Netflix is a lot like TIFF 17: slim, slick & packed with movie magic. It is the most popular streaming service today, offering its subscribers an incredible variety of content, including its large collection of original feature films and series. It has become so big, in fact, that it has scared Disney – the mouse-themed media empire has announced this September that it will pull all of its Star Wars and Marvel content from the streaming service, and create its own. This will put its users in a pretty interesting situation – especially because there are now several streaming services offering their own original content, making it hard to choose one or another.
But a recent announcement made by Netflix might make the decision even harder for cord-cutters. On one hand, the service has announced a hike in the price of its service in the US, adding $1 to the price of its two-stream HD service and $2 to its four-stream “family plan”. But it plans to spend the money the right way: on creating original content. This year, Netflix has created around 50 original films, spending around $6 billion on original content. Next year, it plans to hike its spending to around $8 billion and grow its new movie roster to around 80. Which is certainly good news for viewers.
“From time to time, Netflix plans and pricing are adjusted as we add more exclusive TV shows and movies, introduce new product features and improve the overall Netflix experience to help members find something great to watch even faster,” the company’s announcement read at the time. And the later announcement made it clear that sticking with Netflix, despite the price hike, will be a good idea for US customers.
According to Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, the fresh content the company plans to release next year will cover everything from “the million-dollar Sundance hit, all the way up to something on a much larger scale”. Indeed, the content offered by the service is getting better – and more – year after year. This year, it has already released quite a few interesting – and successful – movies, from War Machine, a dark comedy starring Brad Pitt and Topher Grace to the charming animated movie The Little Prince featuring the voices of Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, and Paul Rudd, among others. And it still has some aces up its sleeve – like Bright, the buddy cop fantasy movie starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton, helmed by David Ayer (Suicide Squad, End of Watch), combining street gangs and police action with elves, orcs, and magic. And when it comes to TV shows, it also has quite the library of series to keep us entertained.
