The director of Titanic believes that the ceremony defends “a system rotten to the core”. According to him, feature films from streaming platforms “should be allowed to compete if they are released in 2,000 theaters for one month”.
No question of stealing the spotlight. During his appearance on the podcast The Town by journalist Matthew Belloni on Tuesday, November 24, James Cameron regretted that Netflix productions, barely released and broadcast in only a few cinemas, could apply for the Oscar list. “ A film has to be designed and intended for theaters and the Oscars no longer have any meaning to me if they don’t take that into account.”explained the filmmaker, adding, without restraint, that the prestigious ceremony was “recovered” and that he “finds it horrible”.
According to him, feature films produced by streaming platforms « should be allowed to compete if they are released in 2000 theaters for a month.” In this same interview, the legendary director of the saga Avatar and of Titanic takes the opportunity to denounce the potential takeover of Warner Bros by Netflix, information which had the effect of a bombshell in Hollywood at the end of October. “It would be a disaster”exclaimed James Cameron, then criticizing the recent comments of Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, according to whom cinema “would be traditional would be dead”.
“Rotten system”
If this operation comes to fruition, the video-on-demand platform would get its hands on some of Hollywood’s most iconic franchises, such asHarry Potter et DC Comics . And this has the gift of annoying Cameron, who describes “this system is rotten to the core”. « It’s bait, isn’t it?he points. They will release the film for a week or ten days in theaters and will be eligible for the Oscars. »
In ten years, Netflix took advantage of this regulation to nominate 170 of its productions for the Oscars. Twenty-six emerged victorious. Among them : Roma, The Power of the Dog, The Irishman or even Emilia Perez. None, however, won the statuette for best film of the year. On March 16, 2026, the streaming platform will once again defend, in Los Angeles, its own feature films and in particular Train Dreams , who is the favorite, much to the chagrin of James Cameron.