The streaming service\u2019s latest original film, the historical epic \u2018Outlaw King,\u2019 looks and sounds like a classic awards-friendly drama. Is it meant to be a jewel in the crown of the fastest-growing empire in entertainment or simply a hood ornament?<\/p>\n
Netflix is now in the magic business. Last weekend, some 42 years after shooting was completed, the streaming service reappeared Orson Welles\u2019s infamous lost film,\u00a0The Other Side of the Wind<\/em><\/a>, to its 137 million subscribers. One week later, 23 minutes from its newest original film, the Scottish rebellion saga\u00a0Outlaw King<\/em>,\u00a0were vanished<\/a>\u00a0from the cut that had debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Next week, the service will roll out the Coen brothers\u2019 first television series,\u00a0The Ballad of Buster Scruggs<\/em>,\u00a0which somehow transmogrified into an anthology movie<\/a>. And the week after that, the company that aspires to be most responsible for keeping you at home every Friday night will debut Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s Best Picture front-runner\u00a0Roma\u00a0<\/em>exclusively in\u00a0movie theaters<\/em>\u00a0in three major cities. These are real-time manifestations of a company feeling around in the dark, figuring out how to reinvent a system that hasn\u2019t much changed in 50 years and stake ownership in the future of how we watch movies. This isn\u2019t exactly\u00a0David Copperfield walking through the Great Wall of China<\/a>; it\u2019s more like grandpa pulling that disappearing quarter out from behind your ear. But it\u2019s a trick nonetheless.<\/p>\n The steps required to make a successful movie in 2018 are virtually impossible to enumerate. For decades, studios have refined a process that includes analyzing data that indicates points of interest, paying gaudy wholesale prices for the rights to make film adaptations of preexisting property, and market-testing films for audiences ahead of release. To say nothing of actually making a movie\u2014writing, casting, designing the production, photographing, acting, editing, not to mention visual effects and craft services. Movies are a magic in their own right, but their life cycle is often more mechanical and managed than most consumers know. And even still, with all that fuss, most movies fail to capture the popular imagination. So it has been fascinating to watch Netflix publicly evolve its own strategy in the feature film world. Six months ago, I wrote about\u00a0the service\u2019s ambitious splash into the deep end of the movie business<\/a>. The company had conquered TV with shows like\u00a0House of Cards<\/em>,\u00a0Stranger Things<\/em>, and\u00a013 Reasons Why<\/em>\u2014provocative, addictive, high-toned genre exercises and soap suds. But movies are the highest form of popular entertainment we have, and any empire-building, investor-backed platform needs them to seem adult. So this push was inevitable. It hasn\u2019t come without its share of missteps.<\/p>\n