On March 11, Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) will be releasing the latest Pixar animated feature “Turning Red” on its Disney+ streaming service. This marks the third consecutive Pixar production that was steered away from theatrical release and straight to a streaming premiere.
However, the company has arranged for a one-week theatrical release for “Turning Red” at Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre, beginning March 11. Why is Disney dropping “Turning Red” into a single theater rather than providing it with a nationwide release?
The Reasoning: In order for a feature film to be eligible for the Academy Awards, it needs to have been given at least a one-week theatrical engagement in a Los Angeles-area cinema. It doesn’t matter if the film doesn't play in any other market, as long as that minimum requirement is met.
Other film award-giving entities including the Golden Globes, the film industry’s professional guilds and many critics organizations, also follow the Academy Award guidelines for eligibility. The one catch in the case of a streaming title like "Turning Red" is that the theatrical engagement cannot occur after a film is first shown in a small screen format; films that premiere on television or streaming before they turn up on a big screen are disqualified from Oscar consideration.
Thus, “Turning Red” will be eligible for the film awards honoring the titles released during 2022.
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The Results: Last year, Disney booked the Pixar feature “Luca” for a one-week engagement at a Los Angeles-area cinema while presenting it to U.S. audiences via Disney+. “Luca” is among the five nominees for this year’s Academy Award competition in the Best Animated Feature category.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) followed a similar strategy with a one-week Los Angeles-area theatrical engagement for “Coming 2 America” while the film reached most Americans via Amazon Prime — the Eddie Murphy comedy is a contender for this year’s Best Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar. MGM/United Artists Releasing also took that approach for its musical “Cyrano,” with a one-week Los Angeles run in mid-December prior to its late February theatrical release — the film is now a contender for the Best Costume Design Oscar.
This is hardly a new strategy, and perhaps the most famous example of the one-week-in-Los-Angeles strategy involved the 1978 Universal Pictures release of “The Deer Hunter,” which played in a single theater in Los Angeles and in a single New York cinema in mid-December of that year. The New York engagement was designed for both the East Coast-based members of the Academy and for the prestigious New York Film Critics Circle, which gave the film its Best Picture honors.
The film went into a limited release in January 1979, followed by a national rollout in late February 1979 after it won five Oscars including Best Picture.
Photo: "Turning Red," courtesy of Disney+
