Michael Douglas claims he lost out on Cannes' best actor award for Behind the Candelabra due to Steven Spielberg's TV bias

Indiewire

While the Steven Soderbergh-directed 2013 Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra was made as an HBO TV movie, it was released in theaters in Britain and competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. “The word was I was the favorite for the best actor award,” Douglas said of the Cannes competition, in Variety’s Actor on Actor video series. “(Spielberg) put the kibosh on that, because it was an HBO film. So when I now see this argument and beef about Showtime or Netflix, in this case, doing feature films, I think they’ve got to get this resolved.” Spielberg was embroiled in a controversy over the past year over whether Netflix films should be considered the same as theatrical films.