The 2022 Academy Awards are over and there's a lot to discuss after this year's Oscars.
Unsurprisingly, and that's an understatement, this Will Smith-Chris Rock incident is making headlines, and there's bound to be a lot more talk about it in the days to come. Meanwhile, the Zack Snyder fandom continued to show his devotion to the director's back catalogue, with Army of the Dead and Zack Snyder's Justice League winning, without a trophy, at the Fan-Favorite Movie and the Most Twitter-Oscar Awards.
However, amid all the noise surrounding the Smith-Rock altercation and Snyder's movie speech, CODA's surprising win for Best Picture was largely overlooked.
The Apple TV Plus movie, which features a majority-deaf cast, saw critically acclaimed movies like Dune, King Richard, and West Side Story to secure the coveted gong. And despite everything that happened overnight, the significance of CODA's impressive victory cannot be understated, and the data proves it.
For one thing, CODA is the first film from the streaming service to win the prestigious Best Picture award at the Academy Awards. In doing so, CODA ensured that it was Apple TV Plus, not Netflix, Prime Video or HBO Max, that made Oscar history by becoming the first streamer to win such a gong. At a time when streaming platforms are becoming an increasingly popular destination for audiences to consume film and television content, this was a very significant moment.
And not just for the streaming industry in general, but for Apple TV Plus in particular. Apple's streaming platform is arguably the fifth most popular service in the world, with the previous trio and Disney Plus having far more subscribers. For context, the latest figures suggest that Netflix has a global subscriber base of 222 million (according to TechCrunch), with Apple TV Plus languishing far behind at 40 million (of which only 20 million are paying customers, according to The Information). .
Then there is the fact that many Netflix and company productions have been nominated for Best Picture ahead of previous Oscar ceremonies.
Netflix movies like Roma, The Irishman, The Power of the Dog and Don't Look Up all failed to win Best Picture, while Prime Video's The Sound of Metal lost at the 2021 ceremony (among others) to Nomadland. An Apple TV Plus movie that usurps its competitors on such a global scale with the streamer's inaugural Best Picture Oscar nomination is sure to send shockwaves through the industry.
CODA's surprise win is made even more notable by its audience demand data. According to Parrot Analytics, CODA was the second least in-demand Best Picture nominee among moviegoers overall compared to its peers.
As seen in the chart above from Parrot Analytics, created ahead of the 2022 Academy Awards, CODA was 14,2 times more popular than the average movie among US moviegoers. However, its audience demand pales in comparison to Dune, The Power of the Dog and even Universal Pictures' Licorice Pizza. Kenneth Branagh's Belfast was the only movie in the least demand from American audiences before the Oscars, which shows how shocking CODA's win really is.
Of course, there isn't always a correlation between a movie's popularity, with the general public, and its potential to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Parasite also rocked the 2019 Oscars over perceived favorites including Joker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and The Irishman.
However, Bong Joon-Ho's dark comedy thriller was more popular with industry pundits and critics than ordinary moviegoers. Naturally, that changed when it won the Oscars, but Parasite wasn't considered (or marketed) as a hyped, must-see movie before it won the Oscar. Perhaps CODA will enjoy similar success, based on its own triumph.
All of the above, then, makes CODA's 2022 Best Picture award all the more remarkable. Like the cast of characters in the film, CODA overcame adversity to score an unprecedented victory for itself and Apple TV Plus. And, with the company's streaming platform winning plenty of awards for the likes of Ted Lasso, as well as its high-profile TV offerings that include Foundation, Apple TV Plus finally found itself gaining ground in the ongoing streaming war.
Now, with a CODA Best Picture winner to boast among its slate of original productions, Apple TV Plus must build on that momentum and seize the moment to make a concerted effort to try and topple Netflix and its other competitors. Simply put, you won't have a better opportunity to do so than now.