Casual viewing - Why Netflix looks like that ~30+ min read

But by insulating their films from failure, the streamers have destroyed the meaning of success. Thierry Frémaux, head of the Cannes Film Festival and a vocal critic of streamers, understood this well when he presented the dilemma at a Cannes press conference in 2021. “What directors have been discovered by [streaming] platforms?” he asked. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Frémaux began calling on journalists to name an auteur whose career had been launched by a streamer. By this point, Netflix had released more than seven hundred films in the US alone, with hundreds of directors attached. Yet as the Guardian later reported of the scene, “nobody could name any at all, in fact.”

Here, streaming platforms have achieved a strange paradox. Never has a group of studios gained so much control over the production, distribution, exhibition, and reception of movies by making movies no one cares about or remembers. Having not only failed to discover a new generation of auteurs, the streamers have also ensured that their filmmakers are little more than precarious content creators, ineligible to share the profits of any hit. It’s a shift that has induced a profound sense of confusion.

Was the 20th century's explosion of culture a flash in the pan? It remains to be seen, but it's not looking good for us filmmakers.

What has happened to that movie is that it has become On the Come Up, which just disappears into the ether, and the studios put up two billboards in LA because they know the creators live in LA and want some sort of vision that they are being marketed. Like with Amazon — if you drive through Culver City you will see billboards for Amazon movies everywhere. Why? Because the directors who come to the studio lot to take a meeting there to make a movie, they drive there and they’re like, ‘Oh they’re marketing my movie.’ But they’re not.”
Last winter, while visiting Los Angeles, I went to see the signage for myself. Encircling the intersection of Venice and La Cienega Boulevards were eight towering billboards promoting the latest Amazon original movies and shows. Two advertised The Burial, a legal drama starring Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones. I hadn’t heard of it, nor had anyone else I talked to that week. I drove to more studios, down Sunset Boulevard past Netflix’s headquarters, toward Melrose Avenue and the Paramount lot. Every studio had token billboards for their latest pseudomovies, designed to be played but not watched.

Wow that’s deceptive.

Great read and it pretty sums up my experience and dissatisfaction with Netflix - and most other streaming services. Everything is reduced to "content", devoid of anything resembling ambition, ideas or artistic vision.

We didn't have the Netflix DVD service in Denmark, but we had a similar service and it was really amazing while it lasted. Only have 2-3 discs at home at once removed any sort of decision paralysis, the catalog was vast and didn't change every week with things randomly disappearing and the quality of a bluray is still vastly better than streaming. Some services today are better than others, but you still have to pay for so called 4K UHD streaming to get quality that can match a 1080p bluray disc.

It is true that Netflix has mostly become the cable media empire it set out against originally, but maybe it also reflects a general cultural switch away from movies - as attention shift to series? Outside cinephile circles, I only hear people talking about the latest season of a show. Other than the occasional trip to the theater for the latest entry in a well known franchise, there just seems less overall interest in movies in general and it is no wonder streaming production reflects that. Wonder if there is any statistics on the percentage of streaming hours split on movies versus series.

Such sleight of hand would be illegal in any other industry. Ford could never tell its shareholders that it sold two hundred thousand F-150 trucks over a single quarter, when in truth the company sold one hundred thousand F-150s to married couples who co-owned their vehicles.

Something something selling Cybertrucks to SpaceX, and whatever drugs were involved in that IPO prospectus for SpaceX.

Netflix did recently add another major film to the article's short list of successful titles, at least: Kpop Demon Hunters is massive. Their shows are definitely where the focus is, and I guess it makes sense: if Netflix was trying to become TV, then their films would be made-for-TV movies.

Fascinating read! It is interesting to think about the parallels Netflix has now developed with Blockbuster in terms of it offering a large amount of junk that no one wants, whilst good content is sparse and lacking.

I particularly enjoyed this line as it seems like it's hinting towards Netflix' first foray into enshittification:

Netflix would charge customers a fixed monthly fee to rent up to four movies at a time. (This was soon reduced to three.) 

How Netflix also counts a movie as watched is absolute insanity. I don't suspect this is Netflix-specific, however, I suspect many other streaming platforms especially music do this too. At least with music, listening to ten seconds of a 3 minute song is at least a little bit better than 2 minutes of a 120 minute film proportionally.

Great read, thanks for sharing! The Culver City 'billboards bubble' thing was a new one to me, which, while pretty shitty is also kinda hilarious in another regard. Netflix really has sunk to the bottom of the streaming tier for me; possibly the last original productions I really enjoyed were Squid Game S1 and Stranger Things S4. The only one in our household actively watching it is my 7yo (who is also the reason I'm forbidden from cancelling) - though I will give them one thing, they are literally the only streamer that gives me an option to block specific shows from accounts.