Is Netflix Serious About Orginals Film

Netflix has been disrupting the entertainment industry in a variety of ways for over a decade now. After shaking up the original series realm with a bevy of offerings—including the smash hit Stranger Things—they’ve really started to dig into original films over the last couple of years. The studio’s first original feature was actually an acquisition, not a Netflix production: Beasts of No Nation. The Cary Fukunaga-directed drama was pegged as a potential awards contender, but failed to pick up any nominations back in 2015. As it turns out, Netflix was just getting started.

While Netflix continues to churn out a diverse slate of original films that range from the excellent (Set It Up) to the forgettable (Bright), 2017 marked a major change of pace with the Sundance acquisition Mudbound, and 2018 looks to be a watershed moment. This fall, Netflix will release no less than three major awards contenders from towering filmmakers: Alfonso Cuaron’s long-awaited Gravity follow-up ROMA, Paul Greengrass’ true-story drama 22 July, and The Coen Brothers’ surprise Western anthology film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. And this is no one-off—Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is on tap for Netflix’s 2019 slate.

The streaming service is offering a platform for prestige filmmakers that other studios apparently are not, even despite Netflix’s minimal theatrical distribution strategy. But as they assemble more and more of today’s greatest filmmakers in their ranks, one glaring blind-spot for Netflix is going to become more of a problem: Their refusal to release their original films on physical media formats.



Indeed, while Netflix releases some of its original series like House of Cards and Daredevil on Blu-ray, the streaming service has thus far refused to put any of its original films out either on Blu-ray or DVD. Presumably Netflix sees the physical release of TV shows as ways to promote upcoming seasons and thus entice a subscription, but if they release one of their original films on Blu-ray or DVD, it ceases to be something that can only be seen with a Netflix subscription.