Netflix has made the Oscar acceptance and success a priority over the past few years. Slowly, but surely, they have earned acceptance from a number of key branches of the Academy. This lead to their most successful Academy Awards ever in February where the streaming service earned eight nominations including their first outside the Best Documentary category (which they won anyway for “Icarus”). Now, with major prestige bait films on the way from Martin Scorsese, Paul Greengrass, Dan Gilroy and Ava DuVernay over the next two years they are taking a major step to bolster their chances at winning Oscar’s top prize, Best Picture.
READ MORE: Netflix leaves Cannes almost empty handed
The streaming giant announced today that longtime awards consultant Lisa Tabak would move in-house taking the title of VP of Talent Relations, running the awards team and reporting to Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. Tabak will dissolve her 24-year-old company, LT-LA, and take her staff with her to Netflix. Tabak is one of the top Oscar consultants in the industry having worked on films such as “La La Land,” “The King’s Speech,” “Moonlight,” “Interstellar,” “Spotlight” “The Artist,” “Room” and “Precious.” Her company also was on the frontlines with Netflix on “Mudbound” (a hosted Oscar event they spearheaded with Sandra Bullock pictured above) and the aforementioned “Icarus.”
In a statement released by the service, Tabak noted, “Netflix has a well-earned reputation as the destination for some of the best creators in the business to do the best work of their lives. My team and I couldn’t be more excited to join them and do the same.”
Sarandos remarked, “Lisa and her team have a reputation as the best of the best when it comes to talent and awards and I’m thrilled to bring them to Netflix. We want to continue to expand and deepen our efforts to celebrate the incredible creators and talent who bring their dream projects to Netflix.”
I’d first heard rumors of Tabak and Co. going to Netflix in April, but was told it wasn’t happening. Instead, Netflix eventually made an offer that Tabak couldn’t turn down. Part of which has to be reporting to Sarandos directly instead of the head of marketing or publicity (although considering most of them are longtime former Weinstein Company colleagues that seems hardly an issue). The transition will happen quickly with the entire staff starting their new gigs on Aug. 1.
Along with Netflix, Tabak had worked closely with A24, Lionsgate, Open Road and The Weinstein Company in recent years. Having both her and her staff off the market and other top consultants so busy they have the pick of the litter it leaves a gulf that another up and coming consultant could step into. Moreover, Tabak’s group had also had success on the television side working with the VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race” team (a record 12 Emmy nominations) and NBC’s “This Is Us.”
Word is, however, Tabak’s group did negotiate that they can still work on longtime client Damien Chazelle’s “First Man” for the upcoming awards season.
After a rocky Cannes Film Festival, Tabak can also hopefully convince Sarandos and his boss, CEO Reed Hastings, to take theatrical distribution in theaters more seriously. Although we’ve also heard how Netflix distributes some of their films in theaters will also be more industry friendly. So, expect even more news on Netflix’s Oscar goals in the near future.
