By Dawn Chmielewski and Danielle Broadway
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Independent film studio A24 emerged as the big winner at Oscar night on Sunday, sweeping every major category, propelled by the quirky, reality-bending film “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and the drama “The Whale.”
The studio claimed a total of nine Academy Awards, with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” receiving seven Oscars, including for best picture, director, actress, original screenplay and supporting actor and actress.
“You saw our weirdness and supported us,” said the movie’s producer, Jonathan Wang of A24.
“The Whale” won two awards, for lead actor and best makeup and hairstyling.
Streaming service Netflix Inc garnered six Academy Awards, four of them for the German film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel “All Quiet on the Western Front,” including best international feature.
Netflix also earned an Oscar for animated feature for “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” a stop-motion animation retelling of the classic story. Its documentary short film, “The Elephant Whisperers,” also received an Academy Award.
Walt Disney Co had the most nominations coming into Sunday’s Academy Awards, but collected just two: an Oscar for costume design for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and an award for visual effects for its global blockbuster “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
Disney’s leading Oscar contender, “The Banshees of Inisherin,” received multiple nominations, but no awards.
Paramount Pictures collected a single Oscar, for sound, for its box office smash “Top Gun: Maverick,” which many in the industry credit for reviving the theatrical box office.
CNN celebrated its first Oscar win for “Navalny,” a portrait of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which won best documentary feature film. It was the lone award for Warner Bros Discovery, whose “Elvis” biopic received multiple nominations.
NBCUniversal collected 15 nominations, led by Universal Picture’s “The Fabelmans,” directed by Steven Spielberg, and six for “Tar” from Focus Features, but no Oscars.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski and Danielle Broadway; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis)
