Ben Affleck says Netflix movies are made through an “assembly line process”
The actor previously starred in the streamer's action thriller Triple Frontier
Aux News Ben Affleck
After recently announcing that his latest collaboration with Matt Damon would be a production company that promises to put creatives first, Ben Affleck has shared more of his thoughts about the state of cinema. Taking the stage at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit (via Variety) to promote Artists Equity, the Gone Girl star took aim at Netflix.
“I see no differentiation between commercial and quality,” Affleck says. “You ask [CEO] Reed Hastings, ‘Hey well, we went for quantity.’ I’m sure that established a footprint, I’m sure there’s some wisdom in that, and I’m sure they had a great strategy, but I would have said, ‘How do you make 50 good movies a year?’ How is that possible? There is no committee big enough. You just can’t do it. It’s a thing that requires attention and dedication and work and it resists the sort of assembly line process.”
Affleck still noted his respect for Netflix’s head of original films Scott Stuber, and he previously starred in the streamer’s 2019 action thriller Triple Frontier. He also offered up some musings on modern movie stardom, though as a Batman, he didn’t bring Marvel into it.
“On Netflix, the biggest movies are Christmas, or these kind of early aughts stars,” the Argo director says. “They had a level of awareness then that is much bigger than your sort of person on a TV show does now because there’s just so much to see. There’s a lot of investment that’s gone into a lot of people my age, around that age. My wife, who’s 53, the most famous, admired, spectacular woman in the world, there weren’t 53-year-old stars in the 1940s and ’50s. That was it. And there weren’t really for men [either]. Paul Newman was kind of old at 37. You read about Newman at 37, 38 and they were like, ‘Well, as you move into the sunset of your life, Paul, after Towering Inferno….’ And now people are much more familiar with this group of people. They’ve kept that name recognition in a marketplace that is so diffuse where it’s more and more and more valuable to be able to attract eyeballs, to be able to get attention, to be able to get the consumer to watch you.”
Affleck and Damon will be putting Artists Equity to the test with their first release, a feature about the inception of the Air Jordan due out next year. The Boston-bred duo will also be co-starring in the project alongside Viola Davis, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, and Marlon Wayans.
33 Comments
As if he hasn’t been the tip of the corporate blandness spear for decades
Is Ben says we should all go back to baking our own bread? The quality was so much better back then. However, he then takes a different direction with, look how great preservatives are—a loaf of Wonder Bread can sit on the shelf for weeks. And really, that Wonder Bread has mostly been a just a “star” of the tabloids, Ben.
yeah that’s what ben was saying, that we should go back to baking our own bread
I already brine and jar my own pickles, Ben. I can’t DIY everything.
Is that your thing, you come into the comments, you read some obscure passage and then you pretend, you pawn it off as your own—your own idea just to impress some girls, embarrass my friend?
I do make my own bread.
Is it just me or does the quote about Christmas movies and early aughts stars make no sense. I have read it 3 times to try and figure out what the hell he is talking about and it makes me wonder if Affleck has fallen off the wagon again.
Definitely what I thought as well. Seems like he was a few cards short of a full deck.
I mean he’s maybe not explaining it that clearly because it’s from off the cuff remarks not prepared speech, but it’s pretty clear he’s saying the the most successful things on Netflix are bland, flavorless Christmas films or random things that bring back actors popular in the early 2000s.
That was my understanding but I can’t tell if he’s saying that’s bad, or that’s good. At first it seemed he was saying it’s bad, then goes on to say that it lets you have 53 year old stars which wasn’t always the case, which seems good, then kind of seems like it’s bad again.
Right. I thought it was pretty easy to parse.
Jen is smart. Ben’s vices are booze and working, so let him just do his thing.
I think it’s a shot at Sandler? Not sure.
My first thought was maybe he was taking a shot at Charlize Theron (or maybe Winona Ryder). But then he started talking about his wife and how he was still working and then about Paul Newman and it wasn’t clear at all if he thought it was a bad thing or not. Plus does he not realize that there are a lot of actors on Netflix around his age (like Charlize and Winona) who are way more talent than he is. Not to mention there are a bunch of Netflix movies that are way better than that piece of crap Deep Water that he was in that I watched on Amazon prime.
It’s really more of a shot at creators not making more product for older people. We’re not all in our teens and twenties.
It reads like either there’s context missing from the quote, or he assumes that everyone else can hear the rest of the words he’s saying inside his head.
Literally came to the comments to see if anyone else could comprehend what he said.
Inside Affleck’s brain right now…honestly, I’ve read and reread that bit several times and either something he said is missing or the lift doesn’t go to the top of his building these days.
I read it as an observation that Netflix are leaning into algorithmically-determined bankable concepts like Christmas movies and actors recognisable to a gen-X/millenial audience. It does read like some word salad, but people tend not to talk like they write.
OK. I watched the whole interview. Ben talks a mile a minute, and I can see how the writer of the article had a hard time picking something to quote. That quote was a little out of context, and a lot Ben talking crazy fast and losing track of his own point.
Is Paul Newman really the best example? He was 42 in Cool Hand Luke and 49 in the Towering Inferno.
Really sounds like Affleck was talking out of his ass on this one.
Neither here, nor there but I recall quite liking Triple Frontier when I watched it during the early days of the original lockdown.
All Netflix movies are a “quite like”. They all look the same: same cameras, same drab lighting. They all have middling scripts and middling performances. The CGI is done by the same underpaid drudges in the same home offices. And as the credits roll, Netflix will interrupt them to pop up a similar-looking movie from its weak roster. Because when I’ve just watched a film, there’s nothing I want more than to watch another two-hour goddamn film.
Can’t take a word this guy says seriously after Project Greenlight.
Lest we forget that, while his big break was obviously Even Stevens, Project Greenlight is directly responsible for thrusting Shia LeBouf into the world as a serious actor.
Love that the comment section is full of malcontents that have an axe to grind with Ben Afleck and nothing of any substance to say or discuss.
“My wife, who’s 53, the most famous, admired, spectacular woman in the world,”oof, sounds like someone forgot a birthday
I dunno. She’s very, very attractive and he gets to have sex with her. I’d probably be that over the top too.
“You read about Newman at 37, 38 and they were like, ‘Well, as you move into the sunset of your life, Paul, after Towering Inferno….’”The internet tells me Paul Newman would have been almost 50 when he did The Towering Inferno, though…?
“My wife, who’s 53, the most famous, admired, spectacular woman in the world”Obviously false (not that she’s 53), but still cute. I love seeing people talk about the person they love.Moving on. I’m sure he has a point about the assembly line process (I’d levy that charge against your Hallmarks more than your Netflixes, but minor quibble), but I think he’s missing the fact that there’s a place for your average films in the world, and for you flat out bad films. Who doesn’t have a just shit film that’s one of their faves? The good thing is that there’s something for everybody. I’m sure he and Damon will make “good” films with thier production company, but everyone doesn’t want to watch “good” all the time. But again, he’s not wrong, just he’s in the artist’s headspace that doesn’t always take into account regular folks. But I like the dude. I’ve always been an Affleck apologist even when he was at his nadir.
I don’t understand what he is trying to say or his overall point. Netflix has given a lot of well-known directors and writers big paydays to make movies or projects they want to and most come off feeling like they haven’t been aggressively edited down. I mean they gave Rian, Craig, and Rian’s producing partner $469m to make two more Knives Out movies with the only stipulations being that Craig had to star and the budget had to be at least $40m…Netflix may not be led by a creative but it certainly has seemed creative friendly. And their biggest projects are most definitely not Christmas movies.