, it will be talking up the likes of its latest Agatha Christie adaptationfrom Glassman Media, which it acquired this week. The company is also rolling the Wu-Tang Clan into town with a party held to promote two projects, Showtime’s doc seriesHulu and the other SVODs, from Netflix and Amazon to the upcoming platforms including Apple, NBCU’s Peacock, Disney+ and HBO Max, are once again set to dominate the conversation in Cannes.
, agrees. “I think we’re starting to see a little more flexibility; we are almost on a run of a new streamer a week. It all depends on the quality of the show; if a lot of people want a show, we can get more flexibility on rights.”for HBO, a romantic-comedic-thriller. While Baxter says producing the show, which is being written by thecreator’s writing partner Vicky Jones, gives the company “creative credibility”, HBO was insistent on keeping international rights.
This question of rights is becoming one of the most fascinating topics in the international business. There is still plenty of uncertainty as to whether the Hollywood studios will eventually hold back the rights to forthcoming titles for their streaming services. There has even been the suggestion that companies such as Hulu, which was one of the main partners for international projects given it was only focused on U.S.
If it does become an issue, some suggest, that it will benefit the second-tier distributors. Tim Mutimer, CEO of Banijay International, said, “It’s interesting with what’s going on with the launches of all of the streaming services like Peacock and HBO Max, some of those big U.S. studios are going to start holding back some of their content so that can only be positive for the other distributors. We are more free to do deals.
Banijay is coming into the market with titles including Adam Scott-fronted, Ryan Reynolds-exec produced gameshowThe importance of global projects is also growing; in the past, the Hollywood studios and firms such as Lionsgate and eOne would have focused entirely on North American projects, but many of them are repping shows from around the world.