Netflix, the internet streaming service, is facing a backlash after a record spend of up to $30 million on an Oscars award campaign for its film Roma.

The staggering amount, twice what the film itself cost to make, could mean a movie intended to be mainly watched on TV capturing the Best Picture gong for the first time.

It was a prospect that rattled some leading Hollywood film-makers, including Steven Spielberg, who predicted it could signal a bleak future for cinemas.

Netflix's splurge topped campaigns run in the past by Harvey Weinstein and may be the most expensive ever, outspending the $25 million Columbia Pictures, a traditional Hollywood studio, used to promote The Social Network in 2011.

Los Angeles, home to many of the more than 7,000 members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who vote for the Oscars, has been plastered with billboards and posters urging them to back for Roma.