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Now, you could say that this was just a boasting statement from an executive meant to appeal to investors, but there is evidence to suggest otherwise. This is the second time in recent months that Hastings has spontaneously mentioned animation as an area of interest for the company. Talk to The Hollywood Reporter, he made the same bold claim of wanting to “beat” Disney at family entertainment. Most notably, he suggested that they would be competing for dominance in animation over the next half century:
We want to beat Disney in family entertainment. It will take a while. I mean, they’re really good at it. We’re both very focused on building our animation group and, you know, it’s friendly competition. We both want to make amazing stories for consumers and we want to be able to raise the bar in this area. We know they will be a challenger and a competitor for the next 50 years.
To date, Netflix has only released three original animated features – Klaus, the Willoughbys, and Above the moon – and despite strong qualities in each film, none could be considered a legitimate challenger to the Disney and Pixar throne. But here’s the caveat: Netflix is still strengthening its animation division. Animation is a notoriously slow art form, and each film takes around four to eight years from concept to release. We won’t begin to realistically begin to understand what Netflix is trying to accomplish with its animation program until next year, when they aim to release six original features per year.
While Netflix’s original animated release remains a mystery for now, Hastings’ remarks that he wants to “catch up” to Disney. What exactly does catching up mean? Countless others have tried over the years to make Disney and Pixar style movies and they have all failed, simply because Disney and Pixar have perfected their house styles and they do it better than anyone else. But there is another way, that of offering the public something original, something that would never be confused with a Disney film. Tellingly, the two non-Disney movies that won Oscars in the past decade – Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse and Rank – suggested striking alternatives to the well-worn rhythms and rhythms of Disney products. Incidentally, when Pixar made their first feature film, Toy story, this movie was also a rebuke of the Disney standard.
Netflix seems to understand this – that beat Disney you can not be Disney. Their upcoming list includes daring projects that are different from typical animated dishes, led by authors who have experience defying convention. These include films like Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure, By Guillermo del Toro Pinocchio, Nora Twomey My father’s dragonand Henry Selick’s Wendell and Wild.
Netflix at this point remains a great experiment with an indeterminate outcome. The sheer number of films the company intends to release gives them the freedom to push to the edges of the art form and, most importantly, the freedom to fail. It’s important to remember that Disney wouldn’t be Disney today without its own share of failures. Shortly before the release of Pinocchio, Walt Disney said, “I’d rather have an artistic flop than a box office hit any day.” He had his wish with not only Pinocchio, but also its follow-up, Fancy. Both films were creative triumphs that failed at the box office.
The failure of either of these films could have been enough for a contemporary film studio to pull out of its animation division. But Disney saw the long game – he understood that in order to achieve true dominance in the medium he had to continually invest in animation and keep experimenting. Initially, Netflix seems to share that same long-term vision, which bodes well for Hastings’ vision of challenging Disney.
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