The best I can say about Bright—Netflix's $90 million Bad Boys With Orcs movie—is that it was pretty good for a film made entirely by a computer algorithm. Other than that, the Will Smith streaming tentpole was kind of a mess: confusing, pointless, and somehow forgettable. Will Smith was Will Smith. There was some significant orc racism. The elves were fancy douchebags. And some other stuff happened.
But, even though critics almost universally hated it with a 26 percent average score on Rotten Tomatoes (same as The Room!), Netflix says that everyone is wrong. As Netflix CEO Reed Hastings explained during the company's rocky earnings call this week:
“The critics are pretty disconnected from the mass appeal. Considering we’re moving internationally at this point, and most of those critical reviews are English language and just U.S.”
As he explained, the David Ayer-directed film was one of Netflix's “most viewed original titles ever” that was also “a major success and drove a notable life” in subscribers. But since Netflix won't release any streaming numbers, it's unclear what any of these statements actually mean.
The numbers Netflix did release, though, are concerning. Although Netflix reported a bump in revenue, it also took a $39 million loss in "unreleased content," likely due to projects that were shut down or changed after allegations against Louis C.K. and Kevin Spacey.
So if you're one of the many people who watched Bright and didn't care for it, I'm sorry to report that you're wrong and Netflix is right. And anyway, it doesn't matter, because Netflix is already working on a sequel to this very good, objectively great movie.
Matt Miller is a Brooklyn-based culture/lifestyle writer and music critic whose work has appeared in Esquire, Forbes, The Denver Post, and documentaries.
