So I know this film is straight-to-streaming so why bother but like...I really just wanna rant about this film, and why it's worth being worried about The Russos being given yet another $200M.

This past weekend, Netflix released their latest monstrocity: The Electric State. It isn't getting any good reviews. It currently sits at 2.25 on Letterboxd, a 31 on Metacritic, and only 15% of critics on RT gave it a somewhat passable grade. The average critical rating is still an appalling 3.8/10.

The Electric State is also the most expensive Netflix film ever made at

$320M

It's the 13th most expensive film ever made unadjusted for inflation and even when you do adjust for inflation, this is still criminally expensive. Adjusted for inflation, this cost more than the first Avengers film, The Dark Knight Rises, Jurassic World, the 2019 remake of The Lion King, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (which was impacted by COVID delays), and even the Russo's own Captain America: Civil War.

To put things into an even more depressing comparison, these are the reported budgets for all of the Best Picture nominees this year (and this is before including marketing):

Anora - $6M

The Brutalist - $10M

Conclave - $20M

A Complete Unknown - $60-70M

Dune Part Two - $190M

Emilia Perez - $26M

I'm Still Here - $1.5M

Nickel Boys - $23.2M

The Substance - $17.5M

Wicked - $145M

Total: $499.2M-$509.2M

Now a big part of this total are Dune Part Two and Wicked's budgets. If removed both, that number drops down to $164.2M-$174.2M

I don't typically like pulling the "couldn't some of this money be put to like good causes or such", even with the state of the world we're in, but like...couldn't some of that money at least be divested towards SOME good directos and auteurs and not yet another bloated mediocre Russos film that no one will remember save wasting so much money.

I also think it's speaks to a hypocrisy that numerous acclaimed directors can have their careers derailed or at least on pause because of a financial flop and yet the Russos can waste big budget after big budget and even though it going straight to streaming means it's losing even more money than something like Babylon did, they won't get any repurcussions whereas Damien Chazelle wasn't given that luxury.

Just....ugh at the gluttony of it all.