While Netflix has just released the latest film of one of the greatest living American directors, The Irishman by Scorsese – starring De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci - with a colossal budget of 150 million dollars, the most famous platform of streaming seems determined to prove that it also has the means to propose ambitious productions. Which revives the eternal debate: will streaming platforms finally kill cinemas?
Scorsese against American studios
If it's tempting to blame the newcomer in the industry, that's not what Scorsese does. In an open letter published on November 4, he criticized the American studios and their production policies. According to him, they are now obsessed only by one thing: to limit the risks as much as possible.
As a result, it becomes impossible to produce bold and innovative films that do not rely exclusively on the potential creation of a franchise. Getting a budget of $ 150 million for a film that will never get a sequel and can not be turned into toys has become impossible. According to Martin Scorsese, streaming platforms will not kill the cinema, but the monopoly that the Hollywood studios have on the production will.
What are the possible alternatives ?
VOD platforms seem to have understood that they had an opportunity to take by getting all the great filmmakers, disappointed by studios like Martin Scorsese, to work with them. Nevertheless, they do not really intend to create a more open production market that would give other kinds of entertainment a chance. On the contrary, they are simply trying to get this monopoly for themselves. Disney trying to get into the market is an obvious symptom of it.
At Triality, we think precisely that a monopoly exerted by a too concentrated authority will always pose the same problem. Building a collaborative network is therefore a good answer to that problem - to those inside the network of course. This is one of the reasons why the IPN (International Production Network) has been designed, so that its smaller members can get the same opportunities, or even better, than the majors currently have. A network of this size will benefit everyone inside, from creation (screenwriters) to production (all co-producers) as well as distribution.
What about a VOD platform for Triality’s contents?
Of course, this is a project that has been on the table since the first months of the company's existence. The creation of a platform that would distribute the content produced by Triality's IPN but also the one produced by the various members of the network. An all collaborative platform which would redistribute rights and revenues fairly and accordingly to participation.
This will always be a major objective in the development of the company. But before reaching this important stage, Triality will focus on the development of its IPN and the production of its first content through 2020. We shall set new extremely ambitious objectives for 2021-2022, including the creation of Triality Express (Airbnb audiovisual) and Triality's own VOD platform but, this time, through concertation with our members at the Annual International Meeting in Rome, next September.
