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In March 2024, Scott Stuber will leave Netflix. He spent seven years at the streaming service, where he was in charge of the film division. With his relatively noiseless departure, Netflix seems set to change its strategy around movies.

In the news: the Director of Film at Netflix is stepping down. The streaming service has not officially explained Scott Stuber's departure, but according to insiders - via The Hollywood Reporter - there are several reasons for this. Both on the part of Scott Stuber himself and co-CEO Ted Sarandos, there were growing disagreements.

The details:

  • Scott Stuber had long complained that he had to make too many films and that quantity was getting in the way of quality. As a result, the streaming service has sharply reduced its production, from 90 of its own films in 2018 to 49 films last year and 36 planned English-language films in 2024. However, that number is still more than any other production company.
  • Stuber's biggest frustration, however, is the fact that Netflix refused to give their films major releases in cinemas. One exception wasGlass Onion: A Knives Out Mysterywhich received a relatively extensive cinematic release in the United States. However, its success did not convince Sarandos to adjust Netflix's policy in the future. According to Stuber, that decision made it harder for him to convince major filmmakers to partner with Netflix.
  • Ted Sarandos, in turn - although never openly stated - would be disappointed in the success of a lot of Netflix's expensive film productions. Most recently, there was Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon, which was slammed by critics.
  • Nor has the crop at the Oscars been as good as Ted Sarandos had hoped. In recent years, Netflix collected as many as nine Oscar nominations for Best Picture, but never managed to win. Competitor Apple, on the other hand, already received that coveted award forCODA.

Future

Behind the scenes: Chef Film Scott Stuber's fate was actually sealed one year ago. After all, that's when Netflix promoted Chief TV Officer Bela Bajaria to Chief Content Officer, a job Stuber was also angling for.

  • With that promotion, Netflix made it clear that television will always be their priority. Bajaria follows much more internal company policy.
  • Although Bajaria will appoint a new Chief Film Officer, they will have a distinctly different role than Scott Stuber. The ambitions of going heavy and wanting to score at the Oscars will presumably disappear. Netflix will still make movies in the future, but it will spend less money on them. Presumably, it will more often buy projects already in the works and still seek a publisher.
  • Netflix will also again buy older series and movies more often. The success of a series likeSuitslast year proved that's one of the cheapest ways to keep scoring anyway.
  • That changing Netflix strategy was also evident last week when the streaming service invested $5 billion (4.63 billion euros) in live streaming of the WWE.

© The Content Exchange, source News