Blog 1 - Home Comforts

We’re at a point in human history where there has never been so much choice readily available for us at pretty much any opportunity. There’s Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Iplayer and that’s not even getting into the various smaller services. Netflix basic package charges £7.99 a month for unprecedented access to their content, original and licensed. This makes it much more affordable and about as financially equal to one trip to the cinema, so is there any real wonder why more people are choosing to stay at home than go to the cinema. Are they even doing that? This blog series is going to be taking a look at cinema, television and the future of the viewing experience altogether.

A promotional picture from Bright

Blockbusters are deemed on their commercial success and when looked at like that Bright is indeed a blockbuster. On December 22nd 2017 Netflix released Bright and it represents a huge landmark in VoD film. Up until this point the only original films to be released through VoD and specifically Netflix were smaller films usually met with critical acclaim but never quite blockbuster status. An example is the Dee Rees film Mudbound, said by Rees herself to cost just $10 Million. The film debuted at Sundance and was picked up for distribution by Netflix. However Bright is a slightly different story. Bright was a spec script bought from Max Landis for $3 Million and then produced in conjunction with 2 other production companies and fully distributed by Netflix. In some aspects this makes Bright the first Netflix big budget risk as it’s rumoured to have cost them close to $90 Million. A real risk for them considering they’d only really dealt with low-mid budget films in the past. 

This large budget allowed Netflix to have a star studded cast including Will Smith and Joel Egerton, whilst being directed by a known Hollywood Director, David Ayer. This gives the film some credit and to an extent helps the film achieve it’s blockbuster status. If nothing else it helped the marketing as Netflix would be able to publicise the fact they are working with actual top industry professionals.However, when it came to the critical reception, the film was panned by most critics earning a 27% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 29 Critic Score on Metacritic. Despite all this though, the user scores for both sites are very high and in it’s opening 3 days on Netflix it’s said that the film pulled in 11 Million US Viewers, as told by Nielsen. Effectively this would mean commercial success. If looked at in the eyes of a traditional launch Statista claims the average US cinema ticket price is $8.93. Assuming that each Netflix view is only one person and not a group of people on 1 account, then in its theoretical opening weekend Bright would have made $98,230,000. This would’ve made the film a box office success.

A billboard for Bright

Would Bright have made this if released in cinemas. It’s likely it wouldn’t have, especially with the poor critical response. With Netflix there is a lack of risk to an audience member watching something compared to going to the cinema, instead of wasting money they are wasting time.

Defining a blockbuster has very little to do with it’s budget or cast but is really defined by the film’s commercial success. Bright feels like an experiment to see if the blockbuster format works on the small screen. In the terms outlined above Bright really is a blockbuster, it’s easier to be a blockbuster on Netflix. When the product is there for no extra cost why wouldn’t it be a blockbuster. What set it apart from Netflix’s other film’s was the extensive and personalised marketing, through the use of Netflix itself, giving audiences a greater knowledge of the film the cast and large budget help in this way, and it’s why Adam Sandler’s films do so well on Neflix. Netflix as a format is almost in-built for films to have blockbuster levels of success. 

Bright was Netflix home grown and nurtured along the way, always being intended for a release online. This isn’t always the case now though with Netflix potentially presenting a zero risk way to release riskier films. In the next blog I’ll be taking a look at The Cloverfield Paradox and it’s own paradoxical journey to Netflix.