From Red Envelope To Red Carpet: Netflix Gets Ready To Stun Oscar

Tweet

RSSS

Tweet

Netflix has an Emmy, but like everyone in Hollywood, it really wants an Oscar.

The streaming video company stunned the motion picture industry just a few weeks ago, when it hinted that it’s looking at picking up the rights to movies and releasing them on Netflix and theatrically on the same day.

And while the motion picture documentary The Square, about the Egyptian revolution during the Arab Spring, is currently in theaters, that’s not stopping the company from quietly picking up the rights to the potential Oscar nominee.

This according to the LA Times, Netflix is now the proud owner of the distribution rights to the doc, which is already receiving rave reviews and on the long list of qualified doc feature Oscar contenders. While this isn’t the company’s first dive into motion picture distribution, which it previously accomplished with it’s DVD label Red Envelope, this could be the first time that Netflix has direct impact on the Oscar race.

If The Square makes it through the byzantine qualifying process of the Academy’s docu committee and actually lands a nomination, you can imagine that Netflix will throw its weight around a bit, like it did in the campaign for Emmy. But the biggest boon will be that the documentary will be easily accessible online during the voting process, rather than limited to DVD screeners.

This would help Netflix show that its service isn’t destroying movies, that it’s giving them a bigger audience than they ever might have received. And if that audience can vote for Oscar, all the better.