ridiculous six posterThe great thing about movies is that there’s something for everyone. If you don’t like super hero movies, there are period character dramas that may be more to your taste. There are broad comedies if that’s your thing or subtle movies that walk the line between comedy and drama. In 2015, though, distribution has become the deciding factor. Big, mass-market films may dominate the multiplex so you might have to go online and download the buzzed-about indie from a VOD service, where it’s available the same day it’s playing on limited screens elsewhere in the country. Distribution is more of a factor than it’s ever really been.

Netflix is one of the biggest players in that distribution game and it’s getting deeper into production of original movies, not just buying the rights to existing films. The latest in that trend is The Ridiculous 6, a new comedy western from Adam Sandler. The story is…you know what, who cares? It’s an Adam Sandler comedy so the story (something about a group of outlaws searching for their father) really doesn’t matter since it’s loosely in the service of as many gags as can be crammed in. Sandler comes with his own built-in audience and that’s what Netflix is counting on. Let’s see how they sold it.

The Posters

The single poster for the film looks a lot like one for a western, but tells you nothing about the story. There’s not even a tagline. It’s just a vertical-stripe pattern with each cast member getting their own stripe showing a headshot and their name. The movie’s title is there in the middle, with Netflix’s branding at the top and the December 11th release date at the bottom.

The Trailers

The first trailer presents this as essentially Peak Sandler. The plot is only loosely hinted at – something about going and finding the father of not only Sandler’s character but half the rest of the crew – because it’s completely inconsequential. Whatever story there is here it’s just an excuse for the gags that we see here, almost none of which look funny at all. What’s most interesting about the trailer is just the sheer amount of guest stars that are on-board. Sandler has a broad group of friends and he apparently called them all to come and do a cameo.

It’s…it’s not good. But it will instantly appeal to huge swaths of the audience.

Online and Social

There was no website for the movie. And it just hitched a ride on Netflix’s social media profiles. For an online-only releases, this seems like a backwards strategy.

Advertising and Cross-Promotion

Nothing concrete that I’ve seen. Certainly no TV spots. There may have been some online advertising done, including Promoted Tweets on Twitter, but that would be the extent of it.

Media and Publicity

Unfortunately for the movie, much of the early press – outside of news about the movie and coverage of it being the first of Sandler’s Netflix originals – was negative. A group of Native American actors and others reportedly walked off the set because they felt it was playing into the worst of stereotypes with its portrayal of their historical culture. Sandler himself would get dragged into responding that it was all just a misunderstanding (a less than compelling narrative) and that things would become clear once the movie came out.

ridiculous six pic 1

Despite all that negative press, Sandler insisted in the press that Netflix supported him throughout the filming and production. Those comments included statements about how working with Netflix gave him and the rest of the cast and crew a great amount of creative latitude, a theme that’s become common among creators working with the famously hands-off company.

Most of the rest of the media was like this story, which talked primarily about how these kind of original movies, particularly with someone like Sandler who’s so popular with a big segment of the audience, are part of Netflix’s attempts to not just be the buyers of other people’s content but do finance and produce movies that can stand on their own. It comes down to another element that creates perceived value in the Netflix product and makes it hopefully a compelling option for people with more and more streaming and VOD services available every day.

Overall

Well that was underwhelming. I wrote previously about how online-only releases could greatly benefit from an online-first mindset, with campaigns that are optimized in most every way for sharing through social, search discovery and more, but this doesn’t do any of that. Instead it’s a campaign that’s on the scale of a small independent film, but without the cache that comes with that kind of release. So those movies benefit from festival and other buzz, something The Ridiculous Six doesn’t have.

That being said, this should appeal to the kind of audience that has made and continues to prop up Sandler as a sizable star, even if his box-office luster has worn off of late. That may not hurt this release, though, for the same reasons that just because indie films have struggled in theaters doesn’t mean they can’t go on to more success on home video. If Sandler’s audience is no longer going to keep him going in theaters, there’s a decent likelihood they can carve out two hours to watch an online-original, particularly when there’s no additional cost above the Netflix subscription fee. In fact, Netflix may be using this as a way to bring in a different sort of audience from the one they’ve attracted through “prestige” serialized content like House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black and other series.

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