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Hollywood Is Wrong: Netflix Is the Future of Film

136 pointsby simulateabout 7 years ago

32 comments

hboschabout 7 years ago
I still quite like going to a theater, the experience is much different than watching a movie at home. In a theater I am much more focused on the film being shown, the screen is large and crisp, the speakers overwhelm – it&#x27;s much more a celebration of the artwork than almost any <i>typical</i> home environment. On the other hand, I also like watching movies at home because I like sitting with my dog and being comfortable.<p>In that sense, it&#x27;s almost ridiculously obvious why Hollywood doesn&#x27;t like Netflix... it minimizes the &quot;big screen experience&quot;. Imagine if we all replaced fine art galleries with mobile phone apps. Would anyone be surprised if masterworkers of paint and sculpture got upset about that? Of course not! They work on mediums that are designed to be experienced in a very specific spacial context. A director like Christopher Nolan, whether you like him or not, designs his movies specifically to be seen on 80ft wide projections with 100 speakers all around you. Anything less than that and, in his eyes, your mission is now to render his movie meaningless.<p>All this said, I really think the directors&#x27; gripes are misplaced. Netflix didn&#x27;t kill theaters... theaters killed themselves. Rising prices, gouging on food, maintaining massive floorplans that require massive leases of land. If going to the theater to see a movie wasn&#x27;t, by and large, a $50+ excursion for a family of 4 to eat garbage food and struggle to find seats then maybe we wouldn&#x27;t all be staying at home?
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Pigoabout 7 years ago
I guess I just hope both Netflix and Hollywood step up their game, I&#x27;m pretty bored with both of them. I don&#x27;t really care about super heroes, or watch kids dancing, or another stupid Adam Sandler movie. But I burn through the handful of Netflix shows I really like in a day or two, and then spend months in between them hoping they bring Futurama back.
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jernfrostabout 7 years ago
Something has to change. Hollywood movies are just so receipt oriented. I kind of like super hero stuff, but I hate most of the super hero movies coming out. I loved kick-ass, and I think the various super hero series on Netflix such as Jessica Jones has been quite good.<p>Other than that I realize I want to see more movies from other cultures. I am Norwegian myself but have tended to gravitate towards Hollywood, because the production and is higher quality and selection of actors is better.<p>However I have noticed that some of the stuff that I have enjoyed the most and which has felt most fresh such as Skam, has been from my own country.<p>There is a lot of foreign films I never get access to because they are not really distributed. I notice when recommending Norwegian series or movies to friends abroad, that they are really hard to get hold of and even harder to get subtitles for.<p>The teen drama Skam only worked because fans made the subtitles themselves for the foreign audience.<p>Netflix shows a path forward here in that they are opened up for more diversity and allow more foreign series. E.g. you got Norwegian Viking comedy series &quot;The norsemen&quot; on Netflix.<p>It was made in a way that I think is a great solution going forward for foreign film&#x2F;series makers. The creators of the Norsemen filmed every scene in Norwegian and English successively so that the show could be shown easily to both a domestic and foreign audience.
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appleflaxenabout 7 years ago
Several posters are talking about theater sound being a great thing, but I think it&#x27;s miserable: basically a volume war, which my ears are going to lose. How can theaters get by with such loud volumes, when a work site would be shut down by OSHA if the workers didn&#x27;t have hearing protection.<p>There is obviously an issue of how long you&#x27;re exposed, but no theater should be allowed to push the volume into the range where hearing loss could possibly occur.<p>And in the case of Netflix... it&#x27;s never an issue because I control my volume.
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gamblor956about 7 years ago
I laughed pretty hard after reading this blog post.<p>Netflix movies have been on a horrific downhill trend in quality (though their documentaries have remained great). After the Adam Sandler flicks, <i>Bright</i>, <i>The Cloverfield Parodox</i>, and especially <i>Mute</i>, it&#x27;s become clear that Netflix&#x27;s film department has no fucking clue what they&#x27;re doing. It&#x27;s getting to the point where people I know who are avid Netflix bingers would literally rather rewatch a show or film they just saw than watch the latest Netflix film.
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jbob2000about 7 years ago
The article is missing the forest for the trees. Hollywood isn&#x27;t snubbing Netflix (in my opinion, anyways). Hollywood is all about the cinema and the theatrical release. It is a completely different experience streaming a movie at home than going to see it in the theatre.<p>Netflix makes movies to keep people subscribed. Hollywood makes movies to get people to the cinema. On the surface, it looks like they&#x27;re in the same business, but the products are engineered differently for different purposes. It makes sense to keep these in separate buckets; they are rated by different metrics.
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gamblor956about 7 years ago
My experience is definitely different from normal because I live in Tinseltown a few blocks from one of the theaters where they hold movie premieres and from an Alamo Drafthouse, but I could never see Netflix replacing Hollywood.<p>The business models are fundamentally different. All Netflix cares about is eyeballs and giving customers the barest reason to continue subscribing. This means that they focus on quantity over quality, as evidenced by their last 3 years of films: each worse than the one released the week before it, with extremely rare exceptions like <i>Beasts of No Nation</i> and <i>Mudbound</i>. (It&#x27;s curious that their films are so horrifically bad when their TV series are generally watchable, though <i>Lost In Space</i> and the recent seasons of <i>OitNB</i> and <i>HoC</i> suggest that the malaise affecting their film department has spread to the show department.)<p>Hollywood, for all the moaning about sequilitis and mass-market crap, at least makes crap that&#x27;s good enough to draw people out of their homes, drive a few miles, and plop down a few dozen dollars for seats and maybe food. There&#x27;s a strong incentive to maintain at least a minimum baseline of quality and a stronger incentive to make a commercially viable movie.<p>Think about the films people will remember from the last decade: you won&#x27;t find any Netflix films among them. But the cultural significance of films like <i>La La Land</i>, <i>Star Wars</i>, even the the <i>Fast and the Furious</i> franchise will outlive us all.
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FreeKillabout 7 years ago
I think one of the big issues with the film industry today, and one thing Netflix addresses tangentially, is that all films should not be the same price. It&#x27;s strange to me that a movie like &#x27;Avengers Infinity War&#x27; is the same price as &#x27;Super Troopers 2&#x27; or &#x27;A Quiet Place&#x27;.<p>I consider myself a movie buff and I remember in the 90&#x27;s, friends and I would go to movies as something to do. We wouldn&#x27;t necessarily plan to go, but movies were a reasonable price &lt; $10, we were bored, and you&#x27;d just go, see what piqued our interest, and give it a try. Now-a-days, movies are so expensive that it&#x27;s almost an event and something you have to save for like concert tickets or sports tickets. Why would you take a risk on movie X, with middling reviews, when it costs so much? That&#x27;s why so many middle of the road films seem to crash and burn so much more starkly these days, because people can&#x27;t afford to take a chance on a potential stinker.<p>I think movies should have a scale for pricing, Infinity War costs $20 to see, but Super Troopers 2 costs $10 to see. Maybe they both start at $20, but over time, the price slowly declines until it leaves theaters based on how it&#x27;s performing. After all, the goal for theaters is get butts in seats so they can sell concession food anyway.<p>Where Netflix really stands out is their incentive is entirely different. They have one goal, to keep subscribers from unsubscribing for another month. As a result, they hope that when you&#x27;re bored and you turn on Netflix, something in their library catches your eye. Netflix has replaced the &#x27;randomly going to a theater&#x27; experience and as a result, many movies that perform poorly in the theaters can thrive on the platform. Who cares if a movie is a 30% Rotten Tomatoes candidate, when it cost you nothing at the moment to watch it, and you have nothing better going on anyway. It&#x27;s not an event, it&#x27;s a way to pass some time. It&#x27;s the new channel surfing...<p>All the film makers who end up being snobby about Netflix are missing the point entirely. Not all movies are suited for the $20, monster screen experience, and you can clearly see that with many experimental films crashing and burning hard in recent years. The cinema price is so prohibitive these days that a family doesn&#x27;t take any risks, they save their money for huge tent poles where the rating is virtually guaranteed. That&#x27;s a losing formula for experimental films who were never going to have broad appeal and it&#x27;s a shame that a segment of the film industry seems hell-bent on standing in the way of that alternative outlet. They should embrace it with open arms.
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ryanianianabout 7 years ago
God help us.<p>Apart from content, what hollywood movies offer is some competition on viewing experience. The netflix content is &#x27;fine&#x27;, but the UX is hateful and activates every anxiety center that exists in my brain. I get anxious just thinking about looking for content I might actually like on Netflix (and I&#x27;m not the anxious type!).<p>HBO&#x2F;Hulu&#x2F;Amazon are better in this regard for now. But it&#x27;s a sure bet that they will also go the netflix route of trying to push you to WATCH SOMETHING NOW versus mindfully choose something. (E.g. HBO-Go rarely has previews now - why would they show previews when you can just waste 20 minutes deciding you don&#x27;t like it?)<p>This says nothing of there being a half-dozen walled-garden services. You basically have to subscribe to all of them to see new-releases. Hollywood content: you pay per viewing. It&#x27;s annoying to pay $15+ for a movie (or be forced to buy it online when you just want to rent it for the weekend), but at least you don&#x27;t have to pay for a service every month that&#x27;s full of B-rate content that you hate to dredge through.<p>We&#x27;re on the edge of a dystopian version of &quot;the golden age of television.&quot;
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nickconferabout 7 years ago
The issue here is not is the theater still relevant, but can the economics continue to support theaters.<p>If the trends in ticket sales continue, it seems like theaters by and large could be a thing of the past. It really is not about whether a large group see it as still relevant, its can the theater business maintain a profitable industry if it loses x% of its patrons.<p>If ticket sales decline, profits shrink or losses grow. Changing the model another way might increase revenues for theaters (say a all-you-care-to-watch pass, which would likely increase food sales), but only if Holywood changes its revenue model as well. If they continue to charge theaters the same rates, that model likely wouldn&#x27;t work well. Further, if Holywood had to lose revenue, would it be more interested to work with other streaming services first, or create a competing service, versus go to the theaters?<p>To me the MoviePass subscription company is almost a Trojan Horse. While they continue to burn and lose money, and grow subscribers, they are making their subscribers see their experience as the new norm. If they go out of business, these subscribers now have to chose if they want to pay for each pass again individually (very expensive in comparison). Likewise, if theaters and Hollywood make a deal, it cuts their own revenue significantly. Its almost a lose&#x2F;lose situation.<p>All this is just some of whats hurting Hollywood and the theaters. You also have personal politics growing sharper, a Millennial generation that doesn&#x27;t value these experiences as highly, a fundamental change in how reviews are looked at, no longer being as easily controlled (RottenTomatoes), 3D movies not holding peoples interest, etc..<p>Its a bumpy road that doesn&#x27;t seem to be getting much smoother.
HenryBemisabout 7 years ago
&gt; And guess what: MoviePass now has 2 million subscribers. People want this service. The bad news is that the company is simply bleeding money.<p>Seems like they want to become a monopoly, or get to the size that it would be profitable to run the business.<p>Netflix has a mortal enemy: the Cinemas.<p>Hollywood&#x2F;Cannes (movie makers in general) prefer to have the multitude of channels than having Netflix, which can be a monopoly. If Netflix doesn&#x27;t like XYZ studio it can shut it down if it becomes a monopoly. And by &quot;like&quot; I mean, set&#x2F;extort&#x2F;define the pricing.<p>Having a unique outlet is not the best idea. Netflix wants to be _it_.<p>I don&#x27;t think Netflix is the future of film. I will always want to watch Star Trek&#x2F;Star Wars&#x2F;Avengers&#x2F;etc on a 10-20 _meters_ screen, eating popcorn, rather than on the 10-..-50 _inches_ of a monitor&#x2F;TV&#x2F;tablet eating pizza.<p>To be honest I like both. But Netflix wants to change the model.
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isthatartabout 7 years ago
The real problem is that people want to watch movies for free, so Netflix tries to take a little bit of $ from a huge population, while Hollywood tries to take lots of $ from the few patrons left. On the average Netflix movies are better than the average (legacy?) movie, IMO the logical step is that Netflix will suck all the talent by making the movie makers to compete for the few shows distributed by Netflix. Same story as in the ridiculous Gold OA in academic publishing <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;uYN0I" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;uYN0I</a>
justherefortartabout 7 years ago
I gave up on theaters well over a decade ago.<p>To me theaters are like Malls vs the Internet. Your time is coming, quickly.
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open-source-uxabout 7 years ago
Netflix is thriving outside the US too - and challenging the dominance of traditional TV broadcasters.<p>For example, the UK and Germany are two of Netflix&#x27;s largest markets in Europe.<p>In the UK, Netflix is more popular than the BBC&#x27;s iPlayer on-demand service. The BBC has released some series with all episodes available at the same time - clearly influenced by Netflix.<p>Competition from Netflix is a good thing, and it will be interesting to see how broadcasters respond.
larrikabout 7 years ago
&quot;Studios are lagging behind for the very simple reason that they are relying on retreads and reboots, and most of those aren’t being well received.&quot;<p>I hear how badly the movie industry is doing, while they keep breaking sales records. I don&#x27;t believe it at all. It is, and always has been, a hits-oriented business. This means profitability analysis is total nonsense.
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nimishabout 7 years ago
Theater owners are both extremely powerful and extremely weak: they have put their foot down on any improvements to the film distribution process out of existential fear of losing their early film run monopoly. The studios still need the distribution power of the theaters so they comply.<p>In the uk all of the chains have a movie pass subscription deal. The problem is that it is per-chain and nobody cares which theater shows the avengers. And films that you don&#x27;t care about the spectacle of don&#x27;t need a 30&#x27; screen.<p>The rise of fake IMAX and 3d is basically desperation moves to add value. Nobody likes the shitty experience of crap food and drinks (so smaller, high end chains with good food and experience are doing fine) but the big multiplex experience is a uniform and really expensive cartel.
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jo_elabout 7 years ago
One knock against Netflix is that I’ve been told they pay-less-than standard wages to non-actor, union workers. This means the prop designers, cameramen&#x2F;women etc get paid less to work on Netflix productions.
ebbvabout 7 years ago
The future of bad films.<p>My wife and I give most of the netflix movies and shows a shot but the batting average is unfortunately really low. At least for us. We thought &quot;Bright&quot; and &quot;Titan&quot; were absolutely terrible.<p>And it&#x27;s not like we&#x27;re snobs, we&#x27;re looking forward to &quot;Infinity War&quot; even though it&#x27;s silly and dumb. The writing the Netflix movies is mostly really horrible, though.<p>I hope they make some better movies because the world does not need more bad or even mediocre ones. We have plenty.
EastLondonCoderabout 7 years ago
I like to be able to see film in a theatre, and as far as I can see the only way of having theatres work out financially is for them to have a short monopoly on screening the film before they go to streaming services. For me the combo of Odeon limitless and Netflix&#x2F;Prime&#x2F;Iplayer&#x2F;BFIplayer works quite well. But I think that Netflix would need to be ok to release their productions cinema first in order for theatres to still have a viable business model.
irlnabout 7 years ago
The Future of Film? I love Netflix, however, isn&#x27;t the jury still out if their pricing model is sustainable given their debt issuance?
no1youknowzabout 7 years ago
The theater is ripe for disruption. I cannot stand going and in over 25 years the amount of times I have gone is 2.<p>I cannot wait until someone brings out VR which immerses the wearer into a theater experience. That is, big screen and thx sound. Plus, for those who &quot;absolutely&quot; need to have other people there. It being VR you can have people from all over the world (who you know) also join and collectively watch it.<p>I hope netflix also starts creating a worldwide catalogue of films. Which would do 2 things. Downplay piracy and also increase profits.<p>Praise be, when I read that the last theatre chain has gone under and the way of blockbuster!<p>Oh and one more thing. There&#x27;s another revenue stream and 2d fails to realise this. How about being the lead in a film? How about both watching the movie and then actually figuring out puzzles, or needing to defeat the bad guy. Or what about actually having a movie that branches depending on your own experience?<p>With the rise of AI for video and lyrabird for audio. Maybe one day it&#x27;s just a case of actors signing away their Avatar for their talents, a director AI creates the film and the user consumes it.<p>That&#x27;s why I hope Netflix is the future of film. Current film is dead and has no-where to go.
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gormzabout 7 years ago
I hope not. If people want to hate on hollywood for holding so much share in film, why would you want it to go to ONE company. Netflix is a corporation and we all know corporations are inherently evil. Given enough time, Netflix may murder all people who don&#x27;t subscribe to make smut for it&#x27;s subscribers.
throwaway84742about 7 years ago
God I hope not. The overwhelming majority of their shows are badly produced, drawn out drivel. It’s kind of like paying someone not for the results, but for hours billed: there’s a strong possibility this incentive will become the maximization objective for the payee.
caligarnabout 7 years ago
Putting the beauty and power of going to the movie theater aside, I think what is most powerful about Netflix, and something they learned from HBO, is how to give the directors&#x2F;writers&#x2F;producers more autonomy over their work. This is something TV execs have failed to do again and again. I think the problem is this does not translate to cinema. Films are a much more tight medium where spreading your wings and entertaining a multitude of ideas fudges the thrust of the narrative. With TV, we are willing to entertain long arches of story that wind and weave without a clear endpoint or direction. Let’s take Game of Thrones, for example, it’s rarely quite clear what is going to happen. We do have the specter of the Khaleesi and the white walkers arriving on the shores of Westeros, but throughout you have an overarching theme of uncertainty with any and all of the characters. Cinema would not allow this kind of uncertainty. And that’s exactly one of the reasons why superhero movies do so well. They have a clear and crisp narrative that we go to the cinema to satisfy. Being nuanced in film is much harder because in film you also have to be blunt. In film, you must pay more close attention to the heroes journey. In TV, you can hack and toy with it.<p>This is why I think Netflix thrives in TV shows but flounders in cinema. Cinema requires tight thinking and TV requires open thinking. Netflix, by its business model and Silicon Valley culture, is inherently an open culture. They are willing to entertain and support the ideas of creators. Now, you might argue, hey look at A24, they allow their creators a lot of space and still pull off great cinema like Ex Machina and Moonlight. I think Netflix hasn’t quite made it there yet but is inching towards it with movies like Annihilation. Annihilation also tries to do too much but it is succinct as compared to Bright. That’s A24’s strength it picks and guides its creators towards succinct storylines that, in the end, are powerful.<p>I think the best example of the above points is how weak Netflix superhero shows are overall compared to its big hits like Stranger Things and House of Cards. With superhero stories, they are inherently tight: the hero must win. There isn’t much room for subtlety and so these shows tend not to catch on. It doesn’t play to Netflix’s open-ended storytelling strengths (and granted their production value is usually B level). Whereas with Stranger Things, the open-ended nature of the story keeps the viewer entranced.<p>Unless Netflix hires some people who understand these fundamental issues at its top levels, it will be hard for them to really innovate on cinema. IMHO.
dawnerdabout 7 years ago
I’ll keep going to the theater until Netflix can stream disc quality video and audio.
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bdreadzabout 7 years ago
netflix starts it&#x27;s own high end theaters. Think how rad that would be that maybe they hold back on a season finale of a show and you see the last one in a theater. Then the next day it releases on the service. Get to be around a bunch of people chatting about theories. Or something along those lines. Upgrade your account package to include seeing stuff in their venues. Make it an experience around their flagship shows. I&#x27;d go.
perseusprime11about 7 years ago
Netflix will eventually reinvent the theatre experience just like how they got into originals. Going to movies will become fun with AR &amp; VR.
ryanisnanabout 7 years ago
The bit about Spielberg just sounded like an old man complaining about something he doesn&#x27;t understand.
blandermanabout 7 years ago
Submarine article for MoviePass?
originalsimbaabout 7 years ago
Hey I just wanted to let everyone know that the year 2000 called.
grendeltabout 7 years ago
&quot;film&quot;
shmerlabout 7 years ago
It&#x27;s quite weird for Steven Spielberg. I thought he isn&#x27;t one of those backwards thinking legacy execs. I guess he is.<p>All of this has nothing to do with evaluating art, but it&#x27;s simply a jerk reaction of legacy distribution business to innovative disruption. Film directors should know better.
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