Netflix Boss Reveals if Movie Strategy Will Change After Film Chief Quits Company

Netflix’s head of film, Scott Stuber, is leaving the company in March, reportedly to start his own company. According to chief content officer Ted Sarandos, though, not much will change right away in terms of how Netflix handles their original content. Speaking during an investor call, Hastings answered a question about Stuber’s departure, saying that the plan is to continue focusing on quality and creating a steady stream of content that will allow the streamer to succeed no matter what big licensed content they do or don’t have access to.

Spinning the numbers, Sarandos said that Netflix’s original movies are attracting “some of the biggest audiences in the world,” but he admitted that the movies lack the urgency and cultural impact of either big theatrical tentpoles, or Netflix’s own TV shows like Stranger Things and Squid Game.

“Look at the crazy memes about the creepy deers when [Leave the World Behind] came out, or Society of the Snow which was nominated for two Oscars. Or even look back last year at Jennifer Lopez’s great movie, The Mother. By some accounts, it was the most watched movie in the world last year,” Sarandos told the audience (via Deadline). “Fans don’t really care about budgets and windows, they just want a movie that they love. They want a movie to make them cry, or make them laugh, or give them something great to talk about over dinner.”

Sarandos pointed to Netflix’s 18 Academy Award nominations across ten of their original films, saying that they “do not plan to change our strategy or the mix.”

That “mix” — originals, recent licensed movies, and older movies known as catalog titles — has been Netflix’s magic bullet since they first started making original shows and movies. At one point, Netflix had one of the deepest catalogs of any video store in the country — although now that most remaining stores are the very best, and Netflix has abandoned disc rentals, that’s no longer true.

Stuber, who previously worked at Universal, is credited with bringing big names and big franchises like Red Notice (starring Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson, and Gal Gadot) and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out to Netflix. He reportedly plans to start his own media company after leaving, presumably still focusing on feature film.

Netflix, for their part, announced yesterday that they were getting into the pro wrestling business — a huge change that could potentially change Netflix’s long string of bad luck when it comes to live programming.