Netflix: Why does this director no longer want to work with the platform?

For many horror fans, the release of Mike Flanagan’s House of Usher on Netflix was bittersweet. This new production from this master of horror is pretty amazing compared to his previous work for the platform. On the other hand, it is also the last.

Because the arrival of House of Usher Fall marks the end of a fruitful partnership between Netflix and Flanagan. Now, thrill seekers will have to look elsewhere for their annual Flanagan fix. More specifically, they’ll have to turn to Prime Video.

Yes, Mike Flanagan is leaving Netflix for a deal with another streaming platform. It’s a real relief for those who were under the impression that the director was just leaving the old house unscathed. Rest assured, Flanagan has a plan, and it’s a plan that includes even more screen adaptations of horror classics.

When did the partnership between Mike Flanagan and Netflix begin?

Flanagan’s deal with Netflix officially began in 2019, shortly after Flanagan created and executive produced his first series for the streamer, The Haunting of Hill House. The series, released in 2018, is a 10-episode, critically and fan-acclaimed horror drama about a grief-stricken family and a house haunted by more than just ghosts.

According to the novel A haunted house Appeared by Shirley Jackson in 1959, but with significant changes to the plot, which were entirely Flanagan’s work, the miniseries paved the way for Flanagan’s second television project, a new chapter in what became a “thrilling anthology” with The Haunting of Bly Manor.

Once again loosely adapted from the classic horror novel, turning the screw By Henry James, Bly Manor is a love story turned horror tale about a couple of lovers who find themselves in – you guessed it… – a haunted house!

The Haunting of Bly Manor was released in 2020 and was followed in 2021 by Flanagan’s first all-original series, Midnight Sermons, an exploration of faith through horror. A year later, Flanagan released his second original series, The Midnight Club, but the reception was less than warm.

A planned sequel, Midnight Club did not appeal to critics or fans – a 2.9 out of 5 press rating and an audience rating on AlloCiné – and was not profitable for Netflix. This led to its cancellation after just one season. Flanagan took to Tumblr to reveal his plans for season two and made no secret of his displeasure with Netflix.

“When we agreed to do the midnight club” he told Deadline, “The whole society was very different. I think it’s safe to say that a series like this, which is innovative and harder to rank for us, requires a pretty strong promotion to get off the ground right, and Netflix’s strategy for promoting new series has changed a lot.“

In addition to the series, Flanagan has also directed two films, Quiet in 2016 and Jessie in 2017, for Netflix. Finally, in 2023, he launched his latest project for the broadcaster, The Fall of the House of Usher. Based on the novel of the same name, as well as many other stories and poems by classic horror master Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher is a contemporary series about the downfall of a wealthy and powerful family.

Currently number 4 in the broadcaster’s global top 10 after three weeks on air, the series has also been a critical success, ensuring Flanagan’s departure from Netflix.

Why is Mike Flanagan moving from Netflix to Amazon?

Flanagan’s arrival at Prime Video was announced on December 1, 2022. With producer Trevor Mays, with whom he has collaborated on many of his projects, from 2013’s Mirror to Usher’s House Fall, the director announced a multi-year collaboration. Series deal with Amazon Studios.

Under a relatively new deal, Flanagan and Macy’s company, Intrepid Pictures, are expected to produce undisclosed projects that will be available exclusively on Prime Video. in a joint statement DeadlineFlanagan and Macy had this to say about this new partnership:

“Amazon is a studio we’ve long admired. Their commitment to creating innovative series and content aligns with the ethos we’ve built at Intrepid. We look forward to working with the entire Amazon team to bring our brand’s genre-bending products to service and audiences around the world.“

Is it a simple consensual statement of communication? Or are Flanagan and Macy really unhappy with Netflix? Mike Flanagan makes no secret of his displeasure with Netflix’s interventionism on Midnight Sermons. In a post on Bluesky (a Twitter-like social media platform), Mike Flanagan said the series was “The dumbest scene I’ve ever done” because of Netflix’s insistence on including it.

Flanagan, quoted by We’ve got that covered– said the broadcasterWe were under tremendous pressure to “add scares” to the Midnight Mass pilot.“. This included a scene that, according to Netflix, “It would help explain what happened to the cats“.

Indeed, in the first episode of the series, many murdered cats wash ashore. Flanagan wrote:They presented a scene where we see an “angel” tracking down and killing a stray cat. “I hated it. But they were like, ‘If we don’t see this scene, no one will know what happened to the cats, and it will add tremendous fear to the pilot.’It follows:

I protested and protested and protested but in the end we lost the battle. So there’s this scene in the first episode where we follow a cat walking around, and then there’s a long shot in the bushes, and then he’s caught out of the footage. It’s like a scene from Friday the 13th. It’s the dumbest scene I’ve ever seen.

After this episode, Mike Flanagan seems to have confirmed his decision not to continue working with Netflix and therefore chose Prime Video for his future projects. This includes, in particular, the series adaptation of The Dark Tower, a sci-fi novel by Stephen King that has been considered unadaptable and which was a theatrical flop in the version starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. Mike Flanagan tackles a monstrous project once again!