this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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The executive producer on Netflix's The Witcher has blamed American audiences and social media sites such as TikTok for…

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[–] [email protected] 258 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Look at this clown! First, they came out saying they weren’t even fans of the material. You have Henry Cavil in the lead role who is a super fan of the source materials arguing with you and the writers about the show. And then you finish it off by blaming the audience for your decisions. Mind you, the audience you have ultimately attracted is largely influenced by the decisions you have made throughout the production of YOUR show. The audience didn’t make this show, YOU did

[–] deweydecibel 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Is this the same person? This is just an executive producer, not the writer or show runner.

Pretty funny to call out someone for not reading something while simultaneously not reading the article to know who it is you're even talking about.

[–] [email protected] 103 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If you're the executive producer, it's your fault that your team members fucked it up. If you cannot find a competent writer to properly express nuance on the screen, it's still your fault. You hired the wrong person to adapt the books. You are the boss, the final say, the one-ass-to-kick when things go wrong. The Witcher is not some nuanced story about regional distinctions in low-visibility communities told in short form, which seems to be his only acclaimed experience, followed by several production failures.

This entire interview comes down to "those lazy zoomers don't know how to appreciate good film." From the description of his past, massive failures it appears to be a problem with his process and ability, not an audience problem.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

by several production failures

Hehe savage

[–] Windex007 4 points 11 months ago

If you're AN executive producer:

https://youtu.be/8P_AnvUIvJs

[–] [email protected] 84 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"we want to make more money so we dumbed down the plot to idiot level and blame it on americans being dumb. Also we changed everything to be more emotional because that's what tiktoks kids want, more emotion and less plot or something"

Guy sounds like a twat.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

He's a guy that is hitting excel spreadsheet metrics from past shows, wondering why his metrics aren't appealing to people.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The games and books seemed to do just fine in America lol

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (5 children)

The Witcher 3 is one of the best selling games ever, and is considered by critics and fans alike to be one of the best games of its genre ever. This guy is a fucking clown.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Yea but that’s only because the game has lots of pretty, moving pictures. And the books have pretty covers.

I’m American, so I can’t even read. I noticed some symbols in the show that could be conceived as trying to impart words or ideas, and it just turned me right off.

You might be asking yourself: “If I can’t read, then how did I understand and respond to this topic?”, and I would then respond: “SHUT UP VOICES IN MY HEAD!”

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[–] Master 57 points 11 months ago

I blame the fact that the producer doesn't give a single fuck about the story.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Yeah, blame your customers.

Simplifying is really different from what they did which is completely alter characters, unnecessarily kill off characters, introduce new plots that didn't exist, etc. The Lord of the Rings movies, and the recent Dune movie both did a lot of that but are considered fantastic adaptations. Even Game of Thrones was an excellent adaptation for the first ~5 seasons and had huge mass market appeal while still being complex.

This is just shitty writers making excuses.

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[–] TrismegistusMx 54 points 11 months ago

When it flops they'll blame Americans too. Narcissists are incapable of assuming responsibility for their own failures.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago (22 children)

I know everyone thinks I'm a brittle American, but I'm kind of sick of everyone blaming Americans for choices that are made by people who think poorly of Americans.

[–] Windex007 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

As a general rule, the people making decisions to simplify things because they think Americans can't handle a complex source ARE Americans.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@Windex007 Yeah, but they see themselves as smarter than the rest of the Americans when they are in fact, the bottom percentile.

[–] Windex007 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I understand that.

My point is your original comment said you were sick of people blaming Americans for something that is literally being done by Americans.

The bland media algorithm designed to maximize profits, the "MCU formula", comes straight from the top. People who see media simply in terms of investment vehicles for thier quarterly shareholders reports are the ones who lay down this law, and those "people" are overwhelmingly American business interests.

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[–] spaxxor 6 points 11 months ago

Because projection is a hell of a drug.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago

Alternative headline "Person highly involved with making show blames anyone but themselves for failure"

[–] Contramuffin 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like sour grapes and rationalization. The producer states that his complicated projects failed. If all of your complicated projects failed, then it may be that you struggle with making complicated projects, not that Americans don't like complicated projects.

Plus, it sounds like he disproves his own point without realizing it. He simplified the Witcher and it still isn't doing well. Isn't that an indicator that maybe plot complexity isn't as strong of a predictor of audience engagement as he thinks?

[–] 2pt_perversion 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

And yet Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are both in the same fantasy genre with complex storylines and they did great in the US.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You know that meme where the guy riding the bike sticks a crowbar in the tire? Yeah...

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Remember, Game of Thrones did well, and that's not a simplified show during its peak.

[–] fivebyfive 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

While it certainly wasn't a super straightforward show, they cut out a ton of the "complicated" stuff from the books.

[–] Moonguide 5 points 11 months ago

It still was way more complex than most shows on TV. Plenty of characters with wildly differing goals and motivations, at least. It's not like other Netflix shows which have at best 5 or so characters with the exact same motivation and goals, only difference is some characters are a bit sassy.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

We made it this way because you're stupid. Also, if you don't like it, you're stupid.

No wonder it turned out to be a pile of dogshit.

[–] bl4ckblooc 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is coming from someone who never even read the books and got in fights with HC because of deviating from the world of the books/games?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is the kinda guy that would yell at parking sign for smashing into his car.

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[–] ASprigOfSage 19 points 11 months ago

Yup cause Amaricans wrote the script and decided against the millions of of fans (including the lead actor) who specifically said the new direction sucked directly to the entire production team... yup amaricans.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Have they canceled this dumpster fire yet?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

He's really blaming the execs and showrunner between the lines I think. Saying she had to "make tough decisions" means "she fucked up". It's Netflix and the showrunner who think they need to go to the lowest common denominator with scripts to appeal to Americans, especially hard fantasy/sci-fi. So he's kinda pissed at both groups really not just audiences.

It's a shame because other works like GOT 1-5 show the opposite. Go for complex, go for the source material, and audiences will be patient for it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Then blame execs and showrunners, not the audience. American audiences are savvier than he thinks, just because he had one pitch that didn't fare well with American audiences doesn't mean that they won't embrace more complicated elements of The Witcher.

Plus it just sounds sad; blame audiences for something you, as a producer, can't effectively produce.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How? Aren't they the ones in charge? American audiences have as much influence on the product they chose to deliver as Americans did for Dark. Great show by the way.

[–] RaoulDook 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Dark and 1899 were both great. 1899 got canceled already though, because the Netflix people are stupid.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

While I've enjoyed seasons past, including the animated bit they put out that one year, after watching an episode and a half of the first half of this last season 3 a couple things became clear, there are too many subplots/characters to the point that I simply tune out all the names and don't care, focusing instead on the main three, and lastly that I'm bored. It's become something tiresome, and I shut it off after a couple episodes, maybe I'll revisit, probably not.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't get better. S3 is so far detached from what season 1 brought to the table as to be mockery. The acting feels so forced in this one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's a shame, but this kind of shit is why I cancelled my Netflix and never looked back.

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[–] TheAndrewBrown 8 points 11 months ago

Game of Thrones was the most popular show in the world not too long ago and is more complicated. House of the Dragon is also complicated and did well just last year. There have been tons of complicated dramas that have been popular. This is just a dumb excuse

[–] CosmoNova 8 points 11 months ago

The tale of producers dumbing down plot and dialogue for greater main stream appeal is as old as show business. And from my experience said producers are almost always wrong. Sorry pal, but you can't blame social media for something your peers have always been doing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

This is just damage control, there doesn't have to be meaning to these words other than a try of appeasing the fans. That said though, it's ironic how the Witcher games at least (haven't read the books yet) have quite mature and well-written content compared to most other games, so they're like the opposite of what he's trying to say here and people LOVE the games for that. So it's literally the opposite that's true. If you put out over-simplified garbage, you will not create anything good with that kind of ingredients.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Huh, the games did phenomenally well in America. Weird. /s

We're in an age of knee-jerk finger pointing, with the problem getting worse the higher you get in society. It's just one giant game of blame hot-potato.

Here's the thing: The producers don't owe the fans shit. They don't owe the fans an explanation even. They owe the investors an explanation. The fans are just there, that's the reality of being a fan of something. We don't get a say, we just can choose to watch or not, and then decide to trash it or praise it online if we want to.

So while there's a problem going up the ladder of the blame game, there's another one coming back down the ladder, and it's entitlement. For some odd reason there's an air of "we deserve this content, exactly to our specifications" and it permeates games, movies, music, all of the entertainment content we have been inundated with as a society. And I think the culture generally leans towards encouraging it because it keeps the culture thriving. But it also keeps us in the exact status quo we're in as a society, beholden to these billionaire publishers we all rail on daily.

Because let's face it: We as a society spend an enormous amount of energy and as such, destroy a lot of the planet, on all this entertainment. If we can't accept that as a fact then we're fucking doomed.

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[–] Challenger 5 points 11 months ago

When asked what he believed to be significant for younger people, Baginski replied: "Just emotions. Just pure emotions. A bare emotional mix. Those people grew up on TikTok and YouTube, they jump from video to video."

So basically It's Gen Z that he couldn't create an interesting plot from the source material

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Series Produced by
Jason F. Brown ... executive producer (24 episodes, 2019-2023)
Steve Gaub ... executive producer / co-producer (24 episodes, 2019-2023)
Tomasz Baginski ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Sean Daniel ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Mike Ostrowski ... executive producer / producer / co-executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Jaroslaw Sawko ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Piotr Sikora ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2023)
Simon Emanuel ... consulting producer / executive producer (16 episodes, 2019-2021)
Matthew O'Toole ... executive producer (16 episodes, 2021-2023)
Matthew Bouch ... consulting producer (12 episodes, 2021-2023)
Katie Bullock-Webster ... post producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Declan De Barra ... supervising producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Ildiko Kemeny ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Jenny Klein ... co-executive producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Sneha Koorse ... supervising producer (8 episodes, 2019)
David Minkowski ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Suzie Shearer ... line producer (8 episodes, 2019)
Mark Birmingham ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2021)
Sean Guest ... associate producer (8 episodes, 2021)
Sam J. Brown ... associate producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Ben Burt ... associate producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Javier Grillo-Marxuach ... executive producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Haily Hall ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Sasha Harris ... producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Veselin Karadjov ... line producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Tania Lotia ... supervising producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Tera Ragan ... co-producer (8 episodes, 2023)
Alik Sakharov ... executive producer (7 episodes, 2019)
Kathy Lingg ... executive producer (6 episodes, 2019)
Juan Cano Nono ... Líne Producer Canary Islands (4 episodes, 2019)
Beau DeMayo ... co-producer (2 episodes, 2019)
Stephen Surjik ... executive producer (2 episodes, 2023)
Marc Jobst ... consulting producer (1 episode, 2019)

[–] pivot_root 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

God... it's like having having an entire 8-level deep organizational structure for a team of 10 people. No wonder it's mismanaged to shit.

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[–] anewbeginning 4 points 11 months ago

It's a bold strategy, Cotton!

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