Besides the lack of fair royalties and remuneration that’s been one of the biggest driving forces behind the strikes, another issue many creatives have with streaming services like Netflix is that none of their film and television projects are made available to purchase on physical media.
Despite what the companies would have you believe, there’s a lot of people out there who’d love to own the on-demand circuit’s biggest hits on DVD and Blu-ray, with Mike Flanagan in particular regularly speaking out about his desire to see his Netflix shows pressed onto disc and sent out for the public to buy at their own discretion.
It hardly ever happens, though, but a few feathers could be ruffled nonetheless after it was revealed that Guillermo del Toro’s Academy Award-winning animated Pinocchio may be heading to Blu-ray. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with a certifiable modern classic being sent out into the dying DVD market, it does ask the question as to why this film in particular is getting preferential treatment at the expense of countless other titles.
Maybe del Toro – a staunch proponent of practicality, tangible cinema, and the art of celluloid – has something to do with it, or maybe it’s a dry run to see how it performs sales-wise. Either way, it would potentially benefit Netflix in the long run to give all of its biggest hits a shot at physical success, especially when the current trend is for content to simply up and disappear entirely to ensure people can never watch it again.