Why indie US american films are being released less and less in french theaters
A24's The Green Knight and Macbeth did not get theater releases in France, and now it seems that Everything Everywhere All At Once will not get one either. I was annoyed by that so I tried to look up what was going on and I found my answer in a 157 pages long thesis written by Quentin Paquet, during his 5th year in La Fémis (big parisian film school where Céline Sciamma studied). It focuses on the distribution of independent US american films in France. I am leaving this post in english because I assume this could be interesting for international cinephiles/film students (maybe at least 3 of you ? idk).
The author begins by observing that despite France having a crazy amount of legal protection put in place to ensure that indie films get a decent distribution on the national territory, US american films that aren't blockbusters seem to be reaching our theaters less and less. Here are the reasons he gives for this situation :
The first thing endangering indie films in general is the extremely quick turn-over in theaters. There are simply too many films being released in french theaters. 13 films are released every week in France, 17 during big release periods (holidays and september). Only 3 to 5 films manage to reach the financial needs of distributors on average, the others disappear quickly to mitigate the costs.
The second problem for indie films is that they are all competing for the few places left by the giants, that are becoming more and more numerous. In 2018, 129 US american films were released in France, 95 of which were produced by major studios. These films represent 18.9 percent of total cinema releases in the country that year, so basically 1/5th of the releases, but they make up 45% of total tickets sold, the giant majority of which were sold for big studio movies.
The third thing endangering indie US american films specifically is pirating. US american cinema is the number 1 illegally viewed cinema in France, and since releases are not internationally synchronized for indie films the way they are for blockbusters, there's a significant loss of viewers because many are able to watch the films online months before a potential official release in France. Overall, it's actually easier to release and market indie asian films successfully in France because the crowd is less likely to have already viewed these movies online.
Fourth problem is that distribution companies are dying at an alarming rate in France. Distribution costs have been increasing by 4.9% every year on average, so distributing indie films is becoming less and less financially rewarding. Since distributing independent films is more costly, and revenue is less predictable than ever (depends on the big movie releases happening at the same time, the marketing, the online hype, etc) distributors that take too many risks tend to die quickly. There has been no long term success in the french distribution sector in decades. Vincent Maraval, co-creator of the french production and distribution company Wild Bunch, is quoted saying: "It's not the number of independent US american films that's decreasing, it's the distributors that are willing to buy them that are dying. Today I can sell a film for 500k euros to France and 250k euros to Benelux. Back in the days the french sale would have been 2.5 million euros."
The fifth problem is specific to France: the country has historically been so good to indie films that producers are unwilling to adapt their selling prices to the new realities of the market. Producers are convinced that if there is one place where a small film can work it's France. The country's reputation has effectively negatively impacted french distributors, who are not asked the same prices as their neighbors (Germany and Benelux get lower prices than France on indie US american films). US american studios like A24 for exemple are completely unwilling to decrease their prices, they are more interested in selling to new actors - aka streaming services - that can offer them the price they expect, than to adapt to the new classical release market. The result is that indie US american films are simply too expensive compared to the potential revenue they can bring because US americans are trying to sell based on the revenues they could expect to make in France in the 90's. Alexis Mas, director of the distribution company Condor, explains that when he and his team tried to obtain the rights of A24's film First Cow for a theater release, they were given a price way above anything they could afford. They offered to create a whole program of events around the film with the film's team and festivals etc. to try to carry it nationally to compensate for their lower price but A24 was not interested (the film ended up being released on the streaming service MUBI first and was followed by a limited release in theaters).
So there you go ! I'm sure this is gonna interest 3 people tops but I wanted my answer and I got it so I'm sharing it !
