Aside from a conveyor belt of romcoms, the popular platform has struggled to find any big new names. Can it learn anything from old-fashioned cinema?
Ahead of the Cannes film festival earlier this month, its artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, asked a good question: “What directors have been discovered by [streaming] platforms?” He called on journalists to name one. Nobody shouted out, “What about Vince Marcello, who gave us The Kissing Booth?” Nobody could name any at all, in fact. Cannes and
Netflix have been engaged in their own saga over the soul of cinema in recent years but Frémaux raised an important point: streaming services have transformed the landscape to the point they threaten the very survival of theatrical cinema. But what are they building in its place?
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