NetflixThe Max and Main Video is currently in the thick negotiations with French Film Gilder to seek previous access to recently released theater films as part of an industry -wide process to update the country’s window rules.

France’s strict window rules apply to French and global streamers, as well as local free-to-air and pay-TV channels, which determines the rights sequences for each player. Their position in the window plan is dependent on their level of investment in local content; A system that has enabled French production to flourish. In recent years, Streamers-as-investing less in French films-varit has had to wait between 15 and 17 months after a movie to launch it on its services, while Pay-TV Group Canal+ has had a six-month window.

But last week, Disney+, whose SVOD window was at 17 months, came before all other streamers by signing a pact with local film guides to shorten it to nine months. This follows Streamer’s commitment to invest 25% of its annual sales generated in France to finance local content (representing about EUR 40 million per year), including 70 films that come out in theaters. Pact placed Disney +’s access to fresh images six months before Netflix and eight months before Max, Prime Video and Apple (which also only signed a pact with Guilder).

“It is very important that Disney+ has undertaken to devote a significant part of its 25% investment obligation to theater films, and it reflects its confidence in our film industry and lively box office market,” said an industry side, and added that 12.5% ​​of 25% will to go against films during the first year of the agreement. “Disney realized, after a few experiments, that the theater experience was still the key to starting movies and by sharing a belief that we have always had in France.” While last year’s French cash office was led by a couple of local films, “A little extra” and “The Count of Monte Cristo”, Disney was the country’s top studio with a lot of hit films including “Inside Out 2” and “Moana 2.”

At the same time, Netflix-as is France’s oldest global streaming service, after being launched in the country in September 2014, and its most popular in terms of subscribers-the first American platform that signed a three-year agreement with the French film industry 2022. As such, Netflix saw his SVOD windows were shortened from 36 to 15 months after promising to invest 20% of their French sales in local content (including 4% in theater films).

Netflix is ​​currently lobbying to see its window shortened to 12 months, a question that has been on the table since 2021 – but is not willing to increase investments in French content in addition to the company’s current expenses, which Streamer estimates is about EUR 50 million per year In theater films, such as Maiwenn’s “Jeanne du Barry” with Johnny Depp. In total, Netflix invests about 200 million in French audiovisual content, which means that TV series, documentaries and films aim to start directly on the service. Some of its acclaimed French originals include Omar Sy -series ”Lupine“And the shark movie”Under Paris. “The French window rules have largely been responsible for the absence of Netflix at Cannes Film FestivalBecause the event requires every movie in the competition to have a theater arch in France.

The working group that worked with the first Netflix agreement 2022 is now back on the right track and also talks to Max and Prime Video, which is anxious to access films earlier than 17 months and may be open to increase their investment in local content .

“These discussions are just starting, and our strategy is open and rational,” said a spokesman for Max in France. “Max has just arrived, we want to do things right and in order we discuss with professional organizations and Arcom (broadcasting authorities) before our very likely integration in the regulations for obligations.”

Prime Video refused to comment on this paragraph.

If anything, the pact between Disney+ and French orgs triggered surprise in the industry because it followed rocky negotiations that reached a low point when Disney decided to refrain from the theater publishing of “Strange World“To protest against rules that it considered” troublesome “and” anti -consumer “, according to a spokesman for Studio in France.

But Disney was ultimately eager to find a common foundation with local orgs after the fall of its starting agreement with Canal+. The latter allowed the studio to have its films land on the French TV channel six months after they were released. Without the Canal+ Agreement, France’s window rules meant that the studio would have had to wait 17 months for their pictures to flow on Disney+.

Canal+ is not satisfied with Disney +’s huge leap forward in the window plan, as they are now only three months before the US Streamer. Canal+ has traditionally been in an extremely dominant position in France’s film landscape, as it is ranked as the country’s largest support for French film with over EUR 220 million invested over the past three years. But everything can change soon – Canal+ Group’s agreement expired in December and IndustryGilder has struggled to agree with the banner.

Just before the Disney+ Agreement was revealed, Canal+ Group’s CEO Maxime Saada told France’s Senate that the Pay-TV group would not continue to invest EUR 220 million per year in French films about Disney was granted a nine-month window in exchange for an investment five times lower. Saada even warned the Senate that the group could cut their investment by half if they do not get a significant upswing when it comes to access to newly published films.

On Thursday Saada Sent a worrying op-ed in the national newspaper Le Monde, Where he claimed, with reference to the Oscar nominations of “Emilia Perez” and the latest success of “Anatomy of a case”, that “although French film is at its peak, it experiences one of the darkest periods in its history.”

He said that France’s window plan “is a virtuous and sophisticated mechanism” that “preserves the number of theaters and strengthens the system, with each player who contributes to the financing of the films it exhibits in its distribution window.” But, he added, this “model is now in danger of collapsing during strokes aimed at their pillars.”