On Sunday night, the awards show known as Hollywood’s biggest party could turn into a Netflix party.
Heading into the 75th annual Golden Globe Awards this weekend, the popular streaming service has a big lead on its digital rivals, with a dozen Golden Globe nominations overall across the event’s television and film categories. Amazon (AMZN) and Hulu scored just three nominations apiece.
Meanwhile, Netflix (NFLX) is second to only Time Warner’s HBO (TWX) in terms of TV category nods (nine to HBO’s 12), while the streaming giant also picked up three big nominations in the film categories, including two for its original feature film Mudbound.
A film category win at the Golden Globes would be a first for Netflix (which just won its first Academy Award last year in the documentary short category). The company continues to spend more and more on its original programming—with roughly $8 billion earmarked for film and TV projects this year—and, in Hollywood, one way to draw in more viewers is to make a splash during awards season. Having Mudbound become the first Netflix original feature film to compete at the Oscars would be a big deal for the streaming service, and a Golden Globes win (it’s nominated for Best Original Song, and Mary J. Blige is nominated as a supporting actress) could be the first step.
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Meanwhile, on the television side, Netflix stands a solid chance of repeating last year’s win the Best Drama category, with returning winner The Crown and popular sci-fi series Stranger Things both nominated again. Hulu’s breakout hit The Handmaid’s Tale will also challenge in that category, along with HBO’s mega-popular Game of Thrones. And Netflix could also sweep two of the biggest TV categories if the Aziz Ansari comedy Master of None wins against competitors such as Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in the “musical or comedy” TV series category.
Along with Netflix, the recently-sold 21st Century Fox (FOX) holds the best odds of walking away with more than a few Golden Globes on Sunday. Fox’s (soon-to-be-owned-by-Disney) major movie studio, 20th Century Fox, and its indie movie distributor Fox Searchlight are nominated a combined 27 times (led by the feature film The Shape of Water‘s seven nominations), while the company’s FX cable network scored eight nominations.
The Golden Globes will air on NBC (with a live-streamed pre-show on Facebook) this Sunday, January 7, emceed by Late Night host Seth Meyers.
