Cannes just can’t continue to snub Netflix
THE Cannes film festival has long since been associated with old world glamour — think world famous celebrities lounging in yachts and clinking glasses of champagne in France’s most ostentatious hotels.
I have spent many hours straddling the red velvet ropes outside theatres in the Riviera, desperately searching for an interview, or at times a quote, from George Clooney, Leonardo Di Caprio and Brad Pitt.
The seaside restaurants fill up with movie fans and families hoping to catch a glimpse of their all-time icons, while, behind closed doors, the industry’s most influential producers and talent fight tooth and nail for the distribution rights to some of Hollywood’s best and brightest new offerings.
It’s an annual celebration of the glitter and glamour that still makes Hollywood great, and up until now, has largely avoided general controversy.
This year, however, Netflix rolled into town, moving the goalposts with it. Theatre owners were up in arms when the online streaming service was granted a screening for its original film Okja.
As a result, Cannes immediately announced that as of next year, only films with French theatrical distribution may vie for the Palme d’Or.
This effectively excludes Netflix original movies from the festival.
What added insult to injury for the American online giant was that moviegoers allegedly booed the screening of Okja.
ACCORDING to the New York Times, it was unclear if the boos were related to technical difficulties or whether they occurred as soon as Netflix’s logo appeared, as the Los Angeles Times reported.
Another screening of the movie later that night got a four-minute standing ovation after the film, said The Hollywood Reporter.
Whatever the reason for the jeering, it is clear the powers that be at Cannes simply aren’t ready to embrace the arrival of Netflix, but they exclude it at their peril.
Netflix is increasing its efforts to become a premium movie distributor. Though it has dabbled in smaller films, Deadline reported last March that the company paid $90 million for the Will Smith science fiction film ‘Bright’, and it also paid $60 million for Brad Pitt’s war satire War Machine.
Closer to home it acquired The Siege Of Jadotville and Special Correspondents, a remake starring Ricky Gervais and Eric Bana. The fact of the matter is Netflix symbolises change, but it’s very much the future. It is acutely aware that its business resides in both old and new world media, ensuring both print and digital media get adequate time with their biggest catalogues of stars and also believes in that old Hollywood institution of the ‘wow factor’.
Last year, Netflix took over a warehouse on the outskirts of Paris and transformed rooms of it into the Oval Office for House Of Cards, built a rickety old porch and farmyard for Ashton Kutcher’s The Ranch and even made a working prison canteen from scratch, mirroring Lichfield prison from Orange Is The New Black. Perhaps what was most eye-opening was listening to CEO Reed Hastings as he laid bare the future of television and cinema in a Netflix-dominated world.
It will always focus on streaming to download video, keep its service simple and anticipates improvements to internet service.
This, of course, does not bode well for events like Cannes, which celebrates the movie theatre experience.
But as Netflix continues to buy up more of the biggest movies and sign up the biggest stars (Adam Sandler is the latest to join the family), it won’t be long before the majority of Hollywood studios will have to bow to the streaming giant, which is already available in 130 countries globally.
I suspect that if a festival like Cannes doesn’t change its attitude towards Netflix, it could end up in quite a lonely position, as a large portion of its showpiece cinema moves to an online home.
Because if there’s one thing that movie stars like more than old world glamour, it’s new world money.