New to Netflix, ancient history to everyone else

If you're like me and you have Netflix available as an app on your TV, I'm sure you sometimes let it go into screen saver mode, where it puts single images from other Netflix shows and movies on the screen for about 15 seconds before switching to the next one. 

If this mode is on while we're sitting in the living room doing other things, my younger son and I will play a game where we see who can be first to guess the title of the new image, since the image appears about two seconds before the title. We get so we know these titles just from this screen saver mode, and since they go in a loop of maybe 40 titles before repeating, sometimes you develop a sense of what's going to come next because you remember it from last time. I'm glad I have one person in my family who enjoys playing this game, because the older son and his mother certainly do not.

I also use this mode to identify movies that may be new to Netflix that I need to see. I try to keep up on release dates for new Netflix movies, but sometimes I get behind and use this as a nice refresher.

However, not all the movies (or TV shows) that appear here are actually new. Though I can't figure out a rhyme nor reason to why they're promoting certain old ones. 

Take Cleaner, for example. When I saw a single image of Samuel L. Jackson from Renny Harlin's 2007 film, for half a second I thought "Oh, what's this new Samuel L. Jackson movie?" In the remaining half of that second, I realized that this is not at all what Samuel L. Jackson looks like in 2026. So concluded it was an old movie.

Now I'd say it's obvious that this is new to Netflix. At least that much must be true. In fact, Google via its AI confirms that it started streaming on the platform in late May. 

But surely Netflix is adding old movies all the time, isn't it? Why was this random 19-year-old movie, which I don't remember from the time even though it also stars such big names as Eva Mendes, Ed Harris and Luis Guzman, given place of prominence within those 40 titles on the screen saver, which also include a bunch of genuinely new Netflix movies and TV shows?

I guess I don't know why Netflix is trying to "make Cleaner happen." Is there an incentive for them that this title in particular does well? And if so, what is that incentive?

Even AI is a bit confused about the logical sequence of events here. When I googled "when did cleaner start playing on Netflix," the answer was "The 2007 crime thriller Cleaner (starring Samuel L. Jackson and Eva Mendes) saw a major resurgence on the platform, and was notably added to the platform in the United States in late May 2026."

That almost makes it sound like being added to the platform was a response to its resurgence on the platform, which doesn't make a lick of sense.

Well, it worked. I watched it last night. 

And found it to be utterly middling. 2.5 stars. The kind of borderline competent but otherwise completely forgettable movie that I wouldn't have remembered the first time around because no one did very much to promote it even back then. 

And that would change 19 years later why, exactly?

If you figure it out, let me know.