Apple Wins Oscar for 'The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse'

[MacRumors]

Apple and the BBC have won an animated short Oscar for "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse," a magical fable by writer and artist Charlie Mackesy.

Winning at the 95th Academy Awards over the weekend, the film follows the dreamlike friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse traveling together in the boy's search for home. It stars Tom Hollander as The Mole, Idris Elba as The Fox, Gabriel Byrne as The Horse, and Jude Coward Nicoll as The Boy.

Apple Original Films acquired the production last year and it debuted on Apple TV+ and the BBC during Christmas 2022.

Apple CEO Tim Cook congratulated the team involved in making "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse" in a tweet, adding "Your beautiful short tells an enduring story about the meaning of kindness, acceptance and hope."

The Oscar is Apple's first for an animated short. It was Apple's only win at this year's Oscars, with Apple receiving one other nomination, for Brian Tyree Henry for supporting actor in Apple TV+ drama "Causeway."

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1635103856744091648

At the 2022 Oscars, Apple became the first streaming service to win the best picture prize for "CODA," in addition to wins for Troy Kotsur for supporting actor and director Siân Seder for adapted screenplay.

Article Link: Apple Wins Oscar for 'The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse'

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

You mean Apple acquired and has on their streaming platform a film that did.

 

[Sydnxt]

Apple did nothing but fork out $$$

 

[catean]

Another British marvell, has nothing to do with Apple, and has everything to do with the pandemic and the mental health consequences.

 

[MuppetGate]

Apple did nothing but fork out $$$

It’s one thing having the money; it’s another thing to know the best place to spend it.

 

[coffeeboat]

> it debuted on Apple TV+ and the BBC on Christmas Day, 2022

It was on BBC One on Christmas Eve!

> Apple did nothing but fork out $$$

What do you think they did with Ted Lasso, After Party, etc.?

 

[laptech]

So Apple did nothing except air it on their streaming channel and now they are claiming it is 'their' win, typical Apple.

 

[star-affinity]

Wow, checked out the trailer – looks fantastic.

So Apple did nothing except air it on their streaming channel and now they are claiming it is 'their' win, typical Apple.

Did they? Tim's tweet is congratulating the team behind it. I don't see Apple claiming the win, but the MacRumors header sure do.

 

[Ctrlos]

Wow, checked out the trailer – looks fantastic.

The art style was beautiful but in the end wasn't much more than a series of motivational poster quotes set to animation. My kids weren't massively enthused and TBH neither was I. It wasn't exactly The Snowman

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Apple did nothing but fork out $$$

How do you think movies, shows and shorts get made and seen by anyone? You think the artists and writers fund it out of pocket and somehow it just reaches the masses because of how well-made the project is?

That's not how these things come about except for maybe one out of several millions of projects.

There's always some kind of investor behind these kinds of things. Either small ones at the start and then bigger ones later on. Or big ones from the start.

And even though I don't know whether Apple helped fund the development of this short or they just jumped in once it was done. I can tell you that there's no way these kinds of projects get the exposure they deserve unless some huge entity, like Apple, gets in the mix.

No, the big corporation can't make a short like this without the artists. But Apple is just as much a part of making this movie as any other party involved and it's completely justified to claim that "Apple Wins Oscar".

 

[star-affinity]

The art style was beautiful but in the end wasn't much more than a series of motivational poster quotes set to animation. My kids weren't massively enthused and TBH neither was I. It wasn't exactly The Snowman

OK. I haven't seen it yet, so don't know what I will think.

 

[StellarVixen]

Apple did nothing but fork out $$$

“The house was built by people, Apple did nothing but buy bricks and cement and stuff”

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

So Apple did nothing except air it on their streaming channel and now they are claiming it is 'their' win, typical Apple.

They didn't. Macrumors did.

But even if Apple did claim it as their win, it's for the greater good of the project:

People know Apple and where to find TV+ content. The same cannot be said for most directors/writers/artists, and certainly not the creators of this short.

So by phrasing this as a win for Apple helps get the short more exposure.

Conversely, we wouldn't even be reading about this on Macrumors if the post didn't paint this as a story about Apple.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

You mean Apple acquired and has on their streaming platform a film that did.

Wrong.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy,_the_Mole,_the_Fox_and_the_Horse_(film)

Production Companies:

Apple Studios
Bad Robot Productions
NoneMore Productions

Distributors:

AppleTV+ (United States)
BBC One
BBC iPlayer (United Kingdom)

Apple funded and distributed the film in the US and BBC got paid to distribute it in the UK.

Bad Robot Production means Producer and team JJ Abrams proposed the film and bulk of production costs to several studios with Apple Studios winning the contract.

When their studio is built in Culver City I imagine a lot of projects will rely less on Bad Robot Productions and more on screenwriters directly soliciting and not selling their screenplays to JJ Abrams for a song who then sells rights including production costs for a huge profit on their part, not unlike the traditional Music Industry model.

 

[ignatius345]

The art style was beautiful but in the end wasn't much more than a series of motivational poster quotes set to animation. My kids weren't massively enthused and TBH neither was I. It wasn't exactly The Snowman

Yes. This was the most cloying thing I’ve watched in years. The script was just a bunch of empty platitudes strung together.

 

[MacLawyer]

Another British marvell, has nothing to do with Apple, and has everything to do with the pandemic and the mental health consequences.

We're sorry. 😟

 

[SW3029]

So Apple did nothing except air it on their streaming channel and now they are claiming it is 'their' win, typical Apple.

Do you not know how TV and films are made? Studios/streamers/channels like Apple, Disney, Netflix, NBC, Warner Bros, etc rarely make any of their content directly – especially for streaming and television (films, they are more likely to directly make – but not always). Instead, they rely on production companies to make this content and pay the production companies to do so (or for the rights to air their content).

But when any TV show or movie wins an award it's the studio/streamer that is awarded the credit and not the production company.

For example, one of TV's greatest hits ever, the Lost series, was produced by Bad Robot, but whenever Lost won an award, ABC (the studio/channel that aired it) took the credit for the win.

This is standard industry practice. Not everything is a cause to shout Apple is evil.

 

[laptech]

Do you not know how TV and films are made? Studios/streamers/channels like Apple, Disney, Netflix, NBC, Warner Bros, etc rarely make any of their content directly – especially for streaming and television (films, they are more likely to directly make – but not always). Instead, they rely on production companies to make this content and pay the production companies to do so (or for the rights to air their content).

But when any TV show or movie wins an award it's the studio/streamer that is awarded the credit and not the production company.

For example, one of TV's greatest hits ever, the Lost series, was produced by Bad Robot, but whenever Lost won an award, ABC (the studio/channel that aired it) took the credit for the win.

This is standard industry practice. Not everything is a cause to shout Apple is evil.

Just because it's industry practice it does not mean it is right. For years production companies of successful TV programs have complained that they do not get the credit where it is due but instead all the credit goes to the broadcaster who aired the program. Your example shows where it has gone wrong in the industry. Bad Robot, produced the series, ABC did nothing but aired it and get all the credit and awards for it. It's wrong, totally wrong and it's wrong in Apple's case too.

Now if members in here are saying it's not Apple that is saying they won the Oscar but MR then clearly the editor(s) of MR are in the wrong for miss-reporting on the win.

 

[nt5672]

The Oscars are still a thing? Don't think I would be proud of that. Aren't the top awards all just bought?

 

[ChromeAce]

Corporations don’t win Oscars, people do. “Journalists” who regurgitate press releases from corporations boasting of “winning” are all idiots.

 

[MacWiz_007]

The Oscars...never heard of her! 🤣

 

[A_Hunger_Artist]

For what it's worth, this movie was a mess. We watched it with the kids and it made next to sense. Visually it was beautiful, sure. But the dialogue was just disjointed trope-y one-liners like "you are enough" which is a fine enough message but literally had no bearing on what was actually happening. And in the end there was no real plot resolution, it just sort of ended.

I don't mind a good arthouse film but I get a little grumpy when a kid's movie leaves my kids asking me 10 million questions because nothing made sense.

 

[StrollerEd]

OK, my tongue-in-cheek comment - complete with - itself had mixed reviews ..

[Me bad, I did not put at the end of the first sentence ...]

We all seem to agree about the quality of the animation, but the content was rather placid and one dimensional. Concern here was for the unseasonal butterfly and that the poor lad would have died from exposure and hyperthermia.

Reminded me a bit of the remark in Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare that someone had objected to Hamlet on the grounds that it was just one cliche after another ...

 

[lazyrighteye]

The media production wing of Apple is no different than that of Sony, Warner, HBO, etc. - they all fund projects they feel will, either directly or indirectly, make them money. But Tim isn’t on-set operating an Arri.

 

[Ctrlos]

Yes. This was the most cloying thing I’ve watched in years. The script was just a bunch of empty platitudes strung together.

You should totally watch The Snowman though. Stone cold classic.