This deep dive on Netflix purposely turning movies into barely distinguishable forgettable slop is so insightful, researched & brutally hilarious. A must read if you want to really know what’s happening to the business AND culture of movies.
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This is a great piece, but the argument that Netflix movies all look the same is still unfounded to me. It’s the exact opposite than what’s said here, there’s zero consistency. Netflix movies look incredible, awful, and everything in between.
And this happens because of the very thing the article is about: they don’t care what the image looks like and they don’t care if viewers are watching it. Watch Carry On, The Killer, Rebel Moon, Leave The World Behind, and Extraction 2 and tell me there’s a consistent “look”
They used to be a GREAT place to find great movies that were hard to find at blockbuster etc. Their disc service was fantastic. They were able to outgrow those childish goals and become a capital-extraction machine for shareholders. Very mature.
Which, per the article, was always their plan! So typical and indicative of enshittification that the thing that was actually good—in this case, the early disk service—was never the point, merely a stepping stone to make gazillions by streaming garbage.
This is insane. Optimizing for reducing streaming hours so they don’t have to pay fees. Reminds me of Spotify not properly identifying publishing rights holders so they don’t have to pay royalties.
Eg There’s 83 versions of a song, a % of which have licensees. Guess which versions Spotify pushes?
To think, Blockbuster passed on the opportunity to buy Netflix.
In 2000, near the company’s peak, Blockbuster collected nearly $800 million in late fees, accounting for 16 percent of its annual revenue. Internally, company executives described its business model as one of “managed dissatisfaction.”
With the attitudes Blockbuster had at that time, they probably just speedrun Netflix and end up there faster than we are now. Or they would have bankrupted it with awful decisions.
netflix probably compares their content to youtube / tiktok videos more than studio films. that’s the competition. if execs could accept that, i would have hope they could imagine a new industry future for the movies many people still love so much
"Are we all just trying to keep the ball rolling so we’re just getting paid and having jobs, but no one’s really watching any of this stuff? ...To Netflix, auteurs are a means of legitimacy, nothing more."
So much gold in this article, one of most incredible things about it is how it’s published by n + one yet comes down on the side of democratic capitalism, what Godard called at the centenary of cinema something like ‘a celebration of 100 years of people paying to watch films’
The greatest irony is Squid Game is the most perfect Netflix show, especially what I think will be a less well
received season 2, because it dramatizes how people are given binary choices in a rigged game by panopticon capitalism & a small majority keep voting for it to continue harming them
Biggest problem posed by Netflix and the other streamers is Netflix knows even more than box office, down to the millisecond how and who watches what, no matter how they present the numbers to the public. It’s tv that watches you. For execs it’s a mirror that always shows you eating your own face.
What I love is that Netflix does not share this information with the creators in any way, holding their cards tightly to the vest and offering no leverage to the other side.
Some gems from that article, eviscerating precision on the Typical Netflix Movie like ‘Netflix might be the first studio in Hollywood history to consistently make daylight look bad.’ and meme quote going around about forcing screenwriters to write dialogue for when people aren’t watching the movie.
A bit of hope for some of you down about this Netflix article: talent is pushing back, hard. Emerald Fennel & Margot Robbie’s Wuthering Heights reportedly turned down their offer of $75 MILLION EXTRA to make it elsewhere for less because they believe streaming only movies have less cultural impact.
There’s been a lot of well sourced rumors Greta Gerwig is going to bail on her Netflix Narnia movie if they don’t give it a real theatrical release. She also publicly announced she’d cracked her idea for Barbie 2 during these negotiations 😹
I honestly found that part to be the least compelling because there’s a history that predates Netflix of studio notes “dumbing down” a story or of scripts packed to the gils with exposition
To ME the assertion that Netflix (and other platforms) is lying — or misrepresenting is viewer data — is key
Expository dialogue to catch casual viewers back up was commonplace with workaday linear TV too. I wonder if this bit has gained memetic traction because people didn’t notice that aspect of broadcast TV or have started to forget what that experience was like altogether
Many, myself included, assumed they were lying from the jump. Otherwise there would have been full transparency all along. Doubly so given how much they fought the WGA on that point.
And it’s really interesting that people aren’t latching on to THAT detail
Like, too many of us are conditioned to take the limited data they release at face value (when other metrics like completion rate and % of subscribers watching) is often more important wrt internal decision making
Yes, this! And I remain unconvinced that whatever “gains” WGA/SAG secured on this point during the strike will ultimately do very little for us. I know—in a true compromise everyone loses a little. But on this point I don’t buy for a second that streamers will now be *meaningfully* more transparent.
Just finished screening Squid Games 2 and love your assessment in its relation to the Netflix article, which included gems like: "(content) destined to be autoplayed on laptops whose owners have fallen asleep". The cinematic experience has been almost entirely devalued.
I think the most interesting element of this piece is the way it frames Netflix as being, not in the film or tv business, but in the app business. As long as people stay within the app, it doesn’t matter what they are seeing or not seeing. Just stay inside the app.
Haha the end of this paragraph is such a bitchy line. I will defend editors though, which the author describes as having 'given up'. They're still very much constrained, as all crew are, by the whims of the director and producer.
Lots of great stuff in the article, but isn't TNM essentially just describing B-cinema, which has existed since day zero? That the vast majority of recorded film is poorly conceived dreck isn't a new phenomenon. Those Blockbuster shelves were full of it too.
The article isn’t about Netflix producing poorly conceived dreck, it’s about Netflix producing indifferently conceived dreck designed to be indifferently consumed. I’ll take a bad film made in earnest over one made with nakedly capitalistic cynicism any day.
Most of the B movies were that exact thing, though.
It's just that if your business model is "Here is $x0,000.00 and you can use the studio equipment. It has to be 70 minutes long and titled I Walked With A Zombie" sometimes you get Tourneur and Lewton remaking Jane Eyre in the West Indies.
agreed, we've had direct-to-dvd quality movies since forever. but i think the worry here is that Netflix, who are a D-2-DVD production company quality-wise, are genuinely a threat to actual movie companies and might defeat them. meaning we get even fewer actual movies and more D-2-DVD quality movies
"Actual movie companies" — like the ones that have decided almost everything has to be tied to some mainstream brand, whether a non-movie product or a movie that was successful 30 years ago, so we get endless sequels and "blockbusters"?
I’ll agree with you that not all of em count but I’d draw a line between something like Universal and Warner Bros (who’ll allow movies like Oppenheimer and Dune, or even do something super corporate like Barbie but allow it to be a little daring, more than a Deadpool movie ever was) (1/2)
and between Disney, who have never been able to foster anything close to a decent creative environment in live action and somehow still have not learned how to film something that looks good and not like bland grey sludge. A few episodes of Loki is the only thing they’ve ever made that looked good.
I don't follow enough movies to keep track of which studies are producing what, so I'll take your word. Though I will point out that both Dune and Barbie are already *very* established "brands", not exactly brave, independent filmmaking (though I did very much enjoy the Barbie movie in-flight).
for what it's worth, I think audiences still generally perceive of netflix movies in that same "lesser than" way that they perceived D-2-DVD movies back in the day, even if they don't know it. but if theaters go away and movies are less profitable and getting daytime to look nice is expensive.....
....and if just using gen AI for everything becomes doable + affordable....AND if netflix is in charge....well, i think that might be quite bad for continuing to get good movies. the bar has already lowered so much in the last decade, so many movies (even major theater blockbusters) look bad.
the fear is that Netflix doesn't care to ask "how do we make it better" they only care to ask "can we make it worse? how much worse can we make it before people complain. the bar is low but lets confirm whether or not it is actually on the floor yet, we might have further down to go"
Found this year watching old "bad" Christmas movies like Love Actually and The Holiday and finding myself thinking "that was actually quite good, why did I think it was so bad?" And it's because streaming movies are SO bad that movies that used to be famously bad now actually seem quite good
I’m fine with this. Let’s read more and only go to/watch good movies 🎥 I’ve accepted US capitalism’s end game is enshittification of everything, we’ll have to find ways around it
"The difference between Blockbuster and Netflix was this: Blockbuster punished customers for being forgetful; Netflix rewarded them for being mindless." 💡
1. The thing that shocked me was the exec insisting lines be put in for exposition for people who aren't actually watching the film. Why not just make it a radio play at that point?
2. "Tide pod" movies ticket me to no end.
captures perfectly what i have been thinking about the streaming providers for a while. The deliver some good stuff at start up to catch an audience then once they reach scale they deliver vast quantities of undifferentiated shit. The great switch off needs to start happening..
Comments
Eg There’s 83 versions of a song, a % of which have licensees. Guess which versions Spotify pushes?
In 2000, near the company’s peak, Blockbuster collected nearly $800 million in late fees, accounting for 16 percent of its annual revenue. Internally, company executives described its business model as one of “managed dissatisfaction.”
received season 2, because it dramatizes how people are given binary choices in a rigged game by panopticon capitalism & a small majority keep voting for it to continue harming them
To ME the assertion that Netflix (and other platforms) is lying — or misrepresenting is viewer data — is key
Like, too many of us are conditioned to take the limited data they release at face value (when other metrics like completion rate and % of subscribers watching) is often more important wrt internal decision making
that tracks
Sturgeon's law...
It's just that if your business model is "Here is $x0,000.00 and you can use the studio equipment. It has to be 70 minutes long and titled I Walked With A Zombie" sometimes you get Tourneur and Lewton remaking Jane Eyre in the West Indies.
Casual viewin'
Head buried in the sand"
-Genesis, Broadway Melody of 1974
2. "Tide pod" movies ticket me to no end.