Netflix Needs More Movies Like Hit Man Instead Of Franchises
It has unfortunately become very commonplace that movies made to release in theaters have shifted heavily over to being continuations of franchises rather than original films. I am not saying I have anything against sequels, but it really feels like so many movie studios are just scared to test the waters with something new, which leads to a lack of anything unique. So it is a rare bright spot when a platform like Netflix dares to produce something new like last year’s Hit Man.
Hit Man
Hit Man is a bit of a romantic comedy focusing on an undercover police officer who gets roped into assisting with a sting operation. He has to portray himself as a hitman to try and ensnare people wanting to genuinely hire someone to kill another person.
Everything seems to be going well with making arrests, until he meets a woman who wants to hire him as a hitman and he falls in love with her. It is a unique, raunchy comedy, and Netflix picked a winner with Hit Man as it currently has a 97 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
More Wednesday
Such positive feedback surely suggests that people want more original movies like this. But what frustrates me and others is that even Netflix is following the movie theater formula now, releasing more and more franchise projects over original ones.
Before season two of Wednesday even debuts, Netflix is now already looking at doing a spinoff focusing on Uncle Fester. The whole thing is quickly becoming tiring and really makes me question why Netflix is so afraid of doing more projects like Hit Man.
The Witcher Failures
It is not as if there have not been plenty of flops in the franchise category. Some have fallen apart because the original show started losing momentum quicker than anyone anticipated.
After season one of The Witcher, Netflix quickly went all in on the show and announced multiple spinoffs. Many of those have now been cancelled following fan reception of The Witcher trending downwards from season two onwards.
Netflix could learn a thing about not putting all their eggs in one basket, with original projects like Hit Man helping to diversify the platform’s offerings.
Starved For Original Content
Hollywood has similarly seen diminishing returns from trying to rely on franchises. Fast X just released last year as the latest entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise and audience reception was primarily disbelief that the series is still going after all these years.
You can’t expect to consistently milk a franchise for over twenty years and still have fans excited for it. What Netflix needs to learn is that, even if a project like Hit Man had not done well, audiences are so starved for original content that they would still be interested in checking it out just for something fresh.
Stranger Things
It is especially bizarre that Netflix is becoming more reluctant to try out originals like Hit Man when some of their biggest hits have been original programming.
Stranger Things is one of the shows that has become synonymous with the platform and it came about from Netflix taking a risk on an untested project. More franchise sequels and spinoffs might be “safe” but they also get boring. And if audiences get bored, they have more options than ever before for alternative sources of entertainment.
