Just a week or so ago, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos riled the industry with his contentious Executive
Keynote address at the 9th annual Film Independent Forum in which he criticized theater owners for their resistance to the idea of
day-and-date releasing of films on Netflix and threw down the gauntlet
saying that theaters are going to “kill movies.”
After getting some flak, he presented a more subdued keynote today at “The Business of Entertainment,” an event in Los
Angeles sponsored by Bloomberg and the Tribeca Film Festival.
“I wasn’t calling for day and date with Netflix,” Sarandos said during the Q&A session. “I was
calling to move all the windows up to get closer to what the consumer
wants.”
In response to a question about why the change of heart, Sarandos said, “I think there’s a better business in giving people what they want than
creating artificial distance between the product and the consumer.”
That’s quite a change of tune from the October 26 keynote, in which Sarandos asked why Netflix couldn’t premiere movies the same day they open in theaters. “And not little movies. There’s a lot of people and a lot of ways to do that. But why not big movies?” Sarandos asked.
He also said, “The reason why
we may enter this space and try to release some big movies ourselves this way, is because I’m concerned that as theater owners try to strangle innovation and distribution, not only are they going to kill
theaters–they might kill movies.”
In response, John Fithian, president/CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners told Deadline that, in fact, Netflix was imperiling the future of movies.
“Subscription movie services and cheap rentals killed the DVD business, and now Sarandos wants to kill the cinema as well,” Fithian said. As for day and date releases on Netflix, Fithian said, “The only business that would be helped by day-and-day release to Netflix is Netflix. If Hollywood did what Sarandos suggests, there wouldn’t be many movies left for Netflix’s customers or for anyone else. It makes absolutely no business sense to accelerate the release of the lowest
value in the chain.”
Sarandos’ comments come just as many independent films are challenging the traditional theatrical model with multi-platform releases, including day-and-date VOD releases and ultra-VOD. So is it unreasonable for Sarandos to think that Netflix can get into that arena?
Clearly, the debate about day-and-date releasing isn’t going away any time soon. Indiewire
wants to know — what does Sarandos’ position mean for independent film
distribution? Making independent films available on a platform like
Netflix could mean an exponentially larger audience, as we’ve seen with
day-and-date releases on VOD. But, surely distributors won’t want to
jeopardize the movie theater business or cannibalize theatrical
audiences.
Indiewire
has reached out to indie film distributors to get their response to the
hot-button issue of day-and-date releasing, the future of movie
theaters and how we watch movies. Stay tuned for our report on those responses in the coming days.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
