What can be said for a movie as rote as The Gray Man other than it sucks and is a very odd choice for Netflix to pin a new business model on? It’s been widely reported that the lavish promotional campaign for the Netflix premiere of the company’s most expensive original film ($200 million) — after its nominal, barely there theatrical release — represents a test case for the company’s desperate new gambit. Long-noted for the bad quality of its productions, Netflix has been hemorrhaging subscribers for months, with its stock dropping a reported 70 percent this year.

So naturally Netflix execs are thinking: What better idea to get back in the black than to make an obscenely expensive action film of maximum triteness and pay a bunch of big-name actors a ton of money to dress it up a little — then spend an ungodly fortune hyping it, including on TV ads during sporting events and on billboards? It’s the “saturation release,” a tried-and-true Hollywood tradition, slightly modified for the streaming age.

The new business model explains why, in the service of this madness, you’ve got The Gray Man writer-directors Anthony and Joe Russo of the Captain America and Avengers franchises giving bizarre and pugnacious interviews about the righteousness of watching movies at home instead of in theaters, like God intended. Because it seems it’s elitist to watch movies in theaters, according to Joe Russo: