James Cameron Says Netflix Films Being Eligible For Academy Awards Is A “Fundamentally Rotten” Idea
Ever the cinema purist, Avatar franchise mastermind James Cameron has argued that Netflix’s unwillingness to release their films in theaters should immediately disqualify the streaming giant from Academy Awards eligibility, as he believes their digital-only release model is antithetical to the very medium of film itself.
Cameron, whose third outing to Pandora, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is set to premiere later on December 19th, offered this scathing condemnation of the Academy’s current standards during a recent appearance on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast [time stamp: 09:05].
Near the top of their time together, the director was asked for his thoughts on the entirety of Warner Bros. going up for sale, with his host inquiring, “You made a Terminator [2019’s Dark Fate] with [producer and current Paramount CEO] David Ellison; what do you think of him buying paramount and trying to take over WB?”
In turn, Cameron confidently asserted, “I think he’s the best possible choice. Absolutely.”
The adamancy of his answer proceeded to stun Belloni, who then pressed, “Above Netflix? Above Comcast?”, the eccentric filmmaker immediately declared, “Oh, Netflix would be a disaster.”
“Sorry, Ted [Sarandos, Netflix’s current CEO], but geez. Sarandos has gone on the record saying theatrical films are dead. ‘Theatrical is dead’. Quote, unquote. It’s a quote. At least to the extent you can verify anything.”
Following a mention from Belloni regarding the fact that Sarandos is now “promising theaters [will get significant attention from Netflix] if they buy WB!”, Cameron dismissed the streamer’s ambitions as nothing more than hot air, shooting back “It’s sucker bait” before highlighting his specific issue with their allowance on the Academy’s ballots.
“‘We’ll put the movie out for a week, for 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. And I think they’ve been co-opted, and I think it’s horrific.”
Asked by Belloni, “You don’t think Netflix should be allowed to compete for Oscars?”, Cameron clarified, “They should be allowed to compete if they put the movie out for a meaningful release in 2,000 theaters for a month.”
At this point, the show’s eponymous host raised the fact that “The Academy has recently changed its rule” for best picture nominees and their required theatrical runs, with films now only eligible to be nominated for the award if they’ve played in at least 10 additional markets outside of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, and Miami, for a minimum of seven days.
Still unphased, Cameron bluntly shot back, “Give me a f–king break. We’re gonna be on 7500 screens.”
Met with the fair pushback from Belloni, “But your movie is on another plane!”, Cameron further argued, “Okay, take an indie that gets bought. Take an A24 film. They’re not going out with less than 1,000 screens.”
Drawing his thoughts on the potential WB sale to a close, the Avatar visionary ultimately offered a bleak prediction for the DC parent company’s future should their wares end up going to Netflix, explaining, “Warner Bros. would just become a streamer.”
“So now you’ve lost an actual theatrical major and you’ve just increased that avalanche, that downhill trend. Streaming got a foothold with the artistic base that they did by throwing out crazy money nd attracting the a list talent and then pulling the carpet out from underneath that. so now budgets are half, or a third of what they were. The movies like Dune, Wicked, Avatar, whatever, they’re not getting greenlit for streaming. And they’re not getting greenlit by the theatrical side of the existing majors. So it’s fallen through the middle.”
“The point that I’m making is that we’ve got to bring the big imaginative films, whether it’s science fiction, or historical, or fantasy. Anyplace that takes you out of a location and differentiates from the indie dramas, or the rom-com market, or whatever.
“And the big science fiction, imaginative movies require visual effects. Visual effects are expensive. So if the curve of VFX costs continuously rises and the curve of affordability of those movies, let’s say the green-lighting curve is coming down, and theatrical [importance] is coming down. When those curves cross, those [blockbuster] movies don’t exist anymore. And the few people making them like me age out and then the people coming up behind them aren’t trained in it.”
As noted above, Cameron’s latest film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is set to make its US theatrical premiere on December 19th.
NEXT: James Cameron Hits Roadblock With New ‘Terminator’ Script
