96th Oscars recap
The Oscars were held on Sunday, March 10 in Hollywood, California. Universal’s Oppenheimer led the way in nominations (13) and wins (7), including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture. Searchlight’s Poor Things took home four awards on ten nominations, including Best Actress. The Paramount/Apple TV+ title Killers of the Flower Moon was nominated for ten awards but went home empty-handed, similar to Netflix’s Maestro, which garnered seven nominations but was unable to secure a win. A24’s The Zone of Interest took home two awards, while Warner Bros. blockbuster Barbie took home only one award on eight nominations. Nine other distributors took home a single award.
When broken out by streamer, Netflix had 19 nominations across 11 films, but only captured one award for an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar for Best Live Action Short Film. Apple had 13 nominations, including 10 for the aforementioned Killers but ended the night without any hardware.
The Circana Take:
- Oscar wins end up as bragging rights for studios and distributors, and 2023’s film slate proved that Hollywood isn’t dead. The “Barbenheimer” craze tilted much more heavily on Oppenheimer than Barbie in the final tally. And, with streamers only taking home a single statuette, those bragging rights will likely be spun by nomination totals versus wins. However, Netflix has already re-packaged its lone win into a four-story anthology called The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More which surely hopes to capture all the engagement that it can eke out from director Wes Anderson’s first Oscar.
YouTuber turned boxer Jake Paul set to fight 58-year-old in July
On July 20, Netflix will air a live boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. Jake Paul is a former YouTube creator who built a following in the early days of Vine, then later on YouTube via daily posts including “pranks, controversies, and hip-hop music,” according to Wikipedia. He has a 9-1 professional boxing record, with six knockouts. His opponent, Mike Tyson, is arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. His professional record is 58-6 with 44 knockouts. When they face off in Dallas at AT&T stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, they will share a 30-year age gap.
These boxing matches, called crossover bouts when one party crosses over into the sport to face another, have become extremely popular over the last few years. They are also extremely lucrative for both parties, as well as the companies hosting them. In a fight last year, Jake Paul’s only loss came at the hands of Tommy Fury and earned Paul about $9M. Fighting Tyson is likely to earn a lot more.
It still remains to be seen if this fight will be an exhibition match or a legitimate competition between the two, as the Texas department of licensing and regulation still needs to sanction the fight.
The Circana Take:
- This fight will be a huge draw, but maybe for the wrong reasons. Many sports purists think matches like this are bad for the sport, while millions more will tune in just to see if Iron Mike still has it. Either way, this is sure to draw solid numbers for live sports on Netflix. It remains to be seen if the viewer perception will be positive, or not.