With nearly 150 million subscribers around the world, Netflix has a commanding lead in the streaming wars. But it’s also facing heavy competition from deep-pocketed conglomerates like Disney, Apple, and AT&T, and an ongoing wave of narrow, targeted streaming sites like CBS All Access and DC Universe, which can draw on popular existing franchises for original content. As fewer companies are willing to license out their films and shows to other streaming sites, Netflix is pouring billions of dollars annually into its own original content. Follow along with The Verge as we look at Netflix’s new films and shows, its evolving strategies against new entrants in the market, and how it’s leveraging its technological and marketing lead.
The bookmarking feature initially launched just on iOS, but now it’s available on Android, Netflix spokesperson Dorian Rosenburg tells The Verge.
I used the feature to bookmark the best scene in Lost.
The parade continues. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met with the President-elect earlier today, Sarandos is set to meet with him tomorrow, and Jeff Bezos’ meeting is apparently on Wednesday.
After over 30 years on cable TV, WWE’s Raw is moving to Netflix starting January 6th. The first streaming episode will broadcast live from LA’s Intuit Dome.
This week, WWE is holding a “Netflix kickoff event” at its headquarters as the company loads up the event card for the biggest debut possible — hopefully with minimal technical issues.
In a first for Netflix, the streamer has announced that the upcoming mobile game Squid Game Unleashed will be available for anyone to play, not just subscribers. However, it will only be that way for “a limited time” after the game launches on December 17th.
The Sega legend previously made the arcade shooter Air Twister on Apple Arcade, and his next release — called Steel Paws — will be a Netflix exclusive when it launches in 2025. According to Netflix, players will “embark on an adventure alongside Buddy Robots to conquer a mysterious tower that reappears every century.” Here’s the first teaser.
She’ll be doing a taped performance of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Netflix says.
Beyoncé’s halftime show later in the day will be live.
Reality TV contestants have typically been classified as independent contractors or even volunteers rather than employees whose labor is essential to their shows’ production.
That distinction keeps reality stars from unionizing, but that might change now that the National Labor Relations Board has launched a complaint against Love Is Blind accusing the Netflix show of “several labor violations, including unlawful contractual terms related to confidentiality and noncompete provisions.”
[The New York Times]
New Year’s Day is a time to reflect and think about what you want to accomplish in the year ahead. If that just so happens to be, uh, not aging, you might want to check out Netflix’s doc on Bryan Johnson, which starts streaming on January 1st. It’s called Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever — and might make a good double feature with Nosferatu.
Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos spoke during the UBS conference about technical issues that impacted the Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson fight, and said the company is interested in doing more “big scale live events” like the upcoming Christmas Day Games.
“We were stressing the limits of the internet itself that night. So we had a control room up in Silicon Valley that was re-engineering the entire internet to keep it during this fight because of the unprecedented demand that was happening.”
If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you can now check out Monument Valley 3, which takes the beloved puzzle franchise in some interesting new directions. It’s available on both iOS and Android.
After seeing this animated short to promote Monument Valley 3, I’d watch 10 others like it.
Ustwo returns with a sequel that looks to evolve the puzzle franchise, all while continuing to offer a sanctuary in your pocket.
Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld’s first season feels like a classic monster slaying story remixed for a new generation.
We don’t know exactly what it will look like, but Call of Duty will feature some kind of Squid Game collaboration in January that covers both Warzone and Black Ops 6. That’s right after season 2 of the show hits Netflix on December 26th.
Arcane’s final season featured one of the better examples of how universe-hopping really can bring some depth to a character’s story. And in a new interview with Polygon, writer / co-executive producer producer Amanda Overton explains how “making it feel like the fabric of that episode is absolutely interconnected to the rest of the season” was essential to making this multiverse work.
I’m still not really sure why Player 456 is heading back for season 2 of Squid Game, but the new trailer at least gives a good sense of what he’s in for. The show premieres in one month, hitting Netflix on December 26th.
Monday Night Raw starts streaming live on Netflix on January 6th, 2025, and the streamer just released its first trailer for the show:
The Netflix animated series was a clever reinvention of Scott Pilgrim, but according to creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, the story in season 1 of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is all we’re getting.
Though the excellent Pokétoon web series has just wrapped for the season, Netflix is getting ready to drop the next chapter of its (very different, but still very good) mainline Pokémon anime that will follow as Liko (Alejandra Reynoso), Roy (Anjali Kunapaneni), and Dot (Faye Mata) set out to find the legendary land of Laqua. The new episodes are scheduled to debut on February 7th.
Squid Game: Unleashed, a “multiplayer battle royale game,” will be released for Netflix subscribers on December 17th, nine days before the launch of season 2 of the show.
Honestly, I don’t think Unleashed looks very good. But Netflix’s mobile games lineup has certified bangers like The Rise of the Golden Idol, so if Unleashed is a bust, there’s other things to play.
Is it a reality show? A mockumentary? A desi Entourage? Maybe a serialized reboot of Om Shanti Om? Whatever this untitled Indian “multi-genre” series is, it’s coming in 2025. Netflix is seeing huge viewership in global markets.
[about.netflix.com]
There’s a reason Netflix is investing so much in Korea, and it’s not just because of Squid Game: the streamer says that 80 percent of its users are watching Korean programming. In fact, while detailing its upcoming slate of international movies and shows, Netflix revealed how global its audience is, claiming “more than 70 percent of all viewing on Netflix is either with subs or dubs.”
Despite the glitches in its Tyson-Paul livestream that pulled in more than 60 million viewers, Netflix is pushing forward to another major live event with two exclusive NFL broadcasts on Christmas Day.
And now the streamer has announced that Beyoncé will perform at halftime of the second game, as the Houston Texans host the Baltimore Ravens starting at 4:30PM ET on December 25th.
Act One of Arcane’s final season closed out on a shot that lent even more credence to fans’ theories about how Warwick might be introduced into the series. And it seems like after Act Two drops this weekend, we’ll know how the werewolf came to be.
Between being paid a pittance for creating Squid Game and losing multiple teeth from stress during the first season’s production, it would be understandable if Hwang Dong-hyuk had walked away from his hit franchise.
But in a new interview with The BBC, he explains that the streamer’s choice to finally push some serious cash his way is what brought him back for season 2.
Arcane’s final season puts an even finer point on its story about revolutionary war.
At 18 episodes, the League of Legends spinoff has become the most expensive animated series ever produced, Variety reports. Despite the heavy spending and the earlier-than-expected series finale, Riot co-founder Marc Merrill told Variety that the company’s “ambitions in entertainment haven’t changed:”
What did change as we learned more was our expectations of ourselves: We realized that getting it right takes a lot more time than we’d originally expected, and so we recalibrated our development, output goals and teams with that in mind.
Though Netflix insists that it has been following tax law to the tee, the BBC reports that the streamer’s European headquarters in Amsterdam and its office in Paris were raided as part of an investigation into whether it has been “covering up serious tax fraud and off-the-books work.”
When Netflix picked up the streaming rights to the sci-fi series, there was hope that it would lead to a renewal for season 2. Unfortunately, according to co-creator Joe Bennett, that’s not the case — though they aren’t giving up yet. “There is more story to be told,” he said, “we are ready to make another season.” Here’s a teaser of what that might look like.
