Hollywood star Matt Damon has launched a surprising critique of Netflix's influence on modern filmmaking, suggesting the streaming age has ushered in an era of 'pub bore' cinema where plots must be endlessly explained to distracted audiences.
The Streaming Compromise: Dumbing Down for Distraction
While promoting his new $100 million Netflix cop thriller The Rip, co-starring Ben Affleck, Damon used an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience to highlight a fundamental clash between theatrical and home viewing. He contrasted the immersive, communal 'church-like' experience of watching a film like One Battle After Another in Imax with the fractured reality of streaming.
Damon revealed that Netflix explicitly advises filmmakers to adjust their craft for an audience with divided attention. "They note it wouldn't be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue," he told Rogan, "because people are on their phones while they're watching." The platform also recommends inserting a major action sequence early to hook viewers, acknowledging that domestic viewing is often interrupted by children, ambient light, and being watched in segments.
Data Doesn't Lie: What Netflix Knows About Our Habits
Damon's comments point to a uncomfortable truth underpinned by cold, hard data. Netflix possesses granular viewing data on a colossal scale, tracking not just what we watch, but how and for how long. This information paints a stark picture of the modern viewer: often distracted, multi-tasking, and prone to dropping out.
The result, as seen in flagship shows like Stranger Things, is a storytelling style that frequently pauses to have characters laboriously explain upcoming plans or recap events using props—a technique Damon and Rogan likened to a "pub bore demonstrating the offside rule with beermats." The creative exception, Damon noted, comes only when Netflix senses Oscar potential, granting directors of films like Frankenstein or Train Dreams more artistic freedom.
A Thetical Counterpoint: Damon's Billion-Dollar Position
The timing of Damon's critique is particularly intriguing. The actor is currently starring in Christopher Nolan's anticipated epic The Odyssey, a cinematic spectacle designed for the big screen and likely to feature the director's signature complex, time-bending narrative. The film is tipped to be a billion-dollar hit.
This places Damon in a uniquely powerful position to criticise the streaming model. He implicitly champions the traditional, demanding theatrical experience while simultaneously benefiting from Netflix's vast reach with The Rip. His argument suggests that if a challenging, auteur-driven project like The Odyssey were a Netflix original, it would likely be laden with explanatory dialogue—and possibly earn even more by catering to proven, distracted viewing habits.
The core takeaway from Damon's intervention is a sobering one for film lovers. The industry's most powerful data-driven platform has concluded that audiences can no longer be trusted to pay full attention, fundamentally reshaping how stories are told for the small screen.
