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Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here. Time for your weekly dose of headlines and analysis from everyone's favourite international email. Scroll on. |
netflix's global masterplan |
Reed's Euro-vision: At an event for journalists, policy wonks and creatives at Netflix’s Amsterdam headquarters on Monday, Reed Hastings made the audacious claim
that the U.S. streamer is more responsible for “cross-European culture” than anyone else. In his view, Europe’s public service and commercial networks “specialize in one language group,” whereas Netflix’s team “specialize in connecting." People in Germany will therefore happily watch its content from Spain, for example. Netflix’s impact on European culture probably can’t be denied, and nor can investment in originals on the continent: it hits the European Commission’s 30% content quotas in most major European countries. To hammer home the point, Netflix unveiled a pair of Dutch films at the Amsterdam shingdig titled The Dadchelor and Bad Boa’s, and the following day unveiled Germany's
Suddenly Chancellor (WT), Criminel (WT) and 60 Minutes at a local Content Showcase event. However, many cultural bodies and governments remain uneasy, and noses have been put out of joint by Hastings' claim that it is "ironic that a U.S. company" has achieved such soft power. In a statement to Deadline, the European Broadcasting Union, which every year lays on the pan-continent Eurovision Song Contest, hit back, reminding Hastings that its members spend €20BN ($21BN) a year on “homegrown” content, well above the investment of SVoD services. Hastings' grand flourish came in the week that a
shock Ampere Analysis report revealed Norwegian household spend on film and TV will soon overtake that of the U.S., as mad as that sounds first off. According to Ampere, U.S. household spend on streamers, cable and cinema will decline by 11% over the next five years, while this figure will rise in the likes of the UK, Spain, Germany and Italy. Music to Hastings' ears?
APAC growth: A separate report from Media Partners Asia predicted Netflix’s content investment in another key growth area, the Asia-Pacific region, will increase by 15% this year to nearly $2BN, as revenues grow 12%. Japan and Korea can expect more investment, while Indonesia and India remain the biggest-growing markets in APAC. The report is unsurprising given early signs such as the unveiling of 34 Korean projects, including big-budget features, potential Squid Game
replacements and formats. U.S. analysts have long spoken of Netflix reaching saturation point in its home nation and, while Q4 subscriber growth was better than expected, this week's news demonstrates how the streamer is clearing a path to greater global reach. As if on cue, our Asia expert Liz Shackleton sat down with Karan Anshuman and Suparn Varma, the creative duo behind Netflix India's remake of Ray Donovan, which dropped worldwide today.
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All Noise On The Awards Front: With this year’s Academy Awards just a few days out, Deadline’s Pete Hammond set out his final predictions in an expansive article, and his surprise pick for Best Picture, Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front, defies the Everything Everywhere-dominated odds. Bar the BAFTAs, A24's multiverse thriller has been sweeping up with critics over the past weeks but Pete fancies Edward Berger's war epic and all eyes now trained on whether the German pic can become the first remake of a Best Picture movie to scoop the biggest prize in global cinema. An All Quiet
win would give Netflix its first ever Best Picture gong and would be only the second time in Academy history that a non-English language film has won the top prize following Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. Despite the endorsement, Hammond concludes that the cards are currently stacked against All Quiet. The film wasn’t nominated at any of the major guilds and didn’t clock any acting nominations, while rival Best Picture frontrunner Everything Everywhere, which will likely scoop plenty of Oscars, received four acting nods.
International race: Pete and many other commentators have All Quiet as the clear frontrunner in the International Feature race, where it feels a shoo-in. The pic took home the equivalent award at BAFTA last month, although Santiago Mitre’s political thriller Argentina, 1985 clinched the Golden Globe. The category is filled out by Cannes winners Close (Belgium) and EO (Poland), and The Quiet Girl, which is Ireland's first ever nominee. It is a hugely competitive race in a category that has seen more focus in recent years with the explosion in popularity of non-English language content. Last year's winner was Japan's Drive My Car
. Check back in with Deadline Sunday to see how the race concludes.
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From EFF to LFF: Rarely do two appointment news stories work so smoothly. Around 10 minutes after the Edinburgh Film Festival (EFF) revealed Creative Director Kristy Matheson would be exiting her post, she was unveiled
as the new Festivals Director of the BFI's London Film Festival (LFF). Smoothly does it, indeed. The future of the former had been rocky before Screen Scotland acquired the IP rights and it will now return in August albeit with a scaled-down version, before the new owner conducts a structural review. Finding a replacement for Tricia Tuttle in the LFF post had been tricky as we revealed late last week when we told you the appointment was imminent,
but Matheson had repeatedly been raised by sources as a potential candidate. She now takes on a festival plus its LGBTQIA-focused counterpart BFI Flare that has seen increased prominence in recent years. Last year, for instance, it opened with the world premiere of Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical and closed with the European Premiere of Rian Johnson’s highly-anticipated sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. |
Lineker Lands BBC In Hot Water... Again |
What now Gary?: Where there be UK government controversy, there be a Gary Lineker tweet. The Match of the Day host has defined himself as quite the anti-government provocateur in recent years and stirred things up once again Tuesday when he compared the language around the Conservatives' asylum policy with that of "Germany in the 1930s." You don't need to be an amateur historian to know what he was getting at. While everyone is entitled to their opinion on a policy that the UNHCR branded a "clear breach of the Refugee Convention," BBC bosses were distinctly unhappy with Lineker's blatant equation of a fascist dictatorship with a government that it is required to at least try and get on well with. Jake had
this snap reaction piece, featuring one presenter who described Lineker's remarks as "such an egregious breach" of BBC impartiality. Home Secretary Suella Braverman (pictured - left) told the BBC's very own Today
program she was "obviously disappointed." Lineker has past form but appeared unfazed, calling out "freedom of speech champions demanding silence from those with whom they disagree" and saying he had "never known such love and support in my life" from his supporters (England World Cup goals aside). Whether the BBC takes further action is where the media's attention turns to next after Lineker's comments dominated the latter half of the week's front pages and news bulletins. The irony of his comments taking up more space on the BBC website and news bulletins than the actual asylum policy was lost on few. |
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international disrupto'rrr' |
Ram's Reception: RRR has taken the world by storm and star Ram Charan, who played a mega part in a movie shot in 320 days across three years, is simply delighted. The Telugu-language film, which has been shattering all the records, has so far grossed more than $160M worldwide, so it felt more than right that he sat down in Diana Lodderhose's International Disruptors chair this week. Ram spilled the tea on collaborating with director S.S. Rajamouli again and discussed how the film’s international reception has finally put Indian cinema on the global content map. “When we made RRR
, we all thought we had achieved so much, and it couldn’t get bigger than that. But the reception we’ve gotten – even still a year on – is wonderful and keeps it so fresh in our minds," he tells Diana. Go deeper. |
🌶️ Hot One: John Boyega will star in sci-fi romance The Freshening from Cathy Yan.
🌶️ Another One: British TV and radio host Pat Sharp was forced to apologize after "appalling" lewd remark delivered at an industry awards show.
🌶️ Hot, hot, hot: Enrico Colanti and Mindy Cohn boarded Canadian dark comedy Mother Father Sister Brother Frank, per Mel's scoop.
🏆 Awards latest: Martin McDonagh's Oscar hopeful The Banshees of Inisherin and Apple TV+'s Bad Sisters lead this year's Irish Film And TV Academy Award nominations (IFTAs).
👶 "Nepo Baby" latest: Four-fifths of young British TV and film hopefuls believe connections are more important than talent, according to Netflix and National Youth Theatre research.
📈 Ratings: Frank Doelger's Berlinale Series drama The Swarm has made a splash on German TV.
🏪 Setting up shop: British entertainment vets Daniel Brookes and Simon Shalgosky, who launched Rebel Rebel Pictures.
🥊 Trading blows: Creed III screenings in France and Germany were disrupted by a number of brawls in cinemas.
🖊️ Signed: Former Netflix and BBC exec Chris Sussman inked a first-look scripted deal with Banijay UK.
⛺ Festivals: Greece's Thessaloniki Documentary Festival cancelled its closing ceremony following the fatal train crash, per Zac.
🍿 Box office: Scream VI is headed for a franchise-record opening of $50M+ global this weekend.
And finally… If you thought our Deadline Global Breakout strand was only forged to focus on TV then you were mistaken. Yesterday, we introduced our debut Breakout movie, Japan's The First Slam Dunk, an anime killing it locally that could soon take Europe by storm. Go deeper here for Nancy's analysis and see why Slam Dunk is proving such a success, while checking out what makes the local Japanese industry tick.
Zac Ntim and Jesse Whittock contributed to this week’s Insider |
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