Ben Affleck recently shared how he feels about Netflix’s output and how he views its movie-making process as an ‘assembly line.’ Ben said, “If you ask [Netflix co-CEO and chairman] Reed Hastings…he’d say, ‘Hey, we went for quantity to establish a footprint.'” He continued, “I’m sure there’s wisdom in that, and I’m sure they had a great strategy, but I would have said, ‘How are we going to make 50 great movies? How is that possible?’ There’s no committee big enough. There aren’t enough — you just can’t do it.”
He added, “Making movies is a thing that requires attention and dedication and works, and it resists the sort of assembly line process that Netflix has made its standard. [Netflix’s head of original films] Scott Stuber is a really talented, smart guy who I really like…but it’s an impossible job.” Affleck continued, “There’s bigger audience for action movies than there is for small dramas. I get that. Certain genres play more broadly, and you can’t not be mindful of that. But let’s do a good one, let’s surprise the audience, let’s make them care about it.”