In a year when Hollywood largely failed to start making movies, streaming services have stabilized their viewers. Global ticket sales totaled $ 21.3 billion in 2021, up from $ 42.3 billion in 2019, according to the Motion Picture Association. (Theaters were closed for much of 2020.) Some theater companies have ceased operations, others have merged. The world’s largest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, has lost $ 6 billion in the last two years and its stock has fallen 66 percent since June. At the same time, the number of subscriptions to online video services worldwide increased to 1.3 billion, from 864 million in 2019, the group said. One movie that struggled at the box office was Mr. Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” which was screened in cinemas (according to his wishes) for about three months. It raised about $ 75 million worldwide (with a production budget of $ 100 million and a global marketing cost of about $ 50 million). “West Side Story” is now available not in one but in two streaming services, Disney + and HBO Max, where it has almost certainly been shown more widely than in theaters. But the film has never recovered – from among Oscar voters – from being described as a box office failure. She has received seven nominations and is poised to win one category, for Ariana DeBose as Best Supporting Actress. Mr. Spielberg’s presence in the current Oscar race makes the rise of streaming nominees even more impressive: a lion in the race to keep the Oscars focused on theatrical films. However, it is unlikely, it is possible that “West Side Story” will come from behind and win the trophy for best picture. So is Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast” on this subject. Such a result would be somewhat similar to 2019, when academy voters, who were barred from an exaggerated Netflix campaign to push “Roma” to the best film, gave the award to “Green Book”, a traditional film by Universal Pictures .
