Matt Damon and Ben Affleck recently appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” to promote their new Netflixfilm “The Rip,” and the long-time friends and collaborators shared their thoughts on how the streamer is changing the way movies are made.
Damon pointed out that because viewers give a “very different level of attention” to a movie at home versus in a theater, Netflix wants to push the action set pieces toward the front of the runtime. He also said there are behind-the-scenes discussions about reiterating “the plot three or four times in the dialogue” to account for people being on their phones.
“The standard way to make an action movie that we learned was, you usually have three set pieces. One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third,” Damon explained. “You spend most of your money on that one in the third act. That’s your finale. And now they’re like, ‘Can we get a big one in the first five minutes? We want people to stay. And it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.’”
As Justine Bateman noted in early 2024, “I’ve heard from showrunners who are given notes from the streamers that ‘This isn’t second screen enough.’ Meaning, the viewer’s primary screen is their phone and the laptop and they don’t want anything on your show to distract them from their primary screen because if they get distracted, they might look up, be confused, and go turn it off. I heard somebody use this term before: they want a ‘visual muzak.’ When showrunners are getting notes like that, are they able to do their best work? No.”
Netflix may very well be controlling Warner Brothers in the not-too-distant future. And with that, the collapse of the movie industry will be complete.