I kind of want everyone who interviews Mike Flanagan, from now until Netflix changes their mind, to ask him about physical media, so he once again has an excuse to publicly remind people that streaming-exclusive deals suck, physical media is essential, and he will always want Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher to be available to watch in more ways than just on Netflix.
Transcript:
"The last question from my patrons is something we've touched upon a little bit, again, but given your public opinion on the importance of physical media and your experience with Netflix in the past, will the ability to release your work outside a typical streaming service influence your distribution decisions on future projects?" "Absolutely. So...big time, in fact. And we're about to kind of put this into practice with The Life of Chuck as we go out, seeking distribution.
I think it is actively bad for the industry and for cinema to contain any piece of work exclusively on one streaming service, without any other platforms, and without physical media. I think it is bad for the business, I think it is bad for art, and I deeply regret that some of my favorite pieces of work will never be available anywhere outside of Netflix.
It's not that I'm not grateful to Netflix for making them, and they run their company in a way that works for them, but I spent an enormous amount of time while I was there trying to convince them to supplement their platform release of these things with a physical media release as well, and that it wouldn't hurt their bottom line, and in fact it could actually greatly help it.
I didn't win that argument, and you know I think Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and The Fall of the House of Usher will likely never be available on physical media, unless something radical changes at Netflix, and that really hurts.
But moving forward, where I do I have the control now on independent projects, I'm not really interested in entertaining a distribution model that's exclusive to one streamer, just in general. And that doesn't mean I wouldn't license something to Netflix, I just wouldn't license it exclusively. And we would have to carve out these other platforms, and these other means of distribution. And I think, and I hope, that more and more filmmakers...I hear Christopher Nolan being very, very loud about these issues, you know...Martin Scorsese, same thing. And even filmmakers who have flirted with these exclusive streaming platform releases for some of their things are still vocal proponents of physical media.
But yes, it will absolutely inform every distribution decision I make for the rest of my career. I don't ever want to be in this situation again."
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