Wearing a ratty bathrobe and a pair of wired headphones, the actor Nathan Shoop is living inside a 3-foot-deep by 25-foot-wide billboard shaped like a house, some 30 feet above Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Below him a sign reads: “How Long Can You Survive?”
Mr. Shoop, 34, has spent 24 hours up there since early Thursday morning, stretching, reading, listening to music — all in the name of promotion, specifically Netflix’s newest film, “The Last House.”
The stunt is a rare marketing play from a streaming company that otherwise lets its vaunted algorithm do the heavy lifting for promoting its films. The scene has prompted visits from local news crews and other curious onlookers wondering why and how a man is living in a billboard to promote a movie.
I connected with Mr. Shoop early Friday afternoon via whiteboard — I was on the sidewalk with mine, and he had one in the billboard — while a drone and a news helicopter hovered overhead. (He had no phone, a nod to a plot point in the movie.)
The actor is playing his part well. He’s not bored. “Only boring people get bored,” he wrote to me on his whiteboard. He’s not scared. His biggest complaint is he’s running low on Sour Strips.
Oh, and he’s got no Wi-Fi and therefore no Netflix. I asked what he’d be watching if he did. He quickly replies “72 Hours” — the Kevin Hart movie that came out on July 24 and has been atop the company’s film chart for the past two weeks.
I teased him with the comment, “Corporate Shill” on my whiteboard. He replied: “Corporate Chill!”
Netflix could use a little more chilling on its site from its subscribers lately. The marketing stunt comes at a moment when the company is struggling to land a summer hit. Last year at this time, it was riding high on “KPop Demon Hunters,” which a year later still hovers in the company’s global Top 10 list. No film from Netflix since has reached such heights. Even tried-and-true talent, like Mr. Hart, can’t seem to generate the viewership numbers that his previous films managed on the service.
Mr. Hart’s last Netflix comedy, “Me Time” with Mark Wahlberg, debuted in 2022 to 59.23 million views in its first three days. In contrast, “72 Hours,” earned less than half that many views in the same period.
A report last month pointing out a decline in viewership numbers between the first and second seasons of popular shows has concerned investors, a fact reinforced in the company’s earnings call last month. Netflix offered weaker-than-expected revenue guidance for the next quarter, and shares dropped some 8 percent on that news.
This isn’t Netflix’s first promotional stunt. In April, the company hooked Charlize Theron to a climbing rig and had her scale a rock wall attached to a billboard in the middle of Times Square to advertise her action-thriller “Apex.”
“When you do something like this and it connects, the value is immense,” said Jonathan Helfgot, a vice president of marketing at Netflix. “That’s not just because of the press or social media coverage of it on face value, but because there’s actually an emotional connection between the stunt and the movie that it’s for.”
Mr. Shoop was one of 10 actors that auditioned for the part. He was chosen, Netflix said, because he was the best at conveying the role of an “everyman” trapped inside his house. According to his personal website, Mr. Shoop is also a producer who has made commercials and other promotional materials for a variety of clients, including Netflix.
(Mr. Shoop didn’t return an email requesting further comment. He remains inside the billboard. The gig lasts until Saturday night.)
Netflix said Mr. Shoop gets plenty of breaks to eat, sleep and use the restroom, most of which occurs outside of the billboard. (Though he has taken a few naps and eaten plenty of snacks inside the billboard, too.) He also has air-conditioning, meaning he’s more comfortable than those looking up at him from the street in the 90 degree Los Angeles heat.
One thing Mr. Shoop is not is an actor in “The Last House.” The sci-fi thriller he is promoting debuted on Netflix on Friday and stars Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as parents who, with their two children, are suddenly sealed inside their home with no way out. Directed by Louis Leterrier, the film currently has a 35 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Netflix, which tends to spend a lot less money on commercials and other advertisements than other studios, isn’t changing its marketing strategy, Mr. Helfgot said.
“The hope is that something like this — it’s not just about the people who get to be there to see it on the ground — is interesting enough that the videos they capture are shared around the world,” he said. “When something like this hits, you really only need one if you do it well.”
Mr. Shoop, at least, seemed determined to help it land.
When I asked him, “Is this the best paying S.A.G. job you’ve had in a while,” referring to the actors’ union, he replied with “We’re being paid?”
I followed up with, “Call your agent!”
His response: “Call my mom!”
