Netflix vs the Silver Screen
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does Netflix threaten to wipe out the traditional cinema in much the same way that it already annihilated video rentals?
The online streaming service is spending a lot of money on producing original movies, and its refusal to give them a public screening has led to a bust up with the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. But are these arbiters of the art of the silver screen right to fear Netflix's encroachments?
Manuela Saragosa speaks to Hollywood producer Brian Udovich, author Jonathan Taplin and film critic Jason Solomons.
(Picture: Empty cinema auditorium with popcorn strewn across the floor; Credit: Ingram Publishing/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Manuela Saragossa. |
| 0:05.5 | In this edition, the Cannes Film Festival versus Netflix. |
| 0:10.4 | It's become a battle of curated world cinema, artistic content presented theatrically on the big screen, |
| 0:17.7 | versus algorithmic curation presented on the small screen. Which will prevail, |
| 0:23.3 | and which do you think should prevail? I think it's essentially destroying the theatrical experience, |
| 0:29.6 | which is still, to me, an important thing where you put 200 people in a dark room together |
| 0:35.0 | and have them collectively experience something. |
| 0:44.4 | The Future of Cinema here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:53.9 | A film called Avengers Infinity War made cinema history a couple of weeks ago. |
| 1:00.2 | It earned a record estimated $630 million worldwide on its opening weekend. |
| 1:07.3 | You might think, then, that the great and good of cinema gathered at the Cannes Film Festival this week have much to cheer about. |
| 1:09.4 | Except many of them don't think they do. And it's all because of the distributor of this |
| 1:12.3 | film. |
| 1:14.2 | Your husband's here. Let me see him. He's extremely ill. You have to tell me why he was what he was doing. |
| 1:24.5 | It was his decision to go in. It's something they termed the shimmer. |
| 1:32.0 | The trailer there for a film called Annihilation, not showing at the Cannes Film Festival, or indeed |
| 1:38.1 | in any cinemas outside a handful in the US, Canada and China. The film's been distributed by Netflix, the online streaming service, |
| 1:47.2 | and Netflix films have been banned from the Cannes Film Festival competition this year. |
| 1:52.0 | That's because the organisers say only films that have had a widespread theatrical release are allowed to take part. |
| 1:58.5 | Netflix is, of course, an online platform with 125 million subscribers |
| 2:02.7 | around the world. It doesn't do theatrical releases. It sends big budget movies right into |
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