Mike Flanagan Says Netflix Was "Actively Hostile" Towards the Idea of Releasing Physical Media: "It Became Clear Very Fast That Their Only Priority Was Subs"
Mike Flanagan Says Netflix Was "Actively Hostile" Towards the Idea of Releasing Physical Media: "It Became Clear Very Fast That Their Only Priority Was Subs"
Despite being a key part of Netflix's past successes, Mike Flanagan has thoughts about Netflix's lack of commitment to physical media.
Well, yeah...
The reason they drop all the money these huge shows need, is the only way you can watch them (legally) is if you have a monthly subscription.
If people could buy them, then that would hurt subscriber counts.
It's why every service wants exclusives.
Interesting because they've published things on home media in Europe fairly quickly and consistently. You just have to import them. At least most of the shows I've been interested in (Marvel Defenders, etc)
It's worth having the response in full but Tumblr tries and locks it away.
Question:
Mr. Flanagan, Iâd like to ask a question and I deeply hope that it does not offend or upset you. I am strongly considering canceling my Netflix subscription due to their new password sharing policy. However, Midnight Mass is one of my favorite shows of all time and I know it isnât available on DVD, and Iâm also profoundly anticipating your take on my favorite Edgar Allen Poe story. So I wanted to ask your take on people accessing your work through, uh, other means. If itâs something thatâs offensive to you or will harm you or the other people who work so hard on these shows, Iâll happily keep my Netflix just so that I can keep supporting your work. I respect you far too much as an artist to do otherwise.
Again, I really hope Iâm not upsetting you by asking this question. Thank you for everything, and I hope youâre having a great day!
Answer:
Hi there - no offense taken whatsoever, in fact I think this is a very interesting and important question.
So. If you asked me this a few years ago, I would have said âI hate piracy and it is hurting creators, especially in the independent space.â I used to get in Facebook arguments with fans early in my career when people would post about seeing my work on torrent sites, especially when that work was readily available for rent and purchase on VOD.
Back in 2014, my movie Before I Wake was pirated and leaked prior to any domestic release, and that was devastating to the project. It actually made it harder to find distribution for the film. By the time we were able to get distribution in the US, the film had already been so exposed online that the best we could hope for was a Netflix release. Netflix stepped in and saved that movie, and for that I will always be grateful to them.
HoweverâŚ
Working in streaming for the past few years has made me reconsider my position on piracy. You could say my feelings on the matter have âevolved.â
In the years I worked at Netflix, I tried very hard to get them to release my work on blu-ray and DVD. They refused at every turn.
It became clear very fast that their only priority was subscriptions, and that they were actively hostile to the idea of physical media. While they had some lingering obligations on certain titles, or had partnerships who still valued physical media, and had flirted with releasing juggernaut hits like Stranger Things, that wasnât at all their priority. In fact, they were very actively trying to eliminate those kinds of releases from their business model.
This is a very dangerous point of view. While companies like Netflix pride themselves on being disruptors, and have proven that they can affect great change in the industry, they sometimes fail to see the difference between disruption and damage. So much that they can find themselves, intentionally or not, doing enormous harm to the very concept of film preservation.
The danger comes when a title is only available on one platform, and then - for whatever reason - is removed.
We have already seen this happen. And it is only going to happen more and more. Titles exclusively available on streaming services have essentially been erased from the world. If those titles existed on the marketplace on physical media, like HBOâs Westworld, the loss is somewhat mitigated (though only somewhat.) But when titles do not exist elsewhere, they are potentially gone forever.
The list of titles that have been removed from streaming services is growing quickly, quietly, and insidiously.
So to answer your question - today, I am very grateful that my Netflix originals are available through - uh - other means.
The issue of password sharing is a different one, but suffice to say I do not blame you one bit for considering canceling your subscription.
I still believe that where we put our dollars matters. Renting or buying a piece of work that you like is essential. It is casting a vote, encouraging studios - who only speak the language of money - to invest more effort into similar work. If we show up to support distinct, unique, exciting work, it encourages them to make more of it. Itâs as simple as that. If we donât show up, or if they canât hear our voice because we are casing our vote âsilentlyâ through torrent sites or other means - it makes it unlikely that they will take a chance to create that kind of work again.
Which is why I typically suggest that if you like a movie youâve seen through - uh - other means, throw a few dollars at that title on a legitimate platform. Rent it. Purchase it. Support it.
But if services like Netflix offer no avenue for that kind of support, and can (and will) remove content from their platform forever⌠frankly, I think that changes the rules.
Netflix will likely never release the work I created for them on physical media. Iâve tried for years, but have met with the same apathy throughout.
Some of you may say âwait, arenât The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor available on blu-ray and DVD?â Yes, they are, because they were co-produced with Paramount. Paramount retained the physical media rights for those titles, and were permitted to release them (though they had to wait a calendar year after their launches on Netflix). Iâm so, so grateful that Paramount was able to release and protect those titles. (Iâm also grateful that those releases include extended cuts, deleted scenes, and commentary tracks. There are a number of fantastic benefits to physical media releases.)
But a lot of the other work I did there are Netflix originals, without any other studio involvement. Those titles - like Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and the upcoming Fall of the House of Usher - along with my Netflix exclusive and/or original movies Before I Wake and Geraldâs Game - have no such protections. The physical media releases of those titles are entirely at Netflixâs discretion, and unfortunately Netflix has made their position clear.
My movie Hush recently disappeared from the platform, and is currently not available anywhere in the world. Thatâs a slightly different situation, as the reason it disappeared is that Netflixâs license agreement ran out, which gave us the opportunity to shop it to new homes - hopefully homes with more support for physical media (and you better believe thatâs exactly what weâre doing right now). But thatâs a fortunate case - Hush was not a Netflix original. A lot of my other work is, and weâll have no such opportunity to extract them.
As a result, Iâve gone looking for archival copies of Midnight Mass (and some other work) for myself. And that led me to some âbootlegâ blu-rays created by people who operate through - uh - other means.
The result is that I now have three copies of Midnight Mass on blu-ray in my collection. The quality is excellent. The people who created these even went through the trouble to make animated menus and cover art - and I have to say theyâre quite good. I found these online, it wasnât difficult, and it wasnât expensive. Iâm told the quality of torrent sites is pretty great. And honestly, at this point, given Netflixâs position on the matter⌠Iâm very glad they exist.
At the moment, Netflix seems content to leave Before I Wake, Geraldâs Game, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club on the service, where they still draw audiences. I donât think there is a plan to remove any of them anytime soon. But plans change, the industry changes - hell, Iâve watched the executive structure at Netflix change so many times since I got there I donât even recognize the company anymore.
The point is things change, and each of those titles - should they be removed from the service for any reason - are not available anywhere else. If that day comes - if Netflixâs servers are destroyed, if a meteor hits the building, if they are bought out by a competitor and their library is liquidated - I donât know what the circumstances might be, I just know that if that day comes, some of the work that means the most to me in the world would be entirely erased.
Or, what if we arenât so catastrophic in our thinking? What if it the change isnât so total? What if Netflix simply bumps into an issue with the license they paid for music (like the Neil Diamond songs that play such a crucial role in Midnight Mass), and decide to leave the show up but replace the songs?
This has happened before as well - fans of Northern Exposure can get the show on DVD and blu-ray, but the music they heard when the series aired has been replaced due to the licensing issues. And the replacements - chosen for their low cost, not for creative reasons - are not improvements. What if the shows are just changed, and not by creatives, but by business affairs executives?
All to say that physical media is critically important. Having redundancy in the marketplace is critically important. The more platforms a piece of work is available on, the more likely it is to survive and grow its audience. At this point, if a studio refuses to make them available, I am fully on board with any means that protect and archive the work, and to make the work available to an audience outside of that platformâs exclusive base.
As I said, things change - my overall deal at Netflix ran its course, and Iâm now at Amazon, who have a somewhat different perspective on physical media. Their business model is not built entirely on subscribers; far from it. Iâm hoping very much that the work I create with them will meet a different fate, and be supported in a different manner.
As for Netflix, I hope sincerely that their thinking on this issue evolves, and that they value the content they spend so much money creating enough to protect it for posterity. Thatâs up to them, itâs their studio, itâs their rules. But I like to think they may see that light eventually, and realize that exclusivity in a certain window is very cool⌠but exclusivity in perpetuity limits the audience and endangers the work.
All to say that if you decide to cancel your Netflix subscription, thatâs entirely your choice - Iâm not here telling you to cancel it, or to keep it, for that matter. On that point, I am utterly agnostic.
But I will say that if you do cancel it, I am profoundly grateful that my work is available somewhere else. And if you take advantage of that, that is absolutely, positively, unequivocally fine with me.