Movie Which Is Viral Very Virally

Yes, I watchedBird Box. Judging from Netflix’s stated numbers you probably did too (or, at least,part of it). The fact that it’s not a great movie — it’sfine — is probably what is most interesting about our collective viewership. Netflix just unlocked the first truly viral movie. And did so in a way only Netflix can.

At a high level, movie virality is nothing new. Some of the most successful movies of all time did a large part of their business due to word-of-mouth. Actually, this is undoubtedly what droveall of themto such heights. And in more recent years, we’ve all seen plenty of viral videos on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. ButBird Boxis different.

This isn’t something Netflix could have done even a few years ago. But now they’re at such a scale, where a simple push — in some cases, anactualpush (notification), and in others, the prime placement of a banner, and perhapsan auto playing trailer— can lead directly to millions upon millions of views. No surprise, they’ve done this by removing friction.

In the good old days, to see a “viral” movie, you had to hear about it, look up a showtime at a local theater, drive to said theater, buy a ticket to said movie, and sit through said movie in said theater. In this new era, you perhaps don’t even have tohearabout said movie — again, maybe it’s just right there when you open the app — you simply sit through said movie in your living room.

Said another way: time, time, time, money, time has been compressed down to just time. Talk about streamlined.

In my case, I watchedBird Boxbecause so many people were talking about it on Twitter. It was word-of-mouth, but not necessarily in the normal sense — again, the movie is decent, but not great and the chatter I saw was largelymeme based! — and yet there it was, staring me in the face when I opened Netflix. It was basically begging me to click-to-watch.

This isn’t the first attempt Netflix has had in this arena. During last year’s Super Bowl, they attempted to do same basic thingwith a commercial forTheCloverfield Paradox. It was clever because unlike so many other movie trailers shown during the event, the kicker was that you could watch the movieright now. Again, all of the friction had been compressed to time.

But again, if a movie isn’t lovedby most people, the true virality won’t kick in. And, of course, it does ultimately behoove Netflix to only massively promote films they’re proud of, from a brand perspective. Then again, they have the data to know what their audience wants to watch (even if theysaysomething different in public), and they can very granularly tailor such promotions to certain people based on such desires. Brilliant.

Of this I’m certain: ifBird Boxwere released in theaters, relatively few people would have seen it. It was a longer, less clever version ofA Quiet Place. The only reason it would have generated any business was the same reason it would have gotten made: Sandra Bullock But on Netflix, her star power, mixed with the aforementioned reduction of friction and Netflix’s promotion led to a huge hit. The first truly viral movie.