David Cronenberg thinks Netflix is “very conservative” in the films they make
Netflix wasn't willing to work with the Crimes Of The Future director
Aux News Films
On the eve of the Cannes Film Festival, director David Cronenberg sat down with Variety to discuss his latest film, Crimes Of The Future, and the difficulty of financing independent cinema in the modern age.
When Cronenberg was kickstarting his career in the mid-70s, the Canadian government was helping to fund his films during what’s known as the country’s “tax shelter era.” Shivers, Rabid, The Brood, and Scanners were all financed through the 100-percent Capital Cost Allowance tax shield. This meant that any investors could deduct 100% of the amount they sunk into feature films from their income tax, as long as the films were 75 minutes long, two-thirds of the production team was Canadian, and seventy-five percent of the production occurred in Canada. It was a golden era for Canadian filmmakers who were attempting to compete with American productions, and these days it appears to be harder for even a big name like Cronenberg to get financial backing. It took three years for the director to get financing for Crimes Of The Future.
“It’s a fight. It’s a struggle, and it changes. Right now, if you’re doing a film with Netflix, then you don’t have to worry about money because Netflix has a lot of money,” Cronenberg explained to Variety. “But if you’re doing an independent film and you don’t have Netflix, then it’s a struggle.”
And Cronenberg was in fact interested in working with Netflix. The director was previously working on a series titled The Shrouds for the streamer that ended up not coming together.
“I was disappointed because I was interested in streaming in cinematic terms,” Cronenberg explains. “It turns out that it’s not so easy to get a series with Netflix. In fact, it seems that it might be easier to get an independent film made if it’s of a certain type. I’d say maybe a film that isn’t the conservative kind of movie as Netflix would like.”
“I really was very interested in the whole Netflix streaming phenomenon, definitely. But I think that they’re still very conservative. I mean, I think they’re still like a Hollywood studio. I thought maybe they would be different.”
“The difference is that Netflix can show very interesting streaming series from Korea, from Finland, and they say it’s a Netflix original, but it isn’t really — it’s something they have acquired,” Cronenberg continues. “But I think when it comes to their actual production that they do themselves, they’re very conservative. I think they think in mainstream terms, that’s my experience with them anyway.”
22 Comments
The people who greenlit Red Notice??? Netflix will await your apology, Cronenberg.
Netflix movies are generally terrible. Action movies with bad and boring action. Dramas with crap dialogue. Comedies that are mildly funny in spurts. At best they squander big name talent on mediocre movies. About once or twice a year they release a film that’s actually good and it’s only because the filmmaker brought it to them.
Aren’t most movies generally terrible? How many really great films do you think exist? 6? 8? 15? Let’s say 27. And when you think about it, of those 27, there’s probably 7 of em that are better than the other 20. And of those 7, aren’t 4 of em not as good as the other 3?So now we’ve come to the conclusion that there’s only 3 great movies. And those 3 movies are: JFK, Blazing Saddles and Commando.
Oh, no no no no no. I cannot accept such a reductive view of greatness. There are as many great films as there are grains of sand on a beach; you just have to know how to approach each one. Even a film like The Velocipastor contains wonders, if you know how to look.
I now know The Velocipastor exists, and I know I must watch it.
You already heard the title, which is the joke
Way too much film discourse completely fails to account for Sturgeon’s Law.
You forgot Terminator, Aliens, The Road Warrior, The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II and Robocop. So that’s six more — well, five if you count both parts of The Godfather as one movie (and you should).
They’re not that different from other studios in terms of the mix. Yeah they have the mediocre action, romance and comedies but they also dip their toes into Oscar bait with movies like Power of the Dog, Roma, The Irishman, The Good Daughter, and Tick, Tick … Boom! among others. It’s more indicative of the “90% of anything is dreck” than Netflix’s output being worse than, say, Paramount or Warners.
So basically, “I don’t understand why Netflix isn’t stoked to have me create movies with tons of body horror where people sprout additional anuses and vaginas!” I mean, Videodrome is probably on my top 10 films and eXistenZ on my top 20, but this sort of thing isn’t exactly something with mass appeal.
I mean, maybe not, but Netflix is a model that by virtue of its setup should make it absolutely ideal for more niche films if they wish. Instead they seem to have genuinely no real plan for what they greenlight or cancel.
I’m not sure that your theory follows, actually.
Streaming in general relies on having a huge amount of content available, which would make you think there’d be more room for niche stuff. But in truth, having that much content means its so much harder for people to find stuff they like unless it’s pushed to the front by an algorithm or intentional marketing. Obviously, there’s not much value in broadly marketing niche stuff, so they don’t.The net result is that it’s more logical to put out a bunch of bland stuff that’ll be vaguely interesting and make it feel like people have a lot of option, but it actually still leaves the onus for all the work on the user to find the stuff they really like. Basically, it’s 90s cable TV all over again.
But then, Netflix did produce Brand New Cherry Flavor so…
They did just make an offensively violent Texas Chainsaw film, and you’re also largely misrepresenting Cronenberg there.
The new TCM was pretty over-the-top gory, true, but that’s not really offensive in America.
I would have thought Netflix would at least try working with Cronenberg…?
Netflix really isn’t bound by the traditional standards of box office potential so it is somewhat surprising they don’t take more bold risks.
They’ve produced more LGBT content than any entity in history. I don’t know if any of it is good, but there it is.
That bar is so low, I don’t think that’s helping the argument
Since Netflix only cares about growing subscribers, wouldn’t something like Cronenberg’s first foray back into body horror after 25 years be a big draw? I mean, I am pretty sure the original Martyrs was on Netflix for a long time.
To be fair David Cronenberg thinks most people who aren’t David Cronenberg are very conservative in the films they make.
And, by the standards of David Cronenberg, he’s largely right in that assessment.