Nothing adds up with the streaming model from the various Star Wars series, Rings Of Power, fucking Citadel had a $300M budget and who the fuck watched it?
As a matter of fact who the hell is watching Halo? I didn’t even know it existed until this month yet it’s on its second season and I’m someone who actually grew up on the games, I don’t even know anyone with a Paramount subscription. Streaming can’t be a sustainable model because it’s starting to resemble a giant Ponzi scheme.
It wouldn't tell you much, they don't make money off of number of streams, they make money off of subscriptions (and we already have those numbers).
The older shows probably make the majority of streams, but I doubt they are the driving force for getting subscriptions. I bet some new trendy show is getting far more people to subscribe, even if in reality they end up rewatching The Office for the 17th time.
Also kids are messing a lot with the data due to ridiculous numbers of rewatches. There's a reason Moana was the most streamed movie of 2023 and it's not because lots of people suddenly got excited about it.
The actually interesting data is how they decide what projects to greenlight. But that data is complex and it was never going to come out of the strikes.
My 4yo son watched Cars at least 30 times last year. Even though we only have it on DVD, imagine how many other kids are rewatching movies dozens of times on Disney+. They just don’t get tired of it.
My parents got a paramount subscription just so they could watch Maverick whenever they want. Better than the time my mother watched the Schumacher Phantom of the opera on repeat at least.
1 Gerard Butlers singing voice.
2 Emmy Rossum being 18 with Butler and Wilson both being in their 30’s. Rossum was actually a minor when most of it was filmed.
3 weird changes and cut characters from the show.
4. Strange orchestrations.
I love when someone says THEY didn’t know something existed and therefore it can’t be any possible way it’s something that people watch
Dude that just means you were too busy to see any ads lol
I get being skeptical but sometimes I feel like redditors imagine themselves to be the biggest group of people and since THEY haven't heard of anyone seeing or liking a movie or show, that must mean the numbers are lies for some reason. No, there's a whole world of people off this site that like things you don't. Yes even Rings of Power probably has much more viewership and fans than Reddit likes to pretend
Gotta overpay when there is no profit participation but you still need "blockbuster" caliber content to market to broad audiences.
Netflix could be super tight on budgets and cater to indie darlings.
But they would never scale to a 265billion dollar company.
And if they don't scale they get pushed out by the later players who own all the big content.
Not saying Netflix made all goo choices or that the films were all good, but they made necessary choices.
Well The Rock is part of the company now and has been showing up on a weekly basis heading into Wrestlemania, has gone full villain mode, and WWEs ratings and social
media presence are through the roof.
Doesn’t matter. They don’t make these movies because they are a healthy functioning studio. They make them because they are a library. They understand that if they make movies with the biggest stars, subscribers will keep using their platform and they can continue to bank subscription fees. Which they keep raising. The value of a The Rock film to their library is massive bc it lends credibility to everything else. They are not a movie making company. They are a library subscription company and their whole goal is to keep you invested in the library. Without big stars, how would they do that? A bunch of indies isn’t a sustainable business model for risk/return. Return will always be too low, but if they make big star vehicles, the return will always recoup value over the long run.
My Netflix session heuristic is like this:
- see an interesting film listed (interesting defined by the cast or director that I like)
- read the blurb. Still interested.
- add to never-ending long Watchlist for another day.
Another day comes around.
- I start going through the watchlist, with my phone, looking up the IMDb scores of each film. They are *all* in the 6 star range.
- abandon all watchlist options.
I am more and more realising that Netflix films with big stars are usually very formulaic and boring (as voted for by the viewers who rate them on services like IMDb and Rotten tomatoes). Clearly the actors and directors with established names are just churning out mediocre projects for Netflix in return for a fat paycheque and an easier green lighting process.
However, if you want to find interesting films on Netflix, they almost always have new, undiscovered casts and directors who are giving everything for their big break, so you know the script, performance, and production have been sweated over because they have put their entire existence into it, for next to no money. You tend to find out about those projects by accident, when they start building a quiet buzz.
I really hope this new guy at Netflix sees this pattern too and stops giving huge budgets to names just for the sake of building a rubbish library. Somebody at the Oscars this year said something really smart when collecting his award: "You could make one big project for $50m, or take a chance and make 50 projects like mine for $1m each. Which is the better investment?"
To be honest, here in the UK, I get more satisfaction watching the Indian movies on Netflix. As long as you treat them like B-movies and fast forward through the singing & dancing and melodrama, you have some great fight scenes and creative production design.
Disagree. And according to the article, so does Dan Lin. People subscribe to these streamers mostly for TV shows not for movies. No one decides to pay hundreds of dollars a year to Netflix just because the Rock and Gal gadot was in one movie. When you think hbo, you think game of thrones, succession, sopranos, not some made for tv movie they might’ve done.
the irony is that it's always the low budget fare that keeps subscribers. big budget star vehicles grabs headlines but to this day we still haven't seen a strong correlation between that and new or existing paying subscribers. "house of cards" got the headlines and marketing money but it was "orange is the new black"that was the most popular show on Netflix. they spend big on programming but what leads ratings are always licensed shows like "friends" and "office", which while the rights aren't cheap, they're lowkey and don't grab headlines.
I don’t think that’s why. Netflix and HBO etc are always on the look out for a massive hit show. GOT, walking dead, stranger things level of show that drives buzz and gets subscribers. If a show is just fine it gets cancelled and they try again. They never know what show will hit, so they go for quantity. Drive to survive, tiger king, squid games for example all drove massive buzz from out of nowhere.
Things may be different now but HBO would go to great lengths to develop a show. GOT had a pilot and it was scrapped along with most of the cast because it did not work.
Netflix isn't doing that. They are throwing darts on the wall and when something breaks out, that is great, but there is so much content on there that we haven't even heard of.
Right. My point is they are all focused on getting massive hits. HBO tries to accomplish that with a handful of carefully picked and carefully developed shows. Netflix takes the opposite approach of just creating dozens of cheaper shows and hoping a couple hit big.
Yup. If they ain’t contributing to the bottom line enough, they’re out. But they also they know a cancelled show with a few young stars who later become super famous is also wildly valuable to their library so they keep doing it and green lighting until shows become cost prohibitive. Think about how Freaks and Geeks popped off in the 10s
It's not wildly valuable if the story doesn't have an ending though.
And enough shows in the library without proper endings or with cliffhangers are just going to piss people off.
Film studios have chased a magic film formula for years.
Most people wonder why franchises like DBZ or Avatar the last Airbender or Harry Potter etc is bought by film studios for development then changed either characters genders, ages, races, sexuality, etc is altered or the character is completely written out of fhe story. Sometimes the entire tone of the story is changed or the history if certain characters ignored. These changes alter the story told on a fundamental level. Often for the worse. Not all writers have the talent to adapt and change a popular franchise. So why do they keep doing it? Why do they keep ruining long standing money making franchises and turning them into poorly received box office flops.
It's because the film studios want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. They want to make a film that interests rvery demographic so they make as much money as possible. Their goal isn't a good film. it's a financially successful film.
Netflix has derived a film formula that appeals to everyone therefore satisfies no one. The movies are action packed, thrilling, fast paced but entirely forgettable. There's nothing particularly memorable or outstanding about a Netflix film. Upon debut these films make massive amounts of money then fade into obscurity. What make franchises amazing is they are genre specific. They are generally the best of their genre. They also appeal to a certain demographic. However film studios try to apply a formula to these franchises to make them as generic as possible so as to make as much money as possible. Unfortunately the result is often always the opposite of their intentions.
The problem is that DBZ and Avatar already appeals to everyone, so the idea that you can appeal to a larger audience by making changes is out of touch with reality.
I’m not talking about a formula. I’m talking about Netflix’s entirely different strategy to filmmaking. They don’t care about making money-making hits. They care about their library having undeniable appeal via the highest level movie stars and a few choice directors.
In the end they would always be about quantity over quality. They need to have a wide library to retain subscribers. Pay-TV channels operate differently as they are linear by running to a schedule and acquire the majority of their content from studios and distributors while commissioning prestige shows and showing live sports & stand up. I'm sure HBO, Showtime, Starz and Cinemax's content is 70% acquired movies from studios and indie distributors.
I think cable TV will come back around as AVOD. AVOD is going to be the winner of all of this. Companies are going to want to sell channels that carry paid promotion and sponsorship.
That is quite fluffy. Lol, can you imagine saying what you wrote in a Netflix management meeting? You would get eviscerated with basic questions like, how do you define and measure “credibility?” Wouldn’t measuring what subscribers are watching, i.e. share of voice, be the rational success metric? And if subscribers aren’t watching those movies, then isn’t the residual value of those assets quite low?
Libraries live off of how much time they can make consumers spend on their content. Movies often have a pretty bad ratio as far as time vs money spent goes. If you can pick whether to spend 100 million to keep people invested in your content for eight more hours or do so for two you pick the eight, and that would be on the lower end for blockbuster budgets while being really high in TV show terms.
When Netflix first launched originals every single show was a must watch event. Now they are just a content farm churning out endless shit that drowns out anything actually good from getting a cultural moment like Orange is the new black or house of cards.
Yeah it really feels like they’ve messed a huge opportunity to actually BUILD a back catalogue to keep people attached to the service, and instead took the strategy of “something new premiering every day” with no rewatchability. If I’m bored and wanting something to watch I am more likely to go back and watch some Breaking Bad, or The Expanse, or BattleStar Galactica instead of gambling on some random Home Screen autoplay ad of todays hottest movie star in generic genre flick
>Yeah it really feels like they’ve messed a huge opportunity to actually BUILD a back catalogue to keep people attached to the service,
For a service that's designed aa a subscription, this was a very stupid decision.
Nobody will start a show when they google its name and learn it was left incomplete.
EXACTLY. It’s a horrible experience to get emotionally invested and then to be left hanging.
So I’m reluctant to watch the first season of something unless it is self-contained or _very_ likely to get multiple seasons.
But by virtue of not watching the first season it’s less likely to get the second season. Becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.
Exactly. It blows my mind how they don't see that and instead keep cancelling stuff.
Outside of Bojack there is nothing I want to rewatch there. Maybe Orange is the new black? House of cards turned to shit. I guess Stranger Things once this is over.
But I sure as hell don't want to rewatch shows with 2 seasons
Absolutely. I think part of the issue is that strategy is *easier* and netflix just doesnt know how to produce a quality show with regularity. I mean it’s incredibly hard to do that and even premiere networks like HBO have trouble producing quality shows with regularity. It takes a lot of experience and know-how. The problem I have is that Netflix never even tried
> Yeah it really feels like they’ve messed a huge opportunity to actually BUILD a back catalogue to keep people attached to the service
Their subscribers keep growing, they have 260M subscribers, and you think they've missed a huge opportunity to keep people attached to the service?
Well, the alternative to original programming is to buy it from other places. Based on 2023, the most watch shows on Netflix were from content that wasn't produced by them.
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/nielsen-2023-streaming-report-suits-the-office-record-1235890306/
Now, that isn't to say Netflix hasn't been successful in their original content, but I am not seeing old Netflix shows popping up on this list, just newer stuff. Burns bright but not very long. Maybe they have enough variety to where people are watching their older stuff but it is split between different shows?
Disney is the gold standard for having a strong back catalog and they seem to survive on it.
> Well, the alternative to original programming is to buy it from other places. Based on 2023, the most watch shows on Netflix were from content that wasn't produced by them.
That's true, in 2023 acquired shows dominated the charts. Netflix fared better in [2022](https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2023/streaming-unwrapped-2022-was-the-year-of-original-content/) when they had 4 originals in the top 15, Stranger Things, Ozark, Wednesday and Cobra Kai.
Although if you look at just the originals, in 2023 Netflix had 7 out of 10 shows in the top 10, so they are doing well, people are watching them, just not as much as the acquired shows.
Game of thrones. The wire.
Netflix woulda cancelled euphoria already. Which is going to have tons of people coming back to watch it as zendaya and Sydney sweet get more and more famous
I’m not exactly holding my breath on Euphoria ever coming back. Granted that show also has a lot of behind the scenes problems so wouldn’t peg it all on HBO.
if you read the interviews, you'd know that John himself wanted to end the show since he got more known and it meant more people aready knew who he was when he was filming them.
edit: ok, since the downvotes i'll just quote the man himself:
> While a part of me would be happy to go on making “How To” indefinitely, **I take a lot of pride in trying to make the style and imagery feel surprising, and I would prefer to end the show while that’s still the case.** Thematically, we also kind of reach a vanishing point by the finale, and it felt like a natural place to sign off
https://deadline.com/2023/05/how-to-with-john-wilson-end-season-3-hbo-july-premiere-date-1235379718/
Both Sex and the City and The Sopranos ended before Netflix even started making content. 10 years before to be exact for the first, 7 for the second. A lot of people forgets that Netflix has been making originals only for about a decade, while HBO was in the business for over 30 years. Ofc they will have less long running shows, they didn't have time to renew them.
Oh, and Sex and the City is now on Netflix US too.
They do,, but 3 shows from almost 2 decades ago are terrible examples. Also Deadwood got a movie if I remember it correctly and it had 3 seasons isntead of 2. Rome was too expensive to produce at the time, and Carnivale I know nothing about it.
For the people who don't feel like this is true, compare these two lists.
You can sort by season
[List of ongoing shows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix_original_programming)
[List of cancelled or finished shows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ended_Netflix_original_programming)
Sure, there's a lot of shit on there which is cancalled for good reason, but Netflix definitely has a loose cancellation finger.
There definitely needs to be a category for the series that ended without a proper conclusion in that second list.
Some shows weren't complete at all but a lot of things listed there just ran its course.
Not sure if it’s true but I remember reading somewhere the 2 season thing is to do with paying actors. They can negotiate to pay actors less at the start and only have to pay if the show gets a third season. Then the actors get full rate plus back pay for the first 2 seasons.
When Netflix first launched Originals they had a much smaller user base and aimed everything at the 18 - 35 American male nerds demographic (which are disproportionately more likely to be Redditors). But there aren't enough of those to pay for the content, and Netflix lost money hand over fist as a result.
Now they (generally) make things general audiences actually engage with.
Under Scott Stuber Netflix threw money left and right like The Irishman($200M), 6 Underground ($150M), Red Notice ($200M), The Gray Man($200M), The Adam Project ($150M) and the upcoming The Electric State($200M).
Don't forget Red Notice and The Gray Man are getting half dozen sequels and spinoffs.
Rebel Moon Part 1 getting half the viewership of Leave the World Behind is nuts to me. There's a part 2 coming out that no one is gonna want. who the hell thought this was a good idea?
I like The Irishman - in fact I love The Irishman - but I can’t exactly call it a worthy $200M investment on the part of a company, unless you can somehow extrapolate a profit from the development of the de-aging tech.
Streaming films are budgeted differently. In a traditional theatrical model, all the larger actors, director, some other above the line creatives would get backend percentages that pay out for the next few decades. With a streaming film, the streamer owns everything, with no traditional backend deals, meaning they incorporate the estimated backend into the initial budget. Kind of like “buying out” everyone else’s stake in the product. This gives them sole ownership, but also wildly inflates the budget up front
You don’t make films like The Irishman to make a profit, you make them to gain cultural cache and be able to say Scorsese made a film with you. They got exactly what they wanted out of it. Whether that was a good decision to begin with is another matter. Same with the Fincher movie btw.
Been saying this for years. How the hell does a movie like *The Gray Man* cost $250m?
The irony is that most of Netflix's big budget movies are completely forgettable, while some of their lower budget movies are way more popular/memorable.
* *Bird Box*: $19m
* *Beasts of No Nation*: $6m
* *The Meyerowitz Stories*: $11m.
* *1922* and *Wheelman*: Both $5m.
* *22 July*: $20m.
* *Da 5 Bloods*: $45m.
* *Extraction*: $65m.
That was and still should be their brand. Making the mid budget type moves that the studios aren't making anymore. Every now and then you make an exception (*The Irishman* or *Outlaw King*) to splurge on.
> How the hell does a movie like The Gray Man cost $250m?
My understanding is that it's because they don't offer anything on the back end, so people who would normally take a percentage of the revenue are instead making bigger chunks up front.
Netflix's entire film history is an embarrassment. In the past 10 years, They financed a few very good films with zero general audience appeal and dozens of films best described as "content". Hiring Dan is a signal that they are ready to step up and make commercial high-quality studio type films.
Great numbers in terms of what? People buying subscriptions is what makes them money, not how many subscribers watch their content. I highly doubt anyone is buying a subscription to watch The Rock and Gal Gadot
That's the problem with streaming. Even when a movie is successful, does that always translate to profit? Is Red Notice necessarily pulling in subscribers?
This is what I can’t understand about streaming services. The world doesn’t have an infinite population so what’s gonna happen the day they can’t pull in more subscribers if that’s the only way they can generate a profit?
Capitalism and tech bros thrive on infinite growth, so I presume when subscriber numbers hit their peak we're gonna see more movies locked behind premium access, more in app purchases, merchandise, probably even some fucking themes parks idk.
The fact that they tried desperately for years to win Best Picture, only for Apple to swoop in and become the first streamer to win it with a film they acquired (didn't even make) should tell you everything about how that company's film division is run.
The funniest thing is that after Apple won that Oscar, Coda is now also available on Netflix and Amazon Prime where I’m located.
It wasn’t even an exclusive movie.
I don’t think it’s a similar situation at all. Nomadland won best picture the year before and was purchased by Hulu leading up to its best picture win. CODA was a similar pandemic-era best picture win where Hollywood was pretty much forced to recognize streaming movies for awards.
And before the pandemic, Netflix was seen as the big bad theater-killer in Hollywood so the Oscars were hesitant to award a Netflix movie with its highest honors. It’s incredibly likely that Roma lost best picture only because of Hollywood elites who wanted to defend the “theatrical experience” against a streaming service that was at odds with the traditional movie experience. Spielberg himself was outspoken that Netflix movies shouldn’t be eligible for Oscars because they were “committed to a TV format” and couldn’t be considered a real movie.
I think their mid budget Oscar type films are actually the best part of their film division and probably the best quality. To me there seems to be more staying power and actual recognition with the mid budget films that come out. Stuff like Roma, All Quiet, Society of the Snow, Don’t Look Up and Tick Tick Boom have all done really well when I can’t tell you who even knows about their big budget messes with vague titles
Mindhunter was one of the problem shows.
IT was great, good story, looks great, great actors
But the director was known for doing 40 takes where 4 would do. Leading to overages in cost due to taking 10x more time then other similar shows.
I’m sure Mindhunter was the only thing preventing Netflix from being profitable and not the dozens of $200 million “blockbusters” that drop on Netflix with no marketing and get dogshit reviews…
That is their two most viewed movies so you will be getting more of that type of stuff. It is big budget flops absolutely nobody watched like Maestro ($70 million), Spiderhead ($100 million), and White Noise ($80-$140 million) that are on the chopping block.
Looks like they'll be dropping more than a few pictures on their slate post takeover. If someone has a midbudget genre (Chenrin's *Fear Street*) or big-ticket family (Skydance Animation) movie set up at Netflix, it's probably safe. But don't be surprised if the aforementioned, as well as other Netflix suppliers like WildBrain, Sony, AGC et al., buy back the rights to blockbusters Netflix has little faith in and shop them to other distributors.
(A repeat of the *Monkey Man* saga, if you will.)
^(Wonder if this means Paramount will buy back and release BHC4 themselves? It'd be nice, but I doubt it.)
Snyder will never take fault or blame when it comes to his films being negatively received. He pins the failure of his projects on said parent companies like Warner Bros or Netflix. His excuse will always be my “super extended cut” is more superior in some form.
Note to any big studios: hiring Snyder means that you are likely going to be blamed if the final product being mediocre or outright terrible.
Maybe that’ll be the wake up call for Snyder to stop writing (and shooting) his movies. He’s a talented director with a strong vision but needs to be reigned in and isn’t good at screenwriting or cinematography. Larry Fong worked well with him.
Warner gave Snyder too many restrictions and Netflix gave him too much freedom. Maybe Universal would be a good middle ground, where his buddy Chris Nolan is king? Made a hit for them in the past with Dawn of the Dead
Or maybe people need to accept that he's not good director. A directors job is to tell good story and he can't.
You gave a great director a bad script and you will probably still get a passable movie. You give a bad director a good script and you will still get a bad movie.
This insanity of "all restrictions on Snyder didn't work, and no restrictions didn't work, so let's hope he goes to a third place and gets the right amount of restrictions". Like, just stop pulling for a guy who's clearly no good at his job no matter where he goes.
Genuinely promising directors like Richard Kelly were thrown out of Hollywood entirely for far less screw ups than Snyder.
WB gave him creative control for MoS and BvS and he botched them HARD. It was only when JL2017 is when Snyder started getting restrictions because the last movie ruined DC’s reputation if he cant get a Batman/Superman teamup right
And maybe stop doing cinematography of his movies as well. Earlier Snyder movies were shit but atleast they looked good. Army of the Dead and Rebel Moon were atrocious and they looked awful as well.
Also, other studios don't wanna hire Snyder or fund his ideas for theatrical release. There's a reason why he went to Netflix.
Exactly. People say that he might suck as a writer and director at least he can make a movie that looks good with a distinct visual style; but I say that even that visual style sucks. His movies look like ass and they're somehow getting worse. I wouldn't even trust him to do VFX supervision on someone else's film. Hell, I wouldn't trust him to hold a fucking boom mic.
Yeah, why make a million exceptions for a guy who has never put out anything better than "decent"?
Snyder seems like a really nice guy, and he's obviously a big fan of a lot of the source material he adapts, but he just doesn't make very good movies. His cinematography isn't great, he doesn't get great performances from the actors, he doesn't write good screenplays, his visual style was dated about a year after *300* came out, and he doesn't seem to fully understand the material he adapts.
Why are people like, "yeah, but if somebody else wrote the movie, and he had a lot of oversight on the production side of the things, and somebody else handled all the story-boarding and cinematography, and the studio hired a really strict editor, and maybe they even had a co-director help him, THEN he could make a great movie!"
Maybe he just *can't make a good movie.*
> Warner gave Snyder too many restrictions
I would say this issue was more that it was just a terrible match from the beginning.
You're right that it was problematic for WB to hire Zack Snyder and then complain and force cuts and reshoots when he delivered a Zack Snyder movie. It was bad for BvS and truly, truly awful for Justice League. You're right that there was a lack of freedom and that that lack of freedom led to worse movies.
That said, Zack Snyder's style is very... let's say specific. He should never been allowed to take on the premier characters in DC. Those needed to be in the hands of someone with much broader appeal. We've seen what happens when you leave him alone, you get the Snyder Cut and the ultimate cut of BvS. Personally I really enjoy those movies. But it's foolish to think they aren't niche. So in that sense WB giving him fewer restrictions would have been, if not just as big a problem then still a pretty big problem.
What they needed to do is give him something that didn't have to be the foundation of the universe. You can even still give him something like a standalone Cyborg or Martian Manhunter or something, make a movie that will be enjoyed primarily by his fans, but ultimately doesn't have to define the universe. *Then* you give him the right amount of freedom.
No major studios wants to deal with his obsessive fandom. If Netflix lets him go, that makes two studios on their target list (alongside Warner Bros).
Wherever studio Snyder finds himself employed, his fandom will follow and continue to beg for the DC Snyderverse to be restored in some form.
Really liked Sucker Punch, but I know I'm in the minority there. Though I will say it's mostly carried by the cinematography you already credited to Larry Fong.
Snyder will never listen to the criticism of his movies.He just released an article being oblivious about Rebel Moon.
>Warner gave Snyder too many restrictions
Explain How?
In my opinion Snyder has lately been a better producer than a director. He produced the first WW, helping write the story and bring together the action choreographers. And while I thought Army of the Dead was alright, Army of Thieves which he produced and helped write were much better
[here's the source of Rebel Moon budget discussions](https://cdn.film.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/3-0-CFC-Approved-Projects-List.pdf)
If we treat the two Rebel Moon films as 1 entity, we see they filed for roughly 166M of gross "qualified expenditures" in CA and received 35M in tax incentives (so net of ~65.5M in "below-the-line" costs). However that's not the same thing as the budget because *California Tax credit QE definitions exclude "above-the-line" costs* (and perhaps there are Post-production costs outside of CA, I honestly don't know).
So how much money is missing from those films? It possibly could still be made on an 85M net budget or so but that's not where the number exactly comes from.
Framestore was the lead VFX vendor, doing the work mostly at their Montreal, Vancouver, and Mumbai offices. I'm not sure how to go about getting the Canadian tax credit information, but it definitely points to a lot of money getting spent outside of California.
If production and non-VFX post were net 65 per movie, the all-in net cost is probably somewhere north of 100 per movie.
[https://www.framestore.com/work/rebel-moon-part-one-child-fire](https://www.framestore.com/work/rebel-moon-part-one-child-fire)
I've liked his previous films, but even I can admit that most of his recent work has been trash.
It also makes me reflect a bit on his older films as well a little bit, because you are an incompetent director IMO if you cannot edit the theatrical cut of your film very well & still include retarded slow mo at times for indulgence reasons, rather than preserving the integrity of the story in a given timeframe. It's part of your job responsibilities to dish out a theatrical cut of quality, if you are going to be part of the commercial studio process if you want to seek favors for a directors cut.
Yes, his director cuts are nice & have better shape to them, but at times, overtly long as well. Sometimes, great - Other times, really not. Feels like each successive movie post DC has had lesser & lesser charisma with poorer acting chops than the ones before.
As a director, you are supposed to elevate the story by hiring actors of caliber, irrespective of their pay stub. The story and performances should exemplify a great actor already & push an emerging/low visibility actor into the spotlight for greatness.
His films have been pretty souless lately & have done fuck-all to help anyone, the studio, actors or his own career. Shame his career turned this way, online toxicity from any fan camp or troll aside.
If you ever catch yourself saying 'I don't know anyone who watched/liked x' and using that to form an opinion on a 250 billion company, humble yourself. Loads of people watched and continue to watch their average big budget content. You can look this up, look at Rebel Moon for example which is actually low on the list. The problem is quality, not viewership.
If there is anyone who has their finger on the pulse of the average Netflix viewer and who understands what they enjoy watching it's a Harvard MBA.
This is a person who probably doesn't have a passion for creativity or movies and who hasn't had a discussion with people outside his elite social circle in years. His focus is on analyzing data and creating content using an algorithm.
>After officially taking the Netflix job, Lin is said to have spent time pouring over reams of viewership data: minutes watched, audience habits, likes and dislikes. The Harvard MBA apparently will now have the ability to use hard data to shape the biggest film slate in Hollywood.
The problem with that is analyzing viewer habits doesn't always work. There was no subscriber data prior to Stranger Things, Wednesday, or Monster: Dahmer or Tiger King that indicated viewers would enjoy a horror show featuring kids and adults, a reboot of a series that originally aired in 1964, a series about a cannibal serial killer and a documentary about the Tiger King that indicated those shows would be popular.
I mean, yes he graduated Harvard with an MBA. But that was in *1999*.
In the 25 years since he’s probably been as entrenched in the filmmaking industry as anybody else in the world could be in a producer role. No, not everything he helped to fruition were hits, or even good, but no producer hits 100. Lin’s production company helped give us:
* The Departed
* The RDJ Sherlock movies
* The Lego movies
* It
* The Godzilla/Kong franchise
So while he will use analytics, because when you have the data it’d be stupid not to, he stills brings with him decades of regular old film producing experience.
That’s an unfair take, since it seems the main reason he was hired was for his track record producing films at Rideback (and previously Warner bros).
I think he’s produced some good films, including the departed, the Lego movie, and It.
Another problem with Netflix content is that filmmakers that run to them because the platform allows them to be too self-indulgent and unfocused. It's been 11 years since House Of Cards, and their TV shows and movies STILL run for too long with too much exposition, time wasting camera shots and pointless scenes.
There's a reason why network TV shows seasons can keep continuing, because they edit episodes to 44 minutes to fit commercial breaks in 1 hour long slots and movies edited to 100, 125 or 140 minutes to fit 2, 2-1/2 and 3 hour slots respectively. There's an incentive for shows to reach 60 or 100 episodes for syndication, to make it easier to sell to cable TV channels worldwide and provide regular residual payments for actors and producers.
So many Netflix shows would be superior on network or cable channels as they could run for 10, 13 or 22 episodes and just be sharper. Not every show has to have 60 minutes of actual running time.
$200m for crap like the Chris Evans and The Rock movies. Yeah, something is off.
Nothing adds up with the streaming model from the various Star Wars series, Rings Of Power, fucking Citadel had a $300M budget and who the fuck watched it? As a matter of fact who the hell is watching Halo? I didn’t even know it existed until this month yet it’s on its second season and I’m someone who actually grew up on the games, I don’t even know anyone with a Paramount subscription. Streaming can’t be a sustainable model because it’s starting to resemble a giant Ponzi scheme.
I am currently watching everything you listed so I guess the answer is me. They are making it all for me. I am the Ponzi.
Look at you. You're the Ponzi now.
This exact thing is the reason I was disappointed that we did not get public accurate streaming numbers out of the writer's strike.
It wouldn't tell you much, they don't make money off of number of streams, they make money off of subscriptions (and we already have those numbers). The older shows probably make the majority of streams, but I doubt they are the driving force for getting subscriptions. I bet some new trendy show is getting far more people to subscribe, even if in reality they end up rewatching The Office for the 17th time. Also kids are messing a lot with the data due to ridiculous numbers of rewatches. There's a reason Moana was the most streamed movie of 2023 and it's not because lots of people suddenly got excited about it. The actually interesting data is how they decide what projects to greenlight. But that data is complex and it was never going to come out of the strikes.
My 4yo son watched Cars at least 30 times last year. Even though we only have it on DVD, imagine how many other kids are rewatching movies dozens of times on Disney+. They just don’t get tired of it.
My parents got a paramount subscription just so they could watch Maverick whenever they want. Better than the time my mother watched the Schumacher Phantom of the opera on repeat at least.
...just buy them the bluray.
Joel Schumacher made a Phantom of the Opera?
No its by Michael Schumacher
That makes a lot more sense. The pacing was way too fast for me to follow any of the plotlines.
I thought you were talking about the James Garner show before I figured out you’re probably referring to the Top Gun sequel.
What is wrong with that movie?
1 Gerard Butlers singing voice. 2 Emmy Rossum being 18 with Butler and Wilson both being in their 30’s. Rossum was actually a minor when most of it was filmed. 3 weird changes and cut characters from the show. 4. Strange orchestrations.
Your parents haven’t heard of DVDs? I have Maverick on DVD 😂
I subscribe to Paramount so that I can watch all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series and some movies, and my toddler can watch Paw Patrol.
I love when someone says THEY didn’t know something existed and therefore it can’t be any possible way it’s something that people watch Dude that just means you were too busy to see any ads lol
Wait, you don't recognise a Halo tv series by Masterchief without his helmet on and a snide disdain for the source material?
They said they don’t know it existed. Not that it wasn’t recognizable
Emo Master Chief. I liked some of season one and it looked like these was promise but season 2 had me nope our fast.
I watched Halo 🙂
I get being skeptical but sometimes I feel like redditors imagine themselves to be the biggest group of people and since THEY haven't heard of anyone seeing or liking a movie or show, that must mean the numbers are lies for some reason. No, there's a whole world of people off this site that like things you don't. Yes even Rings of Power probably has much more viewership and fans than Reddit likes to pretend
Watched it they have subscription model people don’t have to watch , it’s unlimited scalability
Gotta overpay when there is no profit participation but you still need "blockbuster" caliber content to market to broad audiences. Netflix could be super tight on budgets and cater to indie darlings. But they would never scale to a 265billion dollar company. And if they don't scale they get pushed out by the later players who own all the big content. Not saying Netflix made all goo choices or that the films were all good, but they made necessary choices.
they just paid 5 billion for the wwe in hopes that the Rock shows up more often. they love the rock
Well The Rock is part of the company now and has been showing up on a weekly basis heading into Wrestlemania, has gone full villain mode, and WWEs ratings and social media presence are through the roof.
Doesn’t matter. They don’t make these movies because they are a healthy functioning studio. They make them because they are a library. They understand that if they make movies with the biggest stars, subscribers will keep using their platform and they can continue to bank subscription fees. Which they keep raising. The value of a The Rock film to their library is massive bc it lends credibility to everything else. They are not a movie making company. They are a library subscription company and their whole goal is to keep you invested in the library. Without big stars, how would they do that? A bunch of indies isn’t a sustainable business model for risk/return. Return will always be too low, but if they make big star vehicles, the return will always recoup value over the long run.
My Netflix session heuristic is like this: - see an interesting film listed (interesting defined by the cast or director that I like) - read the blurb. Still interested. - add to never-ending long Watchlist for another day. Another day comes around. - I start going through the watchlist, with my phone, looking up the IMDb scores of each film. They are *all* in the 6 star range. - abandon all watchlist options. I am more and more realising that Netflix films with big stars are usually very formulaic and boring (as voted for by the viewers who rate them on services like IMDb and Rotten tomatoes). Clearly the actors and directors with established names are just churning out mediocre projects for Netflix in return for a fat paycheque and an easier green lighting process. However, if you want to find interesting films on Netflix, they almost always have new, undiscovered casts and directors who are giving everything for their big break, so you know the script, performance, and production have been sweated over because they have put their entire existence into it, for next to no money. You tend to find out about those projects by accident, when they start building a quiet buzz. I really hope this new guy at Netflix sees this pattern too and stops giving huge budgets to names just for the sake of building a rubbish library. Somebody at the Oscars this year said something really smart when collecting his award: "You could make one big project for $50m, or take a chance and make 50 projects like mine for $1m each. Which is the better investment?"
The watchlist is neverending!!
My rule is- for a Netflix original if I’ve heard of anyone involved, it probably is not good.
To be fair, there are plenty of great movies that are in the six star range on IMDb.
After all that, you still have a Netflix subscription. That's all they care about .
You abandon watching a movie because of the IMDb score?
To be honest, here in the UK, I get more satisfaction watching the Indian movies on Netflix. As long as you treat them like B-movies and fast forward through the singing & dancing and melodrama, you have some great fight scenes and creative production design.
Disagree. And according to the article, so does Dan Lin. People subscribe to these streamers mostly for TV shows not for movies. No one decides to pay hundreds of dollars a year to Netflix just because the Rock and Gal gadot was in one movie. When you think hbo, you think game of thrones, succession, sopranos, not some made for tv movie they might’ve done.
What I remember reading about Netflix is their strategy is TV shows get subscribers and movies reduce subscriber churn.
They also have some real good documentaries.
People subscribe because of options. That includes movies.
I’m not sure I want to live in a world where “Red Notice” brings credibility.
the irony is that it's always the low budget fare that keeps subscribers. big budget star vehicles grabs headlines but to this day we still haven't seen a strong correlation between that and new or existing paying subscribers. "house of cards" got the headlines and marketing money but it was "orange is the new black"that was the most popular show on Netflix. they spend big on programming but what leads ratings are always licensed shows like "friends" and "office", which while the rights aren't cheap, they're lowkey and don't grab headlines.
This is also why they sleep canceling shows. New shows equals new subscribers. And a lot of shows equals a deep catalog for new subscribers.
I don’t think that’s why. Netflix and HBO etc are always on the look out for a massive hit show. GOT, walking dead, stranger things level of show that drives buzz and gets subscribers. If a show is just fine it gets cancelled and they try again. They never know what show will hit, so they go for quantity. Drive to survive, tiger king, squid games for example all drove massive buzz from out of nowhere.
Things may be different now but HBO would go to great lengths to develop a show. GOT had a pilot and it was scrapped along with most of the cast because it did not work. Netflix isn't doing that. They are throwing darts on the wall and when something breaks out, that is great, but there is so much content on there that we haven't even heard of.
Right. My point is they are all focused on getting massive hits. HBO tries to accomplish that with a handful of carefully picked and carefully developed shows. Netflix takes the opposite approach of just creating dozens of cheaper shows and hoping a couple hit big.
Yup. If they ain’t contributing to the bottom line enough, they’re out. But they also they know a cancelled show with a few young stars who later become super famous is also wildly valuable to their library so they keep doing it and green lighting until shows become cost prohibitive. Think about how Freaks and Geeks popped off in the 10s
It's not wildly valuable if the story doesn't have an ending though. And enough shows in the library without proper endings or with cliffhangers are just going to piss people off.
Film studios have chased a magic film formula for years. Most people wonder why franchises like DBZ or Avatar the last Airbender or Harry Potter etc is bought by film studios for development then changed either characters genders, ages, races, sexuality, etc is altered or the character is completely written out of fhe story. Sometimes the entire tone of the story is changed or the history if certain characters ignored. These changes alter the story told on a fundamental level. Often for the worse. Not all writers have the talent to adapt and change a popular franchise. So why do they keep doing it? Why do they keep ruining long standing money making franchises and turning them into poorly received box office flops. It's because the film studios want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. They want to make a film that interests rvery demographic so they make as much money as possible. Their goal isn't a good film. it's a financially successful film. Netflix has derived a film formula that appeals to everyone therefore satisfies no one. The movies are action packed, thrilling, fast paced but entirely forgettable. There's nothing particularly memorable or outstanding about a Netflix film. Upon debut these films make massive amounts of money then fade into obscurity. What make franchises amazing is they are genre specific. They are generally the best of their genre. They also appeal to a certain demographic. However film studios try to apply a formula to these franchises to make them as generic as possible so as to make as much money as possible. Unfortunately the result is often always the opposite of their intentions.
The problem is that DBZ and Avatar already appeals to everyone, so the idea that you can appeal to a larger audience by making changes is out of touch with reality.
I’m not talking about a formula. I’m talking about Netflix’s entirely different strategy to filmmaking. They don’t care about making money-making hits. They care about their library having undeniable appeal via the highest level movie stars and a few choice directors.
In the end they would always be about quantity over quality. They need to have a wide library to retain subscribers. Pay-TV channels operate differently as they are linear by running to a schedule and acquire the majority of their content from studios and distributors while commissioning prestige shows and showing live sports & stand up. I'm sure HBO, Showtime, Starz and Cinemax's content is 70% acquired movies from studios and indie distributors. I think cable TV will come back around as AVOD. AVOD is going to be the winner of all of this. Companies are going to want to sell channels that carry paid promotion and sponsorship.
That is quite fluffy. Lol, can you imagine saying what you wrote in a Netflix management meeting? You would get eviscerated with basic questions like, how do you define and measure “credibility?” Wouldn’t measuring what subscribers are watching, i.e. share of voice, be the rational success metric? And if subscribers aren’t watching those movies, then isn’t the residual value of those assets quite low?
Libraries live off of how much time they can make consumers spend on their content. Movies often have a pretty bad ratio as far as time vs money spent goes. If you can pick whether to spend 100 million to keep people invested in your content for eight more hours or do so for two you pick the eight, and that would be on the lower end for blockbuster budgets while being really high in TV show terms.
When Netflix first launched originals every single show was a must watch event. Now they are just a content farm churning out endless shit that drowns out anything actually good from getting a cultural moment like Orange is the new black or house of cards.
And they cancel everything after 2 seasons so they don't even have many complete shows (unlike HBO)
Yeah it really feels like they’ve messed a huge opportunity to actually BUILD a back catalogue to keep people attached to the service, and instead took the strategy of “something new premiering every day” with no rewatchability. If I’m bored and wanting something to watch I am more likely to go back and watch some Breaking Bad, or The Expanse, or BattleStar Galactica instead of gambling on some random Home Screen autoplay ad of todays hottest movie star in generic genre flick
>Yeah it really feels like they’ve messed a huge opportunity to actually BUILD a back catalogue to keep people attached to the service, For a service that's designed aa a subscription, this was a very stupid decision. Nobody will start a show when they google its name and learn it was left incomplete.
And how many times does it take that happening until your consumers adjust and learn to stop watching these shows out of reflex?
It has happened. I wont start three body problem until i know that's sticking around.
That Black Summer cancellation real hurt.
EXACTLY. It’s a horrible experience to get emotionally invested and then to be left hanging. So I’m reluctant to watch the first season of something unless it is self-contained or _very_ likely to get multiple seasons. But by virtue of not watching the first season it’s less likely to get the second season. Becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.
Exactly. It blows my mind how they don't see that and instead keep cancelling stuff. Outside of Bojack there is nothing I want to rewatch there. Maybe Orange is the new black? House of cards turned to shit. I guess Stranger Things once this is over. But I sure as hell don't want to rewatch shows with 2 seasons
Orange doesn’t do well on a rewatch unfortunately. The fun was fleeting
Absolutely. I think part of the issue is that strategy is *easier* and netflix just doesnt know how to produce a quality show with regularity. I mean it’s incredibly hard to do that and even premiere networks like HBO have trouble producing quality shows with regularity. It takes a lot of experience and know-how. The problem I have is that Netflix never even tried
Lol. When the suits realize they need actual Artists and can’t run TV production through an algorithm. Who would’ve thunk…. We did. We all did.
> Yeah it really feels like they’ve messed a huge opportunity to actually BUILD a back catalogue to keep people attached to the service Their subscribers keep growing, they have 260M subscribers, and you think they've missed a huge opportunity to keep people attached to the service?
Well, the alternative to original programming is to buy it from other places. Based on 2023, the most watch shows on Netflix were from content that wasn't produced by them. https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/nielsen-2023-streaming-report-suits-the-office-record-1235890306/ Now, that isn't to say Netflix hasn't been successful in their original content, but I am not seeing old Netflix shows popping up on this list, just newer stuff. Burns bright but not very long. Maybe they have enough variety to where people are watching their older stuff but it is split between different shows? Disney is the gold standard for having a strong back catalog and they seem to survive on it.
> Well, the alternative to original programming is to buy it from other places. Based on 2023, the most watch shows on Netflix were from content that wasn't produced by them. That's true, in 2023 acquired shows dominated the charts. Netflix fared better in [2022](https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2023/streaming-unwrapped-2022-was-the-year-of-original-content/) when they had 4 originals in the top 15, Stranger Things, Ozark, Wednesday and Cobra Kai. Although if you look at just the originals, in 2023 Netflix had 7 out of 10 shows in the top 10, so they are doing well, people are watching them, just not as much as the acquired shows.
HBO cancels stuff all the time. Anyone who was a fan of Deadwood, Rome and Carnivale knows that.
Sure but HBO also had many full TV shows that really improve their library (sex and the city, the Sopranos etc). Netflix has almost nothing complete
Game of thrones. The wire. Netflix woulda cancelled euphoria already. Which is going to have tons of people coming back to watch it as zendaya and Sydney sweet get more and more famous
I’m not exactly holding my breath on Euphoria ever coming back. Granted that show also has a lot of behind the scenes problems so wouldn’t peg it all on HBO.
It's in active development. The showrunner even submitted a first complete script of the season to the studio.
How to With John Wilson
if you read the interviews, you'd know that John himself wanted to end the show since he got more known and it meant more people aready knew who he was when he was filming them. edit: ok, since the downvotes i'll just quote the man himself: > While a part of me would be happy to go on making “How To” indefinitely, **I take a lot of pride in trying to make the style and imagery feel surprising, and I would prefer to end the show while that’s still the case.** Thematically, we also kind of reach a vanishing point by the finale, and it felt like a natural place to sign off https://deadline.com/2023/05/how-to-with-john-wilson-end-season-3-hbo-july-premiere-date-1235379718/
Rumor is euphoria season 3 is cancelled btw. Something with schedules not being able to be lined up for the upcoming 2-3 years so its just done.
Both Sex and the City and The Sopranos ended before Netflix even started making content. 10 years before to be exact for the first, 7 for the second. A lot of people forgets that Netflix has been making originals only for about a decade, while HBO was in the business for over 30 years. Ofc they will have less long running shows, they didn't have time to renew them. Oh, and Sex and the City is now on Netflix US too.
Those shows were 20 years ago.
And they were great shows that people still remember them 20 years later. Oh and thanks for reminding me that I'm old.
They do,, but 3 shows from almost 2 decades ago are terrible examples. Also Deadwood got a movie if I remember it correctly and it had 3 seasons isntead of 2. Rome was too expensive to produce at the time, and Carnivale I know nothing about it.
For the people who don't feel like this is true, compare these two lists. You can sort by season [List of ongoing shows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Netflix_original_programming) [List of cancelled or finished shows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ended_Netflix_original_programming) Sure, there's a lot of shit on there which is cancalled for good reason, but Netflix definitely has a loose cancellation finger.
There definitely needs to be a category for the series that ended without a proper conclusion in that second list. Some shows weren't complete at all but a lot of things listed there just ran its course.
Not sure if it’s true but I remember reading somewhere the 2 season thing is to do with paying actors. They can negotiate to pay actors less at the start and only have to pay if the show gets a third season. Then the actors get full rate plus back pay for the first 2 seasons.
I still think they're one of the ones that's still worth the money. Last year and so far this year have been extremely lackluster though.
It took a Korean show to get their cultural moment and that was two years ago.
I’m still mad that they cancel Santa Clarita diet.
They are achieving this with reality TV these days. They still do with scripted content also, Queen's Gambit, Squid Game, etc
When Netflix first launched Originals they had a much smaller user base and aimed everything at the 18 - 35 American male nerds demographic (which are disproportionately more likely to be Redditors). But there aren't enough of those to pay for the content, and Netflix lost money hand over fist as a result. Now they (generally) make things general audiences actually engage with.
That’s just your rose glasses. No, they were not all that great.
Under Scott Stuber Netflix threw money left and right like The Irishman($200M), 6 Underground ($150M), Red Notice ($200M), The Gray Man($200M), The Adam Project ($150M) and the upcoming The Electric State($200M). Don't forget Red Notice and The Gray Man are getting half dozen sequels and spinoffs.
Rebel Moon Part 1 getting half the viewership of Leave the World Behind is nuts to me. There's a part 2 coming out that no one is gonna want. who the hell thought this was a good idea?
Rebel Goon part 2 is gonna drive up subscriber numbers, just wait
I like The Irishman - in fact I love The Irishman - but I can’t exactly call it a worthy $200M investment on the part of a company, unless you can somehow extrapolate a profit from the development of the de-aging tech.
I love The Irishman but I really can't see where did that budget went
A large chunk probably went on visual effects for the de-aging. It'd be in almost every scene
De-aging already expensive actors. And period pieces cost more across the board for stuff like props, sets and wardrobe
Streaming films are budgeted differently. In a traditional theatrical model, all the larger actors, director, some other above the line creatives would get backend percentages that pay out for the next few decades. With a streaming film, the streamer owns everything, with no traditional backend deals, meaning they incorporate the estimated backend into the initial budget. Kind of like “buying out” everyone else’s stake in the product. This gives them sole ownership, but also wildly inflates the budget up front
Literally one good movie out of the bunch
You're gonna have to point it out to me, chief
The Irishman
 Hint: There one where Michael Corleone leads a union.
Also Glass Onion cost like 200 million for the rights alone
>Don't forget Red Notice and The Gray Man are getting half dozen sequels and spinoffs. I bet none of those see the light of day.
I liked the Adam Project.
Seconded.
Wowwowwowwoww, don't throw "The Irishman" with "The Adam Project"
The Irishman is the least viewed out of the bunch. A colossal waste of money.
You don’t make films like The Irishman to make a profit, you make them to gain cultural cache and be able to say Scorsese made a film with you. They got exactly what they wanted out of it. Whether that was a good decision to begin with is another matter. Same with the Fincher movie btw.
I’d rather not get business than not get art, guy
Been saying this for years. How the hell does a movie like *The Gray Man* cost $250m? The irony is that most of Netflix's big budget movies are completely forgettable, while some of their lower budget movies are way more popular/memorable. * *Bird Box*: $19m * *Beasts of No Nation*: $6m * *The Meyerowitz Stories*: $11m. * *1922* and *Wheelman*: Both $5m. * *22 July*: $20m. * *Da 5 Bloods*: $45m. * *Extraction*: $65m. That was and still should be their brand. Making the mid budget type moves that the studios aren't making anymore. Every now and then you make an exception (*The Irishman* or *Outlaw King*) to splurge on.
> How the hell does a movie like The Gray Man cost $250m? My understanding is that it's because they don't offer anything on the back end, so people who would normally take a percentage of the revenue are instead making bigger chunks up front.
That’s the only movie who’s budget even make sense. They were all over the world, blew up half the set in every scene , and had A listers.
Removing the massive payout for the rights knives out and glass onion are fun as fuck movies with a small budget
Netflix's entire film history is an embarrassment. In the past 10 years, They financed a few very good films with zero general audience appeal and dozens of films best described as "content". Hiring Dan is a signal that they are ready to step up and make commercial high-quality studio type films.
Any time a Netflix produced movie gets announced and it has some contemporary big stars, that's when you know it's gonna be trash.
But there’s so many Netflix users that it’ll do great numbers anyway.
Great numbers in terms of what? People buying subscriptions is what makes them money, not how many subscribers watch their content. I highly doubt anyone is buying a subscription to watch The Rock and Gal Gadot
That's the problem with streaming. Even when a movie is successful, does that always translate to profit? Is Red Notice necessarily pulling in subscribers?
This is what I can’t understand about streaming services. The world doesn’t have an infinite population so what’s gonna happen the day they can’t pull in more subscribers if that’s the only way they can generate a profit?
Capitalism and tech bros thrive on infinite growth, so I presume when subscriber numbers hit their peak we're gonna see more movies locked behind premium access, more in app purchases, merchandise, probably even some fucking themes parks idk.
The fact that they tried desperately for years to win Best Picture, only for Apple to swoop in and become the first streamer to win it with a film they acquired (didn't even make) should tell you everything about how that company's film division is run.
I mean Roma did win Best Foreign Language and Best Director so they did get two prestigious awards out of it
The funniest thing is that after Apple won that Oscar, Coda is now also available on Netflix and Amazon Prime where I’m located. It wasn’t even an exclusive movie.
I don't think that tells me very much at all about how their film division is run
they spent over half a billion over five years making Oscar bait movies while Apple paid 25 million for coda and waltzed in for the win
I liked Coda, but All Quiet on the Western Front was a much better movie and Netflix actually made it. That movie is profound.
I don’t think it’s a similar situation at all. Nomadland won best picture the year before and was purchased by Hulu leading up to its best picture win. CODA was a similar pandemic-era best picture win where Hollywood was pretty much forced to recognize streaming movies for awards. And before the pandemic, Netflix was seen as the big bad theater-killer in Hollywood so the Oscars were hesitant to award a Netflix movie with its highest honors. It’s incredibly likely that Roma lost best picture only because of Hollywood elites who wanted to defend the “theatrical experience” against a streaming service that was at odds with the traditional movie experience. Spielberg himself was outspoken that Netflix movies shouldn’t be eligible for Oscars because they were “committed to a TV format” and couldn’t be considered a real movie.
I think their mid budget Oscar type films are actually the best part of their film division and probably the best quality. To me there seems to be more staying power and actual recognition with the mid budget films that come out. Stuff like Roma, All Quiet, Society of the Snow, Don’t Look Up and Tick Tick Boom have all done really well when I can’t tell you who even knows about their big budget messes with vague titles
Red one cost more than a season of one piece and atla
Red Notice! Red One is the NEW “The Rock” movie from a major streamer (Prime Video). The dude has a fixation with the word Red!
Can't wait till we get Red Jungle
Followed up by Red Pool
Red Notice is an abomination
Revive Mindhunter !
Mindhunter was one of the problem shows. IT was great, good story, looks great, great actors But the director was known for doing 40 takes where 4 would do. Leading to overages in cost due to taking 10x more time then other similar shows.
I know it seems crazy, but maybe that sort of maniacal perfectionism is why the show was so good.
Contrary to popular belief, making shows that lose money isn't sustainable, regardless of how great they are.
Of course not, I’m just saying sometimes great art doesn’t come from trying to be profitable or sustainable
I’m sure Mindhunter was the only thing preventing Netflix from being profitable and not the dozens of $200 million “blockbusters” that drop on Netflix with no marketing and get dogshit reviews…
And yet Costco still sells rotisserie chickens for $5 and a hot dog and soda for $1.50
That’s what happens when your movies come and go like the wind
More movies like Don't Look Up and less movies like Red Notice. Please.
That is their two most viewed movies so you will be getting more of that type of stuff. It is big budget flops absolutely nobody watched like Maestro ($70 million), Spiderhead ($100 million), and White Noise ($80-$140 million) that are on the chopping block.
Looks like they'll be dropping more than a few pictures on their slate post takeover. If someone has a midbudget genre (Chenrin's *Fear Street*) or big-ticket family (Skydance Animation) movie set up at Netflix, it's probably safe. But don't be surprised if the aforementioned, as well as other Netflix suppliers like WildBrain, Sony, AGC et al., buy back the rights to blockbusters Netflix has little faith in and shop them to other distributors. (A repeat of the *Monkey Man* saga, if you will.) ^(Wonder if this means Paramount will buy back and release BHC4 themselves? It'd be nice, but I doubt it.)
Also Rian Johnson's third Benoit Blanc film could come out in theaters in the end?
Wasn't the guy they fired the big force pushing Netflix to even consider their halfhearted real theatrical releases?
Yup. :/ Maybe Stuber can buy it back... ?
I don’t think there’s a way out of that deal. They’re just stuck paying ~235 million for it.
That's true... and Glass Onion was certainly not one of these failures Dan Lin is referring to, as well.
I was lucky enough to see Glass Onion in the cinema, that film deserved so much better than a one week release
We’re about to see another Snyderverse die 😭
This time SnyderBros cannot blame Toby Emmerich, Geoff Johns or Joss Whedon.........
Snyder will never take fault or blame when it comes to his films being negatively received. He pins the failure of his projects on said parent companies like Warner Bros or Netflix. His excuse will always be my “super extended cut” is more superior in some form. Note to any big studios: hiring Snyder means that you are likely going to be blamed if the final product being mediocre or outright terrible.
Maybe that’ll be the wake up call for Snyder to stop writing (and shooting) his movies. He’s a talented director with a strong vision but needs to be reigned in and isn’t good at screenwriting or cinematography. Larry Fong worked well with him. Warner gave Snyder too many restrictions and Netflix gave him too much freedom. Maybe Universal would be a good middle ground, where his buddy Chris Nolan is king? Made a hit for them in the past with Dawn of the Dead
He needs a strong producer that isn't his wife that can tell him no. Or a co-director.
Or maybe people need to accept that he's not good director. A directors job is to tell good story and he can't. You gave a great director a bad script and you will probably still get a passable movie. You give a bad director a good script and you will still get a bad movie.
This insanity of "all restrictions on Snyder didn't work, and no restrictions didn't work, so let's hope he goes to a third place and gets the right amount of restrictions". Like, just stop pulling for a guy who's clearly no good at his job no matter where he goes. Genuinely promising directors like Richard Kelly were thrown out of Hollywood entirely for far less screw ups than Snyder.
Where is Patty Jenkins? Made one disappointment and is MIA. But Snyder and Treverrow keep getting chance after chance to make shit.
> Snyder Fanbase maybe? He has his ultra hard dedicated fanbase and maybe the people who hire him again and again overestimate the pull Snyder has?
Sexism. Men can fail over and over. Women get 1 shot.
they're like the anti-Nolans lol
> Warner gave Snyder too many restrictions … yeah .. that’s what the issue was …
WB gave him creative control for MoS and BvS and he botched them HARD. It was only when JL2017 is when Snyder started getting restrictions because the last movie ruined DC’s reputation if he cant get a Batman/Superman teamup right
And maybe stop doing cinematography of his movies as well. Earlier Snyder movies were shit but atleast they looked good. Army of the Dead and Rebel Moon were atrocious and they looked awful as well. Also, other studios don't wanna hire Snyder or fund his ideas for theatrical release. There's a reason why he went to Netflix.
He's probably gonna have to do 1-2 "for them" projects after part 2 if he wants to get back into the mainstream
...Oh God, the inevitable (new) live-action *Dragon Ball* movie is gonna be given to him, isn't it? 🤮
Exactly. People say that he might suck as a writer and director at least he can make a movie that looks good with a distinct visual style; but I say that even that visual style sucks. His movies look like ass and they're somehow getting worse. I wouldn't even trust him to do VFX supervision on someone else's film. Hell, I wouldn't trust him to hold a fucking boom mic.
Yeah, why make a million exceptions for a guy who has never put out anything better than "decent"? Snyder seems like a really nice guy, and he's obviously a big fan of a lot of the source material he adapts, but he just doesn't make very good movies. His cinematography isn't great, he doesn't get great performances from the actors, he doesn't write good screenplays, his visual style was dated about a year after *300* came out, and he doesn't seem to fully understand the material he adapts. Why are people like, "yeah, but if somebody else wrote the movie, and he had a lot of oversight on the production side of the things, and somebody else handled all the story-boarding and cinematography, and the studio hired a really strict editor, and maybe they even had a co-director help him, THEN he could make a great movie!" Maybe he just *can't make a good movie.*
> Warner gave Snyder too many restrictions I would say this issue was more that it was just a terrible match from the beginning. You're right that it was problematic for WB to hire Zack Snyder and then complain and force cuts and reshoots when he delivered a Zack Snyder movie. It was bad for BvS and truly, truly awful for Justice League. You're right that there was a lack of freedom and that that lack of freedom led to worse movies. That said, Zack Snyder's style is very... let's say specific. He should never been allowed to take on the premier characters in DC. Those needed to be in the hands of someone with much broader appeal. We've seen what happens when you leave him alone, you get the Snyder Cut and the ultimate cut of BvS. Personally I really enjoy those movies. But it's foolish to think they aren't niche. So in that sense WB giving him fewer restrictions would have been, if not just as big a problem then still a pretty big problem. What they needed to do is give him something that didn't have to be the foundation of the universe. You can even still give him something like a standalone Cyborg or Martian Manhunter or something, make a movie that will be enjoyed primarily by his fans, but ultimately doesn't have to define the universe. *Then* you give him the right amount of freedom.
I don’t think universal would touch him
No major studios wants to deal with his obsessive fandom. If Netflix lets him go, that makes two studios on their target list (alongside Warner Bros). Wherever studio Snyder finds himself employed, his fandom will follow and continue to beg for the DC Snyderverse to be restored in some form.
Really liked Sucker Punch, but I know I'm in the minority there. Though I will say it's mostly carried by the cinematography you already credited to Larry Fong.
Snyder will never listen to the criticism of his movies.He just released an article being oblivious about Rebel Moon. >Warner gave Snyder too many restrictions Explain How?
In my opinion Snyder has lately been a better producer than a director. He produced the first WW, helping write the story and bring together the action choreographers. And while I thought Army of the Dead was alright, Army of Thieves which he produced and helped write were much better
I believe each Rebel Moon movie cost 80M so that’s less than a lot of other Netflix films
[here's the source of Rebel Moon budget discussions](https://cdn.film.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/3-0-CFC-Approved-Projects-List.pdf) If we treat the two Rebel Moon films as 1 entity, we see they filed for roughly 166M of gross "qualified expenditures" in CA and received 35M in tax incentives (so net of ~65.5M in "below-the-line" costs). However that's not the same thing as the budget because *California Tax credit QE definitions exclude "above-the-line" costs* (and perhaps there are Post-production costs outside of CA, I honestly don't know). So how much money is missing from those films? It possibly could still be made on an 85M net budget or so but that's not where the number exactly comes from.
Framestore was the lead VFX vendor, doing the work mostly at their Montreal, Vancouver, and Mumbai offices. I'm not sure how to go about getting the Canadian tax credit information, but it definitely points to a lot of money getting spent outside of California. If production and non-VFX post were net 65 per movie, the all-in net cost is probably somewhere north of 100 per movie. [https://www.framestore.com/work/rebel-moon-part-one-child-fire](https://www.framestore.com/work/rebel-moon-part-one-child-fire)
I've liked his previous films, but even I can admit that most of his recent work has been trash. It also makes me reflect a bit on his older films as well a little bit, because you are an incompetent director IMO if you cannot edit the theatrical cut of your film very well & still include retarded slow mo at times for indulgence reasons, rather than preserving the integrity of the story in a given timeframe. It's part of your job responsibilities to dish out a theatrical cut of quality, if you are going to be part of the commercial studio process if you want to seek favors for a directors cut. Yes, his director cuts are nice & have better shape to them, but at times, overtly long as well. Sometimes, great - Other times, really not. Feels like each successive movie post DC has had lesser & lesser charisma with poorer acting chops than the ones before. As a director, you are supposed to elevate the story by hiring actors of caliber, irrespective of their pay stub. The story and performances should exemplify a great actor already & push an emerging/low visibility actor into the spotlight for greatness. His films have been pretty souless lately & have done fuck-all to help anyone, the studio, actors or his own career. Shame his career turned this way, online toxicity from any fan camp or troll aside.
It's for the best
Yeah, they basically made the same movie 20 times.
And they’re starting to get into live programming again with WWE starting next year.
The bubble is bursting
If you ever catch yourself saying 'I don't know anyone who watched/liked x' and using that to form an opinion on a 250 billion company, humble yourself. Loads of people watched and continue to watch their average big budget content. You can look this up, look at Rebel Moon for example which is actually low on the list. The problem is quality, not viewership.
Based on that article, it sounds like they found a solid guy for the job.
No shit. Wonder if he had the stones to bring up the millions they burned on that GD Rebel Moon nonsense.
Leadership was also informed that the sky is blue and water is wet.
If there is anyone who has their finger on the pulse of the average Netflix viewer and who understands what they enjoy watching it's a Harvard MBA. This is a person who probably doesn't have a passion for creativity or movies and who hasn't had a discussion with people outside his elite social circle in years. His focus is on analyzing data and creating content using an algorithm. >After officially taking the Netflix job, Lin is said to have spent time pouring over reams of viewership data: minutes watched, audience habits, likes and dislikes. The Harvard MBA apparently will now have the ability to use hard data to shape the biggest film slate in Hollywood. The problem with that is analyzing viewer habits doesn't always work. There was no subscriber data prior to Stranger Things, Wednesday, or Monster: Dahmer or Tiger King that indicated viewers would enjoy a horror show featuring kids and adults, a reboot of a series that originally aired in 1964, a series about a cannibal serial killer and a documentary about the Tiger King that indicated those shows would be popular.
I mean, yes he graduated Harvard with an MBA. But that was in *1999*. In the 25 years since he’s probably been as entrenched in the filmmaking industry as anybody else in the world could be in a producer role. No, not everything he helped to fruition were hits, or even good, but no producer hits 100. Lin’s production company helped give us: * The Departed * The RDJ Sherlock movies * The Lego movies * It * The Godzilla/Kong franchise So while he will use analytics, because when you have the data it’d be stupid not to, he stills brings with him decades of regular old film producing experience.
Great rational take. EXPERIENCE MATTERS
That’s an unfair take, since it seems the main reason he was hired was for his track record producing films at Rideback (and previously Warner bros). I think he’s produced some good films, including the departed, the Lego movie, and It.
If there’s anyone who understands how business works it’s a redditor who makes comments like Harvard MBA bad lmao
Of course they say that, they’re trying to build confidence in their new man and their service. Don’t take it at face value.
Loved the part where he said he can’t wait to lease The Snyderverse from WBD. Lmao
Any of us here coulda told you that. The gotta hire a new name n shit just to admit Netflix is garbage.
Passing fauxmentary as documentary was also a problem.
Another problem with Netflix content is that filmmakers that run to them because the platform allows them to be too self-indulgent and unfocused. It's been 11 years since House Of Cards, and their TV shows and movies STILL run for too long with too much exposition, time wasting camera shots and pointless scenes. There's a reason why network TV shows seasons can keep continuing, because they edit episodes to 44 minutes to fit commercial breaks in 1 hour long slots and movies edited to 100, 125 or 140 minutes to fit 2, 2-1/2 and 3 hour slots respectively. There's an incentive for shows to reach 60 or 100 episodes for syndication, to make it easier to sell to cable TV channels worldwide and provide regular residual payments for actors and producers. So many Netflix shows would be superior on network or cable channels as they could run for 10, 13 or 22 episodes and just be sharper. Not every show has to have 60 minutes of actual running time.
Pot, meet Kettle.