netflix

When medical dramas seemed to be in the doldrums, ‘The Pitt’ appeared. And that has forced Netflix to make decisions

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The Pitt’ has become one of HBO Max’s biggest critical and popular successes in recent times. And Netflix has reacted to the discovery of its rival by incorporating the 15 complete seasons of ‘ER’ into its catalogue. It is not an isolated case. They have been released six new medical dramas during the 2024-2025 season on different networks and platforms. The pattern suggests that the long and intense format recovers part of the space that short seasons, in the style of HBO’s prestige series, had imposed in the last decade. The phenomenon. The series created by R. Scott Gemmill is sweeping: a 93% on Rotten Tomatoestwo Golden Globes (Best Drama Series and Best Actor), five Emmys (with thirteen nominations)… and the audience figures are just as strong: the first season averaged 10 million viewers per episode, but The second is multiplying that data by three.. Quite a bombshell that is generating a predictable shock wave. The reason for success. Its technical and artistic virtues, needless to say, are very notable, with its feverish portrait of a night in the ER, mixing inconsequential cases with authentic life-or-death medical challenges, seasoned with circumstances that complicate each season (shootings, avalanches of patients, blackouts). But the format also explains part of the success: each episode represents one hour within a 15-hour shift in the ER, that is, fifteen chapters for a single work day. The real-time structure, a reformulation of ’24’ in a clinical format, allows overlapping medical cases to be followed as staff deal with lack of resources and ethical decisions under pressure. Emergency professionals on websites that collect viewer opinions, such as IMDBhave highlighted the technical precision of the series, a rare detail in the genre. Casey Bloys, CEO of HBO Max, explained that the production model of ‘The Pitt’ allows seasons to be released twelve months apart, compared to the 24 months required by series like ‘The House of the Dragon‘. “This model could be applied to future productions,” he declared. ‘Emergencies’ on Netflix. In response, Netflix has added to its lineup the complete 15 seasons of ‘ER’. While its genuine successor reaches record figures, Netflix recovers the title that established the rules of the genre three decades earlier. ‘ER’ aired on NBC from 1994 to 2009 and Michael Crichton, a novelist and doctor, wrote the original script in 1974 based on his experience as a student at Boston General Hospital. Studios rejected it for years as too technical and fast-paced, but when it finally came to the screen thanks to Spielberg’s production, the show racked up 124 Emmy nominationsan all-time record for a series, and won 23 statuettes, including best drama series in 1996. The influence of ‘ER’ on later series is indisputable. ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ (on Disney+) adopted its structure of weekly cases combined with long dramatic arcs; ‘House’ (on Netflix, Prime Video, Movistar and SkyShowtime) took the procedural approach applied to complex diagnoses; and ‘The Good Doctor’ (on Netflix, Movistar and Prime Video) inherited the balance between medicine and personal drama. Avalanche of doctors. Until six new medical dramas have come to streaming in recent months, some thanks to the success of ‘The Pitt’, others being more or less contemporary with the premiere of the first season of the HBO Max series. Fox premiered ‘Doc’ (Movistar), which reached 15.6 million viewers in its first 11 days. NBC launched two proposals: ‘Brilliant Minds’ (Movistar), focused on complex neurological cases, and ‘St. Denis Medical’, a comedy in mockumentary format. CBS developed ‘Watson’ (Movistar), where Sherlock Holmes’ legendary sidekick investigates medical mysteries instead of crimes. Netflix produced ‘Pulse’, his first English-language medical dramaset in a Miami trauma center. The platform also premiered ‘Heroes on Guard’, a Korean series about a traumatologist who tries to reorganize a university hospital. Both projects arrived in 2025, the same year that ‘The Pitt’ was consolidated on HBO Max. Some analysts point out that the COVID-19 pandemic focused collective attention on health workers and health systems. Five years later, once the trauma is over, we can allow ourselves to frivolize the dynamics of ER with almost detective plots. Why they succeed again. Critics point to a couple of possible reasons for this type of drama to return to the grid. On the one hand, it is a alternative (especially ‘The Pitt’) to the predominant format in recent times of “complete story that unfolds in eight chapters.” Here we have, in many cases, a multitude of microstories/patients (in the case of ‘The Pitt’ sometimes they are almost sketches) that begin and end in the same episode, a traditional television structure but one that is not usually seen in successful series. The formula also allows for something rare on television today: watching competent professionals solving problems. Each episode features new medical cases while personal arcs progress in the background. The viewer knows that Dr. Robinavitch will save lives on the night in question, even though his personal trauma takes fifteen episodes to resolve. The combination of cases that are resolved immediately and the slow development of a secondary plot also draws on series like ‘ER’ or ‘House’. In Xataka | We thought that cortisol was the biggest enemy of sleep: it is actually the key to making your body perform better during the day

Netflix spends 17 billion on producing content and YouTube does it for free. And that’s why YouTube is winning the game

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Alphabet first revealed in its Q4 2025 earnings report that YouTube generated more than 60 billion dollars over the past year, adding advertising revenue and subscriptions. The figure is 33% higher than the 45,000 million that Netflix reached in the same period and places the video platform above all the entertainment giants except Disney, which had a turnover of 95.7 billion. The data confirms what many in the industry already sensed: YouTube is not simply another competitor in the online video market, but the main beneficiary of the transformation in audiovisual consumption habits. Paradigm shift. YouTube’s victory reflects a profound transformation in how we consume video. While subscription platforms opted for the Netflix model (closed catalogs of professional productions), YouTube added in July 2025 13.4% of total television viewing time in the United States. It expanded its lead over Disney (9.4%) to establish the largest difference recorded since these measurements began. Youtube on your TV. Time spent watching YouTube on television has grown 53% since February 2023. The traditional streaming market, meanwhile, is going through what is known as “subscription fatigue“: the average number of subscriptions per consumer in the European market has stagnated at 2.35 in both 2023 and 2024, after growing systematically for years. This saturation has caused structural changes: the number of original series released in the United States fell 11% in 2025third consecutive year of declines from the 2022 peak. The difference in the plan. Breaking down where the money comes from can point to the reasons for this triumph. Of the 60,000 million in YouTube revenue, we have: Advertising revenue in the last quarter of the year was 11.38 billion dollars, with a growth of 8.7% year-on-year 325 million paid subscriptions on all your consumer services, such as YouTube Music or YouTube Premium For its part, Netflix: It reported revenue of $12.05 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, with a growth of 17.6% For the year as a whole, the platform reached $45.2 billion, with more than 325 million paid memberships The most notable difference lies in the business model. While YouTube maintains a hybrid model where advertising remains dominant, Netflix revealed its advertising figures for the first time: in 2025, its third year selling ads, advertising revenue exceeded $1.5 billion, multiplying by more than 2.5 compared to 2024. The company projects double that ad revenue in 2026. Why YouTube wins. YouTube’s competitive advantage lies in features that traditional platforms cannot replicate. On the one hand, the radical democratization of content creation: Netflix invests 17 billion dollars annually to produce, while on YouTube the creators assume the production costs. The base of 69 million creators generates a volume of content that is impossible to match: every minute 500 hours of video are uploaded to the platform The second differentiating factor is the algorithmic recommendation system. YouTube’s recommendation system uses large-scale language models that can handle massive amounts of data. This allows YouTube to do something that closed catalog platforms cannot: recommend videos based not only on general categories, but by fine-tuning suggestions based on specific interests. In 2025, YouTube’s recommendation system is the most sophisticated and user-focused. The third advantage is the absence of entry barriers for the public. While Netflix requires a mandatory subscription, YouTube offers free ad-supported access, with premium subscription as an option. This hybrid model maximizes potential reach: YouTube’s monthly active user base reached approximately 2.7 billion people in early 2025. This means that more than 25% of the world’s population uses YouTube in any given month. What it points to. YouTube’s triumph over Netflix in annual revenue represents more than a change in leadership: it signals a structural transformation in how audiovisual content is produced, distributed and monetized. The centralized studio model, a direct heir to the Hollywood system, is giving way to a decentralized ecosystem where millions of creators generate content for hyper-segmented audiences. And the implications for the industry are very profound. Header | Photo of NordWood Themes in Unsplash In Xataka | A YouTube video that lasts 140 years has gone viral. Nobody is clear why

13 premiere movies and series to watch in February 2026 on Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max and streaming

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Christmas is definitely behind us and the platforms greet 2026 with a few powerful premieres, some expected returns and a resurgence of the platform fight. Choose your favorite, because we bring you the juiciest news of February in terms of streaming. The queen of chess If you think that ‘Queen’s Gambit‘ is among the best things Netflix has ever produced, check out this documentary that tells the true story of the legendary Hungarian chess player Judit Polgár. Overcoming the sexism of a space controlled by men, she challenged champions like Garry Kasparov to become a champion of the sport with a career that began when she was only 12 years old, as the result of her parents’ experiment to raise geniuses. On Netflix February 6 Samuel After a triumphant stint on RTVE, this acclaimed Franco-Spanish series comes to Netflix, consisting of a single season of 21 four-minute episodes. An endearing and sometimes somewhat crude vision of the transition from childhood to adolescence through Samuel’s personal diary, which narrates his concerns, fears, goals and feelings, including everything from unrequited love to experiences such as the death of a friend’s grandmother. The minimalist visual style has a spontaneous touch that tends towards graphic experimentation, and gives rise to a little gem that adds to the best of Netflix’s animation section. On Netflix February 5 Stargate SG1 By surprise and in anticipation of the new series that Prime Video will produce, this modern classic of television science fiction arrives on Netflix. Although the platform has not specified what we can expect from this recovery, we trust that we will have at our disposal the ten seasons of which it consisted, no less than 214 episodes in total. A year after Roland Emmerich’s 1994 film tells the story, it starts with the idea that Ra was not the only alien who used stargates to transport human slaves to multiple planets. Let’s hope things go well for Netflix and we can enjoy successive spin-offs like ‘Atlantis’, ‘Universe’ and even the two direct-to-DVD movies. On Netflix February 15 The deception The Russo brothers are behind the production of this film that recovers the trope of the expert assassin retired and far from the madding crowd, but in a pirate key: Ercell “Bloody Mary” Bodden thought she had escaped her violent past, finding peace in the Cayman Islands with her husband, her son and her sister-in-law. But when her infamous ex-captain arrives seeking revenge, her world falls apart and she is forced back into action. The cast is headed by Priyanka Chopra, whom the Russos already showed us in ‘Citadel‘ and the always reliable Karl Urban. On Prime Video on February 25 Ponies Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson star in this spy comedy that promises excitement and entanglement with airs vintage thanks to its setting in the late seventies. In Moscow, two ponies (“people of no interest”) work as secretaries at the United States embassy until their husbands are murdered under mysterious circumstances. That’s when they become CIA agents. One of them is the daughter of Soviet immigrants, speaks Russian and is overqualified. His companion, the complete opposite: a somewhat reckless village girl. Together, they try to uncover a great conspiracy in the middle of the Cold War. Now available on SkyShowtime Neighbors The trendy indie production company in Hollywood, A24, is behind this documentary series that sometimes seems like a sitcom and sometimes like a demented thriller: it examines stories of absurd, scandalous and dramatic residential conflicts, starring a fauna of extravagant characters spread across the United States. Each episode features a group of neighbors in conflict, with protests ranging from property lines to the use of pets or the appearance with which they go out on the street. Surviving Paradise: Beyond Jehovah’s Witnesses For a long time, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been part of the friendlier landscape of Spanish religion. But hidden behind absolute secrecy was what many former members of the organization describe as a much more disturbing reality. This documentary goes into the annulment methods typical of a sect that many former members claim are practiced in secret: three episodes that talk about the passage of these former Witnesses through the group, their abandonment of it and the subsequent organization until reaching the trials in 2022. Rafaela and her crazy world This new series from the Chanante universe, created by Aníbal Gómez and based on his own book ‘The amazing world of Rafaella Mozarella’, promises to be absolutely insane. It is directed by Ernesto Sevilla and on board are many of the usual suspects: Aníbal himself, Ingrid García-Jonsson, Carlos Areces, Joaquín Reyes and Arturo Valls. Surreal and hooligan, it will tell us the life of a teenager who lives immersed in a dysfunctional family accompanied by three friends and a poodle. At Atresplayer on February 15 The Muppet Show (2026) Let’s get rid of comebacks that don’t interest anyone. This is the most anticipated reboot in television history since ‘DuckTales’ returned: all the classic characters in a legendary program with, how could it be otherwise, a special guest. In this case, Sabrina Carpenter with the help of the great comedian Maya Rudolph. Produces a certified Muppet fan, Seth Rogen, on a roll since he made ‘The Studio’. If this turns out half as well, we have Muppets for a while. On Disney+ on February 4 In an instant (In the Blink of an Eye) He directed two of Pixar’s best films, ‘WALL-E’ and ‘Finding Nemo’, and the industry fell on him when he signed a box office disaster that almost took down Disney, the highly underrated ‘John Carter’. It seems that Hollywood has forgiven him, and Andrew Stanton returns with a film that exhibits declared influences from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Interstellar’. The film features three interconnected stories spanning thousands of years exploring the entire history of the world, and was presented at Sundance, where it won the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Award (awarded for the best representation of science, … Read more

Netflix presents all its new features for 2026, and there is a genre that is an undisputed winner

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We have had the opportunity to attend the presentation of Netflix’s plans in Spain for 2026. Except for a couple of very specific successes, such as the ‘Peaky Blinders’ movie or the fourth season of ‘The Bridgertons’, the presentation focused on Spanish productions. And two things caught our attention: the decisive commitment that the platform makes to blockbusters with technical and artistic equipment from here and the strong weight that the true crime in the set. Let’s review these news. Netflix and Spanish audiovisual Since Netflix took us to visit their sets and facilities on the outskirts of Madridit was very clear to us that the platform was not here to be a second dish in the panorama of cinema and series. At that time I was in the middle of filming.The snow society‘, a film that gave international prestige to the company’s productions in Spain. Netflix wants to sustain this fame and does so by putting films and series on the table with top-notch casts and crews. These were some of the projects presented: The final problem: With Jose Coronado, Maribel Verdú and Martiño Rivas, based on a novel by Pérez-Reverte. Thanks, team: Comedy with Maribel Verdú, Pedro Casablanc and Alexandra Jiménez Savior: Thriller by Daniel Calparsoro with Luis Tosar and Claudia Salas Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine: Second season of the spin-off of La casa de papel, this time set in Seville and with Andrés de Fonollosa, Inma Cuesta, Michelle Jenner, Joel Sánchez and Tristán Ulloa 53 Sundays: Film by Cesc Gay with Carmen Machi, Javier Gutiérrez, Alexandra Jiménez and Javier Cámara On behalf of another: Film by Oriol Paulo (‘Contratiempo’) with Mario Casas and Blanca Suárez. All the truth of my lies: Based on a novel by Elísabet Benavent, with Daniel Ibáñez and Itziar Manero reality bridge Before entering into the curious trend that many of Netflix’s Spanish productions are following, its immersion in the true crimelet’s stop at a documentary and a series firmly anchored in reality. Rafa: We were not able to see any trailer for this series, but it promises to be the definitive documentary of Rafa Nadalpresenting never-before-seen facets of his career and personality. That: Nothing less than Rafael He made an appearance before journalists, presenting a series that documents his career, with two actors, Javier Morgade and Carlos Santos, giving life to the interpreter at different ages. The singer himself gave official legitimacy to the series, and spoke of how satisfied he was with the result, the setting and what it tells. The appeal of true crime No platform is unaware that the true crime It is one of the most followed genres today. Netflix itself has already influenced the true crime Hispanic with series like ‘The Asunta case‘, ‘Where is Marta?’, ‘The body on fire‘ and many others. Aware of the commercial appeal of this type of story, many of Netflix’s 2026 proposals belong to the genre, including both fiction and documentaries. The crime of Pazos: Tristán Ulloa returns to Galicia after ‘The Asunta case’, although this time on the other side of the law. In it he will play a sergeant of the Vivil Guard convinced that a man has tried to kill his wife despite appearances that they were a perfect couple and that she has been the victim of an attempted robbery. Produces Bambú Producciones, which already did the same with ‘The Asunta Case’. The boy: Mariano Barroso signs this adaptation of the novel by Fernando Aramburu, where the author told the story of Nicasio, an octogenarian who usually goes up to the Ortuella cemetery on Thursdays to visit the grave of his grandson, one of the many children who died in a gas explosion at a school in October 1980. This event, which shocked the Basque people, will show how the accident changed many lives in its day. Miguel Ángel Blanco: The 48 hours that changed everything: A documentary film by Jon Sistiaga and Juanjo López, which will address the two days in which the entire Spain mobilized trying to stop the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco, a delayed death that left a deep mark. This documentary remembers that moment and how it meant the beginning of the end for ETA. Wolf: We return to Galicia and Tristán Ulloa, although this time in a secondary role compared to the leading role of Luis Tosar. They will do so in a miniseries that will investigate the real case of Manuel Blanco Romasanta, an itinerant tailor who went down in history as the first documented serial killer in Spain, in rural Galicia in the 19th century. During his defense he claimed to be a werewolf, and the abundant documentation on the case supports the development of this new series. In Xataka | There are thousands of people hooked on true crime documentaries on YouTube. The only problem is that they are generated by AI

Netflix series are becoming more and more similar to each other and Matt Damon knows who is to blame: your cell phone

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Matt Damon has just confirmed one of the most widespread suspicions about Netflix. In one almost three hour conversation with Joe Roganwhere he appeared alongside Ben Affleck to promote ‘The Loot’, his new film, the actor revealed that the platform requires scriptwriters to constantly repeat the plot in the dialogues. The reason is that the platform assumes that the viewer is with their cell phone in hand while watching its content. Affleck went further and pointed out that streaming has built its entire business model on the assumption that no viewer pays full attention to the screen. Partial attention. Damon didn’t mince his words: if you write for Netflix, you assume from the beginning that your viewer has Instagram open in another tab or is answering WhatsApps. Affleck mentioned the concept of “partial attention,” a term that technology and behavioral studies have been dissecting for years and that now sets the rules for how to construct a dialogue. For the two actors, this has nothing to do with a conspiracy theory or union complaint: it is the real editorial policy of the platform. New era. The leap compared to traditional cinema is brutal. In a dark room there is no escape: the cell phone is silent (or it should be), the giant screen takes up the entire field of vision and the fact of being surrounded by people forces you not to get lost. Netflix plays in another league: it competes with notifications, with getting up to get something from the refrigerator, with someone commenting out loud about what just happened. And instead of standing up to this dispersion, it has chosen to adapt: ​​every five minutes someone recapitulates who is who and what the hell is going on. Netflix vs. Hollywood. This is not the first time that Hollywood has attacked streaming, although it is perhaps the most specific in technical terms. Spielberg already said in 2019 that Netflix movies should compete for Emmys instead of Oscars, and his argument was exactly this: that where you watch something determines what that something is. Scorsese went further that same yearjust as Netflix was paying him for ‘The Irishman’, and talked about the erosion of what he called the concept of “revelation”, those moments that only work if the viewer is completely immersed in the film. What Damon and Affleck bring to the table is the practical detail: we’re not talking about aesthetics or philosophy, but rather literal instructions that screenwriters receive in development meetings. In Rogan. Almost three hours of conversation where there is time for everything. Joe Rogan’s format (long conversations, no commercial breaks, no rush) allows two guys used to reciting friendly anecdotes on Jimmy Fallon’s shows to develop complex ideas. And therein lies the surprise: Affleck and Damon are not just familiar faces who sell movies, they have been inside the machinery for thirty years and know exactly how every gear works. The contrast with the usual promotional circuit is devastating: these two actors, whom many know mainly as movie stars, turn out to be sharp analysts of an industry in the midst of an existential crisis. A narrative change. What Damon and Affleck say is not an isolated case: it confirms a trend that the industry has been tracking for years. Deloitte documented in its annual report on digital trends Doing other things while watching a series is no longer the exception, it is the norm. The leap compared to the prestige television of two decades ago is evident: before the series constructed scenes without words, they left narrative gaps that the viewer had to fill in on their own, they introduced secondary characters whose importance was not clear until later seasons. David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, said who had designed the series like a visual novel: each episode required total concentration because crucial information could appear at any moment. The Netflix change. The platform works differently. Provides showrunners accurate data about the exact minute viewers leave a series or pause to do something else. Those metrics set the development notes: If the data shows that audiences lose interest in scenes without dialogue or complex subplots, subsequent seasons simplify the structure and multiply the verbal exposition. ‘Wednesday’ and the fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’ are recent examples of this process. Completion rate (how many users actually finish a series) has become the criterion that dictates creative decisions unthinkable a decade and a half ago. A paradox without a solution. What Damon says contains a contradiction: the technology that has allowed millions of people to access content previously reserved for movie theaters or physical distribution is changing what type of content is produced. Netflix reaches 260 million subscribers; HBO never went over 150 million in its best era. But this increase in audience comes at a cost: the narrative is simplified to accommodate viewers whose attention is divided. Can both models coexist? Recent series like ‘The Bear’ or ‘Succession’ have achieved million-dollar audiences without sacrificing ellipses, long silences or plots that demand attention. Damon’s comment perhaps functions more as a diagnosis than as a definitive sentence: it shows a tension that Hollywood has not resolved for years, the clash between the logic of streaming based on metrics and the persistence of narratives that demand concentration. If viewers look at their phones while watching series, Netflix simply recognizes that behavior and adjusts its production accordingly. But… do we want him to do it? In Xataka | lhe creative death of Marvel’s MCU left a huge hole. One that in my case is filling WWE on Netflix

Reed Hastings became a millionaire by conquering the couch with Netflix. Now he wants to turn the snow into a gold mine

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Reed Hastings is the co-founder and CEO of Netflix, one of the largest entertainment platforms in the world. If Hastings knows anything it’s how to have fun. The enterprising businessman started a project in 2023 designed for a handful of millionaires looking to have fun skiing on virgin snow through some private tracks that can only be used by a handful of members of a exclusive ski club in the mountains of Utah. ​An exclusive ski club for millionaires. Hastings has become the main investor and architect of an exclusive access ski community for high-net-worth individuals in Powder Mountain, northern Utah (USA). That private community is called Powder Haven and is conceived as a private ski resort reserved for the exclusive enjoyment of approximately 650 families, who ski in a highly controlled environment within a domain that covers approximately 4,860 hectares. high mountain. The private Hastings ski resort is planned as a kind of “VIP space” with access to the ski area that already exists at Powder Mountain and is still open as a public resort. The result is a hybrid model in which the fee of a few very rich people helps finance infrastructure that is also used by skiers who buy a conventional ski pass. Fees and millionaire houses. According to published Forbes, Hastings has already invested more than $100 million in the acquisition and improvement of the Powder Mountain private space, assuming debt equivalent to that of the previous owners. This new capital has been used to renew the lifts and to install new lines to other areas of the resort to expand the ski area. OK to what was published by The Wall Street JournalHastings is reportedly planning to invest $200 million more to improve services for wealthy homeowners. The station’s annual membership fee is $25,000, which is added to an initial contribution and, above all, to the purchase of a home within the community, a necessary condition to be part of the private club. The houses that make up the private ski complex start at 2 million dollars and the first phase, with 39 plots at an average price equivalent to about 2.4 million euros per unit, were sold out in just a few months. Arclodge and a new mountain neighborhood The project is not limited to building luxury villas. In the heart of Powder Haven, Arclodge is being designed, a large Swiss-style social and sports club with futuristic lines that aspires to become the center of the resort’s community life. As seen in the resort pagethe new 6,800 m2 building plans to include all the luxury services to which its millionaire members are accustomed: haute cuisine restaurants, thermal and sports pools, spa and treatment rooms, gym and spaces for cultural and sports activities. New neighborhoods have been planned around this new social nucleus to luxury homes of different sizesranging from large multi-hectare plots to turnkey luxury villas designed by high-profile architecture studios. Of course, all of them with direct access to the private ski slopes. There are only three private stations like this. The Powder Haven model that the Netflix founder is developing is not a pioneering project. In fact, it is the third private ski complex that exists in the US: Yellowstone Club in Montana, and Wasatch Peaks Ranchalso in Utah. In these three enclaves, access to the slopes does not depend on a ski pass open to the general public, but rather requires being a member-owner of a property in their luxury real estate complex. Reed Hastings is the only one that has been able to take advantage of this business model based on the exclusivity of private ski services for millionaires with almost total absence of queues and a certain coexistence with the public domain of Powder Mountain, so that the extension of its slopes is expanded at a very low cost. In Xataka | Ski resorts without snow at the end of the century: the most pessimistic models show what could happen in our high mountains Image | Unsplash (Republic GmbH), Powder Haven

The film industry has been stagnant for more than a century. Netflix wants to change it: Crossover 1×34

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Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack, all brothers, decided to open their first movie theater in Pennsylvania in 1903. Considering that the movie industry was in its infancy at the time, the bet was risky. Those brothers ended up being the most famous in that industryand in fact they made it clear in the name of their company: Warner Bros. They would soon buy more theaters and, over time, discover that distribution was important, but content was even more important. They ended up becoming a film producer that managed to be a pioneer with the famous ‘The Jazz Singer’, the first talking film. More films would arrive, and a 1948 ruling in the US meant that she and other production companies had to dedicate themselves only to generating content. It wasn’t a bad deal, and for more than a century the film industry has done really well and has strengthened that idea that content is king. Netflix also discovered it over time. Although it was also born focusing on distribution – with its famous DVD rental service by mail – its leap into the world of streaming caused it to even take steps from Warner Bros. and decide to create its own content. This is how series like ‘House of Cards’ or ‘Stranger Things’ were born, which have turned it into a true steamroller in the field of audiovisual content. So much so that after more than 100 years without major changes, Netflix could fully enter the “traditional” industry if he manages to buy Warner Bros.. The recent offer to have options to get ahead, but everything is to be decided. What is clear is that if that happens there will be a change of direction in this gigantic industry. We talked about all this in the last installment of Crossover, we hope you enjoy it! On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | Netflix promised them very happy with their huge purchase of Warner. Until Paramount and Saudi Arabia appeared

The fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’ is the worst of the series by far. Netflix doesn’t care

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Few series better illustrate the dissociation between popularity and prestige than the fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’. The numbers are overwhelming: the closing of the saga accumulated 105.7 million views on Netflixconsolidating itself as the ninth most viewed English series in the entire history of the platform. However, the critical reception and even some increasingly disappointed fans With the conclusion they leave the franchise in an uncomfortable no man’s land that, for the moment, refuses (very much) to die. Audience bomb. The numbers are impressive: the conclusion of the last season propelled Netflix to its best viewership on a New Year’s Day. Furthermore, in an unprecedented experiment, the platform released the final two-hour episode in theaters and raised $25 million at the box office in just 48 hours. It was a very limited distribution of only 600 rooms, in a period of 36 hours and without traditional ticket sales (20 dollars in food and drink were purchased that gave the right to a seat), due to the actors’ royalty contracts: the collection was entirely for the theaters of the chain that had exclusive distribution, AMC. And critical disappointment. On Rotten TomatoesFor example, the audience score has suffered an unprecedented drop in the franchise: from 96% for the first season in 2016 to the current 54% for the fifth, after 90% for the second, 86% for the third and 89% for the fourth. It’s a forty-point drop that reflects more than just viewer fatigue. TIME He explained it in an article about the phenomenon: in 2016 the series was an irresistible nostalgic toy. Nine years later, it’s a content factory. Nine years ago it redefined streaming and entertainment; Now he is another victim of Hollywood franchise machinery. Why didn’t you like it? The criticism of the fifth season is not limited to the disappointment of the fans. It has been said that the series has failed to delve into its characters as they grew. In the technical sectionit has been commented that it is a sloppy production, in the worst Netflix style: excessive lighting, abuse of background blur, obvious color schemes… The aforementioned TIME article also alluded to its pace, with an excess of exposition and verbalization, since this season is the conclusion of a decadent trend for the series that started in season 4. Critical point. The episode in which all these tensions crystallized It was the penultimate of the series, whose IMDb score plummeted to 5.4 out of 10, becoming the lowest rated episode of the entire franchise, and the only one below 7.8, when most episodes range between 8.6 and 9.2. The episode accumulated more than 96,000 ratings, double that of the rest of the season’s episodes, which is why it is suspected of a campaign of review bombing due to its central scene; In any case, some of the criticism pointed to legitimate writing and pacing problems. The unstoppable franchise. If the quality has dropped, why does Netflix insist on milking the series? The answer lies in analysis as this parrot which speaks of more than a billion dollars in revenue since 2020, that is, not counting the first three seasons. To this we must add more than two million new subscribers directly attributable to the franchise. And above all, something intangible: the series consolidated the current model of streaming and gave Netflix executives confidence that they could launch franchises capable of competing with rivals like Marvel. What does it grow with? The company has designed an expansion plan that will keep the Hawkins universe alive for years. The first major spin-off was a play (‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’), which premiered in London’s West End in 2023 and jumped to Broadway in 2025, exploring the origins of Vecna ​​and the first experiments of Project Indigo. ‘Tales from ’85’, an animated series set in the winter between the second and third seasons, is planned for 2026. The main characters (Once, Hopper, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Max) will return in an animated version, which will allow you to touch with your fingertips that impossible treasure that is that children never age. Beyond animation, Netflix is ​​developing an as yet untitled live-action spin-off that will rethink the series from scratch: new characters, probably another decade, and without directly entering the Upside Down. It will work more as an anthology connected to the mythology and tone of the original than as a typical sequel. To this we must add the comics, which Norma Editorial has published in Spain since 2018, immersive experiences in Abu Dhabi and Mexico City, collaborations with Fortnite and extensive merchandising. And although the Duffers have an exclusive contract with Paramount, they will maintain creative supervision of everything related to the series. The underlying problem. With the conclusion of ‘Stranger Things’, Netflix is at a strategic crossroads. There is currently no original production on the platform that is so attractive and, above all, so generationally transversal, something in which ‘The Squid Game’, ‘Wednesday’ or ‘The Bridgertons’ fail. As El País points out, one of the reasons why Netflix has shown interest in acquiring Warner It is precisely because of the need to access a catalog of expandable properties in the style of DC, Harry Potter or ‘Game of Thrones’. The machine does not stop or wait for anyone. In Xataka | The best Netflix series that you can currently watch on the platform

13 premiere movies and series to watch in January 2026 on Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max and streaming

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New year, new recommendations. We come with an impressive avalanche of recommendations for you to start the year audiovisually. All platforms, all genres and all tastes. Don’t let 2026 catch you at a different pace, here are our proposals of all kinds for the month of January. him and her Promising six-episode psychological thriller starring Tessa Thompson (who also serves as executive producer) and Jon Bernthal, which follows a former news anchor who returns to her hometown to cover a crime. A detective suspects her involvement, pursuing her until he places her at the center of his own investigation. The twist: they were married, and they both knew the victim. A story full of twists and surprises that has a most attractive cast. On Netflix from January 8 Agatha Christie: The Seven Spheres He whodunit is, without a doubt, in fashion: the success of ‘Daggers in the Back’ or ‘Only Murders in the Building’ corroborate this, so Netflix has decided to resort to the sourdough of all this: three episodes based on one of Agatha Christie’s least adapted works. In a luxurious rural mansion, a high society party turns into tragedy when a practical joke against a known sleepyhead who is given eight alarm clocks set for 6:30 in the morning triggers a murder. In the cast, Mia McKenna Bruce, Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman. Behind the scenes, Chris Chibnall, creator of ‘Broadchurch’, produces and writes. It includes scenarios filmed in Ronda, with the Real Maestranza bullring, the Puente Nuevo and the Palace of the Moro King. On Netflix from January 15 The loot Police thriller directed and written by Joe Carnahan (‘White Hell’, ‘The A-Team’), which reunites Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as protagonists and represents the first collaboration between Netflix and Artists Equity, the production company founded by the two actors. Inspired by true events, it follows a group of Miami agents who during a raid discover $20 million hidden in an abandoned safe house. The discovery unleashes a spiral of mistrust, ambition and moral dilemmas. Carnahan talks about the film as an homage to classic seventies crime thrillers like ‘Serpico’. Firm candidate to be one of Netflix’s first hits by early 2026. On Netflix from January 16 The Bridgertons – S4 New season of the hit series romantic, this time based on the third novel by Julia Quinn, which focuses on Benedict Bridgerton, the second and bohemian son of the family, and who has resisted marital conventions while his brothers have found marital happiness. It will premiere divided into two parts: Part 1 arrives on January 29 with four episodes and Part 2 on February 26 with the remaining four. The season promises a visual tone inspired by fairy tales, with an emphasis on the masked ball as a dream setting, and combining romance, secret identities, class tensions and the classic visual elegance of ‘The Bridgertons’. On Netflix from January 29 Beauty Science fiction and body horror at the hands of Ryan Murphy, with two FBI agents sent to Paris to investigate the mysterious and grotesque deaths of international supermodels in the world of haute couture. His research reveals the existence of a sexually transmitted virus that gives physical perfection to ordinary people, but with lethal consequences. The trail leads directly to a tech billionaire who has secretly designed a miracle drug. A reflection on the cult of the physical, in a film where performers like Isabella Rossellini stand out in a role that dialogues with her witch from ‘Death suits you so well’. On Disney+ from January 21 wonder man A bit of cover (and with a format binge watchingas already proven with ‘Echo’) the new Marvel series arrives at the end of January. With a meta point and some humor, it tells the story of Hollywood actor Simon Williams, who is trying to get his career off the ground. After a chance meeting with another actor, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley, the fake Mandarin from ‘Iron Man 3’), Simon discovers that a remake of ‘Wonder Man’, a classic superhero film, is being prepared. The two actors, at opposite ends of their careers, will try to get a role. Developed by Destin Daniel Cretton, director of ‘Shang-Chi’, it is the first live-action project of Phase 6 in 2026. On Disney+ from January 27 The Death of Bunny Munro Six-episode British miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Nick Cave published in 2009. Matt Smith plays a sex-addicted beauty product salesman who, after the suicide of his wife, embarks on a chaotic road trip through the south of England with his nine-year-old son while a serial killer disguised as a demon stalks the area. A dark comedy about toxic masculinity and grief where Smith’s performance and his commitment to a repulsive character stand out. On Showtime starting January 30 The Demolition Brothers Action comedy directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (‘Blue Beetle’) that brings together two Hollywood action heavyweights: Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista. The film features two estranged half-brothers, an impulsive police officer and a disciplined Marine, forced to reunite after the mysterious death of their father in Hawaii. What begins as a family reunion quickly turns into a dangerous investigation. Explosive action, characteristic humor of its heroes and setting in the exotic streets of Hawaii. On Prime Video from January 28 crazy old woman Psychological horror that marks the directorial debut of Argentine screenwriter Martín Mauregui. Produced by JA Bayona, it stars Carmen Maura in one of the darkest and most disturbing roles of her career, and in it we will meet a boy who receives a message from an ex-girlfriend asking him to temporarily take care of her mother, who has senile dementia. What seems like a simple act of compassion quickly transforms into a claustrophobic nightmare that addresses, according to Bayona, how violence is transmitted from one generation to another. On Prime Video from January 14 The Pitt – T2 Nine months after the end of its acclaimed first season, … Read more

Spotify killed the record and the industry pivoted to concerts. Netflix killed cinema and the industry was left with a “space crisis”

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Never in history have we seen so many movies: the streaming It allows us to see several a week but, nevertheless, the movie theaters are empty. Literally emptier than ever in decades. We consume audiovisual content en masse, but not where we historically enjoyed it. Meanwhile, concerts have become the leisure alternative par excellence. Why do we pay hundreds of euros to go to a stadium with 50,000 other people, but not fifteen to see a blockbuster on the big screen? The answer lies in how we value physical space in the experience economy. Some figures. Let’s look at some box office figures: the summer of 2025, traditionally the most lucrative season in the industry, has been the most disastrous since 1981 adjusted for inflation. There is no dream of returning to pre-COVID figures: in October 2025 in the US, only 445 million dollars were raised, less than half of last October before the pandemicwhich exceeded one billion. The average viewer attended only 2.31 times to theaters in 2024, a drop of 33% compared to the 3.5 annual visits in 2019. In Spain, theThe 2025 data is equally dark: The total box office falls by 14% (almost 30 million less), and Spanish cinema itself declines by 2.5-3%. The author of this last study, Pau Brunet, expressly says that “the Hollywood fantasy is crumbling.” And the erosion is constant: Spain had more than 105 million viewers in 2019, which represents a loss of a third of its volume in five years: we are now at 71 million. Windows that don’t perform. The problem is so multifactorial that it is ridiculous to focus only on the drop in the box office to explain it. For example, we have the collapse of display windows: The pre-pandemic standard was 90-120 days in theaters, three or four weeks later in digital sales and then home formats and streaming. After the pandemic, these windows were reduced by more than 60%, and although they now vary depending on the studio, Universal and Warner leave a 45-day window for their most sought-after productions (it can be reduced to 17 days), with the exception of Disney, which operates them for 60 days. In any case, the rest of the windows have been shortened or disappeared, and it is common to watch a movie in streaming just a month and a half after its release in theaters. It is one of the main reasons why people have left the theaters: even blockbusters like ‘Wicked’ can be seen streaming just 40 days after their release in theaters. Even China. A few years ago, China was the market that seemed destined to save Hollywood accountsbut experienced its own collapse in 2024: the box office fell 23% to 42.5 billion yen ($5.8 billion), returning to figures from a decade ago. Attendance fell by more than 200 million viewers compared to ten years ago. One of the main reasons is the degradation of the theatrical experience: cinemas without air conditioning and without customer service staff beyond the bar, a characteristic that has been spreading to theaters around the world for years. The crisis has been going on for a long time. In reality, this fall does not have its roots in the streaming not even in the pandemic. The attendance of the American public had been falling since the sixtiesgoing from one visit per person every two or three months to just twice a year before the pandemic. The real price of admission (adjusted for inflation) has remained stable since the 1980s, but consumers have decided that they no longer want to go to theaters. The problem, as this Bain & Company study states The thing is that, for decades, the industry has placed all the emphasis of its production on pure content, but the films have ended up arriving home in a few weeks. Meanwhile, music has come to understand something fundamental: the value is not in the recorded content, but in the unique, unrepeatable event. The triumph of music. He Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour It closed in December 2024 after 149 concerts in 51 cities, ggenerating gross revenues of 2,077 million dollars. That is, more than the annual film box office receipts of entire countries (compare with the pyrrhic 71 million box office receipts in Spain in 2024). AND We’re not just talking about the concerts.: The average expense per attendee ranged between $1,300 and $1,500, including transportation, accommodation, merchandising and dinners. More than fans, they are tourists generating systemic economic impact. “Swiftonomics“has ceased to be a metaphor and has become a real analytical category in government economic reports. Beyond Taylor. Swift is not an anomaly. The global live music market generated $28.1 billion in 2023 and projections place it at $79.7 billion by 2030. That growth is equivalent to tripling the size of the market in seven years, while cinema struggles to recover the levels of a decade ago. What does live music have that cinema has lost? The term “funflation“: Consumers prioritize spending on memorable experiences even during periods of high inflation Festivals have capitalized on this logic: They sell identity, belonging and experiences that are impossible to replicate at home. Just the opposite of cinema: a film is exactly identical all over the world and once seen, the incentive to repeat it in theaters is minimal, especially knowing that it will be in streaming in 45 days. Reinvention is required. The cinema crisis is not a death sentence, but it is a demand for reinvention. Because the physical space of entertainment is not dying, it is being reformulated. The path that the music industry has followed by completely pivoting its business model with the disappearance of physical formats is the one that cinema has to follow. At the moment, theaters have not gotten the premium experiences right (sophisticated restoration, more comfortable rooms, improvements in image and sound quality), but that is because they still do not differentiate themselves enough from the domestic experience. Cinema needs its own Taylor … Read more

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