Netflix will count pennies for its future big-budget productions

[Humza]

The big picture: Netflix likes to invest heavily in exclusives as the company, much like its competition, needs to carve out the biggest audience for its platform. Going forwards, it will focus more towards a quality over quantity approach for selecting big projects as a few expensive ones in recent years haven't met expectations.

A recent account by The Information tells of Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos's meeting with several senior and middle-ranking film and TV executives in which they were told to be more careful in spending money for future productions, reports Engadget.

Ted told the executives that "any upcoming projects need to bring in large numbers of viewers, and will no longer be able to float by due to being loved by critics or earning the company more credibility" while citing one of this year's exclusives, Triple Frontier, as an example. It seems that some of the 52 million watchers of the Ben Affleck-starring thriller might not have loved it all that much with Ted noting the film as a "no-go" that "cost $115 million and flopped."

Netflix tightening its finances doesn't mean it won't spend big on projects, rather that in the face of upcoming competition from the likes of Disney, Apple, WarnerMedia and NBCUniversal, it will be more selective about the content it decides to green-light. After all, Netflix reportedly has $15 billion set aside for original programming this year.

With a more conscious approach towards spending, Netflix already has the experience of knowing which content clicks with its audience and now looks to go the Apple route of quality over quantity that might end up in more frequent hits and fewer misses for the platform.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/80784-netflix-count-pennies-future-big-budget-productions.html

 

[elementalSG]

Guess when 7% of Netflix users subscribe just to watch The Office, it makes sense to finally do a bit of budgeting.

 

[Adi6293]

That Triple Frontier cost how much?! That movie was 2 hours of waste.....

 

[PurpleYoda]

That Triple Frontier cost how much?! That movie was 2 hours of waste.....

Hahaha, good one!

 

[EClyde]

Just make stuff I watch and put it on DVD, problem solved

 

[robb213]

That Triple Frontier cost how much?! That movie was 2 hours of waste.....

The vast majority of "Netflix Originals" are. We can probably count on one or two hands the amount they made that made noise and had an impact.

 

[fluffydestroyer]

I have to wonder why so many movies and tv series are not going on Netflix ? Maybe Netflix is asking a bit too much in % return so they rather do it themselves like disney.

This makes me think of Epic games doing their launcher, their site and sales on their side because steam to the eyes of Epic took too much off of the developers. So instead of getting 25 % they take 12%. maybe thats a huge impact on the decision of netflix and the movies and tv series that are not landing on it.

 

[ShObiT]

I have to wonder why so many movies and tv series are not going on Netflix ? Maybe Netflix is asking a bit too much in % return so they rather do it themselves like Disney.

This makes me think of Epic games doing their launcher, their site and sales on their side because steam to the eyes of Epic took too much off of the developers. So instead of getting 25 % they take 12%. maybe that's a huge impact on the decision of Netflix and the movies and Tv series that are not landing on it.

Its just you better have ALL the earnings of the show you pay for (Disney and Warner) that split that with Netflix, even if is 2% of residuals that no one will watch on Tv, they have the position to create a similar service, and as Disney and Warner owns pretty much 60% of the industry and have shares on at least 20% of the rest, they will make tons of studios not go to Netflix, not by better margins, but because the owns them.