Matt Damon Confirms What We Already Suspected About Netflix Movies
Some Netflix projects may have to make concessions to inattentive audiences.
New action-thriller The Rip, from Smokin’ Aces director Joe Carnahan, reunites best buddies Matt Damon and Ben Affleck onscreen for the first time since their 2023 Nike biopic, Air. The Netflix flick has received generally good reviews, and people seem to be watching it, but what does it take to get someone to really watch a movie on streaming these days, even one that stars two popular Oscar winners?
Many of you will have seen various memes on social media poking fun at repetitive, exposition-dumpy dialogue in certain Netflix movies and shows, especially in the recent season of Stranger Things, but if it feels like people are generally over-explaining plots to you these days in an effort to keep you engaged with this stuff, it’s because they are.
Damon has confirmed that Netflix is well aware that most people sit and scroll on their phones while watching movies on the service, and that they suggest dialogue changes to counteract the audience’s lack of attention. He’s concerned that the way movies are made might be fundamentally evolving as a result.
“The standard way to make an action movie, that we learned, was you usually have three set pieces,” Damon explained to Joe Rogan. “One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third — and the big one with all the explosions, and you spend most of your money on that one in the third act. That’s your kind of finale. Now, [Netflix is] like, ‘Can we get a big one in the first five minutes?’ We want people to stay tuned in. 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.”
Damon added that he feels this approach will start to “infringe” on how filmmakers tell stories. However, Affleck seemed slightly more optimistic, citing one of Netflix’s recent critically acclaimed shows as an example.
“You look at Adolescence, and it didn’t do any of that shit, and it was fucking great,” he noted. “My feeling is just that it demonstrates that you don’t need to do any of that shit to get people [to watch].”
Affleck also doesn’t think streaming as a concept is an “existential threat”, explaining that past developments in technology, such as television itself, led to fewer butts on seats in the theater, but that as long as it’s still cool to go there and experience movies like Christopher Nolan’s upcoming fantasy epic The Odyssey, cinema should be safe, even in a world where streaming is more convenient.