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Annoyed by the new media timeline, Disney decided to release their animated film Strange World only on Disney+ for the French public. A practice that is starting to become a habit with Uncle Walt.
© The Walt Disney Company France
The mouse bares its fangs. Already during the negotiations on the new media chronology, Disney + was among the rebels, while Canal + and Netflix were negotiating to receive the best possible treatment. In the end, like Prime Video or Apple TV+, the platform with big ears had not signed an agreement, considering that the system in place did not take “sufficient measure of new public expectations and new modes of consumption and that it does not establish a fair and proportionate framework between the various players in the audiovisual ecosystem in France“.
Four months later, the first effects of this discontent are being felt. As our colleagues from Deadlinethe next film from the animation studio, Strange World (Avalonia, the strange journey in VF) will thus be deprived of release in French cinemas and will only be broadcast on Disney+ in France, while other countries will be able to see it in cinemas.
Future decisions”movie by movie“
“Although we support French cinema – and have done so for decades – the new, very heavy media timeline is anti-consumer, ignores the evolution of behavior in recent years and puts us at greater risk of piracy“said Uncle Walt’s firm. She also assured that she wanted to make her decisions”movie by movie“with regards to his future productions,”based on the unique conditions of each market“.
Remember that in the current state of things, Disney + has a distribution window of 17 months after the release of a film in theaters (compared to 15 for Netflix and 6 to 9 for Canal +), and must return the rights to the after 22 months for exploitation by free channels. In The echoesthe boss of Disney France Hélène Etzi has also called for new negotiations “short term” around this last point, which is very restrictive for a provider of exclusive licenses like Disney.
The Covid excuse no longer holds
This is obviously not the first time that a Disney or Pixar feature film has snubbed the big screen in favor of Disney+. Drunk, Raya and the last dragon, Luke or Red alert all followed the same path. But the decision on Strange Worlds is different for two reasons.
First of all, the productions concerned were until then rather from Pixar studios, with the exception of Raya. Then and above all, these more modest outings were justified by the sanitary conditions of the time. A film released in theaters at the time risked the flop if the public feared to travel for the occasion – a practice which also made it possible to inflate the figures of Disney + subscriptions during these periods of generalized confinement.
Today, these arguments no longer really hold, and Disney’s choice sounds more like a sanction against French cinemas, which will probably take this step very badly. It remains to be seen who will make a better culprit: Disney himself, who refused to comply with the new legislation, or the chronology of the media, a system as useful for the development of French production as it is archaic in its operation?