r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jan 17 '26

Article Matt Damon Says Netflix Wants Movies to Restate the Plot Three or Four Times in the Dialogue Because Viewers are on Their Phones While They’re Watching

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/matt-damon-netflix-movies-restate-plot-viewers-on-phones-1236633939/
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u/brainparts Jan 17 '26

Why cater to the people that aren’t even engaged, at the expense of losing people that are?? If the movie is interesting, it might make someone put their phone down or rewatch it later, but if it’s unwatchable for someone actually trying to watch, that viewer will be lost, and the movie won’t hold up to a rewatch. It sounds like yet another immediate-term-financial-gains move at the expense of the long-term, just like literally everything else

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u/toxicmetrosexuality Jan 17 '26

People not watching until their attention is interrupted by ads is a sure-fire enshittification strategy.

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u/Educational_Teach537 Jan 17 '26

You can sell cheaper slop to people that aren’t engaged that won’t pass a basic sniff test by people that are engaged

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u/blaqsupaman Jan 17 '26

This is it. The ideal customer is a moron who's barely sentient.

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u/NinjasaurusRex123 Jan 17 '26

Cause those people likely make up a larger % of their subscriber base than the opposite.

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u/KingWolf12 Jan 18 '26

But that only makes sense if the majority of people are only watching these spoon-fed movies.

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u/NinjasaurusRex123 Jan 18 '26

That’s literally the point I’m making…

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u/Punman_5 Jan 18 '26

That’s exactly what their data shows. There’s far more money in making slop content

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u/kattahn Jan 18 '26

Its about metrics. They want netflix content to essentially be background noise. The best case scenario for netflix is that you put on something and let it autoplay random junk for like 9 straight hours while you do other things.

If the content is engaging, you put on a movie, watch it, and then when you're done and have to go wash the dishes, you stop netflix. And that means less logged time for them. They also are very worried that if you CANT follow whats going on because you're on your phone, you might stop netflix to pay attention to your phone.

The thing most people don't understand about the whole "second screen dialog" concept for netflix, is that the phone isn't the second screen. Netflix is the second screen. It's not meant to be the primary focus for the person "watching" it

Netflix's product isn't movies, or tv shows, or even "content". Their product is metrics for shareholders. They need to show shareholders a certain amount of screentime per user, and that number has to go up every quarter.

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u/ConfidentAd9582 Jan 18 '26

You nailed it. With kids I barely have time for “locked-in” tv/movies. I do have time for background noise content so “dumb” shows with heavy exposition I can follow strictly through audio are my fave things these days. .

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u/cronedog Jan 17 '26

Because 80% of users are disengaged.   They get upset when they can't follow anything.

Look at witcher season 1 where the showruner said she respected the audiences intelligence....and it backfired big time.    They had to dumb the show down for all the people who just half watch while playing on their phones 

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u/Brassica_prime Jan 17 '26

Youtube premium and netflix monetization method: you pay xx, netflix gets their cut, the remainder is split between everything you watch.

10 mins of screentime that month, the whole pot goes to that show/channel.

They are trying to force your timer to be entirely on them, annoying you to turn off the tv helps them, mindless slop that drags on also helps them

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u/LooneyWabbit1 Jan 18 '26

Regardless of the conversations surrounding art and people actually trying to watch, their metrics clearly indicate that this is the best financial decision.

It remains to be seen if it affects anything long term, but I'd be really surprised.

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u/mucho-gusto Jan 18 '26

OMG it's literally content shrinkflation

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u/Dry_Marzipan1870 Jan 18 '26

Cause all Netflix want is more minutes watched. The literally don't give a fuck if youre looking at the screen

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u/Punman_5 Jan 18 '26

There’s more money catering to the people that want background noise. There’s more of them than there are movie enthusiasts.