Netflix’s days of feuding with film festivals, Oscar voters, and theater owners may soon be at an end. During Reed Hastings’s appearance at Series Mania Thursday, the Netflix CEO explained that the company was trying to change its film strategy to avoid the kind of public squabbles that led to the streamer’s movies being banned from Cannes this year. “What we’ll do now is mostly focus on series, and standup, docuseries, and great content we can do without disrupting or being perceived to disrupt the movie sector,” Hastings said. “That’s the main issue for us, we are trying to treat our movies as series and release them directly to our members and not trying to compete with the theatrical system.” What this means for Netflix’s plan to buy a chain of movie theaters remains unclear, but Hastings did say that he was confident Netflix and Cannes would eventually come to a friendly resolution — à votre santé!
