Gray Area: Netflix Is Being Hunted Down By Its Rivals

The streamer's critical and commercial hits have come from some surprising places and it has to give creators space and take risks. But, James Moore asks, will Wall Street allow it?

- James Moore

The critics' verdicts on Netflix's The Gray Man are in and... oof. A 50 per cent Rotten Tomatoes rating and a similar 51 from Metacritic could have been worse. But festering in what the latter describes as "mixed or average" territory is not what the troubled streamer will have been hoping for, given the film’s budget and its all-star cast led by Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.

True, it is the verdict of the audience that counts. Movie critics’ views are often wildly out of step with those of everyday viewers. Netflix’s top tens quite often feature films adjudged to be turkeys by professional critics. The Underworld series – now available to subscribers – might be a two-star franchise, but that hasn’t stopped it from producing a string of reliably profitable outings.

But the reaction to The Gray Man doesn’t bode well for this attempt at producing a big-ticket “franchise” capable of engendering multiple sequels and spin-offs that draw in subscribers. People do look at aggregators. Some will see the numbers and decide that it isn’t worth ponying up a subscription for.

On the subscription front, Netflix’s recent update was quite as bad as had been feared. The streamer lost around a million, which is nasty. But given that it had forecast twice as many departures, it almost counts as a win.