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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
People Are Sharing The Creepiest Urban Legends In Their Hometowns
Since the dawn of time, people have loved a good spooky story. I don't have the research to back up that claim, but I have to assume it's true. From campfire tales to sleepover fables told with flashlights held under our chins, our obsession with keeping ghost stories and urban legends alive has never waned. And what better way to cement these stories in our minds than to immortalize them on the internet? Reddit user the2cousins posed this question to the AskReddit community: "What local urban legends did you have in your hometown when you were growing up?" And another user who has since deleted their account asked, What is your hometown's creepy urban legend? BEWARE!!!! The answers are positively spine-tingling. Read at your own risk! 1."In Pawleys Island, SC, there is a legend that 'The Gray Man' will appear on the beach before a hurricane and that whoever he appears to will have their home spared." — u/alwaysapirate "If you see him, you know everything around your home and all your neighbors are fucked. Ever seen a picture of a house standing on a block of splintered debris after a hurricane? Now that's going to be your neighborhood. It's like a curse of Survivor's Guilt."—u/ZarquonsFlatTire 2."I live in San Antonio, TX, and we have the legend about the haunted train tracks. Some time ago, a school bus got stuck on some train tracks. The bus driver jumped out, but the kids got hit by the train. A lot of streets around the tracks are named after kids who supposedly died on the bus. But if you park about 10 or 20 feet away from the tracks and put your car in neutral, the kids' ghosts push you across the tracks so you won't get hit. Don't forget to put baby powder on the back of your car so you can see their handprints. I went with my brother and girlfriend, and I was laughing, saying it wasn't real, and the car stopped on the tracks. My brother told me I shouldn't have been saying mean things." —u/doc_moses 3."In the Bahamas, there are blue holes (sinkhole-like caverns in the bottom of the ocean floor), and legend has it that mermaids live deep down in the caves. If an unlucky diver were to go too deep and find one, they pull you down and ask you a question: Do you want to eat fish for dinner? Or conch? If you answer fish, they hold you down in anger until you drown. And if they think you're lying, they may drown you anyway. It's one of those myths that was worth scaring children with. Annually, many divers get pulled by the currents in the blue holes and drown. They're very unsafe for weak swimmers. But kids love jumping from the cliffs into them." —u/pirateOfTheCaribbean 4."When I was in fourth or fifth grade, there were rumors that an older kid in my town had found a severed hand in a jar in the woods. I can't remember an adult ever talking about it, but the consensus on the playground was that it was the work of a mysterious and violent motorcycle gang. It was a huge deal to the kids in the area, and I stopped playing in the woods as a direct result. I forgot all about it until high school when I learn that one of my friends, who lived through the woods in an adjoining neighborhood, had actually been the one to find the mythical hand. "It made the whole thing seem even stranger. But still sort of dreamy and odd. Last chapter; kitty-corner across the street from my house was a dude who lived with his mom and drove around in a big ass car with a 'Have you hugged your funeral director today?' bumper sticker. Turns out, he actually was an assistant funeral director. He was cutting the hands off of some of his cadavers to remove their jewelry. The hands were stored in jars in his basement. Except for when he occasionally dumped the backlog in the woods behind his house." —[deleted] 5."One of our streets was haunted. On a windy October after midnight, a teen couple parked on the side of the road. Their friends drove by at one point and saw them talking and listening to the radio. The next morning, their car was in the same spot but looked like it had been hit from all sides. And the kids were nowhere to be found. No trail of blood, no tracks, nothing. Completely disappeared. They say if you park where the kids were parked for seven minutes after midnight and tune to the same radio station they were listening to, you can hear the last minutes of their lives." —u/big_ander 6."There's a church called the Water of Life church in Plano, TX, a suburb of Dallas. It has no real windows, and if you go there at night, there's always one or two cars parked in the entrance, and really spooky choir music is audible. The doors are all metal, and the 10-inch square windows on the doors have that shatter-proof wire mesh in them. Keep in mind that this church is not in a bad area. The rumor is that a woman walked into a nearby convenience store covered in blood, and said they tried to sacrifice her." "There are mentions online of it being some kind of cult. A Google search reveals creepy videos from inside, mentions of the 'pastor' being a former televangelist fired for being a whack-job. Very weird. Another Redditor posted that a member of this church amputated her child's arms because 'God told her to.' This really seems like some fucked-up cult, operating in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. Scary shit, since I lived within a block of it back when I was a kid." —u/AllanJH Related: I Really, Really, Really Hate Myself For Laughing At These 57 Hilariously Unfortunate People 7."I lived near Statesboro, GA for a time, and there was a legend about the old abandoned slaughter house on the aptly named 'Slaughterhouse Road.' The slaughterhouse had been built sometime in the '20s, and operated through the mid-'40s before a fire ran through the place, killing a number of the employees. The legend was that the fire had been started by the owner when he found out his young bride-to-be wanted to break off the marriage in favor of her childhood sweetheart. "Among the dead reported were the woman and the presumed sweetheart. The owner himself effectively vanished off the face of the earth after the fire, making the case technically (he'd be long dead now) still open. The building has long stood abandoned, with no power, phone, or access to the topmost floor. Yet this hasn't prevented phone calls to 911 cropping up from there, as well as strange sightings of a woman in the windows along the top floor where the offices were." —u/Kabukikitsune 8."In Hawaii, we have many urban legends. My favorite is Pele, the fire goddess. At night, if you are driving and come across an old woman wearing white, you have to give her a ride, or bad luck will come your way. My dad was in his early 20s on the Big Island, driving through the Chain of Craters road, which, due to being in a national park, has almost no street lighting. With his friends, they came across an old woman in white. They let her in the backseat and drove back to the camp to drop her off. She got out, and when they turned around, she had disappeared. To this day, my dad SWEARS it was Pele." —u/ldeponte 9."I'm from Leicester, MA, and we have the Spider Gate Cemetery, aka 'the eighth gate to hell.' So much shit goes on there. There's supposedly a satanic altar if you look for it, and a second cemetery that, if you find it once, you can never find it again. They say if you walk around Marmaduke's tombstone ten times, then rest your head on it and say 'speak to me,' he'll speak to you. They also say that if you pass through the main gate too many times, you'll be transported to hell. My sister and I spent a summer trying to find everything, but couldn't." —u/harry_waters 10."I'm from Michigan, and we have this thing called 'The Melon Heads.' They say if you go down to this bridge and do a dance, these people with oblong heads will attack you." —u/Bonifaz_Reinhard "If anyone wants the full story, I've got you. I used to live on the same road as the 'melon heads' and took people down there all the time. There once was a man named Doctor Crow who lived with his wife in a house down Wisner Road. Doctor Crow experimented on kids with hydrocephalus (hence the large heads). He was a nice man trying to find a cure, but he had some questionable methods of experimentation. He kept the children in cages, and some experiments were seen as cruel or torturous. Mrs. Crow, on the other hand, was the nicest lady imaginable; she would feed and nurture these kids, basically like a second mother. One day, the husband and wife got into an argument, and Doctor Crow pushed his wife into a cabinet, and she split her head open and died. This caused the children to go crazy. The next time Doctor Crow opened up the cage, the children swarmed him and killed him. After they killed him, they ate him and discovered a love for human flesh. The children escaped and now live in the woods around Wisner/the Holden Arboretum. This is the story I've always been told." —u/Might_Be_Novelty 11."In my hometown, there's a legend that one of our high schools is haunted by a girl who died by suicide in the school. There were reports of green ooze dripping from the ceiling, and the hallway was supposedly covered in fog every day. That fourth-floor hallway has been closed off for decades. Some hear a girl sobbing near the hallway, some see her waving at them from the balcony, and some even see a girl jump off the balcony but vanish before she hits the ground." —u/SwegTestica7 Related: 26 People Who Had Overwhelming Gut Instincts They Couldn't Were Right 12."I live in Southern California, about half an hour east of the cities, in the foothills. It's very rural with lots of steep rocky hills and dry brush. We have a legend about the blue people, a cult that lives deep in the foothills. They never come out during the day, so their skin is super pale and tinted blue. They will leave one of their own lying on the road out in the rural areas, and when a car stops to help them, they'll surround the car, and that person and the vehicle will never be seen again. I once got lost with very little gas out in the foothills at night, and this story freaked me out so much I had to keep convincing myself it was just a story." —u/snugginator 13."I grew up in Ohio. There's the legend of Tinker's Hollow. It's said that Old Mister Tinker, a miner, haunts the site. He can sometimes be seen riding his horse and buggy, and if you go under the bridge, you can sometimes hear his buggy pass overhead. It's said that you can see his green eyes glowing, and he'll lead you to his gold if you talk to him. Mr. Tinker was an alchemist. He made a special non-rusting metal that has never been duplicated. There are tombstones around town that were made with his Tinker's metal; they're pretty neat. Unlike anything you're used to seeing in a graveyard." —u/jessika_anne 14."I'm from a suburb of Seattle. There's a myth that if you travel from Federal Way to Tacoma on foot or bike at night, you'll begin to notice that little things start to get weird. Usually, you'll feel as if you're just stuck in the same 500 foot stretch of land that just repeats over and over again forever. Then paranoia sets in. The last thing is that you start to see shadowy figures chasing you on foot. I thought it was stupid when I heard it in the seventh grade until I tried it. I noticed a few shadowy figures out of the corner of my eye looking at me, and at that point, I peeled out and drove to my girlfriend's in downtown Seattle. Would never try it again. I had an intense paranoia I couldn't get rid of and night terrors for days at a time." —u/SoundersAcademy 15."In Wichita, there's a bridge, Theorosa's bridge. There are a few versions of the story, but most of them say there was once a woman who had a child, and she threw the baby off the bridge into the water to be rid of it. Full of grief and regret, she then jumps in after the baby and drowns herself. Supposedly, if you go to the bridge and yell loudly that you have her child, she will appear and drown you in the river." —u/StephenHawkings_Legs 16."About 100 kilometers from my hometown, there is a First Nations reservation with elders who tell stories of the 'little people.' Basically, they are tiny people who used to live in the caves around the lake in the old days, and if you see them, it's very bad luck. My grandmother visited the caves back in the '90s and took some family pictures. In all of them, you can see ghostly-looking little people all over the background. She took around five photographs, and every single one of them strangely disappeared except for one, which shows a ghostly figure holding a baby and a drum." —[deleted] 17."I have the perfect story! This is giving me chills as I remember it. In my hometown, there was this massive grassy area, a couple square miles. This area was also often very foggy, to the point where you'd find it hard to see far in front of you, meaning if you got lost in the fog, you'd just have to keep walking until you reached the edge. Kids at school would always tell ghost stories about the fields and the fog, and the horrible things that happened to the people who got lost in it. There were stories of people who got turned around and around and died in the cold and stories of terrible monsters in the fog. The whole grassy area was scary enough, and the stories made it scarier. As a consequence, most of us were too scared to go into the grassy area alone, or at night, and stayed away. I found out when I grew up that this area had real abductions in the past. "Real, no shit, abductions of people. Obviously not from a supernatural being, but I find it wild that as kids, we knew nothing about the reality of it. The legends and ghost stories kept us away from a possibly dangerous area. I feel like this is something the adults started to keep kids from being abducted." —u/staycalm_keepwarm 18."I've got one from Arlington, WA. There was a house on a busy stretch of highway, but the road ran through farmland, so the house was still very secluded. Growing up, a lot of different people had lived in this house, but they all left because of hardship that made them unable to afford it or a death in the house. Eventually, the house was left abandoned. Here's the creepy part. During the three years it was unoccupied, the rightmost upstairs light was on every night. Never a car in the driveway or a person in the yard day or night. My friends and I went to explore it one night, and as soon as we got to the door, the light went out. We promptly left. The year I left for college, somebody bought it, so I don't know what became of it." —u/saxmodeman88 19."The wolfanannies (sometimes referred to as heebies) of Winston-Salem, NC, back in the '60s. Basically, some type of animal was draining the blood out of penned-up chickens and rabbits along a road called Ebert. It was all reported in the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel newspapers. We used to go out to this abandoned rock quarry at night where it was supposed to frequent, but we never saw it, which made me wonder if there was anything to it. Went to the public library in the mid-'70s and looked the stories up on microfiche, and there were probably 20 articles or so with interviews with witnesses, law enforcement, the whole deal. There's nothing on the internet about it, but it was a big deal back in the day." —u/callmestupid 20."I grew up in the city with the famous Lindley Street haunting; the home was located 5-10 minutes away from me. The urban legend was that an innocent family experienced poltergeist activity, in addition to their family cat speaking like a drunken sailor, cursing in a perfectly articulated voice. I saw Lorraine Warren (a paranormal investigator) speak a number of times, and she always said the cat would talk to anyone who was near; it never shut up. There are a few policemen in my town who continue to swear they saw the cat speak. During the '70s and '80s, the urban legend was that if you went to the house, you would easily be able to see poltergeist activity occurring. However, since the house changed hands there have been no reports of activity, and the current owners respond as if they don't know what anyone is talking about when asked about the haunting." —[deleted] 21."I grew up in San Bernardino, CA, and downtown, the major theater that puts on plays and whatnot is the Sturges family playhouse. It was built in the '20's, but it was originally a middle school. A fire burned everything except the theater, which they turned into the Playhouse. There's a legend that the ghost of a kid named Joshua (who died in a football accident when the school was still there) haunts the theater. People have heard voices and seen orbs of light, but the most common thing is to find the pictures in the room at the top of the stairs suddenly hanging askew. My brother and I had firsthand experiences with the ghost." "I was helping my brother clean up after the run of a play he was in, and the director asked us to get a can of paint from the room at the top of the stairs. I, of course, really didn't want to, but my brother and I went anyway. The only people in the building were my brother and I, the director, and her wife, both of whom were at the opposite end of the building putting props into the back of their pickup truck. We get to the top of the stairs, and the door is locked. Now, this is a two-inch-thick solid oak door with knobby brass handles. My brother and I were wondering how to get into the room (because there is only one way in, through that door). The door makes a loud 'WHAM!!!' like someone on the other side got a running start and rammed their shoulder into it. Needless to say, we were scared shitless and got the director, who gets the keys and opens the door. NO ONE IS IN THE ROOM. EVEN CRAZIER, EVERY SINGLE PAINTING ON THE WALL WAS TILTED. There was no way anyone could have been in there, and especially no way anyone could have escaped." —u/archeantus1988 And finally, a reminder to take all urban legends with a tiny (or gigantic) grain of salt: 22."There's a guy who rides his bicycle all over my town. People used to say that he had been arrested a bunch of times for assault and had maybe even murdered someone. I was so afraid of him growing up. As it turns out, he grew up in my town and came back to take care of his sick mother and just sort of lost a couple of screws after she passed. He's an incredibly kind man who does a lot of charity work for the town, but you know how kids talk. I like to think of him as the old man in Home Alone. Just goes to show everyone has a story, and isn't always what they seem." —u/talbottron Have you heard any of these urban legends before? Or have any of your own you'd like to share? Tell me in the comments! Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity. If you love spooky stories, you'll love the upcoming horror film The Ritual! Based on the true notes and findings of a real-life exorcist and the multiple exorcisms of Emma Schmidt (aka Anna Ecklund), it's sure to horrify you. Check out the trailer here: Also in Internet Finds: 51 Wildly Fascinating Photos Of Disorders, Injuries, And Variations In The Human Body That I Cannot Stop Staring At Also in Internet Finds: 19 Things Society Glorifies That Are Actually Straight-Up Terrible, And We Need To Stop Pretending Otherwise Also in Internet Finds: 27 Grown-Ass Adults Who Threw Such Unbelievable Temper Tantrums, Even The Brattiest Toddler Couldn't Compete
New York Times
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Netflix's $275 Million ‘The Electric State' Has Fallen Flat. No Matter?
Netflix spent over $275 million to make 'The Electric State,' a sci-fi action adventure film starring Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt and a slew of sentient robots. Had it opened in theaters, instead of on its service as it did on March 14, the film would almost certainly be declared a giant disappointment. Reviews have been dismal. And though the movie debuted at No. 1 on the streaming giant's weekly chart of most-watched movies, it had far fewer views (25.2 million) than other expensive features, including 'The Gray Man' (96.5 million), which was made by the same directors, the brothers Joe and Anthony Russo. But there was little hand-wringing inside Netflix this week. No marketing chief was blamed. No production executive packed up her office. Instead, the movie demonstrates how different Netflix is from the traditional studios — and how easily the company can spend so much for a middling result without Wall Street's noticing. (Its stock is up slightly this week.) Truth is, no one piece of content moves the needle at Netflix in either direction. 'Squid Game 2' was the most-watched title in the company's most recent engagement report, with 87 million views, but it accounted for only 0.7 percent of total viewing. Rather, the $18 billion that the company spends each year on movies and shows is meant to reach a worldwide audience with different tastes and interests. The budget for 'The Electric State' represents 1.5 percent of what the company will spend on content this year. 'It's comical to me that Hollywood and the press obsess over Netflix's mistakes while they have one of the most viral global hits in 'Adolescence' right now at a nothing budget,' said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst with Lightshed Partners. He was referring to a distressing — and zeitgeisty — four-part series about a teenage boy accused of murder that has generated 24.3 million views. 'It's all about a portfolio approach to content,' Mr. Greenfield added. Both Netflix and the Russo brothers declined to comment for this article. Supposedly, quality is now king at Netflix. 'With more than 700 million people watching, we can't just be one thing. We need to be the best version of everything,' Bela Bajaria, Netflix's chief content officer, said at an event in January showcasing the company's 2025 lineup. And more recently, she said that she'd greenlight 'The Electric State' all over again. (Among reviewers, the film has a 15 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Among the public, it has a 73 percent positive rating.) Netflix acquired 'The Electric State' in 2022 after Universal balked at the reported $200 million price tag. Those costs ballooned in part because of the amount of special effects involved and the extensive upfront bonuses paid to the film's stars and directors. That kind of spending on a big-budget, little-known piece of intellectual property may be more rare in Netflix's future. The company's new film chief, Dan Lin, is cutting costs where he can, though still spending lavishly on highly coveted projects. He plunked down a healthy chunk for Greta Gerwig's upcoming 'Narnia' and tried to land Emerald Fennell's adaptation of 'Wuthering Heights' by offering $150 million. (He lost out to Warner Bros., which offered to give the film, starring Margot Robbie, a wide theatrical release.) Netflix is still doing plenty of business with the Russo brothers, too. Over the years, the pair have given the company some of its biggest hits, including 'Gray Man' and the 'Extraction' franchise. The Russos' production company, AGBO, is set to begin filming 'The Whisper Man,' a crime thriller starring Robert De Niro, Adam Scott and Michelle Monaghan, this year, and an 'Extraction' television series is also in the works. (They are also responsible for Disney's high-grossing 'Avengers' films and are lined up to direct the next two.) 'The Electric State' hit the streaming service just as Hollywood seems to be undergoing an identity crisis. Moviegoers say they want original ideas. But the public keeps rejecting them. Last week, two original stories — 'Novocaine,' starring Jack Quaid, and 'Black Bag,' starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender — headlined the slowest moviegoing weekend of 2025. Even franchise fare like 'Captain America: Brave New World' and 'Paddington in Peru' isn't matching the grosses of its predecessors. Hollywood was hopeful that 2025 would be the year the box office would come roaring back to its prepandemic levels, but so far it's trailing 2024 by 5 percent and 2019 by 38 percent. Peter Newman, a film producer and professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, said 'The Electric State' and Netflix's approach to content relied more on analytics than overall taste, a factor that contributed to the disparity between the critics' reviews and the audience reception of the movie. 'One could make the case that they have dumbed down the audience to such an extent that that's what they want,' Mr. Newman said. 'Maybe they want McDonald's instead of Peter Luger.'
Forbes
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘The Electric State' Already Dethroned In Netflix's Top 10 List By A New Movie
The Electric State When you invest $320 million into a movie, you would like it to be good, and you would like a lot of people to watch it. On both fronts, Netflix's The Electric State appears to be failing. The Electric State has already dropped to #3 on Netflix's top 10 list, behind new entry Twister: Caught in the Storm, a tornado documentary, and even Kraven the Hunter, one of the biggest superhero box office disasters of all time. And this isn't even a full week after release. The Electric State has an utterly dismal 15% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, but even with a better 73% audience score, that is not translating into great viewership so far, and the film has debuted behind a bunch of other, and cheaper, Netflix original films. Top 10 As of now, that list includes Red Notice, Extraction 2, The Gray Man, Damsel, Carry-On and Rebel Ridge in terms of its 25.2 million views over the weekend falling short of those other films. It's not on the all-time list, which of course it's too early for that, but to make it there, it will have to make it past most of those other films, but also others like Don't Look Up, The Adam Project, Bird Box and Leave the World Behind. Separately, directors the Russo Brothers do have one other movie on this list, The Gray Man, and star Millie Bobby Brown has one too with Damsel. But put them together and The Electric State is a worse feature than either. Still, it's hard to gauge what exactly Netflix considers a failure. If this ends up landing at what, #4, #7, #10 eventually, is that a win for that price? If it doesn't make the list at all, is it a disaster? We can't really get into their thought process, but you might understand how at least algorithmically, they wanted to pair this IP with these directors and those stars. But you can throw a peanut butter sandwich into a bowl of chicken noodle soup and that creates a soggy mess, even if individually, those dishes work. The Russos have said that right now, there are no conversations about The Electric State 2, though there may be an idea for a spin-off series based in the Electric State 'universe.' They also reiterated their commitment to star Millie Bobby Brown as someone they love, when asked about a potential MCU role for her, saying she's always on their lists. It is hard to wrap my brain around the idea that a movie could cost this much and be this bad and still somehow be considered a win for Netflix, but it's impossible to know what they think really, as this is not a show that they'll cancel, nor, apparently, a sequel they'll axe. More or less if they're proud of it, they'll brag about the numbers, if not, we'll probably hear very little. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Express Tribune
17-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Regé-Jean Page opens up about reprising 'Bridgerton' role: "I'm very happy to support everyone who's in the show"
Regé-Jean Page, known for his breakout role as Simon Basset in Netflix's Bridgerton, has addressed the topic of returning to the show. In a recent interview promoting his new film Black Bag, Page revealed that while he has immense support for the cast, he is currently focusing on his evolving career rather than a return to Bridgerton. 'I'm very happy to support everyone who's in the show,' Page shared with Entertainment Tonight. 'Everyone's finding fantastic success, but with the show and personal projects, I'm just super happy to say that.' His comments highlight his ongoing support for the Bridgerton cast, despite shifting his focus to other projects. Although he has frequently been linked to the idea of playing the next James Bond, Page clarified that he's not actively pursuing the role. Instead, the actor is focusing on his current roles, including his appearance in the upcoming spy thriller Black Bag. Following his success in Bridgerton, Page's career has flourished, with prominent roles in The Gray Man (2022) alongside Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) alongside Chris Pine. In Black Bag, he stars as Col. James Stokes, alongside Cate Blanchett, Pierce Brosnan, and Naomie Harris. While Bridgerton fans eagerly await news of Simon Basset's return, Page's current focus is on his rapidly expanding career. With his latest projects gaining attention, it seems the actor is ready to explore new horizons.
Broadcast Pro
13-03-2025
- Business
- Broadcast Pro
Netflix plans $18bn content investment for 2025
The $18bn cash content spending would be an 11% increase from last year's $16.2bn. Netflix is set to invest approximately $18bn in content production in 2025, marking an 11% increase from its $16.2bn budget in 2024. Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann announced the expanded spending, emphasising that the company is far from reaching a ceiling on its content investment. 'We're not anywhere near a ceiling. I think we are still just getting started,' he stated. The budget increase will fund a diverse lineup of high-profile projects, including The Electric State, a sci-fi film directed by the Russo Brothers and starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt. The Russo Brothers, known for their successful collaboration with Netflix on The Gray Man, continue their partnership with this upcoming production. Additionally, Netflix is allocating substantial resources to its 'Extraction' franchise, Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon and Army of the Dead, as well as hit series like Wednesday and Bridgerton. The platform is also strengthening its offerings in documentaries, K-dramas, and anime to cater to its global audience. Netflix's strategic growth extends beyond content production. Following a period of strong revenue acceleration in 2024, with nearly 20% revenue growth and a six-percentage-point margin expansion, the company continues to focus on enhancing entertainment value while expanding revenue streams. Key initiatives include tackling account sharing and expanding its advertising business. Netflix's paid sharing model is now fully operational, and the advertising tier has seen significant adoption, with about 55% of new subscribers opting for the ad-supported plan in Q4 2024. Looking ahead, Netflix expects to double its advertising revenue in 2025, following a similar achievement in 2024. To support this growth, the company is launching a first-party advertising technology stack, set to roll out broadly starting in the US in April. This move aims to capture a share of the estimated $180bn addressable advertising market across Netflix's operating regions. As Netflix continues to scale, the company is also exploring new content formats, including live events and gaming. A major highlight of this strategy is its growing interest in live sports. Netflix made its debut in sports broadcasting by streaming two NFL games on Christmas Day 2024, drawing nearly 65m viewers. Encouraged by this success, the company is considering bidding for additional NFL broadcasting rights, including Sunday afternoon games, potentially challenging networks like CBS and Fox. However, major shifts in NFL broadcasting rights are unlikely before 2029, as current deals extend through 2033 with an opt-out option in 2029. 'Never say never,' Neumann said regarding future sports acquisitions. 'If there's a way to make economic and business sense for a broader package of sports, we remain open to it. But it's not something that's in our near-term horizon.' Despite mixed reactions from fans about streaming-based NFL broadcasts, Netflix's venture into live sports aligns with its broader strategy of diversifying content and engaging a wider subscriber base.
