No stranger to filming an intense action scene, Matt Damon is learning to slow down and let the audience catch up.
While discussing his and Ben Affleck‘s new Netflix movie The Rip, the Oscar winner explained that movies now require a “very different level of attention” when they’re made available to stream at home.
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“That has a big effect, and it’s also starting to have an effect on how you make movies,” he explained on the Joe Rogan Experience, using Netflix as an example.
“The standard way to make an action movie that we learned was, you usually have three set pieces. One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third. And the kinda ramp up to the big one with all the explosions. You spend most of your money on that one in the third act. That’s your finale. And now they’re like, ‘Can we get a big one in the first five minutes? We want people to stay tuned in.’”
Damon continued, “‘And it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.’”
This policy is not new as Netflix writers have reportedly been told by the streamer to have their characters “announce what they’re doing” in the dialogue.
Apparently no exception to this rule, The Rip stars Damon and Affleck as part of a team of Miami cops who begins to turn on each other after discovering $20 million in a derelict stash house, bringing outside forces into the mix as they struggle to determine who can be trusted.
Affleck noted, “But then you look at Adolescence, and it didn’t do any of that sh*t. And it’s f*cking great. And it’s dark too. It’s tragic and intense. [It’s about] this guy who finds out his kid is accused of murder, and there are long shots of the back of their heads. They get in the car, nobody says anything.”
Damon calls the Golden Globe-winning Netflix series “the exception,” but Affleck feels it “demonstrates you don’t have to do” those tricks to keep people invested.
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