Apple CEO Tim Cook celebrates CODA's historic Oscar wins

Apple CEO Tim Cook took to social media to celebrate Apple TV's "CODA's" historic wins at the 94th annual Academy Awards, including becoming the first streaming service film to take home an Oscar for Best Picture. 

Other nominees in the best picture category included "Don't Look Up," "Dune," "Drive My Car," "King Richard," "Licorice Pizza," "Nightmare Alley," "The Power of the Dog" and "West Side Story."

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In addition to winning best picture, "CODA's" writer-director Siân Heder took home the award for best adapted screenplay, while actor Troy Kotsur won the award for best supporting actor, becoming the first deaf man to win an Oscar and only the second deaf actor to do so, joining his castmate and "CODA" co-star Marlee Matlin. The film also won top honors at the Producers Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Writer's Guild awards.

"Team CODA created a profoundly beautiful movie, a story of hope and heart that celebrates our differences," Cook tweeted. "Congratulations to the producers, @SianHeder,@TroyKotsur,@MarleeMatlin,@EmiliaJonesy,@DanielNDurant, @EugenioDerbez, and all involved in these historic wins! #CODAfilm"

The film, which is an English-language remake of the 2014 French film "La Famille Bélier," follows Rubi Rossy (Emilia Jones), the only hearing member of a deaf family, who attempts to help her family's struggling fishing business while pursuing her own aspirations of being a singer. Apple TV+ purchased the rights to "CODA" for a record $25 million following its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival last year, according to Reuters. 

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Despite Netflix leading with a total of 27 Oscar nominations going into the ceremony, the streaming behemoth only took home a single award: Jane Campion's direction for "The Power of the Dog." 

Disney took home six awards for Best Animated Film for "Encanto", Best Costume Design for "Cruella", Best Documentary for "Summer of Soul", Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Jessica Chastain and "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Ariana DeBose in "West Side Story".

Meanwhile, Amazon Studios was shut out after receiving one nomination for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for "Coming 2 America" and three acting nominations for Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem and J.K. Simmons in "Being the Ricardos".

"Apple being the first streamer to win Best Picture and not Netflix or Amazon on the podium is a ‘drop the mic moment’ for Cupertino that should significantly bolster its subscriber base while attracting more A+ Hollywood talent to its platform for future projects," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients on Monday. "We view this Oscar win as a game changer for Apple on its content efforts and legitimizes the Apple TV+ as a major streaming platform with much more success ahead and the Street now starting to take more notice."

Wedbush estimates that Apple has roughly 25 million paid subscribers on the streaming platform and about 50 million global accounts, well behind its streaming competitors. 

"We believe consumer subscriber growth should accelerate from Apple’s Oscar win and will give Cook & Co. more confidence around potentially doubling their content efforts over the next year," Ives added. "With Apple spending ~$7 billion annually on original content and having roughly $200 billion of cash on its balance sheet, we believe the company is gearing up to ramp original content and also bid on a number of upcoming sports packages (NFL Sunday Night Ticket) coming up for contract/renewals in future years."

Ives gives Apple stock an "outperform" rating with a $200 price target.