Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, on Wednesday said the streaming giant is pulling its films from the Cannes Film Festival, further intensifying an ongoing dispute between Netflix and the world's most prestigious film festival. That essentially rules out Netflix movies, which are released either day-and-date — on Netflix and in some theaters — or simply go straight to Netflix. Last year, two Netflix films — Bong Joon-ho's "Okja" and Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories" — premiered in competition at Cannes, prompting outrage from French theater owners and unions. For Netflix, skipping Cannes means those or other releases won't get the worldwide promotion afforded by the festival, nor the much-sought honor of being a Cannes selection. Lacking theatrical distribution or massive marketing expenditures, Netflix has depended heavily on film festivals as launch pads for its films.

Source: ABC News April 11, 2018 18:21 UTC