Sean Fennessey, Editor-in-Chief of The Ringer, has just posted The End of Independent Film As We Know It.

It’s a fascinating, if long, read that concludes Amazon and Netflix have become mini-major studios.

The ramifications are that independent film may be dead on two fronts:

• these new exhibitors are wealthy enough to green-light and finance indie films, so how independent are those films actually, and,
• because they’re streaming services, premieres in actual cinemas, long agreed as the christening of all ‘real’ films, may be a thing of the past — no more theatrical window!

“Technocratic distribution companies like Netflix and Amazon have upended the state of independently produced movies. Film festivals that screen these movies were once the bastion for work created beyond the perception of Hollywood’s studio structures — films that were either unable or unwilling to penetrate the cast iron gates that lead to the moviemaking seats of power. The festivals were a home for insurgents, temples that hoisted Tarantino, Michael Moore, Sofia Coppola, Kevin Smith, Allison Anders, Robert Rodriguez, Todd Solondz, Todd Haynes, Ava DuVernay, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, and dozens more into the frame. Today, a movie that has been bought, paid for, and strategized against a global calendar by a massive public company is dissonant with the spirit of independent movies.”

Sean includes a quote from Joe Swanberg that is very telling:

“Drinking Buddies honestly found its biggest audience on Netflix. It’s become pretty clear to me over the last few years that the work that I’m making is finding its audience there. Do we go where the audience is or do we make the audience come to us? If there’s a big audience over there that wants to watch it, and we already made the movie we want, that makes the most sense to both of us.”

Ted Sarandos has a goal of 50% original content on Netflix and envisions more ‘day and date’ or simultaneous releases:

“There’s a romantic notion about the film being on a big screen. There’s definitely something about a premiere at [main Sundance venue] Eccles that you can’t replicate — that I can’t replicate — but the fact is, that happens for a couple hundred people once a year. We’re doing it every day for the world. People who are discovering a movie that might change their life; that’s who they’re talking to. We have to get rid of the romantic part. I don’t really think that they’re mutually exclusive. I think over time that these films will get booked into theaters at the same time they’re on Netflix.”

My take: with $6 billion in its production pockets, there doesn’t seem to be any stopping Netflix. Even Jerry Seinfeld has jumped from the Crackle ship, for a reported $100 million.