They are the big winners from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Streaming platforms continue to rise in a rapidly changing industry.
Netflix could thus grab the largest number of statuettes during the 93rd Oscars ceremony which will take place on the night of Sunday, April 25 in the United States.
If the platforms are doing so well, it is because at the same time, dark rooms are going through an unprecedented crisis. In the United States, the situation is particularly worrying. On April 12, the owner of the Pacific Theaters and ArcLight channels announced that its theaters would not reopen following the Covid-19 pandemic. A blow to Hollywood, which was just celebrating the gradual reopening of theaters, authorized since March 15 in Los Angeles. "I am devastated", particularly moved the director James Gunn on Twitter.
I'm gutted.
The ArcLight has been an amazing support to cinema in LA.
I'll miss talking to the employees about their favorite films, which they had listed on their name tags.
The theaters have been an integral part of so many key moments in my life, I'll miss them forever.
đź’” https://t.co/2tV3yQ6Pl8
- James Gunn (@JamesGunn) April 13, 2021
Last June, it was AMC, one of the market leaders, which came close to bankruptcy.
Today, the American company, which has a thousand theaters around the world including 600 in the United States, is more optimistic, having raised nearly a billion in cash.
"There is no longer any question of AMC's filing for bankruptcy in the short term," assured its CEO, Adam Aron, at the end of January.
Still, American cinemas are weakened and only the biggest will be able to withstand the shock.
To support the sector, Joe Biden's stimulus plan voted in March provides more than $ 16 billion in additional aid for theaters.
The triumph of the small screen
For a year now, the film industry has had to deal with colossal losses caused by the closure of cinemas.
Very few blockbusters have been shown to the public and the major studios have favored releases directly on the platforms.
Disney, for example, announced that "Luca", the latest creation from Pixar studios, will be released directly on its Disney + platform on June 18.
Recently, the second installment of the movie "A Prince in New York" was also released on Amazon Prime Video rather than in theaters.
For its part, Warner has opted for a hybrid release - both in theaters and in streaming - of all its feature films scheduled for 2021, a decision strongly criticized by director Denis Villeneuve, whose film "Dune" is one of the works. most anticipated films of the year.
Even the big favorite of the 93rd Academy Awards, “Nomadland,” by award-winning Chinese director Chloe Zhao, will be available directly on Disney +.
>> To see: "'Genius Loci', the French animated short film in the running for the Oscars"
France spared?
And it's not just in the United States that times are tough for theaters. In 2020, France recorded a 70% drop in attendance at its dark rooms while the platforms were full. At the start of the year, Netflix exceeded the 200 million subscribers mark worldwide.
As in other areas, the Covid-19 precipitated movements already underway. According to Olivier Thuillas, lecturer in information and communication sciences at Paris-Nanterre University, the health crisis could reinforce the transition from the big to the small screen of new generations. "The youngest continue to go to the cinema but we see that it is no longer them who carry the attendance of the rooms", explains this specialist of the cinema industry joined by France 24. "15% of the French have today fully digital cultural habits. This strong trend poses a threat to movie theaters. "
However, unlike American cinemas, French cinemas have a major advantage over platforms: the media chronology. This system offers cinemas the exclusive exploitation rights of a feature film before it goes to fill the catalog of video on demand or streaming services. Faced with competition from television, the idea had emerged in the 1960s to protect movie theaters. The principle was definitively adopted by a 1982 law on audiovisual communication.
But again, the health crisis has gone through this.
Earlier this month, the National Center for Cinema and Animated Image (CNC) announced a waiver to allow new films to be released directly to the small screen.
Objective: to avoid a traffic jam when the theaters reopen because nearly 400 films are waiting to be finally screened.
If the CNC insists on the exceptional nature of this measure, some professionals are worried about these knife blows in the sacrosanct chronology of the media and a questioning of the well-oiled model of the financing of the seventh art, which is based on compulsory contributions from cinemas, television channels and video editors.
Especially since the rules of the game will soon change by virtue of a government decree, transposition of a European directive.
Today, Canal + and OCS must wait six to eight months after a theatrical release to offer a feature film, while the other platforms, which do not participate in the financing of French cinema (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Disney +, in particular ) must meet a three-year deadline, soon to be reduced to 12 months. In exchange, the platforms will have to pay 20 to 25% of their turnover made in France to French cultural creation.
"The financing of French cinema is well established and some players are worried about seeing the platforms shake up this ecosystem, analyzes Olivier Thuillas. But there is also a lying poker game on the part of Canal +, which has been very good, if not too much. well served over the past 30 years. Basically, this new funding is rather good news for French creation. "
Reasons to hope
What if, in the end, streaming and cinema could go hand in hand?
The recent box office success of the movie "Godzilla vs. Kong" offers an early answer.
Yet available on HBO Max, WarnerMedia's streaming service, the feature film has managed to collect more than $ 400 million in revenue, the biggest success in world cinema since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
If this success is to be put into perspective insofar as the film does not suffer from any competition in this period of film scarcity, encouraging signs point to the light at the end of the tunnel.
In several countries, and in particular in China, where theaters are no longer subject to a spectator gauge, the public is back in force after a year of withdrawal.
"The exploitation of films in theaters remains an extraordinary inflow of money that cannot be replaced by millions of subscriptions to a platform. Theaters still have a bright future ahead of them because this economic model works almost everywhere in the world" , believes Olivier Thuillas, who predicts a rush of the French to dark rooms as soon as health restrictions are lifted.
According to information from Le Canard Enchaîné, the reopening of all cultural venues, including cinemas, could take place on May 17 in France with a gauge of 35%.
"Our job will consist in getting spectators back into the theaters. It will take time," recognizes Richard Patry, the president of the National Federation of French Cinema (FNCF), who confirms to France 24 that the 6,000 theaters in the cinema 'Hexagon will reopen their doors.
"We will have to continue to help cinemas because the coming period will be excessively difficult, but we believe in it."
As for platform competition, it does not worry Richard Patry, who recalls that the death of cinema has already been announced several times after the appearance of television or even video on demand services.
"Surveys carried out abroad show that people will come back because everyone knows it: the cinema is the most beautiful place in the world to see a movie."
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