At Annual AFI Lunch, the Hollywood Awards Circuit Reboots as Netflix Enters Recovery Mode

After the Los Angeles fires in late January, many awards events were canceled or pushed back. On Thursday, things seemingly got back under way with the annual AFI Top Ten awards lunch at the Four Seasons, which in effect stood in for the canceled Academy Nominees Lunch, as applause rippled across the room at the announcement of each of the ten film and TV winners and their clips.

Who got the most applause?

Nabbing a rousing standing ovation was L.A. firefighter Timmy Larson, representing the thousands of people who risked their lives to fight the raging fires just a few weeks ago. Next biggest? Harrison Ford, the only AFI Life Achievement Award winner, on hand for Apple TV+’s “Shrinking.” Adam Brody and Kristen Bell’s Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” had a noisy fanbase. And “Sing Sing” is clearly popular.

But at the end of the event, the last movie alphabetically was “Wicked,” with a soaring clip from Cynthia Erivo singing “Defying Gravity.” Producer Marc Platt, director Jon M. Chu, Erivo, Ariana Grande, and Michelle Yeoh were in the room. There was enthusiastic, warm applause.

Michelle YeohAnne Thompson

This celebration of the top 10 jury-voted lists for film and television is always a big draw for talent and their studio chiefs. No one has to make a speech, and mingling freely were the likes of Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos and his movie chairman Dan Lim (“Emilia Pérez,” “A Man on the Inside,” “Nobody Wants This,” “Baby Reindeer”), President and CEO of Warner Bros./Discovery David Zaslav and his movie czars Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy (“Dune: Part Two”), Neon’s Tom Quinn (“Anora”), NBCUniversal Studio Group CEO Donna Langley (“Wicked“), Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”), Focus Features CEO Peter Kujawski (“Conclave”), co-chairman of Disney Entertainment Dana Walden (FX’s “The Bear,” ABC’s “Abbott Elementary”) and Searchlight president Matthew Greenfield (“A Real Pain,” “A Complete Unknown”).

While sitting at the Neon table, indie auteur Sean Baker (“Anora”) was approached by a TV executive eager to work with him. After she left, he told me he doesn’t want to do series. He is a filmmaker first and foremost, always has been. “I will not be seduced!,” he said.

Ted Sarandos and Dan LimAnne Thompson

Writer/director James Mangold beamed as “Indiana Jones” star Ford praised Boyd Holbrook for his performance as Johnny Cash in “A Complete Unknown.” Among the Best Actor Oscar contenders, Adrien Brody was on hand for “The Brutalist” as well as Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”) and a festively attired Colman Domingo (Sing Sing”).

Wearing very pleased grins were the Oscar-nominated screenwriting duo behind “Sing Sing,” director Greg Kwedar and writer Clint Bentley, who also wrote “Train Dreams,” the Sundance pickup from Netflix directed by Bentley.

Clearly, the Netflix awards team is ready to move on from their recent scandal. Making the transition to an awards campaign without star and Oscar nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, who was cut loose after going on her own rogue defense, was not easy. But Netflix is now focused on winning what they can, as Gascón stays in Europe.

French writer/director Jacques Audiard and Zoe Saldaña attended the AFI Awards; she is expected to win Supporting Actress at Friday’s Critics Choice Awards, whose votes were filed before the Gascón scandal broke.

Jacques AudiardAnne Thompson

During the annual benediction, AFI Founding Director George Stevens, Jr. recalled how the late David Lynch (AFI Class of 1970) got his start at the AFI. Stevens said, “Let’s remember the remarkable legacy of cinematic creativity that David left for us — the mystical beauty we found in living his dreams. And as we leave this ceremony with David in our hearts, let us dedicate ourselves to restoring our devastated movie capital – and to making certain that ‘the movies’ in all their forms — not be afraid of grace and beauty and rise to new heights to entertain and enlighten the world.”