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Week of June 26, 2017

New hit movie shows how much watching movies have changed
groans in France

The action-fantasy feature film Okja that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is now available to one and all via Netflix. Reviews of South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s work are, generally, good. The story is about post-capitalist greed and an escaped SuperPig. The Guardian (June 28) suggested it could be Netflix’ “first blockbuster.” Netflix invested US$50 million and gave the director complete artistic freedom.

Netflix - along with other video-on-demand service competitors - have had hits. The biggest, by far, is its business model; easy access to reasonably priced original material, sometimes risky, always disruptive through a high-profile single purpose brand. In April Netflix announced passage through the 100 million subscriber threshold. (See more about video on demand)

At the Cannes Film Festival French theater operators were horrified that Netflix would not be following the rules prescribing a 36 month waiting period between theatrical and video-on-demand release. When the Netflix title was shown they booed and howled. Only the SoFilm Summer Festival venues in three cities screened the Okja opening. (See more about media in France here)

Netflix now has 1.5 million subscribers in France, said chief executive Reed Hastings, quoted by Variety (June 16).

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