The algorithm has spoken. All heed the algorithm.
We knew something was coming in regards to Netflix cutting back on their massive spending of projects. After all, in an earnings report on April 19, the company was said to have lost 44% of its stock value, and had 200,000 less subscribers to its name. Layoffs occurred. Total panic. And now, an anonymous source is telling THR that the days of giving great directors the wiggle room to make whatever passion project they want are long gone.
Netflix has a new mantra for their approach to their movies: “bigger, fewer, better.” But what exactly does that mean? “Small movies are not going to go away,” said one insider source, but another stated that “the goal will be to make the best version of something instead of cheapening out for the sake of quantity.”
One thing many agree on is that the era of expensive vanity projects at Netflix, whether animation or live action (like Martin Scorsese’s $175 million The Irishman), is likely over. “This tendency to do anything to attract talent and giving them carte blanche is going away,” says one person.
However, the really concerning paragraph for me is the claim that "a good portion of cuts have wiped out the family live action film division, and the original independent features division, which made movies in the under-$30 million budget range, has also seen its ranks cleaned out."
That independent features section is what produced films like “I'm Thinking of Ending Things”, “The Devil All the Time” and “Marriage Story”. So, there will be no more of those either. So much for Netflix being the savior of cinema.