Despite being the runaway leaders in the streaming wars with over 183 million subscribers, Netflix have always been fairly secretive when it comes to their business model. The company only seem to release viewership numbers when one of their projects turns out to be a massive success, meaning that nobody really knows how popular the majority of their content is among customers.
You would also think they possess a bottomless pit of cash based on the sheer volume of expensive productions that fall under their purview, with Michael Bay’s 6 Underground and Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman costing at least $150 million each, Dwayne Johnson’s Red Notice rumored to be in the same ballpark and the recent announcement that they’re stumping up $200 million for the Russo brothers to direct blockbuster espionage thriller The Gray Man.
Having pledged to spend nearly $20 billion on in-house originals this year alone, Netflix must be pretty confident in their formula, especially when streaming platforms were thought to have been one of the few forms of entertainment to have survived the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic, with subscription and viewing numbers going through the roof since March.
However, having recently canceled popular shows I Am Not Okay With This, The Society and Altered Carbon, there’s been speculation that Netflix could be set to drastically reduce their spending, and trusted insider Daniel Richtman has now hinted as much in a recent social media post that you can check out below.
Netflix got a budgetary problem trying to make everything cheaper. Especially now. https://t.co/TwUb2Ek6OI
— Daniel Richtman (@DanielRPK) August 26, 2020
It would appear that not even Netflix are immune to the potentially crippling financial effects of the pandemic and the recent cancellations could turn out to be just the first of many, as they attempt to reign in their rampant budget costs until the global economy mounts some sort of recovery.
