What ‘Red Notice’ Says About Evolving Netflix Movie Strategy

Turns out having three of the world’s biggest stars in your action-comedy-caper-whatever movie remains a pretty good recipe for success, even if critics deride the result as slick and derivative. At least, the time-worn recipe cooked up a tasty treat for Netflix NFLX , whose Red Notice is now the most-watched original feature in the service’s history.

The company’s newly hatched Top 10 lists put Red Notice at No. 1 among all English-language features, ever, with nearly 329 million hours watched in its first 28 days of release (it debuted Nov. 5). That’s the equivalent of 163 million of the company’s 214 million accounts watching the whole two-hour film, equating to possibly more people watching a single feature on any distribution platform ever in a four-week period.

And it’s not just a hit in the United States. The film is in the company’s top 10 in 94 countries around the globe, and No. 1 in most of them over the last full week of November. The split between critic and audience assessments was more a chasm; just 36 percent of critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a positive review, while 92 percent of viewers did.

More importantly, though, Red Notice represents an evolving strategy for Netflix as it adjusts its post-pandemic production pipeline amid increased international competition from both Hollywood media companies and an expanding coterie of international competitors.

Simply put, the company plans to make somewhat fewer feature-length projects, but take bigger swings with those movies, in hopes they make the kind of impact Red Notice has made on viewership and engagement. There’s a simple reason for the shift: even the company’s executives think Netflix makes too many movies.

Netflix’s global film chief Scott Stuber, previously a long-time Hollywood executive, nicely summed up the motivation for Bloomberg: “I think one of the fair criticisms has been we make too much and not enough is great.”

The company has been making/buying a set of Oscar-contending “great” films each year since at least 2018, when Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma won three Oscars, for best director, cinematography, and foreign-language film.

Netflix even hired veteran Oscar campaign consultant Lisa Taback as VP heading awards efforts. Last year, the company received more Oscar nominations (and Emmys too) than anyone, as it continues to demonstrate the “quality” side of its slate to subscribers (and critics) who care about that sort of imprimatur.

Those kinds of films tend to debut around this time of year, when Hollywood has long rolled out its serious (and many less serious but overly optimistic) Oscar contenders. For Netflix, 2021’s recently released contenders include Jane Campion’s long-awaited return to features with The Power of the Dog, and Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall.

But the company makes a lot of other movies that sit somewhere to the side of both the contenders and blockbusters like Red Notice and this summer’s zombie film from Zack Snyder, Army of the Dead. All told, the company will release at least 90 films in 2021, roughly one every four days, and possibly way more than that. However you count it all, no other studio comes close in terms of feature output.

Some of those other films occupy a specific fan-service niche, like holiday-themed romantic and family comedies that compete with the annual Christmas and Valentine’s Day onslaughts from Lifetime and Hallmark. But many others come and go without a lot of notice, red or otherwise.

In part, the company is fleshing out its middle-of-the-road offerings to make up for all the Hollywood films that are no longer being licensed to it, as competitors claw back rights to flesh out their own streaming services.

Mission accomplished for Netflix. Now comes the part where it starts to make sure its investments in film projects will have some long-term legs with viewers. As with Netflix’s competitors, that likely will be a lot more big action-comedy-whatever movies, because a whole lot of people around the globe seem to enjoy watching them, regardless of any critical reviews.

Just look at that Top 10 English-language film list again. It’s stuffed with cracking action pics such as Extraction, 6 Underground, and The Old Guard. The only feature that doesn’t sit near the nexus of big stars in action-filled stories shaded with horror, comedy, mystery, or thriller notes is also the only sequel and rom-com, 2020’s The Kissing Booth 2.

You could certainly argue that Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman doesn’t quite fit either. The 3.5-hour organized-crime epic from 2019, about a hired killer and featuring multiple Oscar winners in front of and behind the camera, won’t be confused with an Avengers movie.

But pairing Scorsese again with frequent muses Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci was also the kind of film designed to break through the noise, just like Red Notice’s glittering and charismatic lineup. And it worked, even if Netflix paid Paramount PGRE a ton of money to take over the pricey project.

Netflix is also giving its biggest projects more attention in other ways. Sequels, of course, for Extraction and The Old Guard, for instance. But also live, interactive experiences for Army of the Dead and League of Legends-based anime hit Arcane. Army of the Dead already has had a prequel/spinoff debut too, in Army of Thieves.

Expect more focus on crowd-pleasing films that are primed for sequels and spinoffs, and feature international stars who grab an audience with a toothy grin amid the on-screen mayhem surrounding them. In that regard, Netflix is edging ever so slightly closer to Hollywood’s oldest traditions, and recipes for success.