What the Oscars tell us about streamers, studios, and Hollywood’s future

BOB SAFIAN: Hey everyone. Today we have a special Rapid Response, a post-Oscars episode featuring Janice Min, the co-founder and CEO of The Ankler, the prestigious, irreverent insider business media covering Hollywood. Janice and I talk through the winners and losers, not just among films but also entertainment companies. From Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos to Conan O’Brien and Demi Moore, there was plenty of drama — and keen lessons about how low-budget players can outpace well-banked competitors, the rising fear of political controversy, and more. The Oscars say as much about culture and the current marketplace as they do about the art of filmmaking. So let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

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I’m Bob Safian. I’m here with Janice Min of The Ankler to talk about Oscar night. Janice, great to see you.

JANICE MIN: Good to see you.

SAFIAN: So do you have an Oscar night routine? Like, where do you do your viewing? Who are you with? What do you do after? Set the scene for us. How do you approach it?

MIN: Bob, this is going to be very disappointing and really burst any illusions about what it’s like to work in Hollywood. I watched it on my sofa with my husband.

I got dressed at around 7:30 my time, called an Uber, and went over to — I know how to pick an Oscar party — I went to the one for Neon, which is the studio that swept the night with Anora.

It was at Soho House in West Hollywood, and it was definitely happening.

Copy LinkThe triumph of independent films at the Oscars

SAFIAN: Yeah. It must’ve been packed, and the spirit must’ve been good. I mean, it’s the big winner of the night. A slew of awards, including Best Picture, for a film that’s taken in only about 40 million at box offices worldwide, which means most of the people watching on TV last night had never seen the movie.

MIN: Well, I saw on Instagram, there were some people who had their status up or whatever you can put in your little avatar. And one of them was, “What’s Anora?” So I think there were probably a few people watching who were feeling the same way. Anora is a real triumph for certain quarters of the industry. I think if you were following this Oscar campaign at all, which is a whole sport here in town, Anora, Sean Baker, the people associated with Anora, and also The Brutalist, another independent movie, they hammered home the fact that they were independent films over and over again.

And you heard Sean Baker, the director who won Best Director last night, making this point on stage as well, like, “Six million dollar budget. I will never make a studio film. This is the way I want to continue to make films. Tell the stories you want to tell.” I think it was a real referendum on what’s happened since the last Oscars in Hollywood, which has been a little doom and gloomy at the studios.

SAFIAN: Just to clarify for the audience, like what does independent film mean? Is it just that they don’t raise a lot of money or they raise the money themselves?

MIN: Sure, the answer is yes to both. An independent film is small budget. Typically, the budget is under 35 million. It means that you are scrapping together money from here or there, you’re not beholden to the distribution machine of the larger studios like Warner Brothers, Disney, Paramount, and you are MacGyvering together a story you want to tell, and it usually means there are no notes from a studio. No one telling you, “Can you insert this character so we can make a toy out of that character?” Or, “So that we can have the Anora ride at Disneyland.”

SAFIAN: It’s a way of being creatively independent and financially independent.

MIN: Yes, that’s the way to think about it. If your agent were to say to Disney, “Hey, I have this movie about a sex worker who gets married to the son of a Russian oligarch and then things go sideways,” I mean, you would never even get into the pitch room. And same with The Brutalist.

I have a three and a half hour movie about a Hungarian architect who comes to America and has an intermission. These are just never going to happen in the system as it exists today.

Copy LinkUnderstanding the dynamics of Oscars campaigns

SAFIAN: I don’t know how you felt watching the Oscars night, but there was more tension than usual because the Best Picture category seemed wide open, in part because of Amelia Perez blowing up on the way through, right?

MIN: Yeah, I mean, okay, the Amelia Perez story, it was sort of fun, but this is one of these old school Oscar implosions, which we haven’t seen in a long time. Everyone’s become so disciplined and controlled, and oh my God, that went entirely off the rails. I thought it was also sort of a great moment, or great for Karla Sofía Gascón to kind of stay true to form.

She’s like, “Nope, I’m coming. And Conan O’Brien can give me a hard time, but I’m still going.” I thought Conan O’Brien handled it really well. I had gone on Morning Joe last week and predicted Anora would be the Best Picture winner, so I’d like to just congratulate myself.

Yes, it could have gone any which way. You had great movies. You had Wicked. I thought the surprises could have been if Conclave had won — the Pope’s having a moment right now. I thought I’m Still Here could have been the dark horse candidate, based on a true story from Brazil about life under authoritarianism.

SAFIAN: Is there buzz inside Hollywood because of the blow-up of Amelia Perez, that we have to vet our actors and their social media feeds going back in a different kind of way?

MIN: I mean, Bob, how many times have we learned this lesson, right? No one ever went into her social media and thought to search for Hitler and Islam, and here we are.

It was one of those stories Hollywood loves about the first trans actress to be nominated for Best Actress. I can’t blame this all on Karla Sofía Gascón. The director, Jacques Audiard, who’s French, said Spanish is the language of the poor, uneducated, and migrants. Probably didn’t win any votes as a result of that.

Copy LinkThe rise of backlash against AI in Hollywood

SAFIAN: There was also backlash against The Brutalist for using AI, I understand. Doesn’t Hollywood love CGI and special effects?

MIN: This is the ridiculous part. People are so eager to pounce on anything that even has a whiff of AI.

SAFIAN: I understand they used Respeecher to make sure that Adrian Brody’s Hungarian accent was as good as it could be.

MIN: And by the way, we needed Respeecher to cut down Adrian Brody’s speech last night.

SAFIAN: Yeah, he went a little bit off the rails there, didn’t he?

MIN: It’s great to win an Oscar, but you didn’t just create peace in the Middle East or something.

Copy LinkNetflix’s persistent challenges with the Academy

SAFIAN: The biggest loser of the night, I thought, going in, was going to be either Amelia Perez or Netflix. And then they flash on Demi Moore when she loses out on Best Actress to Mikey Madison, and she just looks so crestfallen.

And then Hulu cuts its Oscar stream, which is not a good moment for Disney, which owns Hulu and is advertising its shows all night. How did they get that wrong?

MIN: Boy, what we’ve learned about livestreams and our streaming platforms in the past year is that they’re not necessarily so reliable. They’re kind of winging it in the same way everyone else is. Remember Bob Iger is there in the audience. He probably didn’t really know until his phone started blowing up that that had happened.

Netflix, this happens all the time to Netflix at the Oscars. They come in hot, they had the most nominations, and yet there’s still quarters of the Academy, the voting body, who can’t forgive Netflix for not showing movies in theaters. You heard Sean Baker, on Anora, make that a big part of one of his acceptance speeches, that we have to believe in the theatrical experience, the communal part of it. He got rapturous applause at that line, and there are going to be filmmakers and craftspeople in Hollywood who will believe in that ’till the bitter end, and not want to reward those who don’t make that possible.

SAFIAN: And so they’re just not going to reward those Netflix films, even if — the ambition for Amelia Perez was pretty high.

MIN: It was so high, it was at Cannes. The Cannes Film Festival, it did show in theaters, but it didn’t have the wide release that top talent wants. I think this year was an interesting test case. If Amelia Perez hadn’t imploded on the campaign trail, could this have been its year?

SAFIAN: Could this have been the breakthrough? Yea.

MIN: Yes, and I think that day is coming.

SAFIAN: And Demi Moore?

MIN: Oof, boy, I felt so bad for her. I mean, you’ve been told, you’ve been anointed as the Best Actress winner months ago, right? She gave a Golden Globe speech when she won there that was basically a warm-up to an acceptance speech at the Oscars. It had all the narrative, narrative is such an important part of these campaigns.

It had all the narrative people care about, a comeback, an actress who was mistreated back in the day, and a story about Hollywood, loves stories about Hollywood. It’s about an aging actress who’ll do anything to remain young. I mean, that had all the perfect elements, except for the number of voters.

That to me, in a night of not that many surprises, was probably the biggest surprise.

Copy LinkCrafting the perfect Oscar campaign

SAFIAN: I mean, you use the word campaign, and I think for a lot of viewers of the Oscars, they don’t really realize all of these things that are going on in the background to promote, even though you’re not supposed to promote, right? That’s kind of the myth about it.

MIN: Yeah. So last year, when people were campaigning for president, there’s a whole other campaign going on in Hollywood, where you are going out to events and festivals and you’re talking about your film setting. Again, I’m going to use that word narrative about why you’re trying to subliminally or not so subliminally indicate why your film and you should win. So it really is retail politics. You go, you show up to these events if you want to be nominated or are a nominee. It’s shaking hands. It’s everything but kissing babies.

There’s also advertising, of which we are a beneficiary, right?

Copy LinkHow the Oscars navigated politics

SAFIAN: One of the things that struck me with watching the show last night on TV, I was on my couch as well with a group, but one of the things that struck me was it seemed less overtly political than some shows have been.

MIN: Yeah, I think there was a memo both formal and informal that went out to presenters and said, “Just don’t, don’t go there. There’s no benefit.” Hollywood is under attack, a sort of code word for certain quarters of MAGA. It was notable that two people who typically love the Oscars were not in the audience, Tim Cook from Apple and Jeff Bezos from Amazon. Those are two people who are not really beloved at the moment in the industry for their support of the president. It stayed relatively politics-free.

The moment of No Man’s Land winning was about as political as we would get. I just want to note that in the sort of chilling effect of the political climate, most documentaries are not getting bought unless they involve David Beckham and Victoria Beckham or a story about musicians.

The best documentary winner last night does not have a buyer or distributor still, which is wild.

SAFIAN: Zoe Saldana’s acceptance speech for her winning Best Supporting Actress for Amelia Perez struck me as something that was at least trying to make a statement about being the first Dominican, talking about her parents as immigrants, and the use of the Spanish language in the film.

MIN: There was a way to say it without saying it, and she did that. Everything she said was factual about her life, and I think that remains a sort of… She probably isn’t getting blowback on that one today, though I could be wrong. Everyone gets blowback for everything, so who knows?

SAFIAN: Janice is both matter of fact and unsentimental about how Hollywood works, without being unsympathetic. As she explains, the business and political environment have so much impact on artistic output. So how would she assess the future impact of each Netflix, Amazon, and Disney on the film world? We’ll talk about that after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, Janice Min of The Ankler shared Hollywood’s inside take on the winners and losers from Oscar night. Now we talk about the colliding world of film and TV, concerns over Amazon’s ownership of James Bond, and why Disney needs movies to fuel its engine. Plus, what keeps Netflix atop the Hollywood food chain, despite its Emilia Perez disappointment. Let’s dive back in.

Copy LinkConan O’Brien’s performance as Oscar host

SAFIAN: What did you think of Conan O’Brien’s hosting?

MIN: I think he did pretty good. The first job when you’re the Oscar host is to do no harm, and he did no harm. On top of that, he was pretty funny. I laughed out loud a few times, right? One of the great charms of Conan is that he always makes himself the butt of the joke as well, and he was sort of delightful.

I thought the monologue was absolutely great, and I liked that he acknowledged the Karla Sofía Gascón issue without destroying her in the audience. The Adam Sandler bit was funny, and later on, the headshots were funny when they showed Timothée Chalamet’s headshot as an ultrasound picture.

He was sort of delightfully light and kept it moving. I don’t know if he’s going to go down as one of the top five greatest Oscar hosts of all time, but I think he will be invited back, which is a win.

SAFIAN: In that opening, he poked fun at Netflix over price hikes.

MIN: That was funny.

SAFIAN: He made fun of Amazon and Jeff Bezos. But then there was this musical homage to James Bond, which was like a gift to Amazon, right? Which just bought the future rights to Bond.

MIN: There are always a few moments in the Oscars where they start to lose the audience, and you’re zoning out. Like, nobody asked for a James Bond segment, right? Nobody wanted that. Nobody cared.

SAFIAN: Does Amazon pay for that? Why would a Disney-run show make a decision to—?

MIN: This is what I think. I think the producers were probably viewing it as more of a rebuke against Amazon. I feel like they were saying, “This is what it was, and this is what made it great,” and saying goodbye to that, that’s a little bit what I felt. When you’re in that room, you’re trying to play to two audiences, one of which is the insiders of Hollywood and then obviously the greater viewing audience. I felt like it was maybe making a point to the insiders.

Copy LinkBlurring lines between film and TV

SAFIAN: Conan also did a bit around cinema streams, making a joke about watching movies in a theater versus on your phone or at home. It brought up how separate, and this is his point, how separate are film and TV really these days? Like a four-part streaming series and a movie can sort of be indistinguishable as we move to the future. The difference between a movie and a TV show…

MIN: I know, and I think this is this existential argument or existential crisis that’s happening here. What is the art form, and what qualifies as art? How is this art preserved in a way that still retains all of its audience? Bob, I would take it a step further. What differentiates your creators you watch on YouTube, your Instagram reels feed, and TikTok from TV and film? I mean, it’s all just a continuous reel in people’s lives. I think the fight is how do you make film? How do you make something so special and something without being precious, how do you make it special and an event in a way that those other forms of media can’t fulfill?

SAFIAN: And it’s not necessarily about watching it in a theater, even though Sean Baker wants us to watch it in the theater. I mean, how many of the Oscar films did you watch in the theater? How do you decide which ones to watch in the theater versus…

MIN: Ouch, don’t ask me that question. Yeah, I mean, I think going to a theater is great, I love going to a theater, but it requires a real commitment of time and of parking, figuring out a time, getting everyone together. Those things are special. Those are things we should do more of as a society, but we kind of don’t.

Copy LinkPower dynamics in the future of the film industry

SAFIAN: I’m going to give you four players — rank their power in the future of film.

MIN: Oh, wow, okay.

SAFIAN: Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and China. I realize China is bigger than the other companies, but…

MIN: Okay, I can do this. Netflix, huge. Netflix is the single biggest buyer of film in Hollywood. Hands down. They make the most films. That’s why you see those big names still on their platform. They win, and I don’t care if you don’t like Netflix because they don’t release theatrically.

They still had a Best Picture nominee in Amelia Perez, a movie many would say is a kooky movie. They win. Amazon, outside of Nickel Boys, which was part of MGM, which Amazon had acquired, Amazon did not really score here in the Oscars. They didn’t have an Oscar movie.

You can see some trend lines, particularly in the actions of its chairman of the board, Jeff Bezos, that they might not need or want this. You’re seeing them move into sports in a big way, acquiring sports rights that began two years ago with Thursday Night Football.

I think they’re going to say, “Why are we spending this money on these things? How does this make sense for us?” So Amazon, I’m saying trending down in film.

Disney will always be in film. Disney’s pipeline of how it creates extensions of its business requires intellectual property being made great through film. You can see that with the Star Wars ride at Disneyland. Everything is IP and…

SAFIAN: So it’s almost like their films are a business, but they’re also a proving ground for the next business.

MIN: It’s the greatest marketing platform for the Disney empire. They make good films, so they will be in that business. Absolutely. And then, okay, China.

SAFIAN: I asked about China because I saw that a Chinese animation film broke the animation box office record.

MIN: Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago when everyone thought China was going to save Hollywood, but it turns out that wasn’t the case. China is just making its own Hollywood. In the mounting tensions between China and the United States, there’s just a real nativist stance.

They just don’t want to support American films. There used to be these blowups about movies changing villains from Chinese to something else. You were doing all these things to try to get approval to be distributed in China.

It’s like The Bachelor, right? You have to be given a rose, and if you’re not given a rose, you just don’t have a movie there. At some point, the studios decided you’re just chasing good effort after bad.

Everyone wants to be an international movie star, but you have the rest of the world to help you with that, but leave China out.

Copy LinkHollywood as a concept beyond Los Angeles

SAFIAN: Going from global to local, lots of LA pride was on display at the Oscars, the opening pleas for fire recovery, but none of the 10 Best Picture nods were actually filmed in LA. What does the future of the movie business look like as LA’s lifeblood? How does that match up?

MIN: There’s something we say often at The Ankler, which is that Hollywood is becoming more of an idea than a place. The idea of Hollywood is now in Atlanta, Vancouver, Australia, the UK, or even Vegas, where people are vying to build production space. There’s a “stay in L.A.” campaign trying to get productions to stay here. It all comes down to tax credits. Governor Gavin Newsom has given some in tax credits, but there’s also real resistance. It’s the politics of today.

For most people who don’t work in Hollywood but live in California, it looks more like, “Why are we giving those people a break?” There’s not a lot of political incentive to give more because arguments about the economy and job creation feel intangible for most. It seems like they’re getting a break, and we’re not.

For a political candidate like Gavin Newsom, you don’t necessarily need to win Hollywood anymore. You need to win Silicon Valley, and they have a different view of this.

SAFIAN: The balance of power has fallen differently.

MIN: Yes, completely.

SAFIAN: Well, Janice, this was great. Thanks for doing it.

MIN: My pleasure, thanks for having me.

SAFIAN: I often think about how the business of Hollywood is itself a Hollywood-esque tale of drama and humor and intrigue. Janice brings that voyeur’s perspective and an openness about where the plot might turn next. The balance of power in every industry is under pressure these days, from new technologies, new customer expectations, and our increasingly fractured culture. Entertainment is both a reflection of those shifts and a prism to better understand them. Sometimes a movie isn’t just about what’s on the screen. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.