How 80 Netflix Originals next year could change filmmaking for the better
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You’re seeing more Netflix Originals on your subscription than ever, not to mention some of them are brilliant, with David Fincher’s Mindhunter and Stranger Things Season 2 finding their way onto the small screen this month. Netflix has announced they’re aiming to release 80 original movies next year.
Even for a major studio that’s a lot, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos says these original titles will range from small Sundance like indies to big-budget blockbusters like Bright, directed by David Ayer, starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton, which cost a total of $90 million by the way. One of these 80 films next year will be Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
Netflix has always aimed high, with their history of great content and diversity, they have every right to. But with 80 new movies being funded a year by a company that doesn’t have to rely on Box Office returns, potentially this signifies a turning point for filmmakers and auteurs especially. When Scorsese released Silence, it didn’t do well at the box office and this made it hard for it to create an award campaign, in fact, the same thing might happen this summer with Blade Runner 2049, an incredible big-budget art film which is losing millions of dollars for Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros (they distributed the movie). With a company like Netflix in the mix, they can sacrifice $150 million on projects like Blade Runner 2049 and potentially bring it to a wider audience of subscribers, who are only paying $7 a month. It’s genius.
Netflix can push the boundaries by giving auteurs and young filmmakers a playground for not only creating their vision but by distributing that vision to audiences that don’t have to pay $18 a ticket to see. No ratings to worry about, no box office returns to worry about – they don’t even have to pay for distribution. It’s the exact reason why adult Marvel characters appear on Netflix, why Oscar-nominated directors David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and now La La Land director Damien Chazelle have all turned to Netflix to produce their TV series.
Director David Fincher on the set of Columbia Pictures’ “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” starring Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig.
With more movies being made than ever anyways, to have a production company like Netflix which doesn’t suffer the consequences of lousy marketing, poor ticket sales or a limited audience due to age ratings – it’s revolutionary for the modern filmmaker. Course I still think you should see Blade Runner 2049 on the big screen but we wouldn’t mind sacrificing that opportunity to get more Blade Runner movies just as artistic for less the amount of money of a single cinema ticket.
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