It appears like Netflix is starting to soften their stance on the whole Cannes Film Festival debacle. If you’ve followed The Playlist for the last two months, you’re well aware of the recent issues between the prestigious French film festival and the biggest streaming service on the planet.
The fight between the two parties stems from a French law that says any film that is shown in French cinemas cannot be streamed for 36 months. Of course, one of the rules of showing a film at Cannes is that it should have a French theatrical release, which leads to the three-year rule and means that Netflix is absolutely not going to do that. This led to the streaming service removing their feature films from festival consideration.
At first, comments from Netflix executives were contentious and were all about how Cannes is behind the curve and needs to update their rules, as you might expect. Cannes’ reply was less contentious and fell back on that French law.
Now, speaking at a recent conference in France (via THR), Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is opening up more about the dispute. And it sounds like Netflix is ready to take a step back and really look at how they present themselves.
“At times we have a reputation as a disruptor, and sometimes we make mistakes,” Hastings said. “I think we got into a more difficult situation with the Cannes Film Festival than we meant to because, you know, we’re not trying to disrupt the movie system, we are trying to make our members happy. We make our content for them.”
This is definitely a new perspective from the streaming company. Previously, Netflix has been very vocal about how the film industry will have to change and the future is streaming. Now, it appears that Hastings comments signal a different attitude, which is less combative and more member-focused.
“What we’ll do now is mostly focus on series, and standup, docuseries and great content we can do without disrupting or being perceived to disrupt the movie sector,” he said.
Does this mean that Netflix is leaving the feature film business? Not exactly. Just that their focus is going to be more on the original content that has been hugely popular for the streaming service. But they’re still going to have a presence at Cannes.
“We love the film festival and we still have buyers going. The festival is very sincere in trying to find a model that works for them and works for us,” Hastings added. “I’m sure over time we’ll definitely [go back].”
However, the issue still remains. If Netflix ever wants to have a feature film premiere at Cannes, they have to decide what’s more important, their customers or the prestige. “That’s the main issue for us, we are trying to treat our movies as series and release them directly to our members and not trying to compete with the theatrical system,” he added.
This mindset, of course, brings back the dreaded French law that’s mentioned above. Speaking about the law, surprisingly Hastings is not ready to take a side. “I think it’s up to the French people to figure out how they want to organize the cinema industry. It’s been pretty successful [so far],” admits the CEO.
Clearly, the wounds have started to heal and Netflix is ready to talk more calmly about the Cannes situation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that they’re any closer to a resolution, instead focusing their attention on other content.