Without detracting from the quality of the film by director Sian Heder or the foresight of Apple, which spent $ 25 million to secure the rights, that Coda winning the Oscar for Best Picture is news, but it’s no surprise. Because the path that led to the victory of the most coveted statuette began long before 2022, and it was not difficult to imagine that what happened would happen.
The Cupertino company was the first to cross the finish line of a race started by others e somehow he reaped the fruits sown by others. When? Around 2016, when Netflix hit 100 million subscribers, showing that there was definitely a market in people’s homes. The real turning point, however, came in the spring of 2020, when the two years of pandemicwhich have given cinema a hard blow as we intended it up to then, complicating the processing of films and above all the access of spectators to the cinemas.
Subscriptions will double in 3 years
And subscribers have grown dramatically, expanding even more that market which until then no one seemed to have noticed: Netflix today has nearly 222 millionDisney Plus (which is the fastest growing channel of all) is over 130 million, Amazon Prime Video is over 50 million and Apple TV Plus is close to 20 million.
It is not over, because these numbers are destined to grow further. It’s at grow a lot and quickly: according to an estimate made by the Hollywood Reporterby 2026 Disney Plus will reach 285 million subscribers and surpass Netflix (which should reach around 270 million and definitely has a problem with shared accounts and passwords), Amazon Prime Video will cross the threshold of 243 million subscribers and Apple TV Plus will be fourth, around 36 million. In short: within 3-4 years, the total number of subscribers to the 4 main streaming platforms will practically double, passing from the current 422 million to 834 million.
It is thanks (to fault?) To the coronavirus, which has changed forever our relationship with this kind of entertainmentbut also thanks to the technology: the very secret algorithm that allows Netflix streaming to work even with very slow or unstable connections, exploiting the Cdn (what are they?) e even the data centers of companies like Equinix, in recent years it has been aided by progress and cost reduction for end users. It is now possible to have fiber and high-speed connections, at home or even on the move, spending not prohibitive amounts, which has prompted more and more people to subscribe to streaming platformswhich have become usable practically everywhere.
Films: first in streaming than in the cinema
These two factors (the pandemic and the growing number of domestic viewers) have caused even the Hollywood majors to start evaluating, by necessity or by opportunity, the distribution of films first digitally than in cinemas. If not even only and exclusively in digital.
Again, the pivotal year was 2020: between spring and summer, Mulan (flesh-and-blood remake of the 1998 animated film) was only streamed on Disney Plus, as well as distributed online Bombshell, Go back to winning, Bloodshot, Tyler Rake, Bad Boys for life, Onward, Birds of Prey and many other films. There was a moment when even it was thought of making blockbuster blockbusters like Wonder Woman 1984 e Tenet.
A feature shared many of these films: they were not included in the subscription plan, but had to be paid for separately. And they had to be paid a lot: in the United States, to see Mulan at the debut they had to spend 29.99 dollarswhile Trolls World Tour it cost 15.99. This last example is important: in the first 3 weeks of digital distribution, the cartoon produced by Universal grossed $ 100 millionthat is, a third of what the first Trolls he made a total of more than what he took home in 5 months.
One hundred million dollars in 3 weeks is a lot of money, even more if collected without even going to the cinemas. So many to make Jeff Shell, CEO of Nbc Universal, say that the company was thinking of “distributing the films both ways when theaters reopen” and to the Academy that for that year’s Oscars edition , theatrical release would no longer be a mandatory requirement to have access to the nominations. They said that it was “just an exception, limited to the 2020/2021 edition”, but it was a lie. And it is somehow there that the path opened that allowed to Coda to be awarded as Best Film of 2022, despite the resistance of the likes of Steven Spielberg, who 3 years ago launched a campaign to prevent films from competing for the Oscars without first visiting theaters.
A river of money flowing to Hollywood
It is that there has been no turning back from there: not only has Disney really done what Universal had announced it wanted to do, distributing many of its films (Luca, Black Widow, Raya and the last dragon and recent Charm e Red) both in cinemas and in streamingbut many films available online also came close to winning the coveted statuette.
It happened in 2017 to the moving Manchester by the Seaproduced by Amazon, which took home the Oscars for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay, in 2019 at the not easy Roma by Alfonso Cuarón (Best Director, Best Foreign Film and Best Cinematography), in 2020 a Marriage Story (Best Supporting Actress) and in 2021 a Missing (Best Cinematography and Best Production Design), all by Netflix.
Why did it happen? As the Americans say, to understand it just “follow the money”, that is, follow the money. And to realize that the pandemic, the coronavirus and our changed viewing habits are putting cinemas in crisis, but not cinema. Because a gigantic river of money flows towards Hollywood, the taps of which are in the hands of the streaming platforms. In 2021 alone, Netflix invested over $ 15 billion to produce original movies and TV series, Amazon spent $ 13 billion (up 18% on 2020, with the first season of The Lord of the Rings which alone cost nearly half a billion), Apple has invested more than 7 (also here, in marked growth compared to previous years) and Disney as many as 33.
And where does all this money go, that all together that’s nearly $ 70 billion a year? Generally, in the pockets of directors, screenwriters, actors and extras (albeit with greater difficulties related to contracts), operators and in general of those who work in the world of cinema. That is, of those who work around Hollywood. Which obviously could not ignore this world, with all due respect to Spielberg. Also because in the end also cinemas benefit from it: after the success at the Oscars, from March 31st Coda it can be seen in Italian cinemas. If you haven’t streamed it before, of course.