Jim Cameron Says Netflix Shouldn’t Qualify for the Oscars. Is he right?

A hot take by Jim Cameron recently laid into Netflix in a podcast with Matthew Belloni at The Ringer, covered at The Playlist – you can listen to it here:

“I know, but it’s sucker bait, right. ‘We’ll put the movie out for a week or 10 days. We’ll qualify for Oscar consideration.’ See, I think that’s fundamentally rotten to the core. A movie should be made as a movie for theatrical, and the Academy Awards mean nothing to me if they don’t mean theatrical. I think they’ve been co-opted, and I think it’s horrific.”

Belloni then asked, “You don’t think they should be allowed to compete for Oscars?” Cameron stated, “They should be allowed to compete if they put the movie out for a meaningful release in 2,000 theaters for a month.” Before reminding Belloni that his upcoming “Avatar” sequel is going to be shown on 7,500 screens in December, so having their movies in more than 2,000 theaters isn’t the biggest hurdle for the streaming giant to accomplish.

“Give me a f***ing break, we’re going to be on 7,500 screens,” Cameron said of his own film’s theater count in comparison to what Netflix is doing for their films to qualify for the Academy Awards.

On the one hand, it isn’t Netflix’s fault we’re in this mess. On the other hand, the Oscars should represent theatrical or else make them something else, like the Emmys or the Streamies. There is no excuse for Hollywood to give up on theatrical, and the Oscars should not either.  If they stop caring and movie theaters become relics of the past, well, then we’ll have to evolve toward an Avatar-forever future, meaning, films will have to be bigger spectacles that play in venues like the Sphere in Vegas.  The old multiplex, which replaced the old-fashioned movie houses, will go the way of the record store. Alas.

The Oscars can fix this problem, or at least help move things in the right direction, by thinking big. Best Picture should be just five, not ten. No need for ten, not now. In 2009, The Hurt Locker beat Avatar, ushering in an era in which the Oscars no longer cared about box office and success no longer mattered. Movie studios were making obscene amounts from IPs and franchise movies. The Oscars could be the select section that makes the industry seem like they still care about quality.

But now, it’s dire straits all around. Add to that, Hollywood — and bloggers, pundits, and critics — think it’s perfectly fine to tell half the country not only are they not welcome in our movie theaters or our film awards, but they’re our forever villains. Our movies will tell them again and again how terrible they are. Why? I saw a tweet today by someone who covers the box office who said, “Don’t pander to MAGA.” PANDER?? More like make movies that lots of people want to see. They don’t just want to see, but feel like spending their hard-earned money to see a movie they can’t miss.

Wicked: For Good was already baked into the cake with a massive fandom, but it’s also an event movie like Barbie and Oppenheimer, and Sinners and Weapons. But this is the only way to get people out to the theater – make them an offer they can’t refuse. Hollywood has a long way to go to rebuild their brand after all the ways it’s destroyed it over the past decade.

As for the Oscars, they should reward success. That means movies don’t cost more than they can make back. It means movies that penetrate and get people talking, even if they don’t make much money. None of this means the whole thing is over, but I think we need more loud voices like Jim Cameron to tell it like it is than people who are too afraid to say what needs to be said.

I’m rooting for you, Jimbo. Make them as big as you can make them. Light up the world.