Netf lix movie a bit slow-paced? Just speed it up!
Imagine settling down to watch The Crown with a sped up Queen speaking with a high-pitched rapid-fire delivery.
Or drawling in deeper tones as the picture edges closer to slow motion?
Netflix is trying out a new feature which lets viewers ‘speed binge’ its shows for those who don’t have time to sit through an hour-long episode or twohour feature film.
The streaming giant is also testing slower speeds, elongating favourites, with a new ‘speedometer’, prompting outrage among top Hollywood talent.
The thinking is that viewers’ attention spans are so short they want to watch things faster, while others will slow things down for the novelty.
Netflix has reportedly seen the feature work well on podcasts, but Hollywood directors are furious.
Judd Apatow, who co-created the Netflix series Love and also produced films such as Knocked Up and This Is 40, tweeted: ‘Don’t make me have to call every director and show creator on Earth to fight you on this. Save me the time.
‘I will win but it will take a ton of time. Don’t f*** with our timing. We give you nice things. Leave them as they were intended to be seen.’
The feature was spotted by tech journalists in the US who said that it was being tested on mobile devices that run the Android operating system.
The feature lets users play back films and TV shows at 0.5x, 0.75x, 1x (normal speed), 1.25x or 1.5x the regular speed.
Among those to oppose the move was Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul, who reprised his acclaimed role in the Netflix movie El Camino released earlier this month.
He said: ‘Stop... There is NO WAY Netflix will move forward with this. That would mean they are completely taking control of everyone else’s art and destroying it.
‘Netflix is far better than that. Am I right Netflix?’
Ant- man director Peyton Reed said: ‘This is a terrible idea, and I and every director I know will fight against it’.
Director Brad Bird, who also wrote Pixar animated favourites The Incredibles and Ratatouille, called the invention ‘another spectacularly bad idea’ and ‘another cut to the already bleeding-out cinema experience’.
Peter Ramsey, who won an Oscar for co- directing the hit animated film Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse, tweeted: ‘Does everything have to be designed for the laziest and most tasteless?’
Others said Netflix may have a point. Tech website CNET said there was ‘such an unrelenting stream of content’, speed-watching might be the ‘only way to get through it all’.
Netflix has around 10million British subscribers but angered them earlier this year by raising the price of a standard subscription – which lets users play Netflix on multiple devices – by £1 to £8.99 a month. The basic package, on only one device, stayed the same at £5.99 a month.
Last night Netflix said in a statement that the speed feature is not permanent and is still being tested.