Matt Damon and Ben Affleck visited Joe Rogan's podcast on the occasion of the premiere of the film "Air" on Netflix and touched on the topic of how the very nature of cinema has changed under the influence of streaming services.
According to Damon, streaming services are increasingly asking directors to restructure the dramaturgy, taking into account that viewers are constantly distracted: they scroll through the feed, check messengers, and simultaneously sit on their phones.
This is expressed in the fact that the streaming service asks to place large action scenes in the first minutes in order to immediately capture attention, and also to repeat the plot in dialogues several times - in case the viewer missed the moment, distracted by notifications.
"The standard way to create an action movie is three large-scale scenes: in the first, second, and third acts. Most of the budget is spent on the finale. And now Netflix says: “Can we do something grandiose in the first five minutes? We want people to stay. And it's okay if we repeat the plot three or four times in the dialogue, because people are watching the movie while sitting on their phones.”"
Ben Affleck noted that there are exceptions to this rule - for example, the mini-series "The Penultimate", episodes of which were filmed in one shot and do without action at all. Damon admitted that such projects are becoming rare, but Affleck emphasized the main thing: the success of "The Penultimate" proves that it is not necessary to follow Netflix's requirements to attract and retain viewers.
