Related Articles
Netflix recently underwent a big change with movie boss Scott Stuber leaving the company and Dan Lin taking over as the top boss for the streaming giant’s film division. Right away, Lin cut 15 jobs and restructured the movie division, and now we’ve learned more about how Lin plans to shake things up as the company looks to the future.
According to The New York Times, Lin’s mandate at Netflix is to “improve the quality” of its movie releases and produce a “wide spectrum of films” at different budget levels to help create more content that can appeal to Netflix’s subscriber base. Another big change is that Netflix is changing how it pays filmmakers–“no more enormous upfront deals,” the NYT reported.
Whereas Netflix previously focused on volume–in 2021, it released a new film every week–Lin’s aim is to make Netflix’s films “better, cheaper, and less frequent,” the report said. Sources also told the site that Lin is asking his team to be more proactive and seek to develop their own content instead of waiting for producers and agents to reach out to make a deal.
In terms of payment changes, NYT reported that these updates have been in the works since before Lin replaced Stuber. Discussions are reportedly underway for filmmakers and actors to get paid based on how a film performs for Netflix instead of a big payment upfront.
Some filmmakers are taking issue with Netflix’s new approach, apparently. The NYT reported that All Quiet on the Western Front director Edward Berger “has been complaining that [Netflix] is demanding budget cuts” on a film he’s putting together with Colin Farrell set to star.
A number of big-name directors who made movies for Netflix did not come back. For example, Martin Scorsese made The Irishman for Netflix then moved to Apple TV+ for Killers of the Flower Moon. Scott Cooper, who made The Pale Blue Eye” for Netflix, is now working with 20th Century Fox on his Bruce Springsteen biopic starring Jeremy Allen White. Not everyone is leaving Netflix behind, obviously, as Guillermo del Toro and Noah Baumbach are making new films for Netflix, and others are as well.
Sources told NYT that Netflix declined to bid on the rights to a new project featuring Millie Bobby Brown, the star of the company’s Stranger Things series and Enola Holmes franchises. Netflix also is abandoning a film from Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow based on the David Koepp novel Aurora, the site reported.
Finally, the NYT report reveals that Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria held a meeting with Netflix’s movie staffers where she is said to have informed them that quality needs to improve. Bajaria is also said to have indicated that anyone who wasn’t comfortable with this shift could “want to consider leaving the company.”
One upcoming high-profile and highly anticipated film in the works for Netflix is Happy Gilmore 2, which brings back Adam Sandler as the hockey player with anger issues who becomes a golfer.
The report focused on Netflix’s movie division and didn’t touch on anything related to the company’s plans for its other areas, including TV, live programming, or video games.
