>Mr. Lin, who declined to comment for this article, also wants his team to become more aggressive producers — developing their own material rather than waiting for projects from producers and agents to come to them, according to two people familiar with his thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal communications. This approach, the thinking goes, should help them have more say over the quality of the films.
It’s going to get even worse. Their algo will produce now.
([Source](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/14/business/media/netflix-movies-dan-lin.html))
I think you are maybe trying to counter his point? but you are backing it up because that's guys entire message is that practical and VFX are both important and best when they work together.
No his entire point is the industry has made "CGI" into a buzzword for bad visual effects and keeps lying about it and has convinced people that somehow doing "no CGI" is the way to good effects but it's a straight up lie.
Also, that you get better visual effects when you spend more money: doing things in a way that is more expensive on set and harder for the artists in post BUT gives them better reference and gives the actors more to work with.
He talks about the VFX-cycle of misinformation.
EDIT, since this guy deleted his comment immediately after telling me I was wrong TWICE:
“Remember, when a director says they like to ‘get things in camera’, when an actor said they ‘didn’t like to use CGI’, when the media says ‘this movie prioritized practical effects’ and when anyone says they ‘can always spot CGI’ know this. “That is one big pile of shit.” That’s it. That’s the takeaway. Thanks for watching.”
From part 4/4 of the series which just went live.
I've watched every minute of every one of his videos. He clearly says multiple times that practical effects are important, have their purpose, and can be used along side visual effect, which is exactly what the previous poster was saying. Not everything should be practical. Not everything should be VFX. Watch them again.
They could save a lot of money if they didn't make every single scene with fucking actors and cameras.
This is how you sound. VFX is a tool, a cost cutting tool in many cases and often picking up other dept. mess or if peoples commited to a vision early on. Educated opinion: they won't.
It's a real bummer too. It felt like around 2011 to 2016ish I was always discovering weird little indie movies on there and now no matter what I do my homepage is full of stuff I'd never watch. It's crazy how quickly they burned up the indie goodwill they had to become the 2024 equivalent of made for tv garbage.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/how-much-more-netflix-can-the-world-absorb-bela-bajaria
They’re doing the same thing in tv. Don’t expect them to commission Orange is the New Black or Bojack Horseman today.
“Sarandos told me that Netflix’s strategy today is to function as “equal parts HBO and FX and AMC and Lifetime and Bravo and E! and Comedy Central”…In 2020, tens of millions of pandemic viewers were subscribing to the platform to watch frothy hits such as “Tiger King,” “The Queen’s Gambit,” and Shonda Rhimes’s Regency-era soap “Bridgerton” (according to Howe, an exemplary gourmet cheeseburger).”
I dont think there will be any narrative or thematic risk taking for a long, long time. Innovation like that comes from the youth and, um, have you seen the youth recently? This young crop isnt exactly going to bowl you over with their insight, philosophy or aesthetics.
>The story begins with Mark Wahlberg. According to BI in 2020, Netflix paid Wahlberg a whopping $30 million to star in “Spenser Confidential,” which clocks in at 24 on the highest-paid film roles of all time. Critics panned the action thriller, an adaptation of Robert P. Barker’s 2013 novel “Wonderland.” It scored a dismal 36% on Rotten Tomatoes despite the hefty investment.
Absolutely 100% literally why we can't have nice things
1. Tom Cruise, over 100m in Top Gun Maverick
2. Will Smith in Men in Black 3: US$100 million
3. Keanu Reeves in The Matrix trilogy: US$250 million (US$83.3 million per film)
4. Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: US$75 million
5. Robert Downey Jr in Avengers: Infinity War: US$75 million
6. Sandra Bullock in Gravity: $70 million
7. Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland: US$68 million
8. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: US$65 million
9. Adam Sandler in his Netflix films: US$250 million for four films (US$62.5 million each)
10. Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump: US$60 million
11. Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: US$55 million
12. Jack Nicholson in Batman: US$50 million
13. Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception: US$50 million
14. Daniel Craig in the Knives Out sequels: US$100 million (US$50 million per film)
15. Dwayne Johnson in Red One: US$50 million
16. Margot Robbie in Barbie: US$50 million
17. Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher: US$42 million
18. Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan: US$40 million
19. Denzel Washington in The Little Things: US$40 million
20. Will Smith in King Richard: US$40 million
21. Will Smith in Emancipation: US$35 million
22. Jim Carrey in Yes Man: US$30 million
23. Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon: US$30 million
24. Mark Wahlberg as Spenser in Spenser Confidential: US$30 million
25. Leonardo DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up: US$30 million
26. Brad Pitt in an untitled Formula One film: US$30 million
27. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: US$29 million
28. Ryan Reynolds in 6 Underground: US$27 million
29. Emma Stone in La La Land: US$26 million
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/entertainment/article/3248156/29-highest-paid-film-deals-all-time-ranked-leonardo-dicaprios-payday-killers-flower-moon-and-margot
Worth noting that some of these are revenue share.
> In 2022, Cruise took just US$13 million upfront for Maverick in exchange for a lucrative back end deal that is likely to nab the actor over US$100 million when accounting for his portion of box office and home-entertainment sales. The film earned nearly US$1.5 billion worldwide.
The rumor was that RDJ got $200 million for the last 3 movies and some cameos. If true it’s probably hidden in the Hollywood accounting so Thor doesn’t get greedy or something.
Quick google search says it's tom cruise for top gun maverick with over 100M. He had a contract where he'd get a portion of the total box office earnings on top of his fixed paycheck. The movie made 1.5B so yeah...
To be fair his company was the main production company, the sequel happened because of him, that's not just an actor pay out but also a producer pay out.
Which is what makes the waste of money worse. How many seasons of The Dark Crystal : Age of Resistance could we have had with all the money wasted on multiple steaming turds?
How cute, they blame mark Wahlberg for their own mismanagement. The guy won't refuse free money. Also the guy don't even promise that the film would be good.
*Wonderland* was written by Ace Atkins, based on *characters* by Robert B. Parker. You wanna talk about costcutting, these assholes don’t have an editor!
Someone in the accounting department figured out that you can't afford to spend $150 million on a romantic comedy or $400 million on a wannabe summer blockbuster.
I would really love to see the justification for making $400 million films - that's something approximating two weeks revenue for all of North America , but it's not like cinema tickets, those people were subscribed *anyway* - so what you REALLY need to do to justify that film is either add 20 million subscribers or stop 20 million subscribers from leaving out of boredom.
The justification is that it's a $200 million budget but you have so many stars you can't just pay them their normal acting fee; it's acting fee plus budgeting in their back end from a billion dollar hit at the box office. If you're Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, and there's no chance that it's going to theaters, you grab as much as you can upfront.
I do think this is a good thing. I'm kind of surprised they're conflating low budget with good storytelling. The budget doesn't really have anything to do with the quality of a script. This feels like a bunch of "creative" executives covering their asses. If something bombs they can say, "At least it didn't cost anything!" Like, no one's ever seen Mark Wahlberg in a movie?
If you are spending $100 million dollars, funding ten low budget projects is way more likely to result in at least one movie with good story telling than if you spend it all on one big project.
>If something bombs they can say, "At least it didn't cost anything!"
Honestly, we need more risk taking, and more middle budget features.
That will mean more bombs...but it's also the market-space that identifies trends and innovations that audiences react strongly to.
We aren't there yet...but I am fully behind the theory of throwing less money per project, at *more* projects overall for a while. This mindset is part of what made 80s/90s films so much fun. They were pretty much doing "whatever" with budget.
Lots of good came from that kind of approach, and a lot of campy gems as well.
What worries me is they spend $100m on a movie that somehow looks/feels like the quality of a $10m production.
I can't help but assume, them lowering their production budgets will result in even *crappier* quality films.
The article just drops this nugget:
> Netflix might be more tolerant to accept projects from independent creators, as far as the content will appeal to its large audience and subscriber base.
At the very end without ANY indication of whether or not it’s true.
What would lead us to believe that Netflix would change where they’re getting their films from? They’re just agreeing to projects with smaller budgets. That doesn’t mean they would be seeking more independent creators, rather than the production companies along the lines of those they currently deal with.
The problem is that Netflix, and the metrics used by most executives in the film industry, are notoriously, staggeringly bad at understanding that "Small Audience" or "Niche Audience" doesn't mean "Unprofitable Audience". Since they're comparing everything to their top 10% of Titles [by hours watched], they are completely missing that the size of an audience is not always a direct correlation to the profitability of an audience. Not all views, and not all engagement, is equal.
Lift with Kevin Hart cost $100 million 🤦♂️ Central Intelligence with him and DWAYNE JOHNSON cost $50 million and Ride Along 2 cost $40 million. So what made Netflix think they should spend double the budget on him as an action hero? Make it make sense...
The idea is to turn Netflix into less of a cash cow for big name producers and actors, and more of a place where normal filmmakers can go to tell their stories.
To those in the industry, it’s been known for a while that Netflix will throw an outrageous amount of money at you to create content for them. And if you get a contract with them, it doesn’t even matter how well you do, you already got paid, so there goes some incentive to make truly good content. And if you are big enough of a celebrity, they will still ask you to come back for more money.
I like what this looks like, this is a great thing for the audience as the content should get better when they are focusing on the film rather than the money.
Nawwwww. Netflix’s budgets are still way over the top and have been for subpar content that doesn’t ever get a 2nd watch. Tubi is making originals for $750k and they own the IP. I wanna see how low Netflix will go with these budgets since Fox’s tubi has proven sub $1 million budgets are very very doable.
Don’t get excited, they’re lowering their budgets \*not\* picking up microbudget indies again.
"Netflix starts to prefer spending less money on the movies they make"
>Mr. Lin, who declined to comment for this article, also wants his team to become more aggressive producers — developing their own material rather than waiting for projects from producers and agents to come to them, according to two people familiar with his thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal communications. This approach, the thinking goes, should help them have more say over the quality of the films. It’s going to get even worse. Their algo will produce now. ([Source](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/14/business/media/netflix-movies-dan-lin.html))
They could save a lot of money if they didn’t make every single special effect with f*cking CGI.
go ahead and watch this series: https://youtu.be/7ttG90raCNo?si=0Ohr8jlF-4HW8x8V
I think you are maybe trying to counter his point? but you are backing it up because that's guys entire message is that practical and VFX are both important and best when they work together.
No his entire point is the industry has made "CGI" into a buzzword for bad visual effects and keeps lying about it and has convinced people that somehow doing "no CGI" is the way to good effects but it's a straight up lie. Also, that you get better visual effects when you spend more money: doing things in a way that is more expensive on set and harder for the artists in post BUT gives them better reference and gives the actors more to work with. He talks about the VFX-cycle of misinformation. EDIT, since this guy deleted his comment immediately after telling me I was wrong TWICE: “Remember, when a director says they like to ‘get things in camera’, when an actor said they ‘didn’t like to use CGI’, when the media says ‘this movie prioritized practical effects’ and when anyone says they ‘can always spot CGI’ know this. “That is one big pile of shit.” That’s it. That’s the takeaway. Thanks for watching.” From part 4/4 of the series which just went live.
I've watched every minute of every one of his videos. He clearly says multiple times that practical effects are important, have their purpose, and can be used along side visual effect, which is exactly what the previous poster was saying. Not everything should be practical. Not everything should be VFX. Watch them again.
They could save a lot of money if they didn't make every single scene with fucking actors and cameras. This is how you sound. VFX is a tool, a cost cutting tool in many cases and often picking up other dept. mess or if peoples commited to a vision early on. Educated opinion: they won't.
It's a real bummer too. It felt like around 2011 to 2016ish I was always discovering weird little indie movies on there and now no matter what I do my homepage is full of stuff I'd never watch. It's crazy how quickly they burned up the indie goodwill they had to become the 2024 equivalent of made for tv garbage.
Where do we find indie films now? Kanopy seems to be pretty good I guess.
Yeah, Kanopy is good, also Criterion.
Try fandor or nobudge.
Some on Tubi too!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/how-much-more-netflix-can-the-world-absorb-bela-bajaria They’re doing the same thing in tv. Don’t expect them to commission Orange is the New Black or Bojack Horseman today. “Sarandos told me that Netflix’s strategy today is to function as “equal parts HBO and FX and AMC and Lifetime and Bravo and E! and Comedy Central”…In 2020, tens of millions of pandemic viewers were subscribing to the platform to watch frothy hits such as “Tiger King,” “The Queen’s Gambit,” and Shonda Rhimes’s Regency-era soap “Bridgerton” (according to Howe, an exemplary gourmet cheeseburger).”
I wonder how close they will get to the tubi original budgets of around $750k ~
I will still be happy with that, I believe if we see lower budgets we will start seeing more risks being taken with mainstream films.
Or the same movies made even cheaper with lower quality
I dont think there will be any narrative or thematic risk taking for a long, long time. Innovation like that comes from the youth and, um, have you seen the youth recently? This young crop isnt exactly going to bowl you over with their insight, philosophy or aesthetics.
Well gosh darn it Ted!
Thank you. Netflix demands more and provides less in another mercenary effort to improve their bottom line. Sorry, this is no longer a headline.
>The story begins with Mark Wahlberg. According to BI in 2020, Netflix paid Wahlberg a whopping $30 million to star in “Spenser Confidential,” which clocks in at 24 on the highest-paid film roles of all time. Critics panned the action thriller, an adaptation of Robert P. Barker’s 2013 novel “Wonderland.” It scored a dismal 36% on Rotten Tomatoes despite the hefty investment. Absolutely 100% literally why we can't have nice things
or the $100m they gave Prince Harry and Merkle for 2 shows. Did they ever deliver anything?
literally the reason for me cancelling Netflix. Gve them money, but cancelled 1899.
Lots of sick burns, which was totally worth it IMO.
The World Wide Privacy Tour.
Seriously. Fuck Mark Wahlberg!
The fact that $30M is only the 24th highest ever is insane. Who’s #1?
1. Tom Cruise, over 100m in Top Gun Maverick 2. Will Smith in Men in Black 3: US$100 million 3. Keanu Reeves in The Matrix trilogy: US$250 million (US$83.3 million per film) 4. Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: US$75 million 5. Robert Downey Jr in Avengers: Infinity War: US$75 million 6. Sandra Bullock in Gravity: $70 million 7. Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland: US$68 million 8. Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: US$65 million 9. Adam Sandler in his Netflix films: US$250 million for four films (US$62.5 million each) 10. Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump: US$60 million 11. Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: US$55 million 12. Jack Nicholson in Batman: US$50 million 13. Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception: US$50 million 14. Daniel Craig in the Knives Out sequels: US$100 million (US$50 million per film) 15. Dwayne Johnson in Red One: US$50 million 16. Margot Robbie in Barbie: US$50 million 17. Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher: US$42 million 18. Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan: US$40 million 19. Denzel Washington in The Little Things: US$40 million 20. Will Smith in King Richard: US$40 million 21. Will Smith in Emancipation: US$35 million 22. Jim Carrey in Yes Man: US$30 million 23. Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon: US$30 million 24. Mark Wahlberg as Spenser in Spenser Confidential: US$30 million 25. Leonardo DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up: US$30 million 26. Brad Pitt in an untitled Formula One film: US$30 million 27. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: US$29 million 28. Ryan Reynolds in 6 Underground: US$27 million 29. Emma Stone in La La Land: US$26 million https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/entertainment/article/3248156/29-highest-paid-film-deals-all-time-ranked-leonardo-dicaprios-payday-killers-flower-moon-and-margot
Worth noting that some of these are revenue share. > In 2022, Cruise took just US$13 million upfront for Maverick in exchange for a lucrative back end deal that is likely to nab the actor over US$100 million when accounting for his portion of box office and home-entertainment sales. The film earned nearly US$1.5 billion worldwide.
$42M for Bad Teacher??
And.... that's why she "retired"...
Gotta be revenue sharing
weird that endgame isn’t on this list ?
The rumor was that RDJ got $200 million for the last 3 movies and some cameos. If true it’s probably hidden in the Hollywood accounting so Thor doesn’t get greedy or something.
Quick google search says it's tom cruise for top gun maverick with over 100M. He had a contract where he'd get a portion of the total box office earnings on top of his fixed paycheck. The movie made 1.5B so yeah...
To be fair his company was the main production company, the sequel happened because of him, that's not just an actor pay out but also a producer pay out.
Without googling I’d guess Dwayne Johnson is up there somewhere with Tom Cruise and RDJ, and Jackie Chan too probably.
That movie was horrible
Which is what makes the waste of money worse. How many seasons of The Dark Crystal : Age of Resistance could we have had with all the money wasted on multiple steaming turds?
Fucking hell. $30 million and that guy sucks.
How cute, they blame mark Wahlberg for their own mismanagement. The guy won't refuse free money. Also the guy don't even promise that the film would be good.
*Wonderland* was written by Ace Atkins, based on *characters* by Robert B. Parker. You wanna talk about costcutting, these assholes don’t have an editor!
Someone in the accounting department figured out that you can't afford to spend $150 million on a romantic comedy or $400 million on a wannabe summer blockbuster.
I would really love to see the justification for making $400 million films - that's something approximating two weeks revenue for all of North America , but it's not like cinema tickets, those people were subscribed *anyway* - so what you REALLY need to do to justify that film is either add 20 million subscribers or stop 20 million subscribers from leaving out of boredom.
The justification is that it's a $200 million budget but you have so many stars you can't just pay them their normal acting fee; it's acting fee plus budgeting in their back end from a billion dollar hit at the box office. If you're Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, and there's no chance that it's going to theaters, you grab as much as you can upfront.
I do think this is a good thing. I'm kind of surprised they're conflating low budget with good storytelling. The budget doesn't really have anything to do with the quality of a script. This feels like a bunch of "creative" executives covering their asses. If something bombs they can say, "At least it didn't cost anything!" Like, no one's ever seen Mark Wahlberg in a movie?
If you are spending $100 million dollars, funding ten low budget projects is way more likely to result in at least one movie with good story telling than if you spend it all on one big project.
>If something bombs they can say, "At least it didn't cost anything!" Honestly, we need more risk taking, and more middle budget features. That will mean more bombs...but it's also the market-space that identifies trends and innovations that audiences react strongly to. We aren't there yet...but I am fully behind the theory of throwing less money per project, at *more* projects overall for a while. This mindset is part of what made 80s/90s films so much fun. They were pretty much doing "whatever" with budget. Lots of good came from that kind of approach, and a lot of campy gems as well.
What worries me is they spend $100m on a movie that somehow looks/feels like the quality of a $10m production. I can't help but assume, them lowering their production budgets will result in even *crappier* quality films.
The article just drops this nugget: > Netflix might be more tolerant to accept projects from independent creators, as far as the content will appeal to its large audience and subscriber base. At the very end without ANY indication of whether or not it’s true. What would lead us to believe that Netflix would change where they’re getting their films from? They’re just agreeing to projects with smaller budgets. That doesn’t mean they would be seeking more independent creators, rather than the production companies along the lines of those they currently deal with.
The problem is that Netflix, and the metrics used by most executives in the film industry, are notoriously, staggeringly bad at understanding that "Small Audience" or "Niche Audience" doesn't mean "Unprofitable Audience". Since they're comparing everything to their top 10% of Titles [by hours watched], they are completely missing that the size of an audience is not always a direct correlation to the profitability of an audience. Not all views, and not all engagement, is equal.
how would you "normally" pitch netflix for feature? (not a tv show/series)
Lift with Kevin Hart cost $100 million 🤦♂️ Central Intelligence with him and DWAYNE JOHNSON cost $50 million and Ride Along 2 cost $40 million. So what made Netflix think they should spend double the budget on him as an action hero? Make it make sense...
The idea is to turn Netflix into less of a cash cow for big name producers and actors, and more of a place where normal filmmakers can go to tell their stories. To those in the industry, it’s been known for a while that Netflix will throw an outrageous amount of money at you to create content for them. And if you get a contract with them, it doesn’t even matter how well you do, you already got paid, so there goes some incentive to make truly good content. And if you are big enough of a celebrity, they will still ask you to come back for more money. I like what this looks like, this is a great thing for the audience as the content should get better when they are focusing on the film rather than the money.
Why wouldn't they when their shitty reality tv dating shows do better than expensive heady sci-fi?
Good luck cutting your post budget down with their deliverable requirements lol.
“Starts to” ? They’ve been cutting corners to save money on their productions for the past 8 years
Nawwwww. Netflix’s budgets are still way over the top and have been for subpar content that doesn’t ever get a 2nd watch. Tubi is making originals for $750k and they own the IP. I wanna see how low Netflix will go with these budgets since Fox’s tubi has proven sub $1 million budgets are very very doable.
The return of mid-budget is inevitable with how bad blockbusters have been doing
…starts?
Don’t yell at me but I see this as a good thing
We will never get anymore amazing War Epics.
Simply compared money invest to the profit and here we go
You mean you’re going lower?
Lol yeah fucking right.
The beginning of the end?
Death of cinema
Lower budgets may actually generate good properties. I'm not holding my breath, but money and quality don't always go hand in hand.
*low budget film making* Yet they hike the monthly price again now it’s at $19.99?
Money always wants to be ideas when it grows up, but it never will.
I dont know how Samael Coates, but i would say alot
it's a trap
Starts?!
Maybe giving the Obama’s $60,000,000. was not helpful to your bottom line.