Even after Netflix has soared in popularity, especially overseas, there’s still a fair amount of detractors that think the streaming service will never be able to replace theaters. Many of those people happen to be filmmakers that want their projects to be seen on the big screen, instead of on TV, phone, tablet, or laptop. However, for Netflix, this doesn’t make sense at all. And their counterpoint is simple – the streaming service brings more eyeballs to your project.
In a recent TED talk, Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings talked about that very issue, while trying to explain how the days of theaters being the best place for a film to premiere are long gone. In fact, the beauty of Netflix is its variety and the ability to watch whatever you want, right when you want, in the comfort of your home.
“Sometimes you just want to relax and watch a show like [cooking documentary series] ‘Nailed It,’ it’s fun and it’s not stressful, but other times people want to watch really intensive films,” Hastings said (via IndieWire). “‘Mudbound,’ which was Oscar-nominated, it’s a great, very intensive movie. We’ve had over 20 million hours of viewing on ‘Mudbound,’ which is dramatically bigger than what it would’ve been in theaters or any other distribution.”
For those that aren’t aware, “Mudbound” is one of the recent crown jewels of Netflix Original Films. The Oscar-nominated film was purchased by Netflix after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. At the time, pundits scoffed at Netflix spending over $12 million for the film. However, with those numbers, it makes perfect sense.
(Side note – Netflix is notoriously tight-lipped about viewing data. We have to take Hastings on his word because there’s no way to back up the data.)
If the film is roughly 2 hours, that means “Mudbound” was streamed roughly 10 million times since its release last year. If you consider that a fair number of those streams were watched by multiple people, it’s easy to see how Hastings said that it was “dramatically bigger” than a theater distribution deal.
If “Mudbound” was able to draw that kind of numbers, makes you wonder how many people have watched “Bright” or some of the other films that have been heavily promoted by the streaming service. It really puts all that big-time spending in perspective, huh?