News out of SlashFilm: Netflix is killing Bandersnatch as a streamable title is because it’s ‘boring.’ Interesting concept, great execution – but Bandersnatch couldn’t overcome the systemic narrative challenges of a choose-your-own-adventure story. Ergo, watchers considered it boring and consigned Bandersnatch to the Netflix dustbin.
Sorry, folks – I know you tried.
It’s never fun to find out you spent $25 million and no one cares – by the way, that $25 million is an estimate: no public production costs are available. We know that Chooseco filed a $25M lawsuit against Netflix for trademark infringement by use of the phrase “choose your own adventure.” The lawsuit was settled with Chooseco on undisclosed terms, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the production costs were somewhere near that amount.
But who cares about that? Why did Bandersnatch – this ultra-expensive Netflix project – turn out boring enough to kill? The answer itself lies in the challenge of COYA-style stories. Here’s what I mean:
Thing is, choose-your-own-adventures only resonate with readers/audiences to a point. Don’t get me wrong, I loved CYOA books as a kid (Looking at you Hark series by R.L. Stine) but I defy you to come up with any amazing scene / character / insight from a CYOA book. TL;DR – there isn’t one.
It’s worse than that – COYA books by definition are produced with simple binary choices, shallow storylines and unsatisfying arcs. Depth and nuance are too difficult to achieve when you need to keep book production manageable and scalable. Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books succeeded because they’re a product of their time – a way to play video games when you couldn’t afford a console, or the local video game was too far away. Choose Your Own Adventure books died, killed by the Internet’s democratized game access (which is a problem unto itself).
So Netflix’s interest in Bandersnatch – thinking that viewers *wouldn’t* find it boring? Yeah, that was what we call in the industry ‘a big bet.’ They bet big but it didn’t work. As SlashFilm concluded: it’s not the first time producers have tried COYA-style movies, and they’ll likely continue experimenting. Bless their heart.
I actually appreciate knowing this – I was considering a COYA-style adventure for readers based on Mesh and Mike.Sierra.Echo. Now that I know audience’s limited interest in Choose Your Own Adventure, I can focus my attention elsewhere. So, thanks Netflix – I know viewers found Bandersnatch to be ‘boring.’ However, your experience and what we learned from it is anything but boring to me. <3
