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The zombie genre is returning to its roots. More than 50 years after its release, George A. Romero’s landmark 1968 feature Night of the Living Dead is getting an animated adaptation, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Night of the Animated Dead will feature characters from Romero’s original film. The voice cast includes Josh Duhamel as Harry Cooper, Dulé Hill as Ben, Katharine Isabelle as Barbara, James Roday Rodriguez as Tom, Katee Sackhoff as Judy, Will Sasso as Sheriff McClelland, Jimmi Simpson as Johnny, and Nancy Travis as Helen Cooper.

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The new adaptation is being helmed by Jason Axinn, who last directed 2019’s animated horror film To Your Last Death. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment plans to release Night of the Animated Dead sometime this fall on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.

Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead follows a group of strangers who take shelter in a farmhouse as the dead begin to rise and attack the living. Tensions come to a head when the survivors bunker down after night falls.

While the word “zombie” is never uttered in Night of the Living Dead, Romero’s film is largely seen as a horror touchstone that pioneered how the undead are portrayed within the genre. Romero directed five more sequels, including Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Land of the Dead.

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Though George A. Romero died of lung cancer in 2017, his widow Suzanne Romero is developing Twilight of the Dead, a new movie based on a project that the late director was working on before his passing. After working with a team of three screenwriters, Suzanne Romero is preparing to meet with directors for the project.

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J. Kim Murphy is a freelance entertainment writer.

The story goes that Pokemon was inspired by kids collecting bugs in Japan, and as such the association with nature has always been a pillar of the franchise. The Pokemon Company is applying this philosophy to a brand new theme park in Japan.

As reported by Kotaku, The Pokemon Company has officially announced Pokemon Wonder, a 48,000-square foot forest theme park where its main attraction is experiencing nature and Pokemon together.

Rather than a traditional amusement park with rides and mascots, Pokemon Wonder is situated in a vast forest that remained untouched for 20 years. There, attendees can explore the forest and look for handcrafted Pokemon made from items like leaves and acorns.

You can check out a gallery of the park below.

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According to Kotaku, the park is located behind Yomiuriland, Tokyo’s largest amusement park. The Pokemon Company bills the park as a “nature adventure” and it will operate for a limited time in Japan from July 17 to April 3, 2022.

Exploring nature informs a lot of the Pokemon games. Walking about is a core part of Niantic’s Pokemon Go and this year’s Pokemon Go Fest will once again host live events outdoors.

The upcoming Pokemon Legends Arceus is also taking the outdoor concept to the next level with what looks like one of the biggest open-worlds in a Pokemon game yet.

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Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor.

Terminator 2 celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion, The Ringer has published a large oral history featuring James Cameron and other major creators associated with the film.

There are a number of interesting new tidbits scattered throughout the expansive piece, but there’s one in particular that talks about the origins of John Connor — the last hope of the human resistance and persistent target of Cameron’s killer robots from the future. It’s well-known that the idea of The Terminator came to Cameron in a dream, but he’s never really talked about the origins of John Connor himself, at least, until now.

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As Cameron tells it, he was quite high when he conceived of John Connor, who is an unborn child in the original film and a snarky 90s kid in the sequel. Cameron remembers, “I remember sitting there once, high on [ecstasy], writing notes for Terminator, and I was struck by Sting’s song, that, ‘I hope the Russians love their children too.’ And I thought, ‘You know what? The idea of a nuclear war is just so antithetical to life itself.’ That’s where the kid came from.”

The song Cameron is referring to is titled, aptly enough, “Russians.” The song goes, “There is no monopoly on common sense / On either side of the political fence / We share the same biology, regardless of ideology / Believe me when I say to you / I hope the Russians love their children too.”

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John Connor, of course, would go on to be a key part of the Terminator mythos. He is most famously played by Edward Furlong, who according to the oral history was cast off the street with no acting experience. Furlong purportedly nailed the audition on the first try, and Cameron had his John Connor.

We recommend giving the entire oral history a read, since it has a lot of fantastic info. In the meantime, check out our review of Terminator 2 on Blu-ray and where it ranks in the 25 best summer blockbusters of all time.

Welcome back to IGN Game Scoop!, the ONLY video game podcast! This week your Omega Cops are helmed by guest host Tina Amini, who is joined by Kat Bailey, Samuel Claiborn, and Justin Davis to discuss Sony’s purchase of Returnal developer Housemarue, Remedy’s announcement of a Control multiplayer spinoff, what Bloober and Konami’s partnership announced this week means for a potential for a Silent Hills return, and more… And as always, we play a rollicking round of Video Game 20 Questions!

Watch the video above or hit the link below to your favorite podcast service.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts

YouTube

Spotify

Stitcher

 

Find previous episodes here!

A new scientific report claims that there is a secret sunken continent under Iceland.

This news comes by way of StudyFinds, which reports that the belief that Iceland sits atop a sunken continent has long been held by some in the science community.

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StudyFinds’ report is based off a scientific study published to GeoScienceWorld written by a team that believes Icelandia might be a sunken continent that spans 1 million square kilometers, or 386,102 square miles. Icelandia could stretch from Greenland to Europe and the team’s findings place its size at around 230,000 square miles.

However, it stretches to the 386,102 square mile number when discussing Greater Icelandia, which includes additional underwater land west of Britain, according to the report. While it’s not yet proven — a lot of very expensive tests will need to take place first to confirm initial findings — if the team does go on to prove Icelandia is a sunken continent, it could prove that Pangea, long thought to have been completely broken up, is not actually broken up in full.

The idea of continental crust existing under Iceland, rather than the oceanic crust long believed to have existed there, stems from the makeup of Iceland and the surrounding areas.

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“Until now, Iceland has puzzled geologists as exiting theories that it is built of, and surrounded by, oceanic crust are not supported by multiple geological data,” Durham University Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, Gillian Foulger, told StudyFind. “For example, the crust under Iceland is over 40km thick — seven times thicker than normal oceanic crust.”

“This simply could not be explained. However, when we considered the possibility that this thick crust is continental, our data suddenly all made sense. This led us immediately to realize that the continental region was much bigger than Iceland itself — there is a hidden continent right under the sea.”

If it’s determined that Icelandia is real, it could change country access to minerals and hydrocarbons in the area, according to StudyFinds.

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“Under certain conditions, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants coastal states exclusive rights to the non-living resources of their adjacent seabed if scientists can prove that the seabed is a submerged extension of the continental landmass,” StudyFinds writes.

The team behind the science report is working with fellow scientists around the world to test their theory and once COVID-19 restrictions allow for things to resume as normal, the team could run electrical conductivity surveys and collect zircon crystals in Iceland and surrounding areas, according to StudyFinds. Other tests include “seismic profiling and drilling,” which would cost millions in funding, although the team believes that countries this could affect would help cover the cost.

“Countries around the world are spending enormous resources conducting subsea geologic research in order to identify their continental shelves and claim exclusive mineral rights there,” Durham University’s professor, Philip Steinberg, said.

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“Research like Professor Foulger’s, which forces us to rethink the relationship between seabed and continental geology can have far-reaching impact for countries trying to determine what area of the seabed are their exclusive preserve and what areas are to be governed by the International Seabed Authority as the ‘common heritage of humankind.'”

In the meantime, someone should let Lars Eriskssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir of Eurovision fame know that it’s possible they don’t hail from a remote fishing village on Iceland, but possibly a remote fishing village that sits atop a whole secret continent. For more about what may be hiding under the ocean, check out this story about a reef discovered in Australian that’s taller than the Empire State Building.

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Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.

You can do one of two things with a crime caper based on a famous string of tweets. The first is a straightforward adaptation; the second and more oblique option is to recreate the feeling of watching a story unfold online. Zola, a darkly comedic romp directed by Janicza Bravo, tries to split the difference, both by fleshing out the 148-part Twitter novella by A’Ziah-Monae King (a.k.a. @_zolarmoon) and by staging a series of zany, disjointed comedic moments that feel like a seedy Florida fairytale. The film is amusing and incredibly sure of its narrative goals, even if the result is less compelling than King’s original thread.

The film, like the Twitter tale, begins with the now-popular refrain: “Y’all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.” The description undoubtedly applies to King’s narrative micro-drip, a mostly-true story in which she’s roped into a road trip with a white sex worker named Jessica, her boyfriend Jarrett and her pimp, “Z” — named Stefani, Derek, and “X” in the movie — in a scheme that goes from bad to worse as the group weaves in and out of the orbits of various gun-toting side characters. The film, while less suspenseful, retains the story’s Murphy’s Law conceit by sprinkling surprising oddities throughout its 90-minute runtime. Where it stands out in the comedy landscape, however, is in its mimicry of social media. It isn’t just an adaptation of a story told on Twitter, but an approximation — to a fault — of what it feels like to be terminally online, with all the resulting anxieties.

Zola (Taylour Paige) meets fellow pole dancer Stefani (Riley Keough) while waitressing at a Detroit restaurant, and the two immediately hit it off. Although they return to their normal routines — Zola lives with her boyfriend, while Stefani has a baby at home — they begin texting each other non-stop. The last decade of film and television has depicted online messaging with a focus on the texts themselves, which often pop up on screen, but Bravo’s visual approach is similar to an old epistolary film where dialogue and voiceover narrate written letters, and the focus remains strictly on characters’ close-ups, connecting them across time and space as the film repeatedly cuts between them. The key difference is the way Bravo uses sound to convey instant, constant distraction. The beeps and whistles of messages received and sent pile up with a fury, and draw attention from other tasks. It’s incredibly annoying, though that’s kind of the point, and it doesn’t fade until Zola and Stefani are in each other’s company once again. They’re kindred spirits who offer each other a unique sense of calm, at least at first.

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On their long drive to Tampa, they’re accompanied by Stefani’s timid white boyfriend Derek (Nicholas Braun), and by a mysterious, flashy Nigerian gentleman, “X” (Colman Domingo), who code-switches smoothly between accents, and transitions frighteningly between upbeat and dangerous. En route to their destination, they show each other Vines and take videos and selfies together, and the film’s visual boundaries begin to blur. Not only does the camera hop between the filmmakers’ “objective” vantage and the subjective lens of the characters’ phones, but the screen itself veers between a movie screen as we know it, public and collective, and the more private screen of an iPhone, with times and dates displayed up top, and shots of scenery sliding to a bottom corner with distinct “clicks,” as if the characters were taking not just photographs, but screenshots of the film itself. However, at no point does the film feel like a screen recording or an entry in the “Screen Life” genre, like the 2018 desktop thriller Searching or this year’s Sundance hit R#J, a modern retelling of Romeo & Juliet told across various phone screens. Zola’s gimmick isn’t quite so simple.

When the group arrives at their motel, the film takes a step back and captures them leaving the car and grabbing their bags in a long, languid shot as a couple of kids play basketball in the background — only they aren’t really playing basketball. Rather, they’re repeating the same dribbling motion over and over again, and the sound of the bouncing ball begins to fall into a specific, overpowering rhythm — a background hum that goes on long enough to become hilariously surreal. The film lives and breathes in strange moments like these, in which the mundane begins to feel extraordinary or even dangerous the more you focus on specific details. A similar highlight unfolds when Zola and Stefani join a prayer circle of Tampa strippers about to go out on stage, whose repetitive chants become hypnotic.

Zola interjects with voiceover at key moments, providing adequate context and foreshadowing along the way. She soon discovers that she isn’t just a friend along for a business vacation with some stripping and frolic, but is essentially being pimped out by “X.” Stefani seems resigned to being a pawn in his scheme, though Zola begins turning things around in surprising fashion, providing Stefani with various tips and tricks to attract more clients for a higher fee — and in the process, making Stefani value herself more than “X” does. It’s quite a sweet dynamic, despite Zola growing more fed-up with Stefani’s antics.

Like in the original thread, much of the fun comes from Zola being a (relatively) passive observer roped into idiosyncratic lives and situations. Although, Bravo and co-writer Jeremy O. Harris (of the Broadway hit Slave Play) have a keen understanding of the unique space King’s story occupies as a fixture of Black Twitter, at once a wellspring of new language, memes, and ideas meant for online Black audiences, as well as the beginning of a wider cultural pipeline which spreads, contorts and eventually waters these ideas down as they enter the white “mainstream” (the ultimate fate of words like “woke”). It’s one of the pitfalls of being an online in-group. Even your in-jokes are hyper-visible, and everyone wants in on them — a struggle between the private and public, reflected whenever the film adopts and alternately drops its aforementioned iPhone aesthetics.

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Stefani and Derek, played by Riley Keough and Nicholas Braun, embody at least some elements of this relationship between whiteness and Black culture. Their speech, appearance and mannerisms feel distinctly influenced by Hip Hop, yet their movement through the plot remains free from the judgment and watchful eyes that would likely befall Black characters moving through the world the same way. Derek, for instance, is nonplussed by the presence of police sirens and even police brutality, and no one really objects to the subtle racism hurled at Zola throughout the film (if they notice it at all).

The most interesting question arising from the film’s shifting point-of-view is whose story is being told in the first place. Zola herself is an observer for the most part, but she also silently comments on everything Stefani, Derek, and other white characters get up to and the uncomfortable things they say to her. This commentary often takes the form of precisely timed reaction shots of Taylour Paige, who has the difficult task of guiding the viewer through a hyper-active saga while herself remaining subdued. She more than succeeds.

The way Zola is framed in a given scene centers both the story she’s telling as well as her relationship with it. She’s often a background fixture to some other action or exchange of dialogue, but she’s rarely out of focus. “X” is at his most terrifying not when the camera is focused on him, but when his face envelops half the screen in soft-focus, and Zola is made to look diminutive in the other half, much further away, as if she’s being consumed by his ploy. Ari Wegner’s cinematography is incredibly adept at framing and re-framing perspective in micro ways, which always seem to keep social media in mind; how would one visualize “Zola telling a story,” if not by having her bear witness to these events?

However, the film’s fatal flaw is that it’s almost too dedicated to dramatizing the wider net of social media. King’s thread was a singular story. The film is more of an approximation of scrolling through a jumbled, haphazard timeline with too many conflicting ideas coming at you at once — a feeling recently parodied by comedian Bo Burnham. While the film tries to flesh out the spaces between King’s tweets, often expanding on details and adding bits of backstory (using a Rolling Stone article as an alternate source), the resulting narrative is too discordant and disjointed in the way it moves from scene to scene, and at times, from shot to shot. Its lack of fluidity seems to be part of its point, but its point feels miscalculated, given the way the original story zipped from one intense moment to the next, drawing the reader into its world and keeping them there.

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There’s a rather amusing sex montage where things finally become harmonious — while visually recreating what it feels like to scroll through Instagram — but otherwise, the edit’s jagged edges act as a barrier. The film sucks the viewer into specific, hyper-charged moments, but it rarely holds on to any feeling or emotion for long enough. Even its one potential masterstroke, a late, Rashomon-like POV shift that speaks to the film’s perspective on race, is too short-lived to make an impact beyond its hysterical arrival.

Mica Levi’s melodic, synth-heavy score imbues certain moments with a dreamlike quality, especially the brief interludes in which Zola reflects on her identity and outward persona in front of a series of mirrors (an element that feels like O. Harris’s doing, given his use of mirrors on stage). However, more often than not, the film shakes itself awake from most of its nightmarish scenarios before they reach the peak of their weirdness or intensity. The film is punctuated by performances that feel nuanced and caricatured in equal measure — Domingo and Braun in particular, whose imposing presence and neurotic insecurities, respectively, complement each other well — but it rarely commits to its most interesting visual and narrative ideas. Its loopy character drama, therefore, often falls by the wayside. 

Ultimately, Zola’s flourishes are fleeting, but they’re different enough to stand out from the usual crop of American comedies, even if the film doesn’t live up to its own potential. Gaps between its funny moments are seldom filled with anything imaginative or intriguing, but the moments themselves are still funny enough. Whatever else Zola is or isn’t, it’s rarely boring.

Assembling Legos can be rough, what with the exorbitant amount and often mismatched bricks we have just laying around. However, the process has been simplified by developer Brickit’s app of the same name, which uses AI to scan and offer suggestions on what to build.

Brickit, available now on iOS with an Android version coming this fall, uses your phone’s camera to assess the assortment of Legos you have and then spits out various creations that can be made with step-by-step instructions.

All you need to do is dump your Legos into a pile, point your phone’s camera at it, and let Brickit do the rest. After a brief scanning period, the app then suggests a plethora of constructs while pointing out the bricks you’ll need. It even tells you how many bricks are necessary and which ones are missing.

This app should significantly cut down on the time it takes to think of, assemble, and build an entire Lego project from scratch. And though some Lego packs come with build instructions, Brickit is a digital database. It contains virtual, easy-to-follow guides with illustrations on how to build.

In other Lego news, the company and DC Comics confirmed that a sequel to 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie won’t happen because of licensing issues.

Netflix and CD Projekt Red announced WitcherCon, a digital celebration where fans of The Witcher can indulge in deep dives into the making of the shows and games, interactive panels featuring the people behind them, discussions about Witcher lore, trivia games, and more. If you’re interested in virtually attending WitcherCon, here’s everything you need to know, from when and where you can watch it to the full schedule.

When is WitcherCon?

WitcherCon takes place on July 9, with the first stream starting at 10am PT/1pm ET/6pm BST. The second stream starts on July 9 at 6pm PT/9pm ET. That’s July 10 at 2am BST, if you’re in the UK.

For our folks watching in Australia, both streams will air on July 10 at 3am and 11am AEST.

How to Watch WitcherCon

WitcherCon will be watchable on YouTube and Twitch on The Witcher/CD Projekt Red and Netflix channels. Here’s the full list of places you can watch WitcherCon.

• CDPR Twitch Channel
• Netflix Twitch Channel
• The Witcher YouTube Channel
• Netflix YouTube Channel

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WitcherCon Schedule – July 9, 10am PT

WitcherCon consists of two streams: The first featuring all wholly original programming based on the descriptions found on the WitcherCon official site. The second stream has original programming as well, although there appear to be a few repeats sprinkled in. That said, both streams look to have plenty of reasons to tune in. See the full schedule for the first stream below:

The Witcher Season 2: Deck of Destiny Panel

Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and cast members Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, Mimî M. Khayisa, and Paul Bullion answer fan questions and talk about their experiences filming season two of The Witcher.

Welcome to GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

A look at the popular trading card game from The Witcher, Gwent.

Converging Destinies

Anya Chalotra and Freya Allan discuss the journeys of Yennefer and Princess Cirilla throughout season one and offer a look at what’s to come for them in season two.

Memories from the Path: Stories Behind The Witcher Games Panel – Part 1

CD Projekt Red developers talk about what it’s been like bringing the stories of The Witcher to life through video games.

Geralt of T-Rivia Panel

CD Projekt Red’s acting lead quest designers Błażej Augustynek and Philipp Weber and Netflix series showrunners Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and Declan De Barra put their Witcher universe knowledge to the test.

Inside Kaer Morhen

A dive into the lore behind The Witchers’ guild, Kaer Morhen.

Monster Slayer: Live the Life of a Witcher

A look at the upcoming mobile game, The Witcher: Monster Slayer.

The World of The Witcher Figures

A look at Witcher figures and the process behind creating them.

Tales from the White Wolf Panel: A Spotlight Conversation with Henry Cavill

Henry Cavill sits down with panel moderator Josh Horowitz to discuss “fantasy, destiny, and the wider Witcher Universe.” The WitcherCon website hints there may be a “surprise or two” planned for this panel.

WitcherCon Schedule – July 9 at 6pm PT

See the full schedule for the second stream below:

The Witcher Season 2: Deck of Destiny

Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and cast members Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, Mimî M. Khayisa, and Paul Bullion answer fan questions and talk about their experiences filming season two of The Witcher.

Welcome to GWENT: The Witcher Card Game

A look at the popular trading card game from The Witcher, Gwent.

CD PROJEKT RED’s The Witcher: Beyond Video Games Panel

A look at an upcoming board game and comic books inspired by The Witcher.

Memories from the Path: Stories Behind The Witcher Games Panel – Part 2

Studio Mir gives a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the upcoming Netflix anime film, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf.

Geralt of T-Rivia Panel

CD Projekt Red’s acting lead quest designers Błażej Augustynek and Philipp Weber and Netflix series showrunners Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and Declan De Barra put their Witcher universe knowledge to the test.

Strokes of Genius

Monster Slayer: Live the Life of a Witcher

A look at the upcoming mobile game, The Witcher: Monster Slayer.

The World of The Witcher Figures

A look at Witcher figures and the process behind creating them.

Inside Kaer Morhen

A dive into the lore behind The Witchers’ guild, Kaer Morhen.

We’ll be covering all the news out of WitcherCon so make sure to check back here for the full recap.

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Felicia Miranda is SEO Editor at IGN. You can find her on Twitter at @FeliciaVagabond.

Nintendo has launched a new “Ask the Developer” interview series, in which developers share their own thoughts on the products they’ve helped create.

The new series appears to draw from Nintendo’s long-running “Iwata Asks” series of conversations, which were helmed by former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata during his reign at Nintendo. For the series, Iwata conducted behind-the-scenes interviews with key members of Nintendo’s development teams.

Similarly, Nintendo’s “Ask the Developer” series aims to delve into everything about game development, from early ideas and initial concepts to design processes and challenges working towards the creation of the final product, with insight from the developers about their own personal experiences and motivations.

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The first volume in the series focuses on Game Builder Garage, a programming game that lets you “learn to make games from the minds at Nintendo.” The installment features a discussion with the game’s director and programmer Naoki Masuda and subdirector Kosuke Teshima who was in charge of coordinating the “Interactive Lessons” for the game.

Game Builder Garage is designed to teach visual game programming by connecting creatures called “Nodon.” There are dozens of Nodon in Game Builder Garage, each with its own unique function. Lessons teach players the basics of designing games, with Free Programming mode available for those who want to let their imaginations run wild.

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Game Builder Garage was released on the Nintendo Switch, both digitally and physically, on June 11, and arrived on the Switch eShop with a free demo to try out the game. IGN awarded the game an 8 out of 10, calling it a “robust, yet easy to learn, game engine that’s absolutely delightful.” It also earned a spot in June 2021’s Best Reviewed Games.

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Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Like life, death, and taxes, the announcement of a show cancelation comes with pleas and hashtags on Twitter asking Netflix to “save” the show. 

There’s a reason for this: For a lengthy minute in the mid-2010s, Netflix did seem to become a savior of sorts. Arrested Development was brought back, The Killing and Longmire were given a second shot after their respective networks brought down the hatchet, and Gilmore Girls found a new life with the streamer. 

Lucifer and Designated Survivor were the last major shows that Netflix saved — back in 2018. Three years have gone by, and since then, Netflix has publicly shifted from savior to executioner extraordinaire. Headlines are more likely now to count the number of one-season shows Netflix has canceled and fan fury over their new favorite show being ripped away. 

Most people want to know what happened. How could Netflix go from being the entertainment world’s savior to breaking hearts every other month? 

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Back in 2017, I wrote that Netflix was starting to act more like a network because it was canceling shows. No one can just purchase unlimited series forever and have every show be a hit and become a healthy return on investment. Netflix was also, however, ordering more original series than ever before. Contrary to popular belief, Netflix doesn’t cancel more than anyone else — but Netflix doesn’t have a pilot process, and Netflix also orders more than most networks. Since Sense8’s cancelation, Netflix has increased its number of exclusive TV shows around the world exponentially, seemingly debuting something new every single week.

Within the span of about six years, Netflix went from being a streaming service that needed any show with a built-in fan base, to bring in subscribers and build up its library offering, to creating a plethora of new favorites across several genres. 

Netflix, just like other networks, doesn’t make massive business decisions based on a hashtag campaign from fans. Despite some views, Netflix has never existed to save shows that networks toss, and Netflix certainly isn’t trying to foster what others don’t want. Netflix is trying to move forward, with executives trying to figure out what the next hit is. That means ignoring shows that haven’t worked — even when passionate fan campaigns spring up. Twitter hashtags don’t necessarily translate to good business moves. 

No, Netflix isn’t a savior anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. To understand when and why everything changed, there are three factors we have to consider:

1. What Netflix needed when it first launched

2. What Netflix is trying to do next 

3. The reality of television’s current moment 

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We Need Content 

When Netflix first launched its streaming service option back in 2007, it didn’t have much to claim for its own. Netflix was entirely reliant on carrying library content from its media partners at various networks and studios. It was, at one time, seemingly beneficial for both parties. Netflix was able to give subscribers a truckload of content for a low price and networks started seeing the “Netflix Effect” kick in, building new fans who might turn out for a new season of a show they got the chance to binge on Netflix. 

“We came back so strong that second season, because of the binging that was going on the first,” Pedowitz said of Riverdale’s success back in 2017, as reported by IndieWire. “The key for us, when that happens, is to try to bring them back into the in-season, and remembering that it’s a CW show, and that they’re more than welcome and they can watch all the original episodes throughout the year.”

It’s also a point that Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s then chief content officer and current co-CEO, has pointed out in many interviews going as far back as 2013 when Netflix first got into the originals game. Breaking Bad found its audience thanks to Netflix (or, at least, according to Sarandos and co.), and CW shows like True American potentially hit new levels of awareness because of Netflix’s 200 million subscriber base. 

Not long after Netflix’s success and impact started to grow, executives began to realize those same networks would like to keep things in-house. Why should Netflix get to profit off building a platform with a growing, recurring subscriber base based on their shows? Netflix started getting into more originals, but building up that library of content takes time. Trying to build up a loyal fan base takes even longer. Hence, one of Netflix’s first big “saves”: Arrested Development. 

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Arrested Development developed a cult following when it aired on Fox in the early ‘00s, but its ratings never reached the point for the network to continue carrying it year after year. Three seasons in, Fox canceled the show. This was pre-internet, pre-social media, and pre-streaming. 

It was a comedy that found its success through memes and new technologies — a world that Netflix knew better than almost anyone. Netflix “saved” the show, using the library of episodes to ensure people could return to watch again and again while also waiting for the next season. A new season would get them in the door, old seasons would keep them coming back.

During an earnings call in April 2013, back when Netflix had less than 50 million subscribers, co-CEO Reed Hastings predicted Arrested Development’s arrival on the service would be an “absolutely spectacular phenomenon.” A study from BTIG Research that same year found that 86% of Arrested Development fans surveyed subscribed to Netflix, and “half of the others said they probably would sign up to watch the show,” according to the New York Times. 

It worked well enough for Netflix (even with the poor reviews) to keep making those bets. The Killing, Gilmore Girls, Longmire, Designated Survivor, and Lucifer all found new blood on Netflix. They were rebranded as Netflix Originals or first-run series, and came up alongside a plethora of new shows that Netflix ordered to make its mark — House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, Bojack Horseman, Stranger Things, The Witcher, and dozens upon dozens more. 

“The more successful we get, the more anxious I get about the willingness of the networks to license their stuff to us,” Sarandos told Variety in 2017.

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For all the differences that streaming and broadcast or cable television have, the core similarity is that success is still dependent on carrying hit shows that people want to watch. For a long time at Netflix, this meant relying on carrying those shows (Friends, The Office, NCIS) in one place while taking bets on reviving others to claim as Netflix originals. As Netflix has built out its own original programming slate, however, both domestically and internationally, the need to buy others’ content isn’t as necessary. 

Trying to determine what shows to save became a question about what Netflix needed its future to look like, not titles that could help pad out the platform. Netflix no longer has less than 50 million subscribers. It’s about to hit around 210 million. There are shows being licensed in countries around the world, and Netflix didn’t need to save a fantasy epic if it could make The Witcher. 

If Lucifer was the last series Netflix saved, it’s a good place to start to understand how Netflix executives are thinking about what to potentially save and what to pass on going forward. 

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Ownership Everywhere Is Everything

Netflix is a global company. Its originals need to be available in almost every country the company operates in. Its originals need to be exclusive in every country.

“The international audience for the show drove our interest to bring [it] to the world as a Netflix original,” Bajaria told TV Insider when Netflix saved Designated Survivor in 2018.

There are still some issues Netflix faces from time to time, even when looking at shows worth picking up. Lucifer was a Fox show that was canceled after its third season. Netflix picked it up, and produced two subsequent seasons. Despite those seasons being produced by Netflix, the show plays exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in Germany, for example, because of rights issues. That includes the fourth and fifth season wholly created and produced by Netflix. So why did Netflix pick up Lucifer in 2018? 

There’s one key point to keep in mind: Netflix’s team lives and breathes data. Although Lucifer didn’t become a Netflix first run series until 2018, the company carried the show internationally for Fox. It seemingly performed exceptionally well. Netflix could see that, and so could other interested buyers, like Amazon, who carried the show in the UK. After Fox canceled the show, Amazon and Netflix bid on it, seemingly understanding that the show’s built-in fan base, procedural structure, and franchise potential was enough to make a bet. 

But Netflix executives only made the bet after carrying the show for a few years, and seeing how well it played for their subscribers. 

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“With distributors licensing to Netflix internationally less, that could be a key contributor to why they aren’t reviving more shows,” Kasey Moore, editor-in-chief of What’s on Netflix and a key analyst in the space, told IGN. 

The biggest question Netflix executives have to ask their teams is whether or not saving a show will produce a long term return on investment. Take a show like Good Girls, which Netflix helped to produce, effectively helping to offset and lower production costs Universal TV and NBC would have faced. As such, Netflix reserved global distribution and streaming rights. Full control. It’s what Sarandos wants with any show. 

But Netflix didn’t pick up the show for renewal when NBC decided to cancel it (the show’s ratings were never great on broadcast TV). There were reports that Netflix might have had to pick up even more costs if it became a first-run series instead of splitting payments with NBC, and Netflix’s new TV chief, Bela Bajaria, is being more selective with which shows get “saved.”

Even if Good Girls played decently for a minute on Netflix in the US, Bajaria and her team didn’t see enough of a future for the show or a return on investment for what it would cost to save it — despite financing it for several years with NBC. As the Hollywood Reporter noted, Netflix has “continued to be more selective when it comes to reviving canceled broadcast series,” adding that executives passed on “saving” Manifest following its second season airing on TV. 

Netflix needs hits. It needs to own those hits. It needs to own those hits everywhere, forever. And if Netflix needs to focus on building franchises, Netflix doesn’t need the pilots that Fox or NBC passed on originally.

Netflix doesn’t need content anymore; it has more than enough. But Netflix does need shows that will compete with the hundreds of other series popping up on competing streamers. Even from a simple business standpoint, hit shows reduce churn (the number of customers canceling), and reduced churn means price increases are accepted, and that leads to higher revenue for Netflix to buy more potential hits. This requires getting rid of — and not risking buying — duds.

For all the hashtag campaigns trying to get Netflix to save shows, the reality is that Netflix doesn’t need to be home to every orphaned series anymore. It needs to play house to the world’s next big franchise. 

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Everything Is Different

The landscape Netflix exists in right now is different from the one that existed five years ago. 

Various networks and studios Netflix licensed from or worked with on exclusive deals now have their own streaming services. NBCUniversal has Peacock. Warner Bros. has HBO Max. Disney and ABC have Hulu and Disney+. 

This means that more often than not Netflix is left with networks’ drecks. Even the series that executives might want could potentially end up on Peacock or HBO Max after five years as part of a deal.

As Moore pointed out to me, “Will Warner Bros. stipulate that Netflix will only have the show for X-number of years before it definitely comes back to HBO Max?” Another way of putting it: Will Warner Bros. (or whomever) get Netflix to “pay for it all and reap the rewards down the line,” Moore added. 

The answer is Netflix simply won’t. It doesn’t make sense for Netflix to effectively pay for someone else’s show to be a success on another platform down the line. That’s why Netflix is looking into adapting known IP (The Witcher, Resident Evil, Sonic the Hedgehog), global programming opportunities (Money Heist is one of the streaming platform’s most popular shows), and reality programming (Too Hot to Handle, The Circle).

Netflix is still undergoing somewhat of an identity crisis, trying to figure out how to be something for everyone (a move that has led creatives to lambast Netflix’s middle of the road approach as CBS-like) while also still trying to be the HBO of tomorrow. 

“We have returning seasons of big, crowd-pleasing shows,” Bajaria told Variety earlier this year. “Looking at The Witcher coming back and La Casa del Papel, Never Have I Ever, You — we have huge important shows coming back that we’re excited about.”

What Bajaria did not say, or talk about, was trying to save more shows — in fact, it’s something Bajaria seemingly wants to do less of going forward. The television industry’s dynamics have changed so much over the last decade that what happened between 2011 and 2015 was a completely different Netflix than the one heading into 2022 and beyond. Netflix used to be considered a savior because it just needed shows. Sure, Netflix will continue to keep an eye out for series it thinks might work globally on Netflix, based on data it has, that Fox or NBC or ABC don’t want. It will probably still save a show or two in the future.  

But Netflix isn’t your savior anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a sign of Netflix’s growth, and executives’ understanding that what they need to succeed and exceed all expectations isn’t someone else’s leftovers.