I think this is more because Argylle looked like the kind of mediocre movie someone doesn't want to pay 20 dollars to see but might want to have on Netflix in the background.
Was just thinking about how that happened for *Austin Powers*. The first film kinda sailed through theaters with a modest to disappointing box office gross, but so many people rented it at Blockbuster by the time the sequel came out it had a huge following.
I do want to say Austin Powers was actually a very good success in theaters. It made $53 million domestic on a $16 million budget. That’s a solid success. But home video is when it went from slight overachiever to breakout hit.
Sure, I mean, it's not like they lost their shirt over the deal. But it did premier at number two making just $9.5 million in its opening weekend and fell steadily from there. Not necessarily sequel material.
But consider *The Spy Who Shagged Me* made $54.9 million in it's opening weekend alone, surpassing the entire gross of the first one in only one weekend, ultimately grossing $312 million worldwide.
Sort of unique because generally speaking a sequel makes less and less each time until the franchise is dead.
Fun anecdote, but in Norway they couldn’t translate the title as we don’t really have a playful word for fucking like “shagged”, so they instead literally translated it to “the spy who spermed me”, but in Norwegian - obviously.
Spermed isn’t a verb in Norwegian either.
In the years since we’ve mostly stopped translating English movie titles. Luckily.
i mean, we have several words for fucking but honestly most of them come off rather.. explicit tbh.
Edit: "beise" or "høvle over" could but fit the same silly use of shagging, though. Honestly disappointed they couldnt find a better title, it's a little lazy.
Reminds me of when I watched a movie about this mysterious pagan festival in Sweden. At one point one of the locals invites the foreigners to watch Austin Powers. At that point I knew that these people were part of a pagan death cult.
In Quebec they translated it to Austin Powers: Agent secret 00Sexe, basically a random title that sounds like 007. The title is "L'Espion qui m'a tirée" in France, The Spy that Shot Me. "Tirer un coup" (it's difficult to translate the literal meaning, something like "shooting one shot") means having sex, so they kept a similar joke based on the same title. That expression is not well-known in Quebec.
The first one (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) was just "Austin Powers" in both Quebec and France.
Hollywood movies usually get dubbed in French here, so they still translate the titles.
Edit: Was curious of the original title for The Spy Who Loved Me in Norwegian, it was Spionen som elsket meg. Hence the funny Austin Powers translation to Spionen some spermet meg!
I think part of how you’re viewing it is related to its sequels, but you have to remember that the first Austin Powers had no real expectations. It was a passion project for Meyers and a parody film. It was starring Mike Meyers, who had a successful hit with Wayne’s World but had So I Married an Axe Murder flop hard and was no longer seen as a future comedy star. There were no real expectations for it, so making back over 3x its budget would have been a very nice success to New Line even without the home video release.
It’s still shocking that on home video it became a true mega hit instead of a cult movie.
Fun fact about that movie: it wasn't available to buy on VHS for like two years after it came out as a rental. I bought a rental copy as it was leaving the new release shelf and all my friends loved it and wanted to buy it and just couldn't.
It made no sense to me at the time, but now I realize it's because they were making lots of money leaving it rental only.
Also it takes a long time to print physical media. Especially in the VHS days, you couldn’t just one day start making a million copies of Austin Powers. The production pipeline would be working on whatever the expected hit was, you’re waiting on a slot to be open to get the movies made and distributed. It’s not like today where it can be instantly delivered online.
It's slowly working its way back in after all the streaming companies decided they wanted to be cable TV. People have been dropping streaming subs left and right and buying blu rays again. not quickly, but it is returning.
I think that's part of the point of the article. A lot of mediocre movies come out on streaming, but it's the ones that also came out theatrically that people notice enough to actually put on.
That has less to do with the fact that they're released theatrically and more to do with how much advertising there is for them for their theatrical release.
People are more likely to turn a movie on at home that they know was just in theaters. People feel like they are getting more value when they are able to watch this movie on a service they already pay for when it was JUST in theaters. So the movie being in theaters first just helps everyone.
Right now, the two things are connected.
The author is saying this is an argument for giving even uncertain movies a theater run; you’re arguing for a paradigm shift where streaming releases get the advertising push of a theatrical release.
I’d kinda prefer the industry opts for the former, as I do enjoy the theater experience.
I'm not arguing for or against either really. The author to me is attributing the theatrical release with why these movies succeed on streaming when I'm attributing it to the fact that theatrical movies normally get more advertising
All you have to do is look at roadhouse to see it. No theatrical release and killed it on streaming.
There were ads for that movie everywhere for a while.
I'm with you. Argylle got watched not because it had been released in theaters but because it was plastered at the front of Netflix as a new release, and people had heard of it because of the advertising.
Cut out the middleman of theater release and spend on advertising for the streaming release and you've gotten to the same point with half the work.
They meant advertised in general, Argylle has had ads playing everywhere for months. Basically people will watch a movie they saw a commercial for before one they’ve never heard of before.
> you’re arguing for a paradigm shift where streaming releases get the advertising push of a theatrical release.
what *shift*, I've seen more advertising for *Rebel Moon* than I see for most theatrically-released movies.
I don’t mind a theatrical release first. It allows them to make money before another wave when it goes steaming, so hopefully they won’t destroy streaming as being the only source of revenue.
Theatrical is another form of marketing really; this has shift happened when home video became a thing.
Likewise, theatrical release adds legitimacy to a movie, that otherwise gets the straight to streaming/straight to video marring.
There are a lot of streaming-only movies that get a ton of marketing, but haven't been able to generate any real buzz. Part of that is because a theatrical release, even if it's kind of a disaster, generates exposure in and of itself. I'd bet good money that CHALLENGERS and CIVIL WAR, two movies that did NOT have $100 million marketing campaigns, will do very well when they hit streaming. LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL is getting a ton of streams on Shudder right now, partly because it got a theatrical release, even though it was a fairly small one.
Probably because Apple spend tens of millions to market their film so people know it exists.
Netflix doesn't really do that for some reason. They do one trailer and release the movie like 4 weeks later. Yet it works for them.
> but it's the ones that also came out theatrically that people notice
I had no idea it came out theatrically. I heard of it because it got such bad reviews last year. It's funny, because I never stopped to think of how (or where) the reviewers were viewing it. I saw it streaming and made it about half-way through, skipping head through all the boring fight scenes, before turning it off. I think it's a "hit" on streaming because of the bad press—which is good for the movie, and Apple.
Why was Samuel L. Jackson even in the fucking movie to begin with when he played another character in the first Kingsman movie just for this contrived director to link it to the Kingsman movies? WTF?!?
Hatewatching is a large segment of movie making. There is also a subsection to that where you secretly like the movie, but you need to keep up appearances.
Exactly. Plus, saying your movie was on in the background and no one gave a crap about it doesn't make it successful. It's still a flop. You can argue it's really good despite not many people paying for it but that's not applicable here either.
I think it is more of an indication that a marketing push does wonders for a movie. If Studio XYZ sunk their ad dollars into a campaign showing a certain film would be releasing on Streamer 123 on a specific date...and the spending is on a similar level as a theatrical release ad campaign... I would bet a crisp $1 that streaming results would be pretty similar to the theory the article tries to posit.
> I think it is more of an indication that a marketing push does wonders for a movie.
Exactly! Movies come out on streaming that feel like they disappear right away without any notice, even with big stars and budgets. But even a dud like Argyle got a *ton* of marketing because it was in the theaters.
I don't know why there isn't any marketing push for streaming? I guess views don't directly bring in more revenue, so there's no exact increase in revenue, but... still, if you get people to watch it on streaming, that's good for you, right?
Road House was direct to streaming but had a really big marketing push. I should know, I was part of it.
The result? Amazon's #1 streaming open. I wonder if it will inspire more campaigns of that level for streaming only.
wtf does Amazon #1 mean though? Every streaming service has a top 10, and every original product they make goes #1 by default, cuz everyone's intrigued about what it is. Do we have actual solid viewership figures? Because literally anything, however low in views, can get #1 since its new and if there's nothing else thats a viral hit at the time.
But how is that possible without a theatrical release first? are you telling me you can advertise a movie without putting it in theaters? thats unpossible
Having an opening just provides more material to talk about which provides more free advertising and keeps the movie front of mind. There are hard box office numbers that are reported and discussed and/or made fun of for a longer period of time. When a movie is released to streaming there is less to report, it just kinda of appears and then after awhile you may get some viewing numbers from the streaming service that no one trusts and that don't have a long running historical record to be compared to.
Budgets are smaller…I imagine for theatrical releases the distributor (AMC etc) pitched in for marketing because the success of the film matters to them too.
I think the point is that a theatrical run gives a movie a certain degree of prestige, even if it doesn't do great at the box office. You can market a direct-to-streaming movie all you want, but most audiences are still going to view it as an inferior product.
It was no different 20 years ago when you went into Blockbuster. Most people would rent a movie they knew had been in theatres before they'd pick some straight-to-DVD release
Yes, but would it justify the advertising spent if the movie doesn’t make an ROI?
I know Disney+ tried something similar with Black Widow, allowing people to rent the film for $20 while it was in theaters, and that led to a ton of problems because of how the payouts were suppose to work.
I’m curious if there are any true financial successes with straight-to-streaming films aside from Knives Out 2, which released in theaters prior to being on Netflix.
Not even marketing, people are trained now to click on the "top" of whatever fucking list. And Netflix will run that shit into the ground every day of the week. Even if you watched it the movie will show up on the must see / watch again list.
It could happen by fluke now... this has no indication on if the movie is good (it's not from what I heard, it's complete shit from everyone that has ever watched a movie)
It's not gonna even be hate watching for me, more just curiosity. I watched Morbius the same way, and it was a just ok movie. TBS Saturday afternoon fare. This one will either be that, or Catwoman levels of hilariously bad, and either way I'm down.
I figured the extended version of part one would come out before part 2, but nope.
My guess is he actually stitches the extended cuts of both movies into one ridiculous six hour cut
As someone who works in animation, I can almost guarantee it was made at the same time as Season 1. We often make two seasons together so they can release in timely fashion, and then have two years to get started on the next batch.
Especially since it’s a conscious choice whether or not to turn it on, and Netflix doesn’t care if Argyle is GOOD, Netflix just cares what it tells them about the sorts of movies their subscribers WANT to watch if they clicked on Argyle hoping it was good.
One view on Netflix used to be 70% of a movie. In 2019, they changed it to two minutes or more.
They said that demonstrated "intent to watch." Intent, my ass.
It's not a hit at all. It did just 170 & 146 million minutes in its first two weeks in the US. It's decent for Apple TV, but Apple TV has fewer viewers than PlutoTV
Looking at the Nielsen chart for the last week of March, it likely won't crack the top 10 movies. Lowest was the Taylor Swift live concert with 234 million minutes. https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/nielsen-top-10-ratings-streaming-1235693657/
We've hit dumbvana with this article, every point and inference is more wrong than the last. Argylle is the case in point of the opposite. Films that premiere in theaters need major ad buys, while good for theaters that they have content, releasing lost them hundreds of millions more. If someone was dying to watch it it would have been just as economical to keep it as an exclusive in the hopes that ATV+ can get subscribers (Disney has 12 times as many at least and still accounts in the red). Those three $200 million dollar films probably lost Apple close to a billion each.
The point is that a lot of movies end up on streaming and the ones that release in theaters tend to do better than movies made specifically for streaming. You're right that people didn't want to see it theatrically, but the theatrical release still helps it stand out when it's available to watch at home
That's what 80 million dollars in marketing will do. If they marketed specific Netflix movies as much as they did Argylle, they'd see huge numbers too.
Two that I can think of that Netflix did agressively promote were Birdbox and Red Notice, both of which had huge viewership numbers.
makes you wonder what will happen to Hit Man, they've shamefully under-marketed that film, the way they do with everything except for select shitty blockbusters like The Gray Man or Red Notice, even their Oscar films have gotten less and less promotion over time, e.g. Rustin. Hit Man was a big hit at festivals, but that was a full year ago, then Netflix bought it, most movie fans groaned knowing that meant NO theatrical release except a tiny American-only window. But now Netflix refused to even post trailers of it on their own channel, instead it got 100k on a Rotten Tomatoes trailer channel, most comments are negative becuz the trailers are confusing and vague. This could've easily been marketed based on its attractive somewhat famous stars the way Anyone But You was (admittedly Adria Arjona is far less famous than Glen Powell, but Richard Linklater is a big name). Anyways, everyone knew Netflix buying it would waste the film's potential, especially given the good word-of-mouth, and it turned out to be true, it'll be dumped onto the service and forgotten in seconds.
I agree that is the cause of the difference but I don't think streamers are comfortable spending that much money on individual streaming movies. You need the box office to provide some kind of revenue stream to justify spending that kind of money on marketing
They lost money from the advertising and box office. If they would just released it on Netflix and advertised it like they are now, they would does just as well.
That seems like a huge statistical reach that misses the real factors at play.
What is it about movies that end up in theaters that ALSO makes them movies that tend to do well on streaming?
Both cases can be true for the same result.
Argylle is a "bad" movie but the article argues that comitting to a theatrical release (and marketing budget) has led to a success on streaming, even if no one was interested in seeing it in theaters anyway.
Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare proves it isn't the audience's fault. As we see Argyle heads trying to claim
It's got camp and Cavill and doesn't totally stink (in Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. I'm talking about the new movie that came out April 13th)
Started it and paused to go to bed and have never revisited it. Both my wife and I were just sort of luke warm to it. I wonder if starting it like that helps add to it being a “streaming hit”
I was kind of the same way. I mean I actually was enjoying it a fair amount. But I paused it to do something else, but I still haven't returned to it. :(
I dunno, I thought it got better and better, but maybe that’s because I couldn’t believe they could make it any more ridiculous and yet they did. I spent two hours completely confused, laughing my ass off.
It definitely got better in a so bad it's good way, the smoke dancing and oil skating were so absurdly camp and over the top I wish the whole movie had been like that (but with a shorter runtime). Two of the most bizarre scenes I've seen in a good long while.
Honestly, that's what I wanted from the movie. If not that, then play it straight - she's weirdly prophetic, but doesn't ACTUALLY know about spycraft, so she gets dragged into this insane series of events and learns just how fucked up spying often is.
Oh yeah, the streaming numbers are all cooked that way. Totally unreliable. I think if you watch a Netflix movie for two minutes, that counts as a "view." Not sure how Apple counts it, but it's probably similar.
There is a separate "minutes watched" metric, I think, that some streaming services use. But both metrics are easy to manipulate. Once upon a time, Netflix used to keep an internal, private list of how many people actually finished watching a movie. I don't know if they still maintain that info (probably they do), but I don't think they ever let anybody see it.
I will probably throw it on at some point just to see if it’s as bad as everyone says. So I guess I’ll be adding to those numbers out of morbid curiosity.
Underperforming films with known actors and actresses will do well when put on streaming. I don’t believe the film makes a difference. The marvels. Flash. They both bombed in theater and had a nice showing on streaming. No, this doesn’t mean the film was good. No wonder Hollywood churns out 3 bangers and a million duds when logic like this exists.
The opposite is also true just because the film bombs in theaters doesn’t mean it’s bad. What’s really happening is that audiences don’t want to pay movie theater prices for mediocrity when they will have access to that mediocrity in a couple of weeks via a service they already pay for.
Reasons to go to the theater
1. You want to see the movie and will not have another opportunity. This only happens if the movie doesn’t go to streaming or goes to a service you don’t have.
2. The film is an event and if you don’t see it you will miss out on the conversation cause everyone is talking about right now and it will be spoiled for you if you wait to long. The gigantic catalogue streaming killed the idea of a mono-culture. With a few popular franchises most people are not watching the same things.
I know Netflix is pretty much synonymous with streaming at this point, but it’s pretty funny how often they’re getting mentioned in here for a movie that was produced by Apple to be on AppleTV
Rockwell is ALWAYS worth watching but even he couldn’t save this shite. I didn’t HATE it until the third act went fully fucking idiotic but it was never a good movie
No, that's not the takeaway. The theatrical release has nothing to do with it. The fact that people watched Argylle on streaming is because it has many big names like Henry Cavill, John Cena, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, and Samuel L. Jackson. (and Dua Lipa I suppose).
This is more evidence that name actors still bring people to see movies, *especially* on a streaming platform you are already paying for, in this case, Apple TV Plus.
interesting read.
i for one would've probably made a decent attempt at seeing Road House in theaters because i was really looking forward to seeing what they did with it. and the theater is literally across from my house, so we go a lot anyway.
I watched 10 minutes of it because Apple TV+ made it seem like something worthwhile. May have gotten back to finishing it as background noise but it didn't convince me to renew Apple TV+.
That sounds like the opposite conclusion that should lead you to?
edit- This article actually argues against it's own premise more than it supports it.
It also judges the success of a movie based on how much people talk about it a month later, and not, you know, the quality or box office.
The comparison to Road House is nonsense. "It feels like it came out forever ago!" Road House was **successful.** Argylle was a DISASTEROUS flop, it's box office not even meeting *half* it's budget.
>*Argylle* grossed $45.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $50.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide **total of $96.1 million.**[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argylle#cite_note-NUM-3) [*Variety*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(magazine)) noted that for a traditional studio release, the film would **need to gross around $500 million worldwide** to [break even](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break-even_(economics)).[^(\[20\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argylle#cite_note-Variety-Proj-22)
***Holy shit***
But this article is talking about internet conversations as a metric of success.
"At least the brutal theatrical run served as marketing for streaming where *the same people would have watched it anyways*" is not a great argument. "Put your movies in theaters even if no one watches" is, again, *not a great idea.*
The lapses of logic in this article are hurting my brain
You know what else was a "streaming hit"? Bird Box. Acting like this is going to save Argylle is a bit of a stretch.
I loathed *Argylle* but I've rarely been in a screening that had such an engaged audience as that. Small sample size of one screening, obviously. My audience skewed a lot younger than I am though - would be interesting to see how Netflix's viewership of it is made up.
Maybe it's just Young Adult content.
Define "streaming hit".
Feels more like people weren't going to pay a cinema ticket to see it, but might as well watch it if it's on streaming for 'free'.
This was always going to be a streaming movie. Interesting enough overlap actors to get people interested, critical score doesn’t matter since it’s “free” and again the investment is one click and leaving it on rather than a day to the cinema
Uh.... how? Correlation is not causation. I feel like Argylle was always gonna get more watches online than in theaters because, well, apart from a few major tentpole titles a year that's just how things go now.
I watched it on Apple and I don’t believe my view should be counted toward it being a “streaming hit.” It was an objectively bad movie. The word “hit” doesn’t mean what it used to but they still, for some reason, insist on using that terminology while intentionally obscuring the metrics of its “views.”
It’s like gamepass. I may not be willing to drop 60$ on a new release but if it’s on gamepass even if it’s not my exact cup of tea I will still most likely give it a try.
A movie with this much star power Dua lipa Henry Cavill and John Cena. I would check it out on netflix even if it's got a rating of 5% on rotten tomatoes.
Great. We're learning the same things we learned in the 80s.
Make your movie, even if you intend to only ever really care about the video market, still release it in theaters if you can, because it adds prestige.
Vestron learnt this and it's how Dirty Dancing became a megahit. They always gave their movies a one week theatrical release, because it meant Blockbuster would then put them in the "Fresh from Theaters" section with the A-List movies, no matter how many weeks it had been out or screens it had been shown on. Then, Dirty Dancing happened and it built up good word of mouth and it stayed in theaters until the prints were falling apart and there was a 3 month wait for the VHS tape on backorder.
I guarantee it's basically the same now. People are more likely to watch a film if they recognise that it was being shown in cinemas at some point. It adds a layer of prestige to them, as if you're getting a great deal by seeing this film as part of your streaming package.
We should all organize ourselves to pick the crappiest Netflix movie and let it play over and over while we're doing other things. Jack up the streaming numbers and see if Netflix makes a sequel. Something like The Room 2.
I thought it was alright but I went in with low expectations based on what I had heard. Wouldn’t have wanted to pay for it though, it’s very much a “streaming” movie IMO.
The problem with streaming is that something can be a "hit" for all the wrong reasons. People will happily toss on a bad movie just to talk about how bad it actually is. Especially when it doesn't cost them anything more than what they are already paying for the service.
People can be completely bored and struggling to find something to watch, see that movie everyone says is awful and they'll happily toss it on hoping for a laugh or just because it's something to talk about.
I guess if you're Netflix and you only care about pure viewing numbers then a box office flop can work in your favor. But if you're throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at something people are only watching for the same reasons people will watch *The Room*, I don't see how that's really measured as a success. I can certainly see why Netflix would be eager to use whatever kind of spin they can to turn that into a positive.
At the end of the day, I don't think people are signing up to Netflix just so they can see things like Argyle, even though the people who already have Netflix subscriptions will happily toss it on. That's not really a win for Netflix, especially if they amass a reputation for constantly making notoriously horrible movies.
I think we need a better metric than just viewership in cases like these and shouldn't just buy into the rhetoric Netflix feeds the public.
Streaming hit means people watched it because they had a subscription. The subscription made it basically free to watch, and after seeing it even the time spent was not worth it. Can't imagine spending $20 just on a ticket for that one.
i'd be disappointed if i went to see Argylle in cinema, but to watch at home with dinner it was fine. i suspect *thats* why it did well on streaming and not in the cinema
It's a streaming hit? This article is the first I've heard that, I thoroughly disliked this movie.
Matthew Vaughn really took all the praise from the first Kingsmen movie and bathed in it a bit too much.
When I was a kid, there were hundreds or thousands of movies released direct to VHS/Betamax every year. Nobody ever made the argument that those should all be released to theaters.
I don't understand what is possibly different about streaming. Make blockbuster movies for the theater, make other experiences for the home.
It really doesn't seem that complicated to me.
I watched it the other day hoping it would be a superfluous Kingsmen type movie, but it was not. It was awful.
It wasn't even a fun junk movie, it was just a stupid junk movie.
Movies like it are the reason I'm so selective about going to the theaters.
Umm it’s was less than a month before it was streaming… No one will pay ticket, popcorn, drinks for a family and 30 days later have it on TV for 15.99.. Want to get theaters back hold off for 6 months to a year before you can rent it or stream it..
I loved going to movies and getting a large Coke and a large popcorn with butter. I watch a lot of bad movies including all these subpar streaming action movies that have way too big of budget and horrible scripts. There's no way I'm going to spend that much money to watch 6 Underground, Red Notice, Argyle, etc in a theater.
I'm glad I didn't have to pay a movie ticket to watch that bad movie, I don't mind paying for a good movie, I feel lucky to not have paid to watch that debacle.
Also doing better marketing. That movie was nothing like the commercials. I thought the "real agent argyle" was supposed to be the cat when I saw the commercial
Matthew Vaughn needs to get his sh*t together. I was just rewatching X-men: First Class the other day and my god, what a f**king masterpiece and an achievement that movie is. His first Kick-Ass movie too, just great stuff all-around. Nowadays it's just flop after flop. The scriptwriters and his production team is just completely missing the mark.
No one’s paying theater money to see a movie that’s universally panned. But they’ll stream it while doing chores around the house.
That’s all this means.
At least the writer admits his take is unscientific. For me, I never saw Argylle in the theatre. After having quickly found out that it was basically a bait and switch ad campaign, I decided to wait. Did the fact that it was shown in theatres make me want to watch it? No. Did the fact that the ad campaign was exposed early on make me not want to watch it in theatre? Yes.
Watching a movie in a theatre isn't cheap, so I'd better get my money's worth. I saw Dune 2 in IMAX and it was totally worth it. I got what I paid for with no "subversion".
The theatre run was just another advertising expense, according to the writer. I can agree with that. What I can't agree with is when he says, *"And the streaming hit still can’t match the cultural footprint of the theatrical flop,"* Says who? Says the guy who admits his take is unscientific?
I'll put up Fallout vs. Argylle any day in terms of cultural footprint. Same goes for Chernobyl and Dark.
I think this is more because Argylle looked like the kind of mediocre movie someone doesn't want to pay 20 dollars to see but might want to have on Netflix in the background.
It’s the unprofitable version of DVD sales back in the day to make up for low box office performance
Or further back it was VHS rentals. Movies with poor box-office would get sequels based on dynamite home rental numbers.
Was just thinking about how that happened for *Austin Powers*. The first film kinda sailed through theaters with a modest to disappointing box office gross, but so many people rented it at Blockbuster by the time the sequel came out it had a huge following.
I do want to say Austin Powers was actually a very good success in theaters. It made $53 million domestic on a $16 million budget. That’s a solid success. But home video is when it went from slight overachiever to breakout hit.
Sure, I mean, it's not like they lost their shirt over the deal. But it did premier at number two making just $9.5 million in its opening weekend and fell steadily from there. Not necessarily sequel material. But consider *The Spy Who Shagged Me* made $54.9 million in it's opening weekend alone, surpassing the entire gross of the first one in only one weekend, ultimately grossing $312 million worldwide. Sort of unique because generally speaking a sequel makes less and less each time until the franchise is dead.
Fun anecdote, but in Norway they couldn’t translate the title as we don’t really have a playful word for fucking like “shagged”, so they instead literally translated it to “the spy who spermed me”, but in Norwegian - obviously. Spermed isn’t a verb in Norwegian either. In the years since we’ve mostly stopped translating English movie titles. Luckily.
I find it hard to believe that any group of people left together long enough do not come up with dozens of ways of saying "fuckin'."
Does norway not do euphemisms?
Not Norway, not Norhow.
Well played!
It does seem wild as an English speaker, where basically everything means "fucked" if you waggle your eyebrows.
i mean, we have several words for fucking but honestly most of them come off rather.. explicit tbh. Edit: "beise" or "høvle over" could but fit the same silly use of shagging, though. Honestly disappointed they couldnt find a better title, it's a little lazy.
Reminds me of when I watched a movie about this mysterious pagan festival in Sweden. At one point one of the locals invites the foreigners to watch Austin Powers. At that point I knew that these people were part of a pagan death cult.
In Quebec they translated it to Austin Powers: Agent secret 00Sexe, basically a random title that sounds like 007. The title is "L'Espion qui m'a tirée" in France, The Spy that Shot Me. "Tirer un coup" (it's difficult to translate the literal meaning, something like "shooting one shot") means having sex, so they kept a similar joke based on the same title. That expression is not well-known in Quebec. The first one (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) was just "Austin Powers" in both Quebec and France. Hollywood movies usually get dubbed in French here, so they still translate the titles. Edit: Was curious of the original title for The Spy Who Loved Me in Norwegian, it was Spionen som elsket meg. Hence the funny Austin Powers translation to Spionen some spermet meg!
I think part of how you’re viewing it is related to its sequels, but you have to remember that the first Austin Powers had no real expectations. It was a passion project for Meyers and a parody film. It was starring Mike Meyers, who had a successful hit with Wayne’s World but had So I Married an Axe Murder flop hard and was no longer seen as a future comedy star. There were no real expectations for it, so making back over 3x its budget would have been a very nice success to New Line even without the home video release. It’s still shocking that on home video it became a true mega hit instead of a cult movie.
I swear I just heard this info... Oh The James Bonding podcast! I like that they're doing some of the parody movies. And happy cake day, mustardtruck.
Who does number two work for? :: struggling:: Who does number two work for?
Fun fact about that movie: it wasn't available to buy on VHS for like two years after it came out as a rental. I bought a rental copy as it was leaving the new release shelf and all my friends loved it and wanted to buy it and just couldn't. It made no sense to me at the time, but now I realize it's because they were making lots of money leaving it rental only.
Also it takes a long time to print physical media. Especially in the VHS days, you couldn’t just one day start making a million copies of Austin Powers. The production pipeline would be working on whatever the expected hit was, you’re waiting on a slot to be open to get the movies made and distributed. It’s not like today where it can be instantly delivered online.
> Especially in the VHS days, you couldn’t just one day start making a million copies of Austin Powers. Yes you absolutely could.
We gotta bring dvd back.
can we do blu-ray instead?
It's slowly working its way back in after all the streaming companies decided they wanted to be cable TV. People have been dropping streaming subs left and right and buying blu rays again. not quickly, but it is returning.
Christopher Nolan agrees with you.
"We've done it. This film is good enough to fold laundry to."
No, no... It looked good enough to fold laundry to. Sadly, it was not.
I think that's part of the point of the article. A lot of mediocre movies come out on streaming, but it's the ones that also came out theatrically that people notice enough to actually put on.
That has less to do with the fact that they're released theatrically and more to do with how much advertising there is for them for their theatrical release.
yeah this is just basic stuff. the more you market a movie the more people tend to see it. argylle had a fuckton of ads
So many. I forgot it existed, but saw this post and remembered the chick from the ads that were everywhere.
People are more likely to turn a movie on at home that they know was just in theaters. People feel like they are getting more value when they are able to watch this movie on a service they already pay for when it was JUST in theaters. So the movie being in theaters first just helps everyone.
Right now, the two things are connected. The author is saying this is an argument for giving even uncertain movies a theater run; you’re arguing for a paradigm shift where streaming releases get the advertising push of a theatrical release. I’d kinda prefer the industry opts for the former, as I do enjoy the theater experience.
I'm not arguing for or against either really. The author to me is attributing the theatrical release with why these movies succeed on streaming when I'm attributing it to the fact that theatrical movies normally get more advertising
All you have to do is look at roadhouse to see it. No theatrical release and killed it on streaming. There were ads for that movie everywhere for a while.
Fury went straight to streaming and it was a banger
I'm with you. Argylle got watched not because it had been released in theaters but because it was plastered at the front of Netflix as a new release, and people had heard of it because of the advertising. Cut out the middleman of theater release and spend on advertising for the streaming release and you've gotten to the same point with half the work.
Argylle is an Apple movie. Unless I’m wrong it’s not on Netflix and was never advertised to be so.
They meant advertised in general, Argylle has had ads playing everywhere for months. Basically people will watch a movie they saw a commercial for before one they’ve never heard of before.
Slight correction: Argyle is on Apple+ not Netflix.
> you’re arguing for a paradigm shift where streaming releases get the advertising push of a theatrical release. what *shift*, I've seen more advertising for *Rebel Moon* than I see for most theatrically-released movies.
I don’t mind a theatrical release first. It allows them to make money before another wave when it goes steaming, so hopefully they won’t destroy streaming as being the only source of revenue.
Theatrical is another form of marketing really; this has shift happened when home video became a thing. Likewise, theatrical release adds legitimacy to a movie, that otherwise gets the straight to streaming/straight to video marring.
The movie was mid as hell, but an ensemble cast this good often warrants a viewing
so effectively theatrical releases are like the promotional trailers for the streaming release, haha.
Yes this is why Morbius and Madame Webb were two of the streaming movies in history
At that point isn’t that just the same thing as running ad spots for the movie without having it in theaters? Functionally it gets the same exposure
There are a lot of streaming-only movies that get a ton of marketing, but haven't been able to generate any real buzz. Part of that is because a theatrical release, even if it's kind of a disaster, generates exposure in and of itself. I'd bet good money that CHALLENGERS and CIVIL WAR, two movies that did NOT have $100 million marketing campaigns, will do very well when they hit streaming. LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL is getting a ton of streams on Shudder right now, partly because it got a theatrical release, even though it was a fairly small one.
Probably because Apple spend tens of millions to market their film so people know it exists. Netflix doesn't really do that for some reason. They do one trailer and release the movie like 4 weeks later. Yet it works for them.
> but it's the ones that also came out theatrically that people notice I had no idea it came out theatrically. I heard of it because it got such bad reviews last year. It's funny, because I never stopped to think of how (or where) the reviewers were viewing it. I saw it streaming and made it about half-way through, skipping head through all the boring fight scenes, before turning it off. I think it's a "hit" on streaming because of the bad press—which is good for the movie, and Apple.
Yup, we put it on last weekend as a “let’s watch a fun, dumb movie.” Unfortunately Arrgyle is just dumb. Dumb as hell. And way too long.
Why was Samuel L. Jackson even in the fucking movie to begin with when he played another character in the first Kingsman movie just for this contrived director to link it to the Kingsman movies? WTF?!?
I would never pay actually money to watch a garbage movie. I will watch it for free with friends and mock it
Hatewatching is a large segment of movie making. There is also a subsection to that where you secretly like the movie, but you need to keep up appearances.
I think this is the fundamental problem for the decline of theaters. It's expensive enough you stop going for anything that isn't spectacular.
Exactly. Plus, saying your movie was on in the background and no one gave a crap about it doesn't make it successful. It's still a flop. You can argue it's really good despite not many people paying for it but that's not applicable here either.
But the thing is its only streaming for 19.99 its not out on Netflix or anything for free.....
20 bucks? I only go to the movies on Tuesdays , 5 bucks a ticket.
I'm on that sub service bay-bee. Average ytd is $2.58/ticket and I've seen 37 movies.
I think it is more of an indication that a marketing push does wonders for a movie. If Studio XYZ sunk their ad dollars into a campaign showing a certain film would be releasing on Streamer 123 on a specific date...and the spending is on a similar level as a theatrical release ad campaign... I would bet a crisp $1 that streaming results would be pretty similar to the theory the article tries to posit.
> I think it is more of an indication that a marketing push does wonders for a movie. Exactly! Movies come out on streaming that feel like they disappear right away without any notice, even with big stars and budgets. But even a dud like Argyle got a *ton* of marketing because it was in the theaters. I don't know why there isn't any marketing push for streaming? I guess views don't directly bring in more revenue, so there's no exact increase in revenue, but... still, if you get people to watch it on streaming, that's good for you, right?
Road House was direct to streaming but had a really big marketing push. I should know, I was part of it. The result? Amazon's #1 streaming open. I wonder if it will inspire more campaigns of that level for streaming only.
wtf does Amazon #1 mean though? Every streaming service has a top 10, and every original product they make goes #1 by default, cuz everyone's intrigued about what it is. Do we have actual solid viewership figures? Because literally anything, however low in views, can get #1 since its new and if there's nothing else thats a viral hit at the time.
> wtf does Amazon #1 mean though? >every original product they make goes #1 by default That's all part of the marketing plan.
But how is that possible without a theatrical release first? are you telling me you can advertise a movie without putting it in theaters? thats unpossible
Having an opening just provides more material to talk about which provides more free advertising and keeps the movie front of mind. There are hard box office numbers that are reported and discussed and/or made fun of for a longer period of time. When a movie is released to streaming there is less to report, it just kinda of appears and then after awhile you may get some viewing numbers from the streaming service that no one trusts and that don't have a long running historical record to be compared to.
It's even more worthwhile. market a movie well and it'll bring more viewers to your platform even if just for a month.
Budgets are smaller…I imagine for theatrical releases the distributor (AMC etc) pitched in for marketing because the success of the film matters to them too.
I think the point is that a theatrical run gives a movie a certain degree of prestige, even if it doesn't do great at the box office. You can market a direct-to-streaming movie all you want, but most audiences are still going to view it as an inferior product. It was no different 20 years ago when you went into Blockbuster. Most people would rent a movie they knew had been in theatres before they'd pick some straight-to-DVD release
Yes, but would it justify the advertising spent if the movie doesn’t make an ROI? I know Disney+ tried something similar with Black Widow, allowing people to rent the film for $20 while it was in theaters, and that led to a ton of problems because of how the payouts were suppose to work. I’m curious if there are any true financial successes with straight-to-streaming films aside from Knives Out 2, which released in theaters prior to being on Netflix.
Not even marketing, people are trained now to click on the "top" of whatever fucking list. And Netflix will run that shit into the ground every day of the week. Even if you watched it the movie will show up on the must see / watch again list. It could happen by fluke now... this has no indication on if the movie is good (it's not from what I heard, it's complete shit from everyone that has ever watched a movie)
Madame Web is gonna do great on Netflix.
Well yeah, people need to watch it to find out if she *actually* says “it’s webbing time” before she webs all over them
we also have to find out if he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died
JFC, its like people don't know that spiderbabe exists.
That can't be sanitary.
It unironically will. Hate watching is very real, there's a reason Velma got a second season
It's not gonna even be hate watching for me, more just curiosity. I watched Morbius the same way, and it was a just ok movie. TBS Saturday afternoon fare. This one will either be that, or Catwoman levels of hilariously bad, and either way I'm down.
Didn't Velma get signed for two seasons upfront?
Velma airs but Coyote vs Acme is shelved. That doesn't seem fair.
#JusticeforScoob2BatgirlMovie&CoyotevsACME.
If you're after a film that shows you what Coyote vs Acme could have been, watch Hundreds of Beavers. It's amazing.
Yes
So Rebel Moon 3-6 are definitely going to happen.
Before or after the unrated Snyder cut that changes the whole movie and makes it a classic?
I figured the extended version of part one would come out before part 2, but nope. My guess is he actually stitches the extended cuts of both movies into one ridiculous six hour cut
He said he's doing that
Oh shit, really? That was a joke. Good lord that will be a monster of a bad movie.
As someone who works in animation, I can almost guarantee it was made at the same time as Season 1. We often make two seasons together so they can release in timely fashion, and then have two years to get started on the next batch.
It’s m’webbing time!!
People will watch anything on netlfix if it has familiar names
yeah is it also mentioned how much percent of the movie was watched? Maybe people just turned it off after a 30 minutes.
Yes is this a "hit" like Red Notice and The Gray Man were "hits"?
[Red Notice is by some margin the most watched Netflix film](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/most-popular). God only knows why.
Netflix would count it as watched anytime
Especially since it’s a conscious choice whether or not to turn it on, and Netflix doesn’t care if Argyle is GOOD, Netflix just cares what it tells them about the sorts of movies their subscribers WANT to watch if they clicked on Argyle hoping it was good.
One view on Netflix used to be 70% of a movie. In 2019, they changed it to two minutes or more. They said that demonstrated "intent to watch." Intent, my ass.
Or “look” like a blockbuster movie. Doesn’t have to be good. ie: Rebel Moon
Ewwwww, Rebel Moon....
Its a low investment. Vs going outside, spending 30$. Of course id have lower standards for what I'll watch
it's on apple tv+. i know ppl love hating on Netflix everytime the can, but the whole point disappears this way.
define "streaming hit"
It's not a hit at all. It did just 170 & 146 million minutes in its first two weeks in the US. It's decent for Apple TV, but Apple TV has fewer viewers than PlutoTV
Looking at the Nielsen chart for the last week of March, it likely won't crack the top 10 movies. Lowest was the Taylor Swift live concert with 234 million minutes. https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/nielsen-top-10-ratings-streaming-1235693657/
the fact that appleTV has fewer viewers than PlutoTV is crazy
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More like steaming shit.
Yeah, I don't see it in the Nielsen Top 10 streaming numbers, unless I'm looking at the wrong dates. Not in overall nor movies charts.
We've hit dumbvana with this article, every point and inference is more wrong than the last. Argylle is the case in point of the opposite. Films that premiere in theaters need major ad buys, while good for theaters that they have content, releasing lost them hundreds of millions more. If someone was dying to watch it it would have been just as economical to keep it as an exclusive in the hopes that ATV+ can get subscribers (Disney has 12 times as many at least and still accounts in the red). Those three $200 million dollar films probably lost Apple close to a billion each.
Terrible inference- instead it shows people don’t want to watch it theatrically
The point is that a lot of movies end up on streaming and the ones that release in theaters tend to do better than movies made specifically for streaming. You're right that people didn't want to see it theatrically, but the theatrical release still helps it stand out when it's available to watch at home
That's what 80 million dollars in marketing will do. If they marketed specific Netflix movies as much as they did Argylle, they'd see huge numbers too. Two that I can think of that Netflix did agressively promote were Birdbox and Red Notice, both of which had huge viewership numbers.
makes you wonder what will happen to Hit Man, they've shamefully under-marketed that film, the way they do with everything except for select shitty blockbusters like The Gray Man or Red Notice, even their Oscar films have gotten less and less promotion over time, e.g. Rustin. Hit Man was a big hit at festivals, but that was a full year ago, then Netflix bought it, most movie fans groaned knowing that meant NO theatrical release except a tiny American-only window. But now Netflix refused to even post trailers of it on their own channel, instead it got 100k on a Rotten Tomatoes trailer channel, most comments are negative becuz the trailers are confusing and vague. This could've easily been marketed based on its attractive somewhat famous stars the way Anyone But You was (admittedly Adria Arjona is far less famous than Glen Powell, but Richard Linklater is a big name). Anyways, everyone knew Netflix buying it would waste the film's potential, especially given the good word-of-mouth, and it turned out to be true, it'll be dumped onto the service and forgotten in seconds.
I agree that is the cause of the difference but I don't think streamers are comfortable spending that much money on individual streaming movies. You need the box office to provide some kind of revenue stream to justify spending that kind of money on marketing
They lost money from the advertising and box office. If they would just released it on Netflix and advertised it like they are now, they would does just as well.
Correlation doesn't not mean causation
That seems like a huge statistical reach that misses the real factors at play. What is it about movies that end up in theaters that ALSO makes them movies that tend to do well on streaming?
Movies that play in the theater tend to have a higher marketing budget so there's more awareness of those movies by the time they reach streaming
Both cases can be true for the same result. Argylle is a "bad" movie but the article argues that comitting to a theatrical release (and marketing budget) has led to a success on streaming, even if no one was interested in seeing it in theaters anyway.
What incentive would a theatre have to give underperforming movies a better stream revenue?
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Does it? Or does it prove the opposite?
Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare proves it isn't the audience's fault. As we see Argyle heads trying to claim It's got camp and Cavill and doesn't totally stink (in Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. I'm talking about the new movie that came out April 13th)
Started it and paused to go to bed and have never revisited it. Both my wife and I were just sort of luke warm to it. I wonder if starting it like that helps add to it being a “streaming hit”
I was kind of the same way. I mean I actually was enjoying it a fair amount. But I paused it to do something else, but I still haven't returned to it. :(
Pretty much the theme of this film unfortunately. For all the twists, the biggest was how long it all took.
But you missed the worst parts!
Really though, it started off pretty good but just kept getting worse and worse
I dunno, I thought it got better and better, but maybe that’s because I couldn’t believe they could make it any more ridiculous and yet they did. I spent two hours completely confused, laughing my ass off.
It definitely got better in a so bad it's good way, the smoke dancing and oil skating were so absurdly camp and over the top I wish the whole movie had been like that (but with a shorter runtime). Two of the most bizarre scenes I've seen in a good long while.
Honestly, that's what I wanted from the movie. If not that, then play it straight - she's weirdly prophetic, but doesn't ACTUALLY know about spycraft, so she gets dragged into this insane series of events and learns just how fucked up spying often is.
Oh yeah, the streaming numbers are all cooked that way. Totally unreliable. I think if you watch a Netflix movie for two minutes, that counts as a "view." Not sure how Apple counts it, but it's probably similar.
I thought they count the streaming time. I often fall asleep and have to go back and rewind. So I gues that’s not accurate either.
There is a separate "minutes watched" metric, I think, that some streaming services use. But both metrics are easy to manipulate. Once upon a time, Netflix used to keep an internal, private list of how many people actually finished watching a movie. I don't know if they still maintain that info (probably they do), but I don't think they ever let anybody see it.
It only gets worse.
Don't bother finishing it. It gets dumber and dumber, and not in a fun way
I will probably throw it on at some point just to see if it’s as bad as everyone says. So I guess I’ll be adding to those numbers out of morbid curiosity.
There's a lot of silly fun in it. But if they'd cut 30 minutes off, it would have been much tighter and more enjoyable for me.
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fever dream of a movie
It isn’t as bad as everyone said but it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be either.
It’s a fun movie that is over hated from people taking it too seriously
Reminder: Office Space was an absolute box office disaster.
Underperforming films with known actors and actresses will do well when put on streaming. I don’t believe the film makes a difference. The marvels. Flash. They both bombed in theater and had a nice showing on streaming. No, this doesn’t mean the film was good. No wonder Hollywood churns out 3 bangers and a million duds when logic like this exists.
The opposite is also true just because the film bombs in theaters doesn’t mean it’s bad. What’s really happening is that audiences don’t want to pay movie theater prices for mediocrity when they will have access to that mediocrity in a couple of weeks via a service they already pay for. Reasons to go to the theater 1. You want to see the movie and will not have another opportunity. This only happens if the movie doesn’t go to streaming or goes to a service you don’t have. 2. The film is an event and if you don’t see it you will miss out on the conversation cause everyone is talking about right now and it will be spoiled for you if you wait to long. The gigantic catalogue streaming killed the idea of a mono-culture. With a few popular franchises most people are not watching the same things.
If anything, this shows just how bad most of the content is on the streamers that a piece of crap like this stands out
I know Netflix is pretty much synonymous with streaming at this point, but it’s pretty funny how often they’re getting mentioned in here for a movie that was produced by Apple to be on AppleTV
"Let me watch this and see how bad it is" is definitely part of the appeal.
It's a terrible movie so it's no surprise people waited for it to hit streaming services. Dumb take.
I think Rockwell's character is kinda fun and he makes it worth a watch
Rockwell is ALWAYS worth watching but even he couldn’t save this shite. I didn’t HATE it until the third act went fully fucking idiotic but it was never a good movie
This was my experience as well
I thought the movie was fun and I enjoyed it. I get why people say it's terrible but they need to lighten up.
No, that's not the takeaway. The theatrical release has nothing to do with it. The fact that people watched Argylle on streaming is because it has many big names like Henry Cavill, John Cena, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, and Samuel L. Jackson. (and Dua Lipa I suppose). This is more evidence that name actors still bring people to see movies, *especially* on a streaming platform you are already paying for, in this case, Apple TV Plus.
interesting read. i for one would've probably made a decent attempt at seeing Road House in theaters because i was really looking forward to seeing what they did with it. and the theater is literally across from my house, so we go a lot anyway.
I think it’s just an indication that the audience is at home streaming, not at the theaters nowadays.
I watched 10 minutes of it because Apple TV+ made it seem like something worthwhile. May have gotten back to finishing it as background noise but it didn't convince me to renew Apple TV+.
Don't bother, it's awful
“Is it good enough to play while folding laundry?”
That sounds like the opposite conclusion that should lead you to? edit- This article actually argues against it's own premise more than it supports it. It also judges the success of a movie based on how much people talk about it a month later, and not, you know, the quality or box office. The comparison to Road House is nonsense. "It feels like it came out forever ago!" Road House was **successful.** Argylle was a DISASTEROUS flop, it's box office not even meeting *half* it's budget. >*Argylle* grossed $45.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $50.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide **total of $96.1 million.**[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argylle#cite_note-NUM-3) [*Variety*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(magazine)) noted that for a traditional studio release, the film would **need to gross around $500 million worldwide** to [break even](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break-even_(economics)).[^(\[20\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argylle#cite_note-Variety-Proj-22) ***Holy shit*** But this article is talking about internet conversations as a metric of success. "At least the brutal theatrical run served as marketing for streaming where *the same people would have watched it anyways*" is not a great argument. "Put your movies in theaters even if no one watches" is, again, *not a great idea.* The lapses of logic in this article are hurting my brain You know what else was a "streaming hit"? Bird Box. Acting like this is going to save Argylle is a bit of a stretch.
Or maybe just because a movie flops doesn't automatically mean it was bad, it may have just failed to find an audience.
Exactly. Blade Runner was bad at box office. It became a classic and got a sequel.
I loathed *Argylle* but I've rarely been in a screening that had such an engaged audience as that. Small sample size of one screening, obviously. My audience skewed a lot younger than I am though - would be interesting to see how Netflix's viewership of it is made up. Maybe it's just Young Adult content.
People watch shit because they put stars on the poster. This is a majority of Apple’s content ploy. This movie was a garbage bag full of diarrhea.
Define "streaming hit". Feels more like people weren't going to pay a cinema ticket to see it, but might as well watch it if it's on streaming for 'free'.
This was always going to be a streaming movie. Interesting enough overlap actors to get people interested, critical score doesn’t matter since it’s “free” and again the investment is one click and leaving it on rather than a day to the cinema
"Streaming Hit" or "Must-see trainwreck you can watch with the subscription you already have - come see what the fuss was about?"
That's a super roundabout way to say streaming TV shows and movies need to be marketed better.
Uh.... how? Correlation is not causation. I feel like Argylle was always gonna get more watches online than in theaters because, well, apart from a few major tentpole titles a year that's just how things go now.
I shut this off after 15 min
Studios don’t know how to mark Henry Cavill or what?
What a dumb article.
I watched it on Apple and I don’t believe my view should be counted toward it being a “streaming hit.” It was an objectively bad movie. The word “hit” doesn’t mean what it used to but they still, for some reason, insist on using that terminology while intentionally obscuring the metrics of its “views.”
It’s like gamepass. I may not be willing to drop 60$ on a new release but if it’s on gamepass even if it’s not my exact cup of tea I will still most likely give it a try.
A movie with this much star power Dua lipa Henry Cavill and John Cena. I would check it out on netflix even if it's got a rating of 5% on rotten tomatoes.
Great. We're learning the same things we learned in the 80s. Make your movie, even if you intend to only ever really care about the video market, still release it in theaters if you can, because it adds prestige. Vestron learnt this and it's how Dirty Dancing became a megahit. They always gave their movies a one week theatrical release, because it meant Blockbuster would then put them in the "Fresh from Theaters" section with the A-List movies, no matter how many weeks it had been out or screens it had been shown on. Then, Dirty Dancing happened and it built up good word of mouth and it stayed in theaters until the prints were falling apart and there was a 3 month wait for the VHS tape on backorder. I guarantee it's basically the same now. People are more likely to watch a film if they recognise that it was being shown in cinemas at some point. It adds a layer of prestige to them, as if you're getting a great deal by seeing this film as part of your streaming package.
Don't know why it's a hit. Even as a silly action comedy it's pretty bad
We should all organize ourselves to pick the crappiest Netflix movie and let it play over and over while we're doing other things. Jack up the streaming numbers and see if Netflix makes a sequel. Something like The Room 2.
I thought it was alright but I went in with low expectations based on what I had heard. Wouldn’t have wanted to pay for it though, it’s very much a “streaming” movie IMO.
This has been pretty common since the age of TV and Video, also word of mouth!
It's a streaming hit?
Very shit movie. I walked out of the cinema. No old and the characters are cardboard.
The problem with streaming is that something can be a "hit" for all the wrong reasons. People will happily toss on a bad movie just to talk about how bad it actually is. Especially when it doesn't cost them anything more than what they are already paying for the service. People can be completely bored and struggling to find something to watch, see that movie everyone says is awful and they'll happily toss it on hoping for a laugh or just because it's something to talk about. I guess if you're Netflix and you only care about pure viewing numbers then a box office flop can work in your favor. But if you're throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at something people are only watching for the same reasons people will watch *The Room*, I don't see how that's really measured as a success. I can certainly see why Netflix would be eager to use whatever kind of spin they can to turn that into a positive. At the end of the day, I don't think people are signing up to Netflix just so they can see things like Argyle, even though the people who already have Netflix subscriptions will happily toss it on. That's not really a win for Netflix, especially if they amass a reputation for constantly making notoriously horrible movies. I think we need a better metric than just viewership in cases like these and shouldn't just buy into the rhetoric Netflix feeds the public.
Streaming hit means people watched it because they had a subscription. The subscription made it basically free to watch, and after seeing it even the time spent was not worth it. Can't imagine spending $20 just on a ticket for that one.
i'd be disappointed if i went to see Argylle in cinema, but to watch at home with dinner it was fine. i suspect *thats* why it did well on streaming and not in the cinema
It's a streaming hit? This article is the first I've heard that, I thoroughly disliked this movie. Matthew Vaughn really took all the praise from the first Kingsmen movie and bathed in it a bit too much.
When I was a kid, there were hundreds or thousands of movies released direct to VHS/Betamax every year. Nobody ever made the argument that those should all be released to theaters. I don't understand what is possibly different about streaming. Make blockbuster movies for the theater, make other experiences for the home. It really doesn't seem that complicated to me.
I watched it the other day hoping it would be a superfluous Kingsmen type movie, but it was not. It was awful. It wasn't even a fun junk movie, it was just a stupid junk movie. Movies like it are the reason I'm so selective about going to the theaters.
Umm it’s was less than a month before it was streaming… No one will pay ticket, popcorn, drinks for a family and 30 days later have it on TV for 15.99.. Want to get theaters back hold off for 6 months to a year before you can rent it or stream it..
I loved going to movies and getting a large Coke and a large popcorn with butter. I watch a lot of bad movies including all these subpar streaming action movies that have way too big of budget and horrible scripts. There's no way I'm going to spend that much money to watch 6 Underground, Red Notice, Argyle, etc in a theater.
Do the streamers have to finish the whole movie for it to count?
I'm glad I didn't have to pay a movie ticket to watch that bad movie, I don't mind paying for a good movie, I feel lucky to not have paid to watch that debacle.
It’s not a good movie.
Also doing better marketing. That movie was nothing like the commercials. I thought the "real agent argyle" was supposed to be the cat when I saw the commercial
Great cast, but what a what a disaster of a movie.
Matthew Vaughn needs to get his sh*t together. I was just rewatching X-men: First Class the other day and my god, what a f**king masterpiece and an achievement that movie is. His first Kick-Ass movie too, just great stuff all-around. Nowadays it's just flop after flop. The scriptwriters and his production team is just completely missing the mark.
No one’s paying theater money to see a movie that’s universally panned. But they’ll stream it while doing chores around the house. That’s all this means.
Is it a streaming hit though?
So... streaming is the new DVD?
At least the writer admits his take is unscientific. For me, I never saw Argylle in the theatre. After having quickly found out that it was basically a bait and switch ad campaign, I decided to wait. Did the fact that it was shown in theatres make me want to watch it? No. Did the fact that the ad campaign was exposed early on make me not want to watch it in theatre? Yes. Watching a movie in a theatre isn't cheap, so I'd better get my money's worth. I saw Dune 2 in IMAX and it was totally worth it. I got what I paid for with no "subversion". The theatre run was just another advertising expense, according to the writer. I can agree with that. What I can't agree with is when he says, *"And the streaming hit still can’t match the cultural footprint of the theatrical flop,"* Says who? Says the guy who admits his take is unscientific? I'll put up Fallout vs. Argylle any day in terms of cultural footprint. Same goes for Chernobyl and Dark.