A week ago, Saudi Arabia was reportedly part of a Paramount Skydance bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery.
The country’s ambition to own a piece of the Hollywood studio was dashed on Friday by Netflix winning the bidding process with a $72 billion offer, but the deal was very much a talking point at its Red Sea Film Festival on Saturday.
International execs participating on a Red Sea Souk panel on ‘Futureproofing our Industry’, steered by Library Pictures International CEO David Taghioff, shared their thoughts on the deal as a preface to the main topic of the discussion.
Not surprisingly, Gaëtan Bruel, President of France’s National Cinema Centre (CNC) was less than enthusiastic about Netflix owning WBD.
France and Netflix have long had a thorny relationship, with the streamer subject to a 15-month media window in return for extra investment in local feature films. It is also essentially shutout of the Cannes Film Festival’s competition which only accepts films that are guaranteed a theatrical release.
“I’ll make my comment from the theatrical point of view because as you know there are thousands of exhibitors in the U.S., France, across the world who expressing deep concern about the potential consequence of this acquisition,” said Bruel.
“The fear they express is that it that it might reduce the number of films for theatrical release which is exactly what happened, we all remember, when Disney acquired Fox,” he said.
He continued that there were two aggravating factors.
“The first one is Netflix’s long time ambivalent relationship with cinema. The second one, the dramatic decline in theatrical attendance,” he said. “If we think not in box office, but attendance. In 2019 we sold worldwide 8 billion tickets. Last year it was less than 5 billion. So, it’s a drop of 40%.”
Bruel suggested that Netflix had embraced putting films into cinemas to a certain extent, but only as a marketing tool because it had understood the value to its streaming platform, a theatrical release can bring through “prestige”, “community engagement” and the “media echo”.
“But I wouldn’t say that Netflix so far has given the theatrical business what it truly needs to navigate this moment of crisis, which is a minimal windowing system, a minimal exclusivity.”
“When you release Frankenstein with just one week in movie theatres in the U.S. how can you expect movie theatres to just survive in this moment?,” he asked.
Bruel quoted one line from Sarandos’ first comment after the acquisition in which he said: ‘I think over time the windows will evolve to be much more consumer friendly.”
“I think we should ask in return, what about making the cinema windows more exhibitor friendly so that they can just keep existing and doing what they do. As we say in English, you can’t have your cake and eat it.”
“If we all believe in movie theatres, we really need to think what they need. Not only variety of content, but also minimal windowing, and minimal exclusivity.”
“So my two cents will be first, I imagine that the acquisition is not good news when it comes to the number of movies, and I believe it’s about to reduce and to rationalize a bit the slate of films. On the other hand, it might get Netflix closer to the theatrical ecosystem, which could be good.”
DDA Chief Strategy Officer Julie La’Bassiere attempted to take a more positive tone, suggesting that the consolidation could jolt independent filmmakers into action..
“I’m hoping in this disruption, that indie film will sort of start to rise and independent filmmakers will be a little bit more scrappy… a little bit more creative, and provide sort of the alternative voice to what we think will be this consolidated behemoth of content.”
“I’m feeling slightly melancholic about it, but I’m choosing today to be quite positive about what it will hopefully give to independent filmmakers in the independent film sector.”
With her brand and marketing hat on, La’Bassiere said the deal could be good news for filmmakers and series-makers who are part of the consolidation.
“They will have a brand to associate themselves with and in today’s market, where it’s so difficult to get audiences’ attention, perhaps it will give an opportunity for the filmmakers and series-makers under this brand.”
Ali Jaafar, head of the film division at MBC Studios, said it remained to be seen whether the deal would go through.
“I would just strike caution… we don’t know when the deal will finally go through, and to be honest, if the deal will finally go through… there’s a long road ahead,” he said.
Like La’Bassiere, he suggested the consolidation could be an opportunity for content makers outside the group.
“I would say in this region, particularly if we’re looking at TV and film production, I think there is a great opportunity potentially in the OSN platform, that really benefited from HBO content,” he said.
“If that content is no longer available to it, then how can OSN maintain its premium offering for audiences? The answer may well be in local original content, which becomes an opportunity then for Arab producers here across film and TV.”
“I would hope that even if there’s a gap or kind of absence with that consolidation, it will create an opportunity for others to fill that space and that could ultimately be a good thing if, particularly from a local point of view, we can tell our own stories on those platforms.”