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Since it burst forth fully formed, Netflix has been the king of announcements. Whatever else you say about the company, they put a bit of PT Barnum back into the business with a dazzling, multi-year string of announcements—things no one had imagined possible rained from their PR site—starting with full series for computers, then reanimating cult favorite sitcoms, a new talk show for David Letterman, a dozen movies for Adam Sandler, a Latin One Day at a Time, a Dave Chappelle special on breaking news produced practically overnight, a choose your own adventure, Martin Scorsese’s biggest budget film of his career.
Some turned out better than others, but it was impossible not to be impressed by the audacity and speed with which they kept doing things.
For the past few weeks, Netflix has been back in the press release game, seemingly every day with something else. But instead of wows, it’s been a lot more, hmm, really? Is Netflix just trying to be CBS? Or Disney? Or something else?
Thrown in with all sorts of mixed numbers lately, it seems that The Service has hit, if not a rough patch, certainly an awkward one. I wont say the free ride is over for the little studio that could, but it may be fast approaching the moment when it has to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.
Consider:
• Spiel the Beans. Let’s start with yesterday’s big big big BIG announcement.
How big? “It is a big deal for Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Scott Stuber” decreed Mike Fleming.
Headlined Variety! Shocker!
The Service revealed that Steven Spielberg would make things for it. Make things, that is, not direct. Or more specifically, his company would make things for The Service.
This is a big deal because Spielberg Himself had said that movies are things shown in theaters, and he wouldn’t make films that wouldn’t be released theatrically. But now he’s allowing his very own company to produce “movies” for the Stuber Experiment on Netflix.
Not that his company has been allergic to producing for TV before this. Having set the airwaves on fire over the past decade with their productions of Roswell, New Mexico, Resident Alien, Brave New World, Laurel Canyon, All About Washingtons, Reverie, American Gothic, The Whispers, Red Band Society, Extant, Lucky 7, Terra Nova, Smash, and the second go-round of Amazing Stories, to name a few.
So now the producer of that string of blockbusters is going to be making films. Which admittedly is crossing into a new frontier, as they’ll have to deliver them to the unimpeachable standards of The Stuber Experiment.
Question is: Is this a new production line, or just an outlet for the 1,000 projects Amblin has floating in purgatory based on things Himself was interested in for a week 23 years ago and optioned, before he got distracted and abandoned the new toy forever?
Note that the hallowed Spielberg name has not made Amblin immune from the fact that it’s getting very tough to get a theatrical release made and actually released out there today.
Not to mention, despite all the breathless coverage . . . iconic guardian saint of cinema though he may be, Spielberg circa 2021 is not precisely the dominant towering force of blockbusters as, say, 1991 Era Spielberg. I know it’s only been 30 years and it’s hard to keep track, but what in modern Amblin history would lead one to think that anything earth-shattering is going to emerge from this deal?
Or as the citizens of Google wonder if you search for Amblin:
• Buzz Buzz Buzz Went The Buzzer
Speaking of the Netflix film project, the past week saw this fascinating study on the “lasting buzz” generated by various movie projects (via WSJ)
To make that clear: the percent of Netflix films that retained “buzz” five months after release is zero.
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