The Strategist

Netflix original content is losing to film studios



06/07/2018 - 12:33



While Netflix is developing its own film production in order to attract a loyal audience, viewers still believe that Netflix content is inferior to releases from most major film studios, according to a study by Barclays.



pixabay
pixabay
As the researchers note, Netflix recently reported that a total of about 300 million viewers watched 33 original movies released by the company in 2018 (an average of about 9 million viewers per movie).

This year, the audience for the original Netflix movies is expected to bring around $ 4 billion to the box office. According to Barclays, people still consider Netflix movies "significantly worse" than most studio releases.

To assess audience perceptions, the researchers analyzed the median audience ratings in the IMDB for all original movies released by Netflix and six studios in 2018. It was found that Netflix movies ranked 6th in the average standings, behind five studios. Only Paramount dropped in the ranking below Netflix.

This year, Netflix bought “The Cloverfield Paradox” movie from Paramount for $ 50 million and showed it after the Superbowl in February. Despite the fact that in the first week it attracted about 5 million viewers, the film was criticized and showed low ratings of the audience both according to Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB.

At the end of last year, the online movie theater Netflix released the picture "Bright" with Will Smith. The movie shows a world where people live with orcs, elves and other fantasy races. Critics did not appreciate the work of director David Ayer, because of which the movie’s rating on Metacritic was only 29 points out of 100.

According to the head of Netflix Reed Hastings, the movie reveals the theme of racism, literally showing demons as local people with a different skin color. However, Hastings believes that the press did not like all this because they did not understand anything.

At a teleconference with investors, at which the company’s financial results were discussed, the head of Netflix also talked about different reactions of ordinary viewers and critics. According to Hastings, they still plan to show "Bright" around the world despite the negative feedback.

Journalists believe that the authors could not properly implement their idea, and this did not appeal to both the press and ordinary viewers. With the help of such a fantastic setting, the creators could combine an impressive visual part with a sharp social statement, but only used several racist stereotypes in the end.

source: businessinsider.com