Mike Flannagan; "Netflix Is Actively Hostile To Idea Of Releasing Physical Media"

June 4, 2024

Mike Flanagan may be a master of horror, but according to the director, one of the biggest nightmares he experienced was trying to get Netflix to put out physical media. His stance on the matter has been documented, but it was a topic Flanagan again addressed at the 2024 ATX Festival.

The showrunner, who created Netflix series“Haunting Of Hill House,” “The Haunting Of Bly Manor,” “Midnight Mass,” and “The Fall of The House of Usher,” wrote on his blog in 2023 that he asked the streaming platform to release his shows on Blu-ray and DVD. Didn’t happen. Also in the year-ago post, Flanagan cited how the streamer removes content on a whim, and pointed to the importance of audiences being able to outright own media.

“In the years I worked at Netflix, I tried very hard to get them to release my work on Blu-ray and DVD. They refused at every turn,” Flanagan wrote at the time. “It became clear very fast that their only priority was subscriptions, and that they were actively hostile to the idea of physical media. While they had some lingering obligations on certain titles, or had partnerships who still valued physical media, and had flirted with releasing juggernaut hits like ‘Stranger Things,’ that wasn’t at all their priority. In fact, they were very actively trying to eliminate those kinds of releases from their business model. This is a very dangerous point of view. Netflix will likely never release the work I created for them on physical media. I’ve tried for years, but have met with the same apathy throughout.”

Netflix removed his film “Hush” from its streaming platform in early 2023, which in part prompted Flanagan’s initial blog post. The film has not been available to view since Netflix removed it. Well, good news: at ATX, Flanagan said a hard copy was coming, as is a new streaming home.

“We took it back because I really value physical media. And Netflix, by policy, it does not work in their business plan. So we took it back,” Flanagan said when asked about “Hush’s” availability — or its lack thereof. “We do have a new home for it. I can’t say where. I can say there will be a physical release, and that there will be a lot of really awesome surprises that we’ve been working on for a year to make this release awesome. It’s something that will be really exciting. The fans have been waiting. If you’ve been looking for ‘Hush’ and it’s nowhere to be found, it will be back soon. It will be everywhere. You’ll be able to stream it. You’ll be able to have it in your collection, and it’s gonna be worth the wait because we did some really awesome new stuff for it.”

Yes, his new response was a bit more muted than the old Tumblr post, in which Flanagan added that Netflix, while pioneering streaming, actually “fail[ed” to see the difference between disruption and damage” by eliminating the option of physical media.

Back in 2023, Flanagan wrote that Netflix was “intentionally or not” doing “enormous harm to the very concept of film preservation.”

“The danger comes when a title is only available on one platform, and then – for whatever reason – is removed. We have already seen this happen. And it is only going to happen more and more,” he wrote. “Titles exclusively available on streaming services have essentially been erased from the world. If those titles existed on the marketplace on physical media, like HBO’s ‘Westworld,’ the loss is somewhat mitigated (though only somewhat.) But when titles do not exist elsewhere, they are potentially gone forever. The list of titles that have been removed from streaming services is growing quickly, quietly, and insidiously. But if services like Netflix offer no avenue for that kind of support, and can (and will) remove content from their platform forever… frankly, I think that changes the rules.”

“Hush” will join “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” which are available on Blu-ray and DVD through Paramount, which co-produced both shows. Physical copies of his “Midnight Mass” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” are not to be found — legally, at least.

Flanagan’s overall deal at Netflix expired with “House of Usher.” He’s since moved to Amazon, another tech giant, but one that he says has a “somewhat different perspective on physical media.”

“Their business model is not built entirely on subscribers; far from it. I’m hoping very much that the work I create with them will meet a different fate, and be supported in a different manner,” Flanagan’s blog-post reads.

https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/mike-flanagan-netflix-refused-dvd-release-1235011608/