The Electric State, a 320 million dollar Netflix exclusive Russo brothers film, hit streaming on March 14th. Much to the chagrin of movie lovers everywhere. I’ve seen a lot of doom and gloom about this film and the state of the movie industry in general. It’s impossible to ignore that this massive budget movie hit streaming on one of the lowest weekend box offices of all time. Theaters raked in a mere 54 million off of several original IP films while The Electric State sits proudly at number one on Netflix’s streaming service.

This is a bummer for everyone who loves movies and going to the theater. Sean Baker, the now multiple Oscar-winning director, gave an impassioned plea about the importance of movie theaters in his acceptance speech. And while the theater is important and something I love, I don’t know if The Electric State is the pale horse we all fear.

Futuristic Nostalgia

The Electric State is a bad movie. Not offensively bad, yet there are some offensive moments. The general premise is an alternate world where mega-corporations like Walt Disney created smarter, more capable robots throughout the 50’s and 60’s. These robots ended up doing all of our menial tasks. Garbage takers, landscapers, bartenders, basically anything that involves manual labor, we’ve got a robot to do it. This all worked well and good until one, as they typically do, the robots revolted. Leading to a years-long civil war between Robots and Humans. A war that was eventually won when, you guessed it, another mega-corporation made a better robot. One that was controlled by humans but in a severance mind-swap-type way.

It’s all pretty convoluted, and this whole setup is explained in the first seven minutes of the film. All it really is, though, is set dressing to get two giant stars, Chris Pratt and Millie Bobbie Brown, together in a 1990s world that is both futuristic and nostalgic. Think Ready Player One, but way less fun.

The Bad Corporations

If that premise sounds interesting, it’s because it is. That’s not a bad setup for a movie or TV series, and it’s not even done particularly poorly here. It’s just so generic and done with the Russo’s signature PG-13 but aimed at an eight-year-old’s style. The film isn’t really saying anything, it has no heart, and the actors are absolutely phoning it in.

The only real offensive part of the movie is the idea of these robots. There seem to be some underlying themes about evil corporations and accepting others, but the others here are robots from giant corporations. Real ones. The leader of the Robot army is Mr. Peanut, the snack food mascot. These robots end up becoming the heroes of the film while fighting against the fake evil mega-corporation. It makes the whole idea needlessly confusing and at times offensive. This fake mega-corporation, they’re the bad guy, but these real ones, they’re the good guys. And all the robots we made to take people’s jobs, well, they are equal to us humans, and we should live in harmony with them. Maybe it’s a metaphor for humanity, but when the metaphor is literal corporation mascots, that metaphor falls apart.

The Electric State of Dread

This weird, confounding metaphor aside, The Electric State isn’t as bad as something like last year’s Borderlands. But it’s definitely not the type of film I want to see. And that’s kind of why I’m so perplexed why people are lamenting this film hitting streaming instead of the theaters.

If this movie had hit theaters, a 320 million dollar Russo brothers movie, one of two things would have happened. It would have either bombed, and critics would say, “I told you so.” Or it would have been a success, and critics would have said, “This is slop, and we need real movies in theaters.” By hitting Netflix and going to number one, it just makes Netflix look stupid. They spent a ton of money on a bad movie, and maybe it’ll be a hit, but what even is a hit for Netflix? Are people subscribing to see The Electric State? Certainly not. So let Netflix take the L, get the bad reviews, and let the theater do something novel. Play good movies.

The Theater

The box office may have only hit 54 million last weekend, but don’t blame me. I saw five different films in theaters over the weekend. Black Bag, Opus, In The Lost Lands, The Rule of Jenny Penn, and Novocaine. None of these movies were masterpieces, but they were all more interesting than The Electric State. And they were all movies I’d rather see in theaters.

At the time of this writing, Novocaine has made about 11.3 million dollars off an 18 million dollar budget. That’s not a bad return for an opening weekend, and I hope the film continues to make some money from both theaters and when it finally releases on paid VOD. Not because it’s a great movie, but because it hearkens back to an older time of movie-going.

The Theaters of the 90’s

When I was a kid, my family and I went to the movies a lot. It was a normal Friday or Saturday activity, and we rarely knew what we were going to see. We would often just go to the theater, see what was playing, and make a decision based on the rating and what poster looked cool. Sometimes we’d see great movies like Jurassic Park or the first Mission Impossible. And sometimes we saw the terrible Jack Frost starring Michael Keaton.

That just doesn’t happen anymore for most families. Going to the movies is just too expensive now, and people tend to only go for tentpole event viewing releases. People flooded for Barbenheimer with their shirts and Instagram posts. But way fewer people are going to pay the same amount of money for an 18-million-dollar movie starring the guy from The Boys.

How Do We Fix It

And, I don’t know if that’s the worst thing in the world. I want to see theaters survive and movies continue to turn a profit, but not if they all look like The Electric State. Steven Soderbergh has released two movies in the first quarter of 2025, and both have the potential to be profitable. Presence certainly turned a profit, and while Black Bag is still in theaters, it was made on a pretty modest budget and has the potential to gain any theatrical losses back through VOD or streaming licenses.

These movies are leagues better than the slop Netflix is producing. At least on the film side, Netflix is still making some of the best and most original TV productions of all time. And while the theater-going audience may be dwindling, the audience that’s still going is more passionate than ever. We’re going to the movies by ourselves, seeing multiple flicks a day, and writing about it all over the internet. Movies aren’t dead, they’re just evolving.

Streaming and Theaters

So I’m left to wrestle with this idea about The Electric State and the state of movies. I want more original ideas. But I don’t want more movies like The Electric State. But if we want theaters to survive, we need a big tentpole movie like this to release every so often to keep the theater operating through the January and February months.

If a studio is going to spend 320 million dollars on a movie, they should release it in theaters. But no studio should be making junk like this for 320 million dollars. Netflix is learning this, I think, and I hope we get more films like Rebel Ridge or Carry-on in the future. Smaller movies with a modest budget that have the same ability to find an audience. Movies like The Electric State may work, and while it’s currently number one, Numbers two and three right now are Kraven the Hunter and Trap. It makes no sense for Netflix to pour that much money into a movie that can easily get the same amount of eyeballs as a licensed Sony villain flick.

Netflix TV

Netflix should be pouring its money into what they do best. Original TV series. Nine out of the top ten series on Netflix are Netflix original series. Compared to two out of ten on the film side. Shows like Adolescence, the current number one TV show, are some of the most brilliant filmmaking I’ve seen in years. Everything about that show, from the blocking to the camera work to the writing, is extraordinary. And it wouldn’t work as a film, only as a show.

So let’s hope The Electric State is the end of things. Let’s have the major studios make the big blockbusters. I can live with a Deadpool and Wolverine or a few Beetlejuice sequels every year if it means movies like Companion get to come out in January. I’m not sad to see a 320 million movie get made exclusively for Netflix, I’m happy to see a 10 million dollar movie make 35 million at the box office in January. We need these smaller movies in addition to the big ones. Hopefully, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four, and a new Jurassic Park movie can surge cash into the theater during the busy months. But in the down months, me and the other sickos will be enjoying first-person ghost stories and 10 million dollar killer robot movies.