The barbarian Apple won the Oscar. How long will it take for streaming media companies to completely replace traditional film studios?

If it weren't for the Oscar winner Will Smith suddenly punching the host, many people might not have realized that the Oscars ceremony had already begun. Although Smith's slap caused the Oscars ratings to rise sharply, it also attracted a lot of attention, so much so that many people even forgot to pay attention to who won the Best Picture of the year.

In the end, CODA, an inspirational film about the stories of people with hearing impairments, won the crown. This result was somewhat unexpected - at least for the film's director Sian Heder.

There was one person who did not go on stage to receive the award. He was not even a member of the crew, but he was also one of the biggest winners of the ceremony: Apple CEO Tim Cook. Because "Hearing Girl" is a movie released by Apple's streaming service Apple TV+, and it is also the first streaming movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

The streaming industry has waited too long for this moment.

As the dominant force in the streaming industry, Netflix is ​​eager for this golden statue. Seven of its films, including "The Irishman" and "Roma", have been nominated for Best Picture, but have never won. Another streaming giant, Amazon, has also made great efforts for this. Its "Manchester by the Sea" has also become the first streaming film to be nominated for Best Picture.

Of course, not all practitioners are happy to see streaming movies become popular, which is understandable: streaming platforms are committed to moving movies from movie theaters to people’s living rooms and bedrooms. This is a huge blow to old-school filmmakers both from a practical perspective and from a purely traditional perspective.

In 2019, an Oscar consultant bluntly stated: "Voting for "Roma" is voting for Netflix, which means voting for TV instead of movies." The well-known director Spielberg also said that movies produced by Netflix should not be nominated for Oscars, but should compete for the Grammy Awards.

Although streaming movies have been met with prejudice and cold eyes from many traditional filmmakers, judging from the quality of movies in recent years, it is only a matter of time before it wins the Oscar for Best Picture. The only surprise is that the first to take the lead is Apple, the "barbarian" in the industry.

"Hearing Girl" is not an original work of Apple. They just spent $25 million to buy the distribution rights of the film. As a company with a cash reserve of more than $100 billion, an investment of $25 million is nothing to Apple, not to mention that it also brought back a golden statue for Apple TV+, which was launched in November 2019.

The Oscars are just a ceremony, but the impact of "Hearing Girl" winning the award on the industry will be long-lasting.

For other streaming platforms, the winning of "Hearing Girl" is undoubtedly an encouragement. Take Netflix for example, perhaps they are a little tired of "rushing for Oscars" after seven failures, and the success of "Hearing Girl" proves that the Academy judges' prejudice against streaming movies has eased or even disappeared, which will definitely give them the motivation to continue to challenge the little golden man.

For a long time, the filming methods, presentation methods and even the definition of the art form of film have been firmly controlled by large film companies. Film production and viewing have also become an industry with extremely high economic benefits. Therefore, even Oscar-winning films often take into account box office revenue. Classic films such as "Forrest Gump" and "Titanic" are positive examples. However, the impact of this is that the types of films and filmmakers that can compete for the Oscars are very limited.

The rise of streaming platforms has changed this unipolar pattern. Although this business model will affect box office revenue, since the audience has already paid the subscription fee in advance, they can at least make a stable income and bravely try more types of movies. After the audience realized that they could watch the latest Oscar-winning film with just one click of the mouse, a dramatic change in consumption habits was inevitable.

Before 1975, the concept of "blockbuster" had not yet become popular. The most common place for Americans to watch movies was a movie theater with a flat 5-cent ticket price. This changed with the release of a movie called "Jaws". "American blockbusters" became a cultural symbol that influenced the United States and even the world, and the ticket price of movies began to be linked to their production costs.

Today, the award of "The Hearing Girl" proves that the pattern of the film industry has changed again. No matter how glorious the traditional film and television companies have been in the past, they must adapt to this change.

This change is also reflected in the domestic film market. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, cinema movies have been greatly impacted, which has also led many movies to move online, and online movies have achieved rapid development. Last year, 540 online movies were launched in China, of which 62 had box office revenues exceeding 10 million, 16 had box office revenues exceeding 20 million, and 7 had box office revenues exceeding 30 million.

This is of course inseparable from the promotion of Internet video platforms. For quite a long time, Internet companies often participated in film production through investment and other means. Now, the involvement of platforms such as iQiyi and Tencent Video has deepened, and full investment and self-production have become a new trend.

Last May, the film "Sweeping Black: Decisive Battle", which was exclusively invested by iQiyi, was released in theaters and on video platforms, and eventually achieved 400 million yuan in offline box office and also gained considerable popularity online, becoming a dark horse in the film market last year. Tencent Video's self-produced works such as "Siping Police Story: Rush Hour", "Don't Call Me Bacchus 2", and "Absolute Loyalty: National Interests" also achieved tens of millions or even 20 million yuan in online box office.

The self-produced movies on video platforms have also clearly shown a trend of becoming more refined. Taking iQiyi as an example, it is understood that from May 2019 to June 2020, iQiyi received 1,486 applications for theater film projects, but only 13 were finally approved for development. In 2022, the number of self-produced movies that iQiyi plans to launch is also controlled at 6-9. This more restrained strategy also shows that video platforms have moved away from the stage of spending money to expand their scale, and hope to gain commercial benefits through higher quality.

The revenue-sharing model of online movies on video platforms is also constantly improving. Last year, Tencent Video offered cash rewards to movies with high ratings and good box office performance, and provided them with exclusive broadcast slots and advertising to help them gain more exposure, thereby attracting more excellent films to go online.

Apple TV+ is not known for the number of films and the scale of production, but it won the first Oscar for Best Picture for a streaming platform by relying on the strategy of fewer but better films. After several years of money-burning wars and losses, domestic video platforms have timely turned to the route of high-quality products. This is also a manifestation of timely rectification. Video platforms are born with Internet genes, which can naturally inject more vitality and possibilities into the Chinese film industry, so that Chinese films have the strength to truly go global.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.