Yeah it’s pretty insane, for that kind of money it better be fantastic. Although I think nowadays the link between money and quality (to whatever degree it ever existed) is weaker than it’s ever been.

I’ve always wondered, how do streaming movies make money at all? Does Netflix really make enough money to justify spending this much on a movie?

Well they certainly make enough money, last quarters revenue was roughly 9.5 billion dollar. Sure you got server costs, salaries and licensing for old content that eat up a lot, but if you are getting over 3 billion per month from your subscribers you should be able to find some budget for expensive content.

I don’t think a movie like this will be efficient in $/h watched, those will go to cheap series and people putting on their favorite comfort show in the background for the 10th rerun. But they probably still need those big tent pole movies for psychological reasons. It’s good for marketing towards new subscribers and for user retention you will need the occasional blockbuster movie. Don’t need to be that many per year, since as said the vast majority of time will be spend watching some simple stuff, but you do need fresh content for the occasional movie night. Or people will start looking at the competition that offers those and which also has plenty of mindless entertainment.