If you’ve never seen Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass, I cannot recommend it enough. The single-season series stands as the crowning achievement of Flanagan’s career; a culmination of all of the various themes, craft, and techniques he has implored over the course of his filmography, all coalescing into an incendiary and overwhelmingly powerful work. To fully explain the series’ narrative hook would be to give away a great deal of the experience, but suffice it to say that what starts as an authentic, religiously-rooted drama transforms over the course of its run into something else: a horrific small-town vampire story.
However, according to a new interview with Flanagan himself, the version of Midnight Mass that earned such rapturous critical praise and became such a commercial success upon release back in 2021 was very nearly not allowed to see the light of day at all. In fact, thanks to a combination of gonzo factors, such as COVID-fueled lockdowns and a change of management at the show’s streaming platform distributor, Netflix, the show was almost substantially reshot shortly before release. Apparently, this was all due to one very simple thing; Netflix wanted more vampires.
Speaking on as a guest on a recent episode of Flanagan’s Wake, a podcast dedicated exclusively to exploring the works of the filmmaker, Flanagan got on the subject of Midnight Mass and the unique factors that almost tore the show apart before viewers had ever even seen it.
"(Netflix) didn't initially know what to do with the show when we were done," he recalled. "There'd been a huge executive regime change at Netflix that occurred during production on Midnight Mass… We were just off in our own little bubble, and all the people who had given us permission to make the show were gone by the time we were done."
"There was a whole new team who had just gotten acclimated and said, 'Okay, let's see this show.' And I was like, 'Here is the show!' And they said, 'Where are the vampires?' And I said, 'They'll get there eventually, but the real vampire is fanaticism!' They didn't think that was terribly funny."
Flanagan goes on to say that those in power at Netflix then pushed for the show to undergo substantial reshoots, looking to restructure the whole thing and amp up the vampire action far earlier in the season. However, the sets had already been destroyed, which meant that such reshoots would not only be extremely costly but also extremely labor intensive. This resulted in Netflix wavering on these demands, and Flanagan’s series ultimately just getting released as is.
While this was undoubtedly a win for Flanagan and audiences alike, it was the beginning of a substantial loss for Netflix, as this proved to be the beginning of a crack in their relationship with the horror auteur that could not be mended. A few short years later, Flanagan would exit his partnership with Netflix, and instead take his work and team over to Amazon Prime, where he is currently working on numerous new projects.
Ultimately, this story is an indictment of Netflix’s entire approach to content, marketing, and audiences. It’s difficult not to think of Matt Damon’s recent comments about how the streaming platform encourages creators to think of their work as “second-screen content,” and repeat key bits of information over and over again so as not to lose audiences who aren’t fully paying attention. Midnight Mass is very much not that kind of project; it is a ruminating and meditative work that demands your full attention and rewards you for it in immense fashion.