By Sinclair + Stephan Dubreuil
Through their company Artists Equity, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon produced and starred in the police thriller RIP. And they stopped in at the Joe Rogan Experience to promote their new production, jokingly mentioning the regular press junkets on the circuit, speculating that talking to Joe Rogan alone could potentially be more viable than the aggregate of all their other interviews.
Among many other things, Affleck and Damon talked about Hunter S. Thompson, Chris Nolan’s Odyssey, MMA Fighting and the very astutely produced Adolescence, vaunting its straight up no-formula streamer production. The two brought up their negotiation with Netflix, and the decision to go for a streaming release instead of a theatrical one. They knew subjecting some of the plotting to data could make their film that much more successful.
Netflix, they noted, outlined five tiers of performance tied to financial incentives, with the highest defined by a 110% watch rate, meaning every subscriber watches a title, with some returning for repeat viewings. A rare occurrence.
More tellingly, they were encouraged to have a set piece in the first five minutes as well as reiterating the plot several times. The data suggests viewers are often distracted, on their phones or simply less attentive while watching amid the comforts and interruptions of domestic life. Add to that the growing share of content consumed on smartphones, and it is little wonder audiences are increasingly served repeated plot beats and oversized moments at sometimes incongruous points.
Affleck articulated the average viewer’s calculus succinctly: the cumulative cost of a large flatscreen, sound system, subscriptions, and reliable Wi-Fi has effectively recreated a customizable theater at home. Small surprise, then, that many contemporary streaming titles are written for the “second screen,” more tell than show, a reversal of the cinematic language Affleck and Damon grew up in.
The consolation is that film buffs will always know what filmmakers’ work is meant to be seen in cinemas, on the big screen. For example, Affleck mentioned Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Odyssey.
The industry has spent the past few years narrating its own disruption (pandemic aftershocks, labor strikes, AI, the recalibration of streaming) as if uncertainty were a temporary condition. Rogan’s widely circulated episode offers something clearer: not resolution, but recognition. From Affleck and Damon’s vantage point, the path forward is less about stability than about momentum. Films are still getting made. Deals are still closing. Careers are still steaming ahead. Uncertainty, it seems, is the only constant.
