The Year of The Quarantine Blockbuster

Netflix says 85 million people watched the Mark Wahlberg action movie Spenser Confidential, not one of them in a theater. Is Hollywood finally waking up to the potential of the streaming smash?

- By Lucas Shaw

While putting the finishing touches on his latest movie, Spenser Confidential, director Peter Berg worried viewers wouldn’t laugh. The film, an action-comedy modeled after Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, relies on humor to break the tension between explosions and firefights. The movie had thrilled audiences in test screenings. A theater packed with 300 people gave it an average score of 96—the highest of his career. But Spenser Confidential wasn’t going to appear in theaters. It would be available exclusively on Netflix, the world’s most popular paid streaming service.

This is new ground for Berg, the 56-year-old filmmaker behind Hancock and Lone Survivor. In the past two decades he’s directed 11 movies that have collectively grossed more than $1.5 billion at the box office. He attributes their success to the power of a shared experience. When people cried during Patriots Day or Friday Night Lights, their emotion affected everyone in the theater. “I don’t know how those experiences play out when people watch them by themselves, or on a TV or a computer,” Berg says from his home in Los Angeles.

Regardless of the experience, the impact surprised him. Not long after Spenser Confidential premiered on March 6, fans sent him direct messages on social media sharing their favorite moments, and friends texted congratulations. Berg has been wearing a mask in public during the pandemic, but that didn’t stop strangers from approaching him whenever he left his house. The volume of inbound messages grew by the day. Based on his unscientific gauge, he felt like he had a hit on his hands. Maybe his biggest ever.