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Netflix Dooming Need for Foreign Presales Deals
Foreign rights presales, which since the 1970s have been used by independent Hollywood producers to raise funds to get their movies shot, are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Credit Netflix for giving them a big shove out the door. So what does that mean for Hollywood's deal lawyers? Bigger rights deals — but fewer of them to go around.
“Who wouldn't want to do one big deal instead of 15 little ones?” says attorney Schuyler Moore, a film financing expert and partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, and a member of the Board of Contributing Editors of Entertainment Law & Finance. While the paydays can be good for a lawyer who papers a contract with Netflix, the trend definitely means less business overall, Moore says.
Boosting movie and TV content, and making more of it available around the globe, has been a major ambition for Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. That's led his company to become increasingly aggressive in signing long-term streaming deals that eliminate the need for producers and their attorneys to pursue foreign rights presales, once a staple of indie film funding.
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