Netflix Movies Could Use More Thumbs Up – The Wall Street Journal

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The streaming giant has its most ambitious slate yet of high-profile original movies set to hit before the end of the year. These include some rather big-budget bets such as “The Irishman” from acclaimed director Martin Scorsese, and “6 Underground” from action maestro Michael Bay. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that production budgets on each totaled $150 million or higher.

In all, Netflix is set to debut 23 original movies during the fourth quarter of this year, according to tracking by Wedbush Securities. The company is relying on these releases to generate subscriber interest in the period. New seasons of Netflix’s popular original series, by contrast, won’t be as much of a factor as in the past. Netflix highlighted some of the risk of this shift last week when it projected 7.6 million new paid subscribers for the fourth quarter—well short of the 9.7 million analysts had been expecting. On its earnings call, the company said one wild card for the quarter was the amount of new intellectual property coming out in the period, with an unprecedented number of original films in the can.

Some of the company’s original movies have earned high acclaim. The Spanish-language drama “Roma” took home three Oscars earlier this year. But Netflix’s overall record with movies has been decidedly mixed, at least with critics. According to Wedbush’s tracking, the 189 original movies Netflix has released to date have averaged a score of 58 out of 100 from Metacritic, a service that amalgamates individual critic ratings.

Some of the company’s highest-profile efforts have really fallen flat with critics. “Bright,” a Will Smith movie billed by Netflix as its first big-budget event movie, released in late 2017 to a critical drubbing, earning a 27% score from ratings tally service called Rotten Tomatoes. “Murder Mystery” with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler came out in June and garnered a 45% rating. “The Laundromat,” a Steven Soderbergh-directed drama based on the Panama Papers scandal, hit the service on Friday to a 44% rating.

However, the beauty of being Netflix is that no one can really tell how its movies are doing. The company doesn’t have to suffer the indignity of publicly reported box-office sales, and it discloses only highly selective viewership stats. The company says “Murder Mystery” has been its most successful launch to date, watched by 73 million households in its first month. It also considered “Bright” a big hit, crediting the movie with helping to drive the addition of 6.6 million new paid subscribers in its launch quarter, more than it originally forecast. Netflix content chief

Ted Sarandos

said in that quarter’s earnings call that critics are “pretty disconnected from the commercial prospects of a film.”

Netflix, it should be noted, is still burning cash. The company on Monday announced a $2 billion bond offering—its second this year—to help fund its growing content needs. It is also soon to be going up against

Disney,

NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia directly—established box-office players with well-regarded properties of their own. Disney launches its new streaming service next month, along with another from

Apple

featuring the device maker’s own big-budget programming.

Netflix may have shown itself to be critic-proof so far, but eventually producing quality films has to be part of the battle plan for taking on the Hollywood studio giants.

Write to Dan Gallagher at dan.gallagher@wsj.com