The battle between streaming platforms and traditional studios gains momentum as Steven Spielberg declares that films made for Netflix should not qualify for an Oscar and Cannes announces that films from streaming platforms won’t be allowed to compete anymore.
On one hand, the success of streaming platforms like Netflix has given artists and filmmakers a chance to showcase their work to a global audience, but on the other hand it is challenging the old model of how we see movies.
Not everyone is a fan. Chris Nolan, the director of films like Dunkirk, Inception, Interstellar and The Dark Knight trilogy has been vocally against the idea of films not getting a theatrical release.
“Netflix has a bizarre aversion to supporting theatrical films,” he said. “They have this mindless policy of everything having to be simultaneously streamed and released, which is obviously an untenable model for theatrical presentation. So they’re not even getting in the game, and I think they’re missing a huge opportunity.”
Nolan added: “You can see that Amazon is very clearly happy to not make that same mistake. The theaters have a 90-day window. It’s a perfectly usable model. It’s terrific.”
Many would agree that Netflix is giving filmmakers a chance but as Nolan sees it, it comes at a cost. “I think the investment that Netflix is putting into interesting filmmakers and interesting projects would be more admirable if it weren’t being used as some kind of bizarre leverage against shutting down theaters. It’s so pointless. I don’t really get it.”
The feud between streaming platforms and studios is heating up as Cannes announced that films from Amazon, Netflix and other platforms won’t be allowed to compete anymore.
And now Steven Spielberg, one of the most iconic filmmakers in Hollywood has spoken on the matter and he ain’t mincing his word either.
Speaking to ITV News, Spielberg explained that films that skip a theatrical release are essentially TV movies.
“Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” he said. “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy. But not an Oscar. The television is greater today than it’s ever been in the history of television. There’s better writing, better directing, better performances, better stories are being told. Television is really thriving with quality and heart, but it poses a clear present danger to filmgoers. I’ll still make The Post for audiences asking them, ‘Please to go out to the movies to see The Post,’ and not make it directly for Netflix.”
The comments have come after this year’s Academy Awards where Netflix films such as Mudbound landed eight nominations.
As for Cannes, Thierry Fremaux, Artistic Director for the film festival, while explaining the decision to keep Netflix films out of competition, said on the matter, “Last year, when we selected these two films (Bong Joon-ho’s Okja and Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories), I thought I could convince Netflix to release them in cinemas. I was presumptuous, they refused.”
He added: “Cinema [still] triumphs everywhere even in this golden age of series. The history of cinema and the history of the internet are two different things.”
What this means for Hollywood, only time will tell. But as Forbes noted in a piece, “Time and evolution favour the new filmmakers and platforms, just as happened decades ago when new filmmakers with new approaches and new release methods for their art arrived on the scene to change modern cinema despite complaints and attempts to deny them awards.
Those opposed to Netflix and Amazon are on the losing side of history.”
