Sony Classics' Pres on Strategy and 'Big Unsaid Things' About Streamers
'We don't buy a movie for an Oscar,' Tom Bernard tells me, but SPC picks winners even so. Plus, Marvel's new 'Thunderbolts' trailer is giving A24 vibes
Today I’ve got a post-Oscar season dispatch from Tom Bernard, co-chair of Sony Pictures Classics, who is taking a well-earned victory lap after the Brazilian drama I’m Still Here landed three Oscar nominations and one win. He’s got a lot of thoughts on how the calendar impacts a film’s reception, how money comes into awards races from unexpected sources and what he might be up to at the Cannes Film Festival in a few short months.
But a few things first. To start, congratulations to Nikki Glaser, a guest on the Prestige Junkie podcast last summer, for securing another year as the host of the Golden Globes. Glaser did an excellent job steering that sometimes rickety ship back in January, and in her statement that came with the announcement proved she’s already got her eye on the strong awards hopefuls: “I can’t wait to do it again, and this time in front of the team from The White Lotus who will finally recognize my talent and cast me in Season Four as a Scandinavian Pilates instructor with a shadowy past.”
As for projects hitting our screens in the more imminent future, I can’t help but notice the indie studio that is currently enjoying the sincerest form of flattery, from none other than Marvel Studios. When a new trailer for Marvel’s Thunderbolts (in theaters May 2) debuted exclusively on Letterboxd last Friday, the similarities were pretty hard to miss:
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But just in case, Thunderbolts star Florence Pugh came out and said it in an interview with Empire magazine that ran the following day. “It ended up becoming this quite badass indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes,” she said of her work with director Jake Schreier, who said he was told by Marvel to “make it something different.” Both Pugh and Schreier know plenty about what makes something “A24-feeling”; her latest film We Live in Time as well as her breakout Midsommar were released by the indie studio, and Schreier was a director on the A24-produced Netflix series Beef.
How did we get to this point, where Marvel is angling to be considered in the same league as a studio whose biggest hit ever, Everything Everywhere All at Once, made $143 million worldwide? The abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score for Captain America: Brave New World (global box office to date: $373 million) is one answer. The other might be Agatha All Along, one of the most critically successful Marvel series in recent years, which definitely delivers something different for the franchise.
Marvel’s Evolution Behind Thunderbolts’ Stylish ‘New Look’
The early promise of Marvel, back when Iron Man (2008) was a sarcastic romp and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) more of an earnest drama (with musical numbers!), was that these durable superheroes could deliver a wide range of genres and tones while still fitting into the same universe. The reality, particularly in the years since Avengers: Endgame, has been a stultifying sameness, generating a genuine concern that Marvel would permanently stumble after delivering too many films, too frequently, that were too similar to each other.
As a superhero team-up movie with strong rumored connections to the world of The Avengers, Thunderbolts doesn’t sound like much of a break from the labored world-building of the MCU — but maybe it will be stylish enough to at least feel that way.
A24 had no comment when I asked about how its films like The Green Knight and You Hurt My Feelings were being used to boost a project many times bigger and pricier than anything it has ever made. I’m told the trailer — or “exclusive new look,” as it’s being called — was Schreier’s idea, and that it was a friendly tip of the hat to A24, which seems to be flattered by the imitation, just as intended.
One last note on teaser trailers, and speaking of indie studios on the verge of conquering the world — today Neon released the first teaser trailer for The Life of Chuck, the Mike Flanagan-directed Stephen King adaptation that was the surprise winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival last year.
The legacy of the People’s Choice Award looms large over awards season — the 12 previous winners went on to best picture nominations, as did last year’s runners-up Emilia Pérez and Anora. We have a while to wait to see if The Life of Chuck breaks that streak, but with a summer release date (June 6), Neon seems to be positioning the film more as a crowd-pleaser than as a contender. Given the rabid fan base for both Flanagan and King, I don’t think it will have any trouble pulling that off.
Keeping It Classic: ‘The Movie Is Always the Strength’
When you talk to Tom Bernard about how Oscar miracles can happen — like Brazil getting its first-ever best picture nomination — he makes it sound very easy. “The most convincing thing we can do is to get you to see our movie on the big screen,” he says, pointing to the $7 million and counting grossed in the United States by I’m Still Here, which won the Oscar for best international feature in addition to scoring nominations for best picture and best actress. “The movie is always the strength.”
The fact that I’m Still Here is still playing in more than 400 U.S. theaters — with no VOD option in sight — is a testament to what has become the signature Sony Pictures Classics awards season strategy: Wait until almost the very end to get your movie out there. It’s how The Father surged in the awards race in early 2021, earning Anthony Hopkins a best actor Oscar, and it’s what kept Call Me By Your Name in theaters months after its own Oscar run.
Though it played in U.S. theaters to qualify for 2024 Oscar consideration, I’m Still Here did not start its proper theatrical run until Jan. 17 — which was also the intended day of the Oscar nominations announcement, before the Los Angeles wildfires delayed it. The rest of us might have been surprised on Jan. 23 when Fernanda Torres was nominated for best actress, but the Sony Classics team sure wasn’t. “When we saw the finished product, [SPC co-president] Michael Barker immediately said, ‘Fernanda’s going to be nominated for the Oscar,’” Bernard recalls.
Their awards season strategy, as Bernard describes it, is fairly classic — screen the movie a lot, know what the members of the various voting branches are looking for and really drill down on the voting process for best international feature, which allows any member to participate in the nomination process, but only if they can guarantee they actually watched the movies they were assigned.
‘Big Unsaid Things’ About Streamers’ Movie Buys
In our conversation Bernard also emphasized, over and over again, the way the company’s strategy deviates from studios that have a much greater investment in streaming, ranging from the obvious (Netflix and Amazon) to the less so (Focus Features movies go to Peacock after a short theatrical window, and Neon has a distribution deal with Hulu). He even sees a connection between the fall release dates for films like Conclave and Anora, both of which are now available to rent at home, and the streamers that will eventually host them.
“One of the big unsaid things that goes on is the millions and millions of dollars that pour into the awards year from the streamers,” says Bernard, arguing that many streaming companies are more concerned about getting subscriptions than whether audiences actually see the films in question. “The subscription you buy to see the movie goes to the stream, it doesn’t go to the movie. Your movie becomes advertising dollars to get people to put revenue dollars into the company by subscribing to the company.”
When they head to Cannes in a few months, Bernard and Barker will be there once again to do what they always do: Buy movies. They’ll be competing with those deep-pocketed streamers for acquisitions but will also be sticking to the strategy that’s served them well in the 30+ years they’ve led the company.
“We don’t buy a movie for an Oscar the way that Miramax did back in the day, where they would buy every movie they thought would maybe get a nomination, and the ones that didn’t were thrown by the wayside,” Bernard says. “I think the days are gone where you’re going to put a movie in just for old time’s sake because the person needed an Oscar. The movie is always the strength.”
