“Saturday Night Live” tip-toed out of its ideological bubble last weekend.
The moment was brief but noticeable. The show’s “Weekend Update” segment teased “Emilia Perez,” the Netflix musical nominated for a whopping 13 Oscars, including Best Picture.
The film’s trans themes have made it a cause celebre in some circles. It’s also a prohibitive Best Picture favorite based on that nominations tally alone.
The chances the film will go 0-13 on Oscar night (March 2) are slim to none. Yet few people have seen it, apparently, despite being part of the huge Netflix library. Even “SNL’s” liberal audience laughed about it.
“The Oscar nominations were announced with the musical ‘Emilia Perez’ leading the pack with 13 total viewers.”
The left-wing Puck doubled down on “SNL” star Michael Che’s gag. The outlet noted noting the film’s impressive tally hasn’t translated into the proverbial “Oscar bounce.”
Said bounce, the ticket sales spark powered by awards season glory, once sent audiences flocking to nominated films.
The 2008 Best Picture winner “Slumdog Millionaire,” for example, started slowly but eventually earned more than $140 million at the U.S. box office alone.
Those days are mostly over.
Puck notes a few 2024 movies perked up at the box office post-Oscar nominations, including “The Brutalist” and “A Complete Unknown.” The numbers were positive but hardly consequential.
And then there’s “Emilia Perez.”
Puck notes the film has been absent from Netflix’s Top 10 Movie List for some time. The Jan. 23 announcement didn’t change that state of affairs.
The musical, which netted the most noms of any film with 13, has grossed only $11 million worldwide, and it has been M.I.A. on the Netflix top 10 domestic viewership chart since its mid-November streaming launch. (Netflix has the film only in North America and the U.K.)
The Oscars cover a film landscape that looks far different than it did a decade ago. Many nominated films are now available on VOD platforms, for starters. Some movies spent the majority of their time on streaming channels, like “Emilia Perez” and Oscar hopeful “Maria” starring Angelina Jolie.
The latter failed to make the Academy Awards cut.
Still, the bigger problem stems from the Oscars themselves. Audiences don’t view them the same way as in the past. The show’s ratings have fallen dramatically over the past decade. Some viewers recoil at the evening’s hard-left politics, although that trend has ebbed in the last three years.
Recent Oscar winners like “Moonlight,” “Nomadland” and “CODA” made little noise at the box office. The latter film, an Apple TV+ original, earned $1.9 million worldwide.
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