In the post-epidemic era of the new crown virus infection, audiences have begun to return to cinemas one after another, and how to improve the box office of theatrical movies has always been the focus of the Hollywood industry recently. On the other side of the scale, the performance of streaming platforms in the post-epidemic era, there is little analysis and mention. Based on the current data alone, most of the awards season hits have performed poorly on streaming platforms and have not attracted as many viewers as many expected.
Analysis produced by PlumResearch data research through Showlabs shared data shows that many of the winning films of the North American awards season at the end of 2022, including the popular films that hit the Oscars at the time, are not optimistic on streaming platforms.
Oscar-nominated films are now more accessible than ever before – 6 of the 10 Best Picture finalists can be viewed on major US streaming platforms at no extra cost. The other 4 films, in addition to "Avatar: The Way of Water", can also be watched through high-end pay-to-demand (PVOD). Perhaps because of this, the "sense of legitimacy" that has been shaped by the traditional culture of the theater line over the years has also been rapidly weakened.
Showlabs collected data on 5 films nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, and within 28 days after they were launched on the streaming platform, 3 had more than 5 million dedicated visitors (non-channel visitors, that is, specifically clicked on the video to watch) and watched hours, but two of them, "Elvis" and "Top Gun 2: The Lone Ranger", were also blockbusters that achieved high box office in theaters; The other is Netflix's classic remake "All Quiet on the Western Front", which although it has not been released in theaters on a large scale, it is a film that has been heavily promoted by the platform recently. "Instantaneous Universe", which won 7 awards such as Oscar for Best Picture and Best Actress, premiered on the Showtime platform, and no relevant data has been given on the platform.
"No War on the Western Front", which was directly streamed and ranked first in statistics, is undoubtedly the darling of this year's North American awards season. The war-themed film, adapted from the novel of the same name by the German author, swept the BAFTA Awards, known as the "Oscar weather vane", and finally won half of the 14 nominations, including best film, best director and best adapted screenplay. "Banshees," though overshadowed by the thriller The Menu when it launched, did well at BAFTA, receiving 10 nominations and four of them. Considering that "Instantaneous Universe" swept the Oscars, it can be seen that this year's theatrical box office performance and whether the film is directly on streaming media does not seem to have much direct impact on the ownership of the awards.
Of course, it seems unfair to compare different streaming platforms with each other, after all, the subscription base of each company varies greatly. To this end, Showlabs also collects the "viewing percentage" of movies, and active users of the platform who watch a video for more than 2 minutes in a row will be counted in this data.
Let's take an example: "Blade Out of the Sheath 2: Glass Onion" is one of Netflix's hit films this year, with a viewing rate of 17% in the first week of launch; The US drama "Wednesday" was viewed 42% in its 28 days of launch, making it the second-most-watched series in Netflix's history.
In this way, the darlings of the awards season will not do so well on this number. "The Annunciation Witch of Inišerin" was launched on the HBO Max platform for 4 weeks, with a viewing rate of only 3%, and not all of them have reached the threshold of 2 minutes; "She Said," which was not shortlisted for an Oscar, was viewed 1.8 percent at Peacock.
Moreover, even Oscar-nominated films have not been able to gain more viewers on streaming platforms. "Tar" starring Cate Blanchett was launched on Peacock on the 3rd day after the Oscar nominees were announced, which was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress multiple nominations, and was regarded as Michelle Yeoh's word-of-mouth masterpiece as the biggest contender for Best Actress at the Oscar, with a viewing rate of only 1.6% and less than 500,000 special visitors within a week of launch.
From the perspective of streaming platforms, films with good playback before and after the Oscars season are not directly related to the Oscars. For example, Steven Spielberg's "The Fabelmans" received 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but these glittering nominations did not seem to ignite the enthusiasm of streaming users, and within two weeks of announcing the Oscar nomination, "Dream Maker" fell out of the top ten of iTunes, but at the end of February jumped to the top of the iTunes VOD chart. This is largely due to the fact that its single-chip paid price has dropped from $20 to $6 due to the promotion.
Film companies and fans may have hoped that streaming platforms could help word-of-mouth films in the post-epidemic era, but at least as far as the situation is concerned, no matter how many channels for viewing nominated films are, they cannot "illuminate" the gradually dimmed figure of the Oscar statuette.