Netflix has been pumping out original content for so long and at such an immense scale that it recently released its second original movie entitled War Machine.

Although the Brad Pitt-starring first iteration sank like a stone in 2017, the unrelated new War Machine, led by Reacher’s Alan Ritchson, was reportedly a ratings smash, hitting 10th on Netflix’s all-time most-watched movies list, with 140 million views. So far, it’s the platform’s biggest movie this year.

If the dearth of online chatter around it is any indication, though, it’s gotten all too easy to have zero interest in or opinions about Netflix’s biggest projects.

Presumably, very few people got yelled at on social media for sharing War Machine spoilers, or felt slighted by a significant other for watching it without them. By all accounts, it’s a pretty good movie, but far from what could be considered an “event,” despite a sheen of event-ness being a reasonable expectation for any studio’s biggest film of the year.

Instead, it feels more like a movie designed with the goal of capturing a Super Bowl number of eyeballs. That’s the main problem with 2020s Netflix: It gets eyeballs watching far more than it gets tongues wagging. 

If a Super Bowl-size event takes place and nobody talks about it, does it even matter?

To be clear, Netflix is still an apex predator in the streaming wars (although it may be dwarfed by the world’s true streaming leader, YouTube). 7 billion hours watched , landing 11 titles on Nielsen’s top 20 original series.

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