This is the best time for movies, and this is the worst time for movies. The film industry, which has developed for a hundred years and has entered a stable state, is being torn apart by the Internet streaming media company represented by Netflix.
We are in the midst of a film industry revolution. The struggle between
"theatrical movies" and "Internet movies" has fundamentally challenged our understanding of "movies".
The two sides are at war, and the first to become "cannon fodder" during the initial firepower test is the work "Jade" produced and distributed by Netflix and South Korean director Bong Junhao . The
film itself is no problem. It was also rated as the most interesting work last year by many film media. At that time, "Yuzi" was a strong contender for the highest prize palm of the main competition unit of the Cannes Film Festival.
"Yuzi" was created on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.
However, this film has committed a "big taboo" in its distribution-it bypassed the French theaters and premiered globally on Netflix; as long as you are a Netflix subscriber , You can watch the whole movie on digital TV or computer for the first time.
Therefore, when the film followed Netflix to attend the Cannes Film Festival last year, not only did it encounter all sorts of difficulties, it was also publicly cheated by the French.
This kind of thing will not happen again-last week the Cannes Film Festival announced that Netflix will be banned from the Cannes red carpet in the future, and its films will no longer be eligible to participate in the Cannes Palme d'Or selection.
Cannes Film Festival Selection Chairman Fu Mao once wrote: "If there were no huge controversy and the subsequent terrible thunder, Cannes would only be famous."
This time, Fu Mao has practiced his own guidelines. Cannes took the initiative to break openly with Netflix (fortunately not all streaming media).
Fumao accepted an interview with The Hollywood Reporter: "I thought I could convince Netflix to release "Yuzi" on the French cinema line, so I agreed to choose it for the competition."
"I am so self-righteous, they rejected me," he Continue to say: "The people at Netflix just want to take the filmmakers down the red carpet. They understand in their hearts that their operating model is completely in conflict with us." How
streaming media tears apart the film industry
"Since the movie does not change, we will Change the movie."
Netflix, Amazon (Amazon) and Hulu (now acquired by Disney) are currently the three major U.S. streaming media giants. Almost all of their core strategies are: let high-quality content be released on their own platforms in advance, and at the same time provide users with Give them a small favor, so that they can't do without their own sofa and don't want to freshen up and go to the cinema.
Although the three companies are in a competitive relationship, it is the traditional film industry that is most affected by them.
Disney, Warner, Fox, Sony and Paramount, the "big five" traditional Hollywood studios, had a total profit of 4.17 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, a 77% reduction compared with ten years ago; the attendance rate of American theaters hit 19 last year New low since the year.
In contrast, Netflix, a streaming media platform, has more than 120 million paying users worldwide, with a market value of more than 100 billion US dollars.
Netflix's global expansion from 2011 to 2016,
has the advantages of users , channels and funding . Netflix is most concerned about whether its paying users can enjoy the latest movies through TV or mobile terminals, zero time difference .
Therefore, Netflix has always resolutely implemented the simultaneous distribution of content between theaters and the Internet. What
Netflix changes is the traditional mode of film production, distribution and viewing, which is a fatal challenge to the order of the entire film industry. The extreme "zero window period" approach of
has been strongly resisted by traditional movie theaters.
Amazon Pictures , which was established at the end of 2010, has a much more "softer" figure. From the beginning, it strictly fulfilled 's "Cinema First Release" commitment-giving theaters a 90-day window period , and the film is in theater It was released online 90 days later, allowing traditional theaters to make money and taste the sweetness.
So, although streaming companiesGenerally resisted by movie giants, but Amazon was accepted by Hollywood.
In terms of content, due to business pressure, Hollywood now only dares to bet on the "restart" and "sequel" of the big IP, and it is about to turn the movie into a "big screen series".
The Marvel Superhero Universe has entered the "third stage"
, so many original content that has not yet become IP will be the first to find streaming media platforms such as Netflix and provide them with support in production and distribution.
streamers use this to "amy" many treasures.
In 2017, the Oscar awarded the Little Golden Man to an Internet company for the first time in history-Amazon won the Best Actor Award and the Best Original Screenplay Award Little Golden Man with "Manchester by the Sea".
"Manchester by the Sea" and "Salesman" produced by Amazon Pictures won seven Oscar nominations in 2017. The former won the "Best Actor Award" and the "Best Original Screenplay", and the latter won the "Best Foreign Language" Film Award"
and Netflix produced "Mudbound" (Mudbound) also won the best original screenplay nomination at this year's Oscars.
This year Netflix is expected to launch at least 80 original movies , most of which are films costing less than $10 million . Hollywood giants have also begun to fight back. Disney acquired streaming media giant Hulu last year, and in August last year it halted Netflix's lucrative content licensing business, intending to put its content on its own streaming media platform.
Spielberg does not stand on the team
Also last weekend, the "Hollywood Legend" Steven Spielberg who just launched his new work "Number One Player" publicly expressed that he does not think that certain Netflix films are eligible for Oscars.
Spielberg was interviewed by ITV during the promotion of "Number One Player". The original words of
Spielberg were:
"In the past, filmmakers would also try to raise funds to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, just to cause some A publisher pays attention to giving their work a chance to be in theaters.
But now fewer and fewer people do so, because they can find a streaming media company to provide a small amount of production funding, or fight for a week of theater screening. Just to be eligible to be nominated for important film awards.
However, as long as you position your work in the TV media at the beginning, what you do is a TV movie . If it is a good work, you should apply for an Emmy. Not an Oscar."
is different from Quentin or Nolan . Spielberg has no intention of "stand on" the traditional cinema line. He even praised the quality of today's TV movies.
Laos’s biggest concern is that streaming media may blur the line between “television movies” and “cinema movies”-the two are totally different in art.
"Manchester by the Sea" produced by Amazon last year actually stayed in the theater for a long time before going online.
But films like last year's "Earth World" and other films were eligible for Oscars after only a week of "wandering" in theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
Spielberg said:
"I don't believe that works that are symbolically put in theaters for a week are eligible for Oscar nominations."
was not a film created for the cinema experience from the beginning, and should not have won the highest award for film art. Qualifications-that is cheating.
But there is another paradox here: Over the years, many Oscar-winning films have only been shown in a limited number of theaters, and most audiences can't see them; streaming media at least allows them to be seen by global audiences.
Moreover, if these excellent "Internet TV movies" all go to the Emmy Awards, will Emmy's competitiveness, fun and prestige exceed the Oscars?
Or, can Oscars create new award categories specifically for streaming movies?
Netflix: If you don't break it, you can't stand
Netflix admits that it is destroying the existing film industry ecology.
Netflix’s founder and CEO Reed Hastings said that in the past 30 yearsFilm distribution simply cannot tolerate "innovation"; Netflix's mission is to "liberate and subvert traditional films"-is this to incite users to leave the cinema?
Reed Hastings is an entrepreneur, innovator, and disruptor
. The fact is that consumers are indeed increasingly inclined to download digital content at home or watch streaming media content (if resources are available).
It is difficult for you to ask the audience to understand and distinguish the difference between "streaming movies" and "cinema movies". In their view, both are movies. What is the future of
movies? Will movies change from "popular art" to "niche art"? Will even the definition of film be subverted?
This is a complicated question and there is no simple answer.
is in the vortex of changes in the film industry, let us stay sensitive and feel the changes together.
Because of the process itself, it is as wonderful as a movie
