Streaming wars: Spielberg finally seduced by Netflix and Europe ‘brexiting’ film industry
Netflix announced that they finally managed to add Steven Spielberg in their portfolio, via his Amblin Partners production company, for several years and multiple movies per year.
Spielberg has been for years a vocal opponent of Netflix, considering it as television, and the movies produced for it should be eligible for Emmys and not Oscars. He has spoken out about wanting to preserve the experience of seeing movies in theaters.
According to a statement Spielberg had made talking to Reuters in the not so distant 2018, his entire life has been spent trying to give audiences something in a large, large forum, characteristically adding that: “I love the whole feeling of social interaction outside … Those are the kinds of audiences I like to talk to.”
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners is teaming up with Netflix!
Thrilled to announce that the legendary filmmaker’s company will produce multiple new films for Netflix each year. pic.twitter.com/FYzg7rqwed
— NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) June 21, 2021
Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, the Brexit is creating an interesting side-effect for the industry:
According to the Guardian, that claims having seen a leaked EU report, the Union is preparing to act against the “disproportionate” amount of British television and film content shown in the European markets; the UK is Europe’s biggest producer of film and TV programming, buoyed up by £1.4bn from the sale of international rights, but its dominance has been described as a threat to Europe’s “cultural diversity”.
Under the EU’s audiovisual media services directive, a majority of airtime must be given to European content on terrestrial television and it must make up at least 30% of the number of titles on video on demand (VOD) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. Today, despite Brexit, the British programmes and films are still considered “European works”.
Countries such as France have set an even higher 60% quota for European works on VOD and demanding 15% of the turnover of the platforms is spent in production of European audiovisual and cinematographic works.
The sale of international rights to European channels and VOD platforms earned the UK television industry £490m in sales in 2019-20, making it the second biggest market for the UK behind the US.
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