France’s Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak appeared to suggest in a radio interview on Monday that a further softening of the country’s strict media chronology rules could be on the cards for the global platforms.
“We’ve already reduced it. It used to be 36 months,” she said in an interview on the RTL network, in answer to a question on the current 15 to 17-month, law-enshrined window between a feature film’s theatrical release and its availability via streaming.
“The platform landscape continues to develop, with the arrival of HBO Max and others. We can see there is a risk that cinemas in France will not be able to release films, the American big blockbusters, like we saw with Disney, with one of their films. There is a case for finding a more respectful balance.”
Abdul Malak suggested the platforms had a right to push for changes given they are now obliged to invest at least 20% of their French revenue in European audiovisual and feature film content, most of which must be in the French language and produced by independent producers, following the introduction of the so-called SMAD decree last year.
“In return, it’s legitimate that they’ve asked for a shortening of their release windows,” she said.
However, asked if the window could be shortened to less than 15 months in the near future, Abdul Malak said this could only happen if a deal was struck collectively with all the stakeholders in the French film and TV industry, across the production, distribution and exhibition chain.
Her comments come amid lobbying by Disney for a reduction in the 17-month window currently in place for its Disney Plus platform.
The company announced in June it was skipping the theatrical release of Strange World in France to put it directly on Disney Plus, as a result of the chronology rules. The film is scheduled to be released theatrically in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world on November 23.
Rumors were rife in October, that it was also mulling a direct-to-digital release in France for Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
The studio put out a statement saying it would maintain the theatrical release on November 9, following “acknowledgement from the French government that the Media Chronology needs to be modernized”.
France introduced radically overhauled media chronology rules earlier this year, after nearly a decade of hard-fought negotiations between all the main stakeholders in France.
Under the new framework, most of the global platforms including Disney and Amazon are subject to a 17-month gap between a theatrical and online release of a feature film, while Netflix has negotiated a 15-month window in return for extra investment in local feature films. Prior to the new rules, the window was 36 months.
The new media chronology legislation was due to last for three years from its official launch in February 2022. However, it included an annual review clause set for February 2023.
Platforms are hoping this means there is wiggle room for further trimming of the window.
Hot Topic For Local Industry
The issue of whether the new chronology laws should be changed so soon after their introduction is already prompting fierce debate within the industry.
Some industry stakeholders feel the legislation should be left untouched for the three-year term, while other professionals acknowledge it already needs updating.
It was a hot topic on Monday in the opening debate of the directors’ guild L’ARP’s annual film industry conflab, running November 2-4 in the northern French beach resort of Le Touquet.
The event unfolds this year against a difficult period for the French film industry as the local box office struggles to recover to pre-pandemic levels, although encouraging October results in which admissions doubled on September levels to 14 million admissions, saw it kick off amid an air of cautious optimism.
Dominique Boutonnat, head of France’s National Cinema Centre (CNC), which oversaw final negotiations for the new chronology rules, highlighted the collective nature of the work that went into reaching the deal.
“The media chronology agreement is an interprofessional one and it will remain that way. It’s not a state diktat and it never will be,” he said.
“Why was it created? Initially to protect the cinema theatre, and then, progressively and happily, to give maximum value to all the different exploitation windows so they best serve the financing of French and European creation.”
Boutonnat emphasized, however, that some “small adjustments” were still needed in relation to “the problematic between French diffusers and the American platforms”, over the window for films financed outside of France and belonging to non-European companies.
“We’re there to protect the diffusers, but we’re also there to protect the capacity of French citizens to have access to all the films,” he said.
“The clause for an annual review, put in place at the time of the signing of the accord, is fundamental. We can no longer wait three, four, five years to update the laws around the chronology,” he continued.
“I’m not saying we’re going to radically change the accord between now and next January, but it’s a living law. We can all see that the situation is changing quickly, and that small changes are needed. The aim is to get round the table regularly to make these adjustments.”
In a comment from the floor, French-Romanian director and ARP vice president Radu Mihăileanu, who played an active role in the chronology negotiations, said he felt the current framework should be left to run unchanged for at least another year before being modified.
“The media chronology safeguards our total independence for the way it fragments [the sources] of financing. It’s essential and that’s why we fought so hard for it not to be deregulated, and so that the ‘toy’ wouldn’t be broken by some who would like to destabilize it,” he said.
“It took two, three years for us to negotiate this chronology. If there’s a renewal clause that results in three years of negotiations every year, we’ll never have a chronology. Let it sit there for a bit to see what comes out of it and then we can re-reflect” he added.
“Of course, nothing stops us from reflecting on it now but let’s not reopen it and put it back on the table now. Everything has been said and it would destabilize the historic partners, which we absolutely don’t want to do in this period of crisis.”
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