Netflix announces it's about to get even worse

The Netflix overhaul continues. Per The Hollywood Reporter’s insider look into major shakeups at the streaming service, the company will begin to heavily reel in its movies division, though specifics of how that will go down are still up in the air.

After news of its subscriber loss sent its stock down and led to dramatic changes — including laying off more than 150 employees in the last month or so — Netflix is now focused on making “bigger, better, fewer” movies. “The goal will be to make the best version of something instead of cheapening out for the sake of quantity,” one insider said.

For years, Netflix has built a reputation for churning out content without pause and releasing a new movie every week. That plan is ostensibly still in place, according to the report, but the overall philosophy is to invest more heavily in big blockbusters such as the upcoming The Gray Man starring Ryan Reynolds and Chris Evans. Meanwhile, major cuts have been made to Netflix’s family live-action division and independent features division.

Netflix will still produce small movies, “but they could become more niche and cater to a passionate audience,” according to insiders. The forecast, though, is perhaps most dismaying for mid-budget range films, a nearly lost form of movies that, within the superhero and IP era, a once cash-strapped Netflix has almost single-handedly kept afloat for the past several years, from rom-coms like Always Be My Maybe to ambitious thrillers like the Fear Street trilogy and heftier art-house projects like The Power of the Dog.

The downturn also means that the “era of expensive vanity projects” such as Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman will end. “This tendency to do anything to attract talent and giving them carte blanche is going away,” an insider said.