Since the fall of home rental movie stores, a new phenomenon has taken over that allows users to watch a Film or television show at the click of a button.Simply put, Netflixhas taken over our lives, expanding its brand across a number of countries around the world, becoming a global force and challenging established networks to be named the biggest and best in the world. They even found themselves at the heart of memes with the proverbial ‘Netflix and Chill’ slang growing in popularity.
What started out as an exclusive to America, has now found a home in 190 countries, taking over the way the world watch film and television for good.
Over the last few years, Netflix have expanded their brand. Not only do they stream hundreds of films and television shows, they now produce their own to varying success.
Shows such as “Stranger Things”, “Orange is the New Black” and their Marvel series have drawn large crowds and in some cases, have also won them awards, as is the case of “Orange is the New Black” and "House of Cards".
It now seems that the streaming service have a new series airing every month, even overtaking established network channels such as HBO for fresh content, and they don’t look to be holding back in the future either.
Just how far can Netflix go?
Netflix is rising fast up the power rankings, so much so that it is causing unrest with some powerful people in Hollywood.
The likes of Adam Sandler and television chat show host Chelsea Handler are two of a number of stars to have turned to them to produce their latest content, whilst a number of smaller budgeted films are being signed up to promote their originalitystatement, as they try and attract a largerworldwide audience.
The rise isn’t set to stop anytime soon.
It has been reported that they will spend as much as $6billion on original content in 2017 alone, as they look to change the outlook of their site.This would mean a growth of 1,000 hours of their owncontent in the upcoming year, up from 600 hours in 2016.
The decision to produce so much of their ownshows and films has seen them relying less on brokering deals to stream films and television shows, straying from their original format, which is a decision that has annoyed some of their subscribers.
In light of their success, other companies have branched out into online streaming and producing original content. Their closest rivals, Amazon Prime however, are short of the numbers Netflix have pulled in over the last few years.
The end of cinema?
The question now is, will online streaming take over from movie theatres? With the constant price hikes, people are now turning to streaming sites like Netflix for their services instead. Movies such as the “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” sequel have jumped to them instead of the usual theatrical release.
To highlight their growing abilities, the company struck up a major deal earlier this year to release the upcoming film, “Bright”, starring Will Smith and directed by David Ayer, in a move that shocked many.
The $90million deal, which was finalised after a two week bidding war, is their biggest, and most impressive deal to date.
With VHS dying a few years ago, and the fall in DVD and Blu Ray sales, Netflix and other streaming sites can expect an even bigger growth in the not so distant future. Film as we know it has changed for good.
