On the eve of the Cannes Film Festival, director David Cronenberg spoke to Variety to chat about his latest film, ‘Crimes Of The Future’, revealing the difficulty of financing independent film these days, contradicting the belief that platforms like Netflix hold the saving key to the kingdom.
Not all streaming is gold
It seems that platforms are not the panacea that is sold in independent cinema when even for a big name like Cronenberg it is difficult to get his films off the ground. It took the director three years to get funding for ‘Crimes Of The Future’:
“It’s a fight. It’s a fight that’s also changing. Right now, if you’re making a movie with Netflix, then you don’t have to worry about money because Netflix has a lot of money. But if you’re making an independent movie and you don’t have Netflix So it’s a fight.”
In fact, the manager reveals the disappointment that took with Netflix knocking on his door to make ‘The Shrouds’, which he has announced as his new movie now, in the form of a series for the platform and which ended without materializing:
“I was disappointed because I was interested in streaming in cinematic terms. It turns out that it’s not that easy to get a series with Netflix. In fact, it seemed to me that it might be easier to make an independent film there if it is of a certain type. I would say maybe a movie that’s not quite the conservative type like Netflix would like. I was really very into the whole Netflix phenomenon, definitely. But I think they’re still very conservative. I mean, I think they’re still like one more Hollywood studio. I thought that maybe they would be different.”
The terms of the rejectionjust like traditional companies in big industry:
“The difference is that Netflix can release very interesting streaming series from Korea, from Finland, and they say that it is a Netflix original, but in reality it is not, it is something that they have bought later. But I think when it comes to their actual production, the one they do themselves, they’re very conservative. I think they think in very conventional terms, that’s my experience with them, at least.”