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Netflix Pulls Out of Cannes Following Rule Change (variety.com)
Netflix and Cannes are breaking up, at least for now. On Wednesday, Netflix chief Ted Sarandos said that the streaming platform won't be sending any films to the prestigious French festival, formally severing the strained relationship between the two power players. The decision was a long time coming, after Cannes established a rule that forbade films without a theatrical distribution plan from its competition. From, a report: In an exclusive interview with Variety, Netflix's chief content officer says that the festival sent a clear message with a new rule that bans any films without theatrical distribution in France from playing in competition. Netflix could screen some of its upcoming movies out of competition, but Sarandos says that doesn't make sense for the streaming service. "We want our films to be on fair ground with every other filmmaker," Sarandos says. "There's a risk in us going in this way and having our films and filmmakers treated disrespectfully at the festival. They've set the tone. I don't think it would be good for us to be there."
Netflix made a big splash at the prestigious film festival last year with two movies that showed in competition: Bong Joon-ho's "Okja" and Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories." But after the 2017 announcement, French theaters owners and unions protested the inclusion of these films to Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director of Cannes. Netflix was amenable to having their movies play on big screens in France, but a law in the country requires movies to not appear in home platforms for 36 months after their theatrical release.
Netflix made a big splash at the prestigious film festival last year with two movies that showed in competition: Bong Joon-ho's "Okja" and Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories." But after the 2017 announcement, French theaters owners and unions protested the inclusion of these films to Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director of Cannes. Netflix was amenable to having their movies play on big screens in France, but a law in the country requires movies to not appear in home platforms for 36 months after their theatrical release.
36 months? Is this only for French films? Or do the frogs have to wait 3 years to get The Last Jedi on Blu-ray?
France is the land of protectionism, and has been for the last ~250 years. They have their own ideas about what their culture should forcibly be that is highly resistant to change at best, highly xenophobic in the middle, and forcibly destroying other cultures within its own country (i.e. Basque) at worst. This is probably also part of the culture war that France has been waging against the US in vain for the past decade.
French culture is the Eric Cartman of all of the world's cultures.
Cannes has a big market. Hundreds of movies are sold globally in Cannes, at the same time many producers find funding for their big budget and indie films. Netflix buys movies for a few dollars and produce a mere handful of movies every year. Cannes is still a very important platform for the movie business.
Netflix has no space in this old world. They simply put online any movie and people may decide to watch it or not. Meanwhile everyone else has to find distribution and pay for advertising.
Its not just Cannes, the Oscars also has rules requiring a theatrical release. There are three ways I see this changing - (1) Netflix, Amazon et al. shower money on a struggling name-brand festival or (2) a streaming platform manages to release something that causes a public outcry for not being considered, or (3) the theatre industry completely crashes and burns in the USA. Perhaps #1 is most likely?
They're not in the film business anymore than Hallmark is.
There's a huge difference between creating films for the big screen and just pumping out content for your own TV station.
If you want to be a film company then release to theaters.
Not quite, I think TV Films are pure lowest common denominator, they're more about holding the Network audience than pulling in new people. Make 'em cheap and don't alienate people is the model.
Netflix is allowed to be more daring, their size gives them a bigger budget, and their audience has a constant demand for adequate content.
I think the better analogy is direct to video. You can chase a niche audience and drop a moderate budget if you push it, but you'll never get the revenue stream to justify a blockbuster. They need to be good enough to draw an audience, but not so good as to justify a night out.
That and they sometimes get the big budget films that don't quite turn out.
I stole this Sig
It is not to help viewers, it is to help theaters. In their mind, if the movie is available to quickly after theater release, people will just wait for the digital release, and not pay an overpriced cinema ticket (easily 15€ per person when 3D) They had the sale rules with VHS/DVD,etc albeit much shorter (I think 6 months, reduced now to 3, not sure) The French love stupid rules like that... In the same way, you cannot broadcast movies on tv channels on friday and saturday nights, so that people would go out instead.