Netflix bets big on ‘The Hidden Agent’, most expensive film in its history, amid loss of subscribers

Anthony and Joe Russo like to play high. In 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” the director brothers shocked fans when they wiped out half the global population and allowed their Marvel superheroes to fail. The following year, they upped the ante with the three-hour film “Avengers: Endgame,” which took in $2.79 billion at the global box office, the second-highest amount to date.

And now we have “The Hidden Agent,” a Netflix movie that they wrote, directed, and produced. The streaming service gave them around $200 million to run around the world and have Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans play CIA employees trying to kill each other. “Nearly killed us,” Joe Russo said of the footage.

An action sequence took a month to produce. It involved big guns, a tram traversing Prague’s Old Town district, and Gosling fighting an army of assassins handcuffed to a stone bench. It’s one of those shows that make the audience applaud. The moment cost around US$ 40 million (R$ 217 million) to make. “It’s a movie within a movie,” said Anthony Russo.

“Hidden Agent” will be available on Netflix this Friday (22) and comes at a critical time for the streaming platform, which will announce its second quarter results this Tuesday (19). Many in the industry believe the results will be even worse than the loss of 2 million subscribers the company predicted in April.

The company’s first-quarter earnings led to a precipitous drop in its share price. The company has since laid off hundreds of employees, announced it will create a cheaper subscription plan with commercials and intends to crack down on sharing passwords between friends and family.

This Monday (18) the company announced that it will charge an additional fee to users in five Latin American countries (Argentina, Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala) who access their accounts in more than one household. For now, Brazil will not have the new charge.

Despite the current difficult time, Netflix’s deep pockets and hands-on approach to creative decisions have made it the only studio capable of living up to the Russos’ ambitions and their quest for autonomy.
“It would have been a drastically different movie,” said Joe Russo, referring to the possibility of making “Hidden Agent” at another studio, like Sony, where it was originally going to be produced. The brothers said that going elsewhere would require them to cut a third of the budget and reduce the action.

Netflix, even in this humble moment, can pay upfront when it’s not saddled with the costs that come with much larger theatrical releases. And for Scott Stuber, Netflix’s global film director, who greenlit the “Bourne Identity” franchise when he was at Universal Pictures, films like “Hidden Agent” are what he’s struggled to make since joining the company five years ago. .

“We haven’t really been in that genre yet,” Stuber said. “If you’re going to do that, you want to deal with filmmakers who over the past decade have created some of the biggest franchises and the biggest action movies in our midst.”

The movie is the streaming service’s most expensive and perhaps its biggest gamble, as it tries to create a spy franchise along the lines of James Bond or “Mission: Impossible.” If it works, the Russo brothers have plans to expand the “Hidden Agent” universe with additional films and television series, as Disney has done with its Marvel and “Star Wars” franchises.

But these franchises, while powered by streaming and integral to Disney+’s ambitions, are, first and foremost, theater ventures. “Hidden Agent” will be released in 450 theaters, which is a far cry from the 2,000 or more where you’d see a typical big-budget opening weekend release. And the near-simultaneous availability on Netflix ensures that most viewers will watch the movie at home. The company’s theatrical releases tend to be released much faster than those from traditional studios.

“If you’re trying to build a franchise, why would you start with a streaming service?” asked Anthony Palomba, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Management who studies media and entertainment trends, specifically changing consumer habits. .

The Russos are also producing a sequel to “Extraction” with Chris Hemsworth for Netflix, and have just announced that the company will finance and release their next directorial venture, a $200 million sci-fi action movie. “The Electric State” with Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt.

Stuber pointed to the “Extraction” sequel and a spy movie starring Gal Gadot, “Heart of Stone,” both due for release next year, as evidence that the company is still making big strides despite its struggles. . He acknowledged, however, that recent business realities have forced Netflix to think more about the projects it chooses.

“We’re not madly cutting our spending, but we’re cutting the volume,” Stuber said. “We’re trying to be more careful.”

He added, “We were a company that was, for a long time, a volume business. And now we’re getting very specific about segmentation.”

The theatrical side of the film industry is an enigma for Netflix. The studio’s appetite for risk is often greater than that of traditional studios because it doesn’t spend as much money putting movies in theaters and doesn’t have to worry about box office numbers. On the other hand, the lack of major theatrical releases has been a point of contention with filmmakers who want to showcase their creativity on screen as much as possible and hope to create a stir among audiences.

And box office strength in recent months for films as diverse as “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Minions 2: Rise of Gru” and “Everything Everywhere at Once” (which the Russos produced) has led many to rethink influence of cinemas, which the pandemic has seriously damaged.

Stuber recognized that greater physical presence was a goal, but that it requires a steady supply of films that can connect with a global audience.

“That’s what we’re trying to get to: do we have enough of these movies on a constant basis to be able to be in that market?” he said.

It would also require Netflix to calculate how long it would let its movies play exclusively in theaters before they appear on streaming. While the viewing window for “Hidden Agent” is short, the Russos hope the film will show that Netflix can be a home for the big-budget movie audience that appreciates the brothers.

“Knowing that you ultimately have a distribution platform capable of pulling in 100 million viewers like you did with ‘Rescue,’ but also the potential for a big theatrical window with an equivalent promotional campaign,” said Joe Russo, “you has a very powerful studio.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves