As Steven Spielberg takes aim at Netflix’s Oscars eligibility, battle lines form in Hollywood

Well, that didn’t take long. On Friday, just days after the Academy Awards, reports emerged that Spielberg intends to propose rule changes at the next academy board of governors meeting in April aimed at leveling the playing field between Netflix — which earned its first best picture nomination this year for Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” — and traditional distributors when it comes to Oscar consideration. — Netflix Film March 4, 2019 Spielberg’s proposal follows a bruising Oscar season in which best picture rivals accused Netflix of spending a record amount of money campaigning for “Roma.” Reports pegged the cost at $20 million to $40 million to promote Cuarón’s intimate, $15-million movie. In a recent interview, one of the film’s stars, Ben Affleck, said of working with the streamer, “It’s very exciting because you get the sense you’re defining where the future of cinema and distribution is going.” Despite Spielberg’s concerns, a number of prominent filmmakers who’ve worked with Netflix — including the Coen brothers, whose Western anthology film “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” earned three Oscar nominations — say that, on balance, they see the company as a force for good. On Twitter, filmmaker Sean Baker spitballed a “theatrical tier” to Netflix’s pricing plan that, for a nominal fee, would allow the streamer’s subscribers to see Netflix films in theaters for free.