards season. One more way the pandemic transformed film distribution is how it shifted the Oscars’ impact on audience interest from seeing films in theaters to streaming.
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Indeed, the shortening of the theatrical window in the past few years has not stopped films like “Avatar 2” and other blockbusters from performing similarly to their pre-pandemic counterparts. “The Way of Water” in particular proved a global cultural phenomenon without the help of Oscar buzz with nearly $2.3 billion grossed globally.
But festival films like “The Fabelmans” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” that turn their TIFF/Venice acclaim into Oscar nominations have historically required several weeks to build buzz for a respectable box office run. A variety of factors, including audience tastes shifting away from moodier dramas and the industry imperative to move films from theaters to streaming faster has undercut the ability of many Oscar contenders to build theatrical word of mouth.
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” was able to buck that trend a whole year ago, long before it was even conceivable that it could even become a long-shot Oscar contender, thanks to the wild acclaim from its SXSW premiere and immediate buzz from younger audiences as a film with big-screen spectacle, allowing it to leg out and set a studio box office record for A24.
But since “Everything Everywhere” returned to theaters after Oscar nomination day, it has only grossed $3.7 million on top of the $70 million it had grossed domestically in its initial theatrical run. Conversely, streaming analytics company Samba TV reports that between nomination day and March 5, “Everything Everywhere” has racked up 1.1 million streaming views on Paramount+ and Showtime, approximately 36% of its lifetime streaming total of 3 million views.
On a smaller scale, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” which only grossed $10.5 million at the box office with $1.1 million coming since nomination day, saw a similar bump from its streaming run on HBO Max. Through March 5, Samba TV has tallied 2.6 million lifetime streaming views for “Banshees” with 35% of that total, or 917,000 views, coming since nomination day.
For some smaller-scale Best Picture nominees, the streaming bump was much less visible. Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” which grossed $2.3 million after nomination day for a $17.4 million total, was only available for home viewing via video on demand starting after nomination day, with just 306,000 views recorded. “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the sole Best Picture nominee to have only a token theatrical release before going streaming-exclusive on Netflix in late October, made 26% of its 3.2 million views after nomination day.
Todd Field’s challenging cancel-culture drama “Tár” was released on Peacock a week after nomination day and recorded 458,000 views to go with its meager $6.7 million domestic box office total, an example of how the film’s art-house style, tense plot and complex cultural commentary didn’t resonate with a wider audience looking for an escape from the hardships of reality.
On the opposite end are two films that were cultural hits long before awards season began. After Tom Cruise used sheer force of will to make sure “Top Gun: Maverick” bucked the shortening theatrical window trend, the film didn’t get a streaming release on Paramount+ until Christmas. Even so, it has racked up 5.8 million views.
The film with the most streaming views overall is Warner Bros.’ “Elvis,” which found box office success in the ripples of “Top Gun: Maverick” last summer before hitting HBO Max in early September and getting 8.9 million views, with 20%, or 1.8 million, coming after nomination day.
With the majority of the Oscars going to “EEAAO” (seven wins) and “All Quiet on the Western Front” (four wins), any remaining bump in audience interest from this awards season will likely continue to accrue to streaming. With “Creed III” and “Scream VI” taking up considerable theater space and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” coming on Friday, a year-old “EEAAO” likely won’t stand out in cinemas. Anyone who still hasn’t seen the film and is curious is more likely to see it via a Paramount+ subscription or video on demand.
Even if there is a small theatrical bump for the Best Picture winner, it likely won’t compare to the lift “Parasite” received after winning the top prize in February 2020, earning $17.7 million after Oscar Sunday, or roughly one-third of its $53.3 million total in the U.S. and Canada.
As strange as it may be to believe, it was just three years ago that an Oscar winner from South Korea could first hit theaters in October and still make that sort of money four months later thanks to the buzz from the Academy Awards. Today, that lift would go to streaming. It’s one more sign of how COVID-19 has permanently changed how audiences view movies, and how Hollywood releases them. The Oscars still matter: Viewers have just changed screens.
Jeremy Fuster
Box Office Reporter • jeremy.fuster@thewrap.com • Twitter: @jeremyfuster