Ever since Netflix backed out of its bid for Warner Bros., the industry has watched closely for the streamer’s true colors to show. Are they really dedicated to the theatrical business in addition to streaming, like company chief Ted Sarandos said while he was courting the studio? Now that Netflix will remain solo, they’ve implemented price hikes. They also won this year’s streaming war with a number of the most popular shows — and that latest success seems to have changed the company’s course, at least for now.
Dan Lin, chairman of the Netflix film division, recently told the New York Times his interest was not in theatrical releases. As reported in Variety, Lin said that “There [are] a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical. Those are filmmakers that we’ve accepted we just won’t work with.” A number of Hollywood’s most respected auteurs, from Christopher Nolan to Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, have continued to lobby for theatrical runs prior to streaming and home video. After Sarandos beat the pro-theater drum for so many months, it feels like a direct about-face to hear a top executive at Netflix dismiss theatrical distribution.
Netflix’s Lin told the New York Times that one of his common mistakes when he first joined the company “was that filmmakers always said to me, ‘Please tell me the truth.’ And when I told them the truth, they might not have wanted to hear it. So now I’m learning how to better read people. And if someone tells me they want to hear the truth, I tell it in a way that can be as productive as possible.” Directness should always be appreciated, but what’s important is that Netflix now appears to be backing down on their supposed desire to win both the streaming and theatrical space.
Of course, Netflix is still releasing some movies in the theater, like David Fincher’s The Adventures of Cliff Booth, which hits theaters in November. Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie is also getting a turn in the cinema, but Lin was clear that her film was an “exception.”
By comparison, Paramount/Skydance CEO David Ellison was also boasting support for a theatrical window for new releases while he was courting Warner Bros. The mogul continues to assert his dedication to a 45-day theatrical window between the big screen and PVOD, followed later by Blu-ray/4K for some releases. So, if anyone appears to remain interested in courting filmmakers who want to see their movies on the big screen, it is Paramount. Though any such director should also expect to see their film on Paramount+ or whatever its future incarnation will be called following the merger with Warner Bros.
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All those that said Netflix was full of it when they said they would focus on theatrical when trying to by WB – collect 1000 points.
All the rest of you – wrong. Again. As always.
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