While Cannes Film Festival honcho Thierry Fremaux has gone out of his way to praise Amazon, which has five films hitting the Croisette this spring, Netflix has nothing to worry about. With a $5 billion dollar war chest to spend on original programming this year, the streaming giant will be just fine, and the mandates between the two companies are totally different in any case. For all the high profile films it’s acquired, Amazon is still oriented to a mostly American audience. Whereas Netflix markets globally and is less concerned with championing cinema than feeding the streaming machine. But that’s not to say Netflix doesn’t support left field projects. For every deal inked with Adam Sandler, the service offers something like this…
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Netflix has ordered up a comedy series based on Justin Simien‘s acclaimed Sundance Jury Prize winner “Dear White People.” Simien will write the series and direct the first episode of the show, which will follow a diverse group of students of color as they navigate a predominantly white Ivy League college where racial tensions are often swept under the rug. So basically, it’s more or less the setting of the movie expanded to series form, and it’s actually a pretty sharp idea. No word yet on if any cast members from the film will jump into series, but we’re likely to soon find out.
Production will begin later this year on the ten-episode, half-hour series that will debut in 2017. So while Amazon gets feted at Cannes, Netflix will be keeping their head down and support rising talent in their own way.