At the Oscars, host Conan O’Brien and Sterling K. Brown performed a sketch based on the idea that streamers are telling filmmakers and showrunners to restate the plots of their movies or shows every so often, so that non-attentive viewers don’t get lost or confused.
The bit riffed on the classic Casablanca, with Brown, as piano player Sam, saying things to O’Brien-as-Rick Blaine things like, “And Rick, to reiterate, you’re just now realizing that you’re still in love with Ilsa, even though she’s married?”
The sketch drew some laughs from the audience — and apparently from Netflix film chief Dan Lin too.
“There is no such principle. We actually all laughed when we watched that bit at the Oscars, but there’s no such principle,” Lin told reporters at an event Wednesday introducing Netflix’s slate for the rest of the yar. “I mean, if you watch our movies or TV shows, we don’t repeat our plots. I don’t know where that comment came from.”
Most recently, it came from Matt Damon, the star and producer (alongside Ben Affleck) of Netflix’s recent heist thriller The Rip. Promoting the movie on The Joe Rogan Experience in January, Damon said, “[Netflix is] like, ‘Can we get a big [action sequence] in the first five minutes?’ We want people to stay tuned in. And it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”
Not so, said Lin, his series counterpart Bela Bajaria and Jinny Howe, vp drama series at the streamer. “We’re just focused on making great movies,” Lin said. “There’s no formula or procedure that you just mentioned.”
Bajaria added, “I think it’s so offensive to creators and filmmakers to think that first of all we would give them a bad note like that and they would just take it. So I think, you know, haters gotta hate and people have got to make things up.”
Howe says Netflix executives “know how savvy the audiences are” because viewers don’t hesitate to let them know about perceived flaws in a series or movie. “Bela is kind of the exposition police,” Howe said of Bajaria. “We take it really seriously that we’re not trying to dumb things down, and it is about making sure the audience knows it’s for them, and audiences are very savvy.”
Bajaria also noted an instance where a showrunner had, in her view, too much exposition and restatement of what was happening and asked them to dial back. “That was like, ‘I know, the subtext is there, please don’t tell me,’ she said. “So sometimes that even happens.”
While introducing the Oscars sketch, O’Brien didn’t mention Netflix or any other outlet by name. He merely said “some studios” were encouraging the practice.
