Netflix amd their never-ending war with the Cannes Film Festival seems to have tamed down today. Netflix released a letter to its shareholders and investors expressing remorse, and regret, in their bitter feud with the famous film festival:
“We regret our films not being able to compete at this year’s Cannes film festival,” said a letter to shareholders (ScreenDaily). “The festival adopted a new rule that means if a film is in competition at Cannes, it can not be watched on Netflix in France for the following three years. We would never want to do that to our French members.
“We will continue to celebrate our films and filmmakers at other festivals around the world but unfortunately we will have to sit out Cannes for now so that our growing French membership can continue to enjoy our original films.”
At least they have pinpointed the problem, which is quite valid, the fact that they can't screen their original content in France, if it premieres at Cannes, for THREE YEARS! As I've said before, the 36-month-rule is ridiculous and Camnes is to blame for this.
The letter does seem to indicate that Netflix wants to go to Cannes. In that same letter Netflix did announce a record quarter for the company, which had an impressive increase in membership of almost 8 million subscribers, with almost 6 million of those international (France).
Netflix has 125 million subscribers total, with only 57 million coming from the US. Cannes will no doubt lose this battle.