(Image by Russo Brothers courtesy of Agbo)
On Friday, after a short week in theaters, the highest-priced film in Netflix history will hit the streaming service, courtesy of two brothers who have combined four Disney Marvel films with far longer in-theater stays at more than $6 billion US dollars in sales.
But this brief stint in theaters for The Gray Man is fine with Netflix, which is hoping the $200 million Russo Bros. feature will become its next franchise wand, drawing tens of millions of viewers and keeping customers busy around the world and paid for an additional month or year of service.
The spy thriller comes on the heels of the hugely successful new seasons of Stranger Things and The Umbrella Academy. But The Gray Man also represents where Netflix executives have said they want to take their programming going forward, with bigger variances on lesser, more well-known projects.
“This is a massive, big-budget action film that would normally take people a massive amount of money to see,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during Tuesday’s earnings conference call. “And they’re going to premiere it on Netflix.”
The company is clearly hoping that fan-friendly blockbusters like The Gray Man, from a writer/director/producer pair who know how to make a great film, will help it reverse two-quarters of the decline in its subscriber base, the first such decline more than a decade.
To counter the popular notion that Netflix makes a lot of shows but not enough good ones, Sarandos pointed to The Gray Man and the 35 Netflix originals that received Emmy nominations this month. As competition from other streaming services (and video games, back to offices and social video giants like TikTok and YouTube) mounts, Netflix will need projects like The Gray Man to keep them coming back.
Sarandos called The Gray Man “an incredible testament to the kind of films this team can put out. This is sort of back to back where I think Gray Man (previous Netflix action hits) Red Notice, The Adam Project and Don’t Look Up will be among the most popular movies of the year, not just on Netflix , but period.”
Joe and Anthony Russo certainly know a lot about blockbusters. After more than a dozen years of mostly producing and co-directing TV shows, including many episodes of the popular comedy Community and Arrested Development (the latter of which earned the brothers an Emmy for directing), they had a big break with Disney. who presented them with the keys to his powerful Marvel Avengers franchise.
The brothers returned the trust in buckets and went on one of the most lucrative runs in Hollywood history. Across four films — Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame — the brothers’ projects grossed a combined $6.7 billion at theaters.
Then it was time to do something else. The Russos co-founded their production and development company AGBO (after an old name the brothers used early in their careers) with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, writers on their Avengers projects and The Gray Man. With AGBO they began not only to realize their own projects, but also to help up-and-coming talents to succeed.
It’s something of a pay-it-forward momentum for the pair, they told me in a recent interview, given the encouragement their careers had received from Hollywood icon-setter Steven Soderbergh.
In return, she and AGBO have supported directors such as The Daniels (co-directors of this year’s hit indie release Everything Everywhere All At Once, which the Russos produced) or Sam Hargrave, who directed Chris Hemsworth’s hit Netflix action film Extraction and 2020 For who the brothers were writers/producers.
“We’re excited about what’s coming next,” said Joe Russo. “And we’re committed to helping people like The Daniels and figuring out what’s next, and people who have a penchant for experimentation and understand the technology. Netflix is an incredible distribution platform with 100 million viewers watching Extraction. That equates to approximately $2 billion in (theatrical) box office. It’s dramatic and meaningful, and we see them as a truly compelling, forward-thinking storytelling distributor moving forward.”
The brothers have also embraced the very different approach Netflix takes to overseeing its dozens of productions as they’re created around the world.
“They think more like a tech company than a studio that’s kind of nested in, ‘Holy shit, if we’re going to give the Russians $200 million to make a movie, we better make sure this thing gets delivered.'” , Joe Russo said. “‘So we all have to jump on them, probably at the expense of the quality of the film, because we’re so nervous and scared of getting fired if that doesn’t work out.’ They don’t have that attitude.”
The Gray Man is by all accounts Netflix’s most expensive project of all time, but its $200 million price tag comes with caveats, as Netflix makes large upfront payments to its top talent, rather than so-called “backend points.” which are not part of the initial production costs.
“It’s in the order of ($200 million),” said Joe Russo. “Netflix is obviously different from other studios because they have buyouts that are against budget. And so you know, when you say $200 million at Netflix, that’s different than, say, $200 million at Disney.”
But make no mistake. This is a very big film, by the standards of Hollywood or anyone else. It features a loaded cast led by Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans and Ana de Armas and is based on a bestselling book series by Mark Greaney.
For his part, Joe Russo said the brothers had “a blast” making the film, changing little to suit Netflix.
“Netflix honestly doesn’t ask anything of you other than do your job and do it well,” Russo said. “You’re simpler than any studio we’ve ever worked with, and in terms of our artists and the freedom to make the story you want to make. They have invested an immense amount of capital to create content. They make a lot of it, so much of it that (the company) says, “Good luck, see you in the end.” Let us know if you need any help.’ It’s a very refreshing way as an artist to approach storytelling and make a film.”
The film is a crashing piece of work, whizzing from Bangkok to Prague, Vienna to Virginia, quite happily destroying cars, planes, trains and a few neighborhoods. A giant C-5 cargo plane slowly disintegrates into mid-air in an early set piece while a brawl ensues inside.
It’s sardonic and dark and fast-paced, sending the OG himself, James Bond, a wink and nod while claiming the new film is by no means a retread of this six-decade-old franchise.
In some ways, the film is in the same territory as Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series, which was translated into a series of four hit films by Doug Limon and others. Like Bourne’s Matt Damon, Gosling plays an unconventional assassin trying to avoid getting killed by his own bureaucratic but murderous bosses.
As the franchise builds, Gosling’s character faces multiple layers of horrible people and many supportive but compromised people, with the briefly mentioned Puppeteer appearing behind them all just long enough to have a greater presence in the inevitable sequel.
Certainly, the film comes at a useful time for Netflix as it tries to gain a foothold after a rough first half of 2022. The company turned around sharply after April’s poorly received earnings report, laying off more than 600 employees, leasing some office space, killing projects and announcing plans for an ad-supported stage.
Despite all that, Netflix execs have been telling nervous Hollywood production companies, talent, and agents that they have plenty of cash to continue making projects like The Gray Man. Several executives confirmed on Tuesday’s conference call that the company’s content spending plans for this year and each year thereafter will be “in the zip code” of $17 billion.
That’s roughly double what Apple TV+ or Amazon Prime Video promised. And unlike traditional media companies like Disney or NBCUniversal, Netflix doesn’t spend heavily on sports rights or programming for legacy film, broadcast, and cable operations.
Some of Netflix’s forthcoming generosity will flow back to the Russians for another big project, the recently announced The Electric State starring Chris Pratt and Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, based on another book adaptation.
For all the love the brothers’ Marvel projects have received from theatergoers, they also stream works for their storytelling needs. They said they don’t miss the grind of a traditional theatrical release and a nine-figure marketing campaign.
“We’re agnostics,” said Joe Russo. “We do not care. Our intention as storytellers is to reach as wide an audience as possible. We love movies. We grew up with films. We were in theaters in the ’70s and discovered the writers while it was on. We came from this generation. However, we don’t treat it with reverence, because everything has its time and then has to be passed on to the next generation. It is not our right or responsibility to define what future artists can or should not be able to do and what they should or should not consider art.”
More importantly, Netflix is focused on bringing the film to 220 million subscribers in nearly 200 countries around the world.
“Ultimately… what’s important to us is the reach of the story?” said Joe Russo. “Who got it? Honestly, in many ways you get a wider audience through something like Netflix, because going to the movies is expensive, it’s kind of an elite experience. You go to other parts of the world, you go (to a movie) once in your life, and that’s a very meaningful experience for you. You can get Netflix for $10 or $14 and watch 40 stories in a month instead of going to the movies and getting a story once. I think that’s important.”
Also appealing to the brothers was the potential to build a new franchise under their control, which would never be possible with an established juggernaut like Disney’s ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. But working in the MCU has helped them think about how to build a broader narrative universe that fans can immerse themselves in for years, if Netflix wants.
“We tried to put characters in this film that you would want to learn more about in other formats, be it other films or series or whatever,” said Anthony Russo. “So we absolutely looked at this as sort of the tip of the iceberg of a narrative universe. Whether we can actually create this universe remains to be seen. It certainly depends on how this film is received by the audience. But as creatives, that’s how we approached it.”
The Russians noted that all Netflix changes are really about the company preparing for the next phase of the streaming wars. And they are happy to take AGBO’s projects with them on their journey.
“I think they’re just implementing phase two of their plan as a company, which is to get into gaming, and there are rumors that they will be expanding theatrical windows to take advantage of theatrical and digital distribution,” said Joe Russo. “You’re just looking at the whole business model, which just seems to change…monthly.”
