U.S. Streamers and Studios More Flexible in Engaging With European Producers – Locarno StepIN Takeaways

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe rules of engagement between U.S. studios and streamers and European producers are starting to change.That was a key takeaway from the Locarno Film Festival’s StepIN think tank on the state of the indie film industry, where on Wednesday some 50 European and international invited industry players participated in a daylong event involving working sessions to exchange thoughts on practices and business models and propose new ideas and strategies.“The old model that the global streamers used to apply of ‘all or nothing’ and wanting to own everything forever has really now developed into a much more flexible approach,” said Carlo Dusi, head of London-based Endor Productions, who was the notetaker of the round table on New Opportunities for Film Financing and Production, presenting his group’s conclusions.

They are now open “to look at ways in which to acquire or co-commission against multiple territories, taking licenses instead of ownership in perpetuity [and] sharing rights and revenues in more flexible ways,” he added.“We talked a lot with our U.S.

studio representative [veteran acquisitions and production exec Sejin Croninger, who is executive VP of worldwide acquisitions at Paramount Pictures and was also among the event’s keynote speakers] about the fact that there is an acquisitions model that is becoming increasingly flexible and enabling the studio sector to participate in films that might to be financially viable for them to produce, but still have a place within their production pipelines, particularly as those pipelines are developing across theatrical, television platforms, and streaming,” Dusi went on to add.Wolf Osthaus, who is Netflix’s director of public policy.