The movie that proves Netflix is BROKEN

I want to tell you a weird little story about an average movie that did something strange a little while ago I got curious about Netflix's top 10 you know that silly little bar that tries to peer pressure us into also watching Rebel Moon Netflix was the first company to make a top 10 but now they are everywhere Apple TV plus has one Prime Video has one and of course Max has one and I get it one of the biggest problems with streaming is how tough it can be for a company like Netflix who's constantly churning out new shows and movies to surface stuff people actually want to watch and many of Netflix's biggest hits over the last few years have been somewhat viral series that charted on the top 10 take squid game like sure it's an incredible show word of mouth and positive reviews certainly helped to get it the attention it deserved but also it's a Korean series without any actor most American audiences recognize by name and it is called squid game something that on its face sounds gross and yet it became so popular so quickly that the corporations immediately divorced the brand from all meaning so they could use it to do more capitalism a process that usually takes at least a month so the top 10 was a huge success audiences liked it because it made the process of finding a new show less stupid creatives liked it because it seemed to reward quality shows and that would in theory lead to hypothetically getting paid more maybe someday and Netflix liked that people were able to easily find popular stuff which was frequently their own programming Netflix was also able to use the top 10 for advertising because up until this point all we really had were those esoteric figures like watch time like okay so a million people watch eternals this weekend is that like a good number compared to other weekends I have no idea but a movie hanging around at the number one spot on Netflix is top 10 for a month everybody knows what that means but as of now Netflix does one more thing that none of the other streamers do they publish the full numbers a weekly set of rankings that includes information like watch time and is even split up by country it's a lot of information and I'm glad they put it together because once you give it a look you notice some strange things like what tends to do well well TV is mostly Netflix originals and I think it's difficult to deny that Netflix shows are some of the best on TV in 2023 Netflix gave us beef blue-eyed Samurai House of Usher all the light we cannot see Scout Pilgrim takes off one piece and new seasons of Heart Stopper and I think you should leave sure there's plenty of trashy reality TV and stuff but Netflix does tend to produce quality TV series that people really like and they show up on the top 10 movies how ever are all over the place sure sometimes the top 10 is Netflix original movies that are great after all they are throwing money at creatives like Martin Scorsese David vure and Ryan Johnson so they end up with movies that are both critically acclaimed and people watch but those are also pretty rare for the most part on the movies top 10 you're looking at four things first there's Netflix originals that are decidedly not great but get a big push from the studio these are your Rebel moons and huie Halloween and thunder forces they'll hit the top 10 usually for a week and then disappear second you've got stuff for kids when you look at the numbers so many of Netflix's top 10 record holders are kids movies like sing too or Despicable Me too kids love them parents don't hate them so Netflix tends to snap up a lot of theatrically released movies directed at children and the kids watch which is fine unless third is softcore pornography I don't know if everybody remembers The Saga of 365 days an adaptation of a popular polish romance novel but it had a moment in the summer of 2020 365 days hit number one on Netflix's top 10 and it stayed there for 31 days which made it the longest streak of that year so for a full month in 2020 Netflix's most watched movie had multiple pretty explicit and also and this is just editorializing not very good sex scenes for a whole month June the month that Coco melon made it jump to Netflix and that might be a problem especially since outside of checking a box labeled kid when creating the account which limits that profile to only be able to see content for audiences 12 and younger none of the rest of the parental controls are shown up front I would imagine a lot of parents wouldn't even think to look for him and I'm not trying to sound like a concerned dad as Schoolboard meeting this just exists to illustrate an issue that you may already be noticing Netflix doesn't really have a brand anymore maybe it never did maybe it was always just the red streaming service but the top 10 illustrates how unfocused Netflix is outside of the top show and movie usually being a Netflix original and Coco melon being somewhere in the sevens or eights what else populates the list is anybody's guess original Fantasy series popular children's cartoons Stockholm syndrome romance novel it can be anything I wouldn't say Max fair is much better but they do have a somewhat consistent identity it's Prestige drama adult humor WB stuff so Batman Matrix Lord of the Rings and then I guess also Sesame Street after 365 days the movie not the amount of time Gasper knows love hit the top 10 love is a very different movie but it's even more shocking and at the time there was a viral Tik Tock trend for both 365 days and then for love where Tik tokers would react to the sex scenes so that definitely helped the whole thing get off the ground so when Netflix isn't for toddlers it's for horny teens on Tik Tok The Fourth Kind of movie on the Netflix top 10 is really the one that confounds me every so often a random movie that bombed theatrically will do really well on Netflix US seemingly based off star power and brand awareness telling audiences that like oh yeah this Shack was a theaters movie maybe it's good and even if it's not you usually need to get to the end of a movie like the Snowman to truly understand how bad it is and by then it's got your view but while investigating I happened upon one movie that didn't really fit into any of those categories it wasn't a Netflix original it wasn't for kids it wasn't porn and it wasn't a theatrically released movie with a big star that bombed so what was it doing at the number two spot the week of September 5th so let's talk about SAS rise of the black swans SAS rise of the black swans was written by Lawrence malcin and Andy McNab it was directed by Magnus Martins and stars Outlander Sam huan as Tom Buckingham and batwoman's Ruby Rose is Grace Lewis the best way I can describe SAS rise of the black swans is that it's one of those movies you know this might not make sense but Olympus Has Fallen is not one of those movies but London Has Fallen is inexpensive but not cheap not exciting but also not bad you certainly can watch it but I'd be surprised if you were raving about it it's 2 hours of by the Numbers action starring romantic leads that have almost some chemistry the plot is unnecessarily twisty it's way too long it didn't get a big theatrical push its biggest star is probably Andy Circus basic story goes like this Tom Wilkinson the guy with those bag ATS rip is the head of a mercenary company called the black swans his second in command is his sociopathic daughter played by Ruby Rose and in case you want to say well actually sociopathy is very different I hear you this is what the movie thinks it treats her like someone who is able to do the best killings because she has no empathy only kill it's dumb they're hired to do some secret Thing by a government official played by Andy Circus meanwhile a cop played by Outlander Sam huan is hot on the trails of black swans but he does not kill them bummer it's okay cuz he's about to go on vacation with his nurse girlfriend played by Ant-Man and the Wasps Hannah John came in where he plans to propose the two take a train but uh-oh while it's in a tunnel the train is hijacked by Ruby Rose and a bunch of goons as part of a scheme Sam huan being on the train is a complete coincidence but you know what that means die hard it's die hard in a stationary train in a tunnel Sam huan runs around the train a lot Ruby Rose chases him Hannah John cman does first aid and tries to rescue one little girl and also behind the scenes Andy Circus Noel Clark and Tom Hopper are all trying and failing to negotiate something or if that doesn't work just kill all the black swans which they mostly do eventually it turns out Ruby Rose was secretly working for the police and MI6 and pretty much everyone in the British government except Sam huan he stops to die hard and kills Ruby Rose but not before she exposes corruption andah John Cayman doesn't want to get married anymore because Sam huan is also a sociopath who loves murder then she changes her mind the end now I think you can see some of the flaws here Die Hard ripoffs are a dime a dozen plenty of movies include a scrappy Underdog navigating a hostage situation from Behind Enemy Lines and very few of them are that good hell there are really only Good Die Hard movies so why was this one doing so well why did this thoroughly average action movie without any huge stars or clear pitch make its way to the second spot on the biggest streaming service on Earth well SAS rise of the black swans was not always this movie's name it's actually only its name on Netflix because everywhere else this movie is listed by its original name SAS red notice now this charted on the week of September 5th 2021 can any of you guess what trailer also happened to debut that same week that's right on September 2nd 2021 Netflix dropped the first teaser trailer for their $200 million action comedy starring The Rock Ryan Reynolds and gal gdat red notice you probably don't remember much about red notice even though based on Netflix's numbers you're probably watching it right now we all are always red notice was the product of Dwayne the Rock the Tooth Fairy the gaml in the black adom then back to The Rock Johnson and Raider director Ross Marshall Thurber who also wrote and directed dodgeball skyscraper Ryan Hansen s's crimes on television and that Terry Tate office linebacker commercial that I still think about at least once a month the plot goes something like this Dwayne Johnson plays Josh Harley but it could easily be Frank Wolf Davis aoer will Sawyer Raymond Gaines or Hobbs but just from the fate of the Furious and Hobs and Shaw he's an FBI profiler not even an agent profiler with the body of a Hawaiian God he is smart polite and by the book but that doesn't mean he can't unwind after A Hard Day's Work work by enjoying the smoothest drink known to man teramana tequila neat label out Ryan Reynolds plays an art Thief named Nolan Booth but you can basically just call him Deadpool cuz that's what he's doing in this one like Jim Carrey If instead of maxing out humor he split those stats between humor and abs Booth is an art Thief who just stole one of Cleopatra's famous golden eggs and just as he's home free and gets ready to enjoy a tasty Aviation gin finds that a the egg was already stolen from him by another art thief and B the FBI is here and he's under arrest heart is also framed for the theft which doesn't even kind of make sense when we get to the third act but the pair Harley and Booth are both sent to a siberian prison by one interpole agent for an art theft that I'm pretty sure took place in Rome but whatever the two agree to team up to escape and find the remaining two eggs oh yeah there's three of them and then they're going to expose the Rival art Thief which will get boot the higher profile which he an art Thief for some reason wants and it will clear Harley's name and he can go back to being a friendly likable four quadrant FBI agent that plays well overseas now the Rival Bishop is played by the third Mega star in this Gadot and she is given more to do here than in anything else I've ever seen her in and it doesn't really work not everyone could play a free role I'd say this is better suited to a Tessa Thompson or Emily Blunt or zazzy beats or someone like that I could also see Lady Gaga or Zoe Salan or Ali very or Mary Luis Parker or Julia l dfus or Jennifer Aniston or Sal mahek point is I think we have a lot of good options but the real MVP of red notice is Chris deop playing a bad guy the gang runs a foul of named sovo and just by looking at this guy you're like he's going to have some accent and boy does he it is my sincere pleasure to welcome you all to my humble home this is a little bit of a tangent but it's my video so whatever I think christye mopis is so talented and not enough people know him by name you may recognize chrisy mopis from Silicon Valley Invincible Miss Davis Jedi Survivor Justice Society Skylanders the office The Three Stooges movie and what must be his biggest Money Maker currently the official voice of Mickey Mouse Andy's Greek I love Brett Goldstein as much as the next guy but Christy mopis should have been the MCU Hercules moving on I'll say action-wise red notice has its moments it's competently shot all the choreography is solid that's the thing besides the general Vibe there's nothing wrong with this movie but the vibe is bad like this movie is littered with cliches and listen I don't have anything against a well-used cliche after all they're cliches for a reason but there needs to be something new right otherwise like what are we watching just bits that have been done a million times stapled together in packag since very expensive wrapping paper like this movie is full of scenes where someone is already where the guy they were chasing is going and many of them don't make any sense but forgetting about logic it just gets boring like yeah this guy walked into a room and nothing immediately happened that must be the other guys in the room okay cool but also individual lines are nothing but cliches galgadot has an exchange with an analyst she has taken hostage where she drops rapid fire this is why we can't have nice things I'm not angry I'm just disappointed I really thought you were different and well fool me once it is the least quotable movie ever because every quote would come from another movie this is to say red notice is fine very well-shot action with stars very competently doing their thing but besides the very specific combination of actors there really is not anything new here so wait does this mean people saw the red notice trailer went to see if it was already on Netflix found a movie called SAS red notice and assumed that that was the one with the rock but then they watched it for more than 5 minutes and then just finished it and not like a couple of people but like millions of people watched this movie at least originally thinking it was a completely different movie and you may be saying well maybe these people did not know this wasn't the real one like maybe they just knew red notice but nothing else I would buy that if the movie was not sold exclusively on the star power of Dwayne Johnson Ryan Reynolds and galad do I don't think those V diagrams overlap very much like people who were excited enough about red notice on the day the trailer came out that they tried to watch it immediately and people who don't know who is in red notice but you may be saying well it might not have been the most watched movie but that doesn't mean everyone finished it and since we don't know how the top 10 list qualifies a view it would be completely plausible that people watch the movie for 2 minutes the amount of time that some rumors point to being the basis for review and then turned it off after five so SAS Black Swan would have High View numbers but low overall watch time however we can see from from their Global charts that SAS red Swan or whatever we're calling it was also the movie with the second highest watch time of that week it got 32 m730 th000 hours for reference when Fear Street part 3 premiered in July of that year it got 20, 80,000 hours so Netflix's heavily anticipated and heavily advertised horror Trilogy finale scored 17 million fewer watch hours than the average spy movie that most people seem to be watching by accident so what does this say about the platform while Netflix's brand with TV is strong its movie brand has been slipping for a while I remember the red letter Media review of Cloverfield Paradox describing Netflix as the new direct to video like forgettable movies and I'm absolutely not saying that Netflix's originals are all terrible but I wouldn't say that the brand is strong if any random movie that no one saw 10 years ago is able to Rocket up the charts past the entire Netflix film catalog and as a media company it is great that you announce your $200 million Mega Movie people turn it on and see a movie that can't have cost more than $20 million to make and think yeah that's probably it it would be like if Disney put out a trailer for the new Avatar movie and people went to Disney plus found the Airbender movie that everyone hates and just watched it never realizing they didn't watch the right one just like yeah I guess these water people don't like that guy with the scar who knew and I think it comes down to how we cons Sue media these days and the contradiction at the heart of Netflix you see it used to be that TV was consumed both passively and actively you had a show you wanted to watch so you made time you tuned in and you shut up called appointment viewing but also maybe you put on TBS while you were cleaning up and very casually checked in on an office Marathon for a few hours to show in the background both of those were normal and the problem is Netflix wants to be appointment viewing but it has conditioned us to expect shows in the background in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter actor and filmmaker Justine baitman someone who did a lot of work before my time so I mostly know her as Nelly from arresta development talked about her experiences with streaming companies saying I've heard from showrunners who are given notes from the streamers that this isn't second screen enough meaning the viewer's primary screen is their phone and the laptop and they don't want anything on your show to distract them from their primary screen because if they get distracted they might look up be confused and go it off I heard somebody use this term before they want a visual musac when showrunners are getting notes like that are they able to do their best work no and whether purposefully or not that appears to be the environment Netflix has created and that environment is not compatible with appointment viewing but they want to have it both ways in 2018 Netflix released the Christmas Chronicles starring Kurt Russell is Santa Claus which was fine there was less Kurt Russell than you'd expect in outside of a musical number I can't remember Much from the movie although I'm pretty sure an elf tried to cut a kid in half with the chainsaw but at the time Netflix's Chief content officer Ted Sandos said that according to Russell the Christmas Chronicles had the most impact of any of the actor's movies after its release it's because even in his successful career he's never had that many people see one of his movies in the first week ever zando said that's a testimony to what we can bring to the market for storytellers today that we couldn't have 10 years ago which a no it is ludicrous to say that this movie had the biggest impact on Kurt Russell's career that data just doesn't tell the whole story for instance we don't know how Netflix calculated those 20 million viewers and remember this was in 2018 before we had the kind of data we have now were those 20 million people who watch 70% of the movie or 20 million people who watch the first 2 minutes cuz that seems like an important distinction go ahead watch the first 2 minutes of Serenity then tell your friend you watched it and see how that conversation about the movie goes but I also think that data discounts the theater experience now I do think there is something a bit elitist about people who say that the real way to experience a movie is at a top-of-the-line Cinema since many people don't have the money to see every movie in a cinema and many people don't have these highquality IMAX theaters available to them and roll that all in with the fact that in the middle of a global pandemic Studios still wanted us to go to the theaters and catch Corona virus to watch New Mutants and the whole theater experience loses a lot of charm but while I think most movies can be equally appreciated at home and at a theater I do believe that some of the experience does help make a movie at a cinema feel different you need to get dressed drive to a theater buy a ticket buy concessions probably find a seat be quiet and then drive home that's a lot more effort than just turning on Netflix seeing a movie paying nothing specifically for that movie and then watching it while you're on your phone I'm not saying the theater is better it's just different and the effort it takes to travel and pay for a movie can change how you perceive the movie this is just my opinion but streaming movies tend to not always but tend to feel more disposable than movies in theaters easy come easy go like when someone asks you which movies you saw in a given year there's a good chance a lot of them were streaming movies but they don't usually make it onto a top 10 list again this is totally anecdotal but I don't think the comparison Netflix made is reasonable especially because it relies on a single unclear metric that at the time Netflix decided to share which is why the rest of the quote really bugged me Sando says the Christmas Chronicles had 20 million views in its first week if every one of those was a movie ticket purchase that's a $200 million opening week even movies that go on to a billion dollars don't typically do that in the first week and listen it is impossible to say whether Christmas Chronicles a very average movie with one big star who isn't used particularly well some dodgy effects and a lot of clunky dialogue with would have made more money than say The Avengers also Ted not to nitpick not unlike my podcast mostly nitpicking every movie released in 2018 that eventually hit a billion had an opening weekend of over 200 million one movie fantastic crimes of grindle Walt opened well over 200 million and ended up at about 650 million globally but this narrative hasn't disappeared over time just the other day Zack Snyder said on the Joe Rogan podcast you think about Netflix for instance where you push a button Rebel moon right say now it's like almost 90 million views 80 or 90 million accounts turned it on give or take they assume two viewers per screen right that's the math so that's 160 million people supposedly watching 160 million people at $10 a ticket that's 1.6 billion so more people probably saw Rebel Moon than saw Barbie in the theater that's how crazy Netflix is that's the distribution model they've set up now Zack eventually clarified his comment and said to I9 The Cult natur Al significance of Barbie was happening when it was in the theaters that's when we all took a bite of the Barbie apple and happily and so my only point is that I think there is a theatrical Zeitgeist and even though maybe more people have eyes on something the actual sort of cultural significance is dictated still by the theater so I think Zach gets it Netflix movies don't matter the same way theatrical releases du they come and go they're disposable but perhaps because of that it feels like we're in a bubble Netflix subscription prices are going up they're cracking down on password sharing and they're putting that extra Revenue towards making what ends up being the fourth or fifth most expensive movie of that year but why what value did these movies actually bring if they could be confused with any similar and far less expensive movie and if they can be so easily forgotten about I don't have a solution here besides Netflix needs to do better make better movies more memorable movies because I think audiences understand the difference between a series that's appointment viewing and when that's Visual musac and we adjust our expectations accordingly but I think because these big budget Netflix original movies have been so forgettable we have been trained to expect Visual musac and this is not just a Netflix problem Apple TV plus gave us ghosted Max gave us the witches really the only one that feels like they're getting this right is Hulu Palm Springs in 2020 fresh and prey and Roslin in 2022 and no one will save you in 2023 are five examples of really excellent straight to streaming movies in fact the attitude at the time is that they deserved theatrical release so I think Netflix mac Apple TV plus and all the other ones need to follow Hulu's lead focus on high concept quality instead of something designed to appeal to everyone and give the movies theatrical releases either way or just don't bother leave the movies to the film studios and focus on what's really important making a new season of glow and a new season of teenage B County hunters and a new season of Santa Clarita diet and you know finishing the other 20 series I really liked but got abruptly canceled also make more girls 5 ever but until then I want to talk about this video sponsor ground news ground news is an aggregate site that shows you how the media around the world is covering any single story and Compares and contrasts their coverage based on the political leadings and who owns the publication every story comes with a quick visual breakdown of the political bias factuality and ownership of the sources reporting all backed by ratings from from three Independent News monitoring organizations so for instance take this story it's about how the Washington Post had the picture of The Upside Down flag at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Leo's house 3 years ago but didn't do anything with it then got 29 total sources 10 lean left four lean right 12 are Center you see the bias distribution there and then you can look at all the Articles see what the difference is between them for instance in the Leaning left and Center Publications the story tends to be about how we covered the Supreme Court Now versus how we covered it through years ago considering since then we've had decisions like the Dos V Jackson decision that ended the national right to abortion compare that to the right leing Publications like say the New York Post which used this new reporting to make the case that this was never a story and it's just a normal thing that happens and it's weird that anybody cares about it and it's funny in the text of the story they never reference the second flag that the elos flew at their beach home but they do put the picture of it there cuz he like hey what about that but that just goes to show how different news organizations can cover this same story they've even got an entire section devoted to the 2024 election and a blind spot section where you can look at stories disproportionately reported on by one side or the other and listen you need to read every single thing from the other side no but I do think it's useful for just understanding what people are talking about because without that we're living in two different worlds so check them out I think ground news is so useful that I'm offering 40% off their Vantage subscription you can only access this discount through my link so go to ground. news/ nandoi movies or click the link in the video description and support an independent news platform working to make the media landscape more transparent as always huge thanks to everybody that continues to support the channel on patreon everybody that watches these videos early and adree on nebula everybody that listens to my podcast mostly nitpicking and everyone that follows me all over social media I'm Nando view movies everywhere that's all I got stay safe and I will see you next time

Channel: Nando v Movies

Views: 137,899

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Id: TwC49UhT6aQ

Length: 25min 49sec (1549 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024