Neon CEO Tom Quinn On New Best Picture Eligibility Rules: “I Don’t Think You Should Mandate A Streamer To Release A Film Across 500 Screens” — Zurich Summit
30.09.2023 - 13:39
/ deadline.com
Neon CEO Tom Quinn has addressed the debate around the new theatrical standards for Best Picture eligibilityannounced by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences over the summer.
Talking on a panel on box office strategies at the Zurich summit on Saturday, distributor and champion of the theatrical experience gave a surprising take on the new standards.
Under the new rules, which take effect for the 97th Academy Awards, theatrical release eligibility criteria for films put forward for Best Picture consideration will expand beyond the current one-week release in six U.S. qualifying cities.
As per Deadline’s report in June, the move was instigated by members of AMPAS’s Producers Branch, to bolster the org’s core mission of supporting films for the big screen and will impact streamers who have tended to enter films with the minimum release needed to qualify.
Quinn, who chaperoned Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite to Oscar glory in 2020, said he felt the streamers should be free to set their own release strategy.
“I don’t think that you should mandate a streamer to forcibly release a film across 500 screens because that’s what the Academy says – that I do not agree with. It’s their business. They should treat their films as they see fit,” Quinn said.
The distributor said that the streamers should be obliged instead to report box office figures for contenders, if and when they decide to release them.
“Because what Best Picture winner sounds great when it has earned $100,000? There’s a potency to that inside of voter consideration, and I still think it matters,” said Quinn.
“Then everybody can do what they want and let the voters decide. But the over mandating is also something I don’t think works.”
Quinn was