In a shock twist, Apple walked away from the 96th Academy Awards final evening and not using a single Oscar win regardless of having collected 13 nominations throughout two of its most up-to-date big-screen releases.
Whereas Ridley Scott’s Napoleon solely garnered nominations within the Manufacturing Design, Costume Design, and Visible Results classes, Killers of the Flower Moon had been shortlisted for 10 Academy Awards, together with the much-coveted Finest Image, together with Finest Director, Finest Actress, and Finest Supporting Actor.
Nevertheless, the Finest Image unsurprisingly went to Oppenheimer, which additionally landed Christopher Nolan the Oscar for Finest Director and Robert Downey Jr. the award for Finest Supporting Actor, shutting Apple and Killers of the Flower Moon’ director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro out in these classes.
In the meantime, the Finest Actress award went to Emma Stone for her efficiency as Bella Baxter in Poor Issues, fairly than Killers’ Lily Gladstone. This was the one award many pundits anticipated the Apple Authentic would stroll away with, as Gladstone was seen as not less than neck-in-neck with Stone and would have additionally been the primary Indigenous American to win an Academy Award for Finest Actor or Actress.
Poor Issues additionally took the Oscars away from Apple for Costume Design and Manufacturing Design, two awards that each Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon had been each within the working for, whereas the Oscar for the one different class that Napoleon was vying for, Finest Visible Results, went to Godzilla Minus One as an alternative
Killers of the Flower Moon was additionally nominated for Movie Modifying, Cinematography, Music (Authentic Rating), and Music (Authentic Tune). Oppenheimer took the highest award in most of these classes as nicely, though Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie beat out “Wahzhazhe (A Tune For My Individuals)” from Apple’s manufacturing.
The shutout seemingly comes as a disappointment for Apple, which was undoubtedly hoping that Killers of the Flower Moon would assist it repeat its historic Finest Image win for CODA from two years in the past. Paradoxically, whereas Apple’s 13 nominations gave it a greater exhibiting than final 12 months’s mere two, it did obtain the Finest Animated Brief Movie award for The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.
Apparently, Apple walked a for much longer highway to amass CODA, and regardless of being launched beneath Apple’s banner, it was initially a movie competition choose that the corporate merely bankrolled after selecting it up for a record-breaking $25 million at Sundance after which spending about one other $25 million to promote it.
Against this, Killers of the Flower Moon was produced beneath the Apple Authentic Movies label, in partnership with Paramount, after Apple acquired the rights 4 years in the past. It’s the primary high-profile movie to be launched by Apple on the massive display screen for a full theatrical launch window, and was estimated to have value round $200 million to provide. With Apple’s two subsequent Hollywood releases, Napoleon and Argylle, the corporate has reportedly spent $700 million on its newest three blockbuster movies whereas solely taking in $466 million on the field workplace.
Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon are stated to be worthwhile regardless of their decrease field workplace take, making up the shortfall in gross sales and leases by means of premium video-on-demand (PVOD) companies like Amazon Prime and iTunes, plus a surge in subscribers when the movies lastly debuted on Apple’s personal streaming service.
Nonetheless, Apple wasn’t the one streaming service to do poorly on the Oscars this 12 months. Regardless of 19 nominations throughout 11 movies, Netflix got here away with solely a single win within the Finest Stay Motion Brief Movie class for The Fantastic Story of Henry Sugar. That’s one award higher than Apple this 12 months, however nonetheless a letdown for a streaming service that sometimes cleans up with a number of awards — even when Apple did beat it to the Oscar for Finest Image in 2022 and nonetheless retains its crown as the one streaming service ever to obtain the Academy’s highest honor.