Now that 2024 has come to a close, it’s official, Netflix once again handed out the most cancellations in the calendar year – though at this point, I don’t thin
The difference between Netflix and its predecessors is that the older studios had a business model that rewarded cinematic expertise and craft. Netflix, on the other hand, is staffed by unsophisticated executives who have no plan for their movies and view them with contempt. Cindy Holland, the first employee Sarandos hired, who eventually served as vice president of original content, once compared Netflix’s rapacious DVD acquisition strategy to “shoveling coal in the side door of the house.” This remained true as Netflix ramped up its original-film production. In researching this essay, I was told by sources about two high-level Netflix executives who have been known to green-light projects without reading the scripts at all.
Such slipshod filmmaking works for the streaming model, since audiences at home are often barely paying attention. Several screenwriters who’ve worked for the streamer told me a common note from company executives is “have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.” (“We spent a day together,” Lohan tells her lover, James, in Irish Wish. “I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain, but that doesn’t give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow I’m marrying Paul Kennedy.” “Fine,” he responds. “That will be the last you see of me because after this job is over I’m off to Bolivia to photograph an endangered tree lizard.”)
One tag among Netflix’s thirty-six thousand microgenres offers a suitable name for this kind of dreck: “casual viewing.” Usually reserved for breezy network sitcoms, reality television, and nature documentaries, the category describes much of Netflix’s film catalog — movies that go down best when you’re not paying attention, or as the Hollywood Reporter recently described Atlas, a 2024 sci-fi film starring Jennifer Lopez, “another Netflix movie made to half-watch while doing laundry.” A high-gloss product that dissolves into air. Tide Pod cinema.
That’s another good point and what I was getting at in terms of patterns.
Without a clear breakdown of what is being added and what is being removed (on a category level) it’s difficult to really know what these cancellations mean.
My personal metric for subscribing to a streaming service is “one new show per month”, but that rule has the implied “…that I want to watch”.
If Netflix is only adding garbage I don’t want to watch, it doesn’t really matter. (As a side note I don’t currently subscribe to Netflix after it failed the above metric a few years ago, it may have shows I’d watch now, but I don’t miss it enough to go back and look.)
Do they have to? They are a private company making entertainment. Unless they are paying people based on the number of views, I don’t see why that information has to be public.
If it’s all reality TV and procedurally engineered slop, replacing the auteur films and exciting serials, I’d disagree.
Great piece out on N+1 explaining why Netflix queues have been so bizarre and repulsive as of late.
That’s another good point and what I was getting at in terms of patterns.
Without a clear breakdown of what is being added and what is being removed (on a category level) it’s difficult to really know what these cancellations mean.
My personal metric for subscribing to a streaming service is “one new show per month”, but that rule has the implied “…that I want to watch”.
If Netflix is only adding garbage I don’t want to watch, it doesn’t really matter. (As a side note I don’t currently subscribe to Netflix after it failed the above metric a few years ago, it may have shows I’d watch now, but I don’t miss it enough to go back and look.)
So much of Netflix front page is just “Do you want these cheapo cell phone games instead of shows?” right now.
Definitely feels like they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel
They probably have the data to back up that not everyone wants to watch prestige TV all the time, so they are giving the audience what it wants.
They just won’t release the numbers on individual shows.
Do they have to? They are a private company making entertainment. Unless they are paying people based on the number of views, I don’t see why that information has to be public.