(It had once viewed it as a possible franchise.) It also opted not to make a new rom-com from “It’s Complicated” director Nancy Meyers when the budget hit a reported $130 million. In recent months, the streamer put “Masters of the Universe,” an adaptation of the popular children’s toy line, into turnaround. “This is what we’ve been building towards,” Stuber says.Īlmost as notable are the projects that Netflix has passed on or jettisoned. They include “Nyad,” a biopic about long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster “May December,” a campy drama about the aftershocks of a tabloid scandal that stars Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore and “Rustin,” the story of Civil Rights activist Bayard Rustin that arrives courtesy of Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground. And many of the streamer’s splashiest releases are still rolling out. November sees the debut of “The Killer,” David Fincher’s most crowd-pleasing revenge thriller in years. This fall, Netflix has already fielded “Fair Play,” a provocative look at sexual politics that it acquired out of the Sundance Film Festival for $20 million, as well as “Pain Hustlers,” a dark comedy with Emily Blunt and Chris Evans playing amoral pharmaceutical reps. “And let’s actually put forth a slate that we can stand behind and say, ‘This is the best version of a romantic comedy. It’s about ‘Let’s make what we believe in,’” Stuber says. “Right now, we’re not trying to hit a set number of film releases. “Maestro,” the Netflix film chief argues, embodies the company’s new approach. Stuber is thrilled by the critical reception and happy that Cooper, who produced, wrote and directed the film in addition to starring in it, received a waiver from the striking actors union to attend the screening. When I meet with Stuber in October, it’s the day after Netflix has commandeered Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall for the lavish premiere of “Maestro,” a look at the tangled relationship between Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia, that’s expected to be a major awards player. The result of this judiciousness is one of the company’s strongest fall film slates in recent memory, a compelling mixture of broadly appealing comedies, thrillers and sci-fi adventures, along with Oscar contenders from the likes of Bradley Cooper and the Obamas. Instead of making roughly 50 films annually, the goal is to back between 25 and 30. Now, Netflix is shifting strategy again and opting to take fewer bets. “So you have to ask yourself, ‘What is your business model?’ And for a while it was just making sure that we had enough. We’d only been doing this for a few years, and we were up against 100-year-old companies,” Stuber says. Watch 'Stranger Things' Come to Life on Stage: 'The First Shadow' Promises 'So Many Easter Eggs' for Fans Netflix to Hold Winter Awards FYC Showcase This Month, Including 'The Crown' Premiere (EXCLUSIVE) 'The Crown' Star Elizabeth Debicki Says Dealing With Fake Paparazzi While Playing Princess Diana Was 'Incredibly Invasive' For every Oscar winner like “Roma,” there was an array of forgettable movies, such as “Thunder Force,” a laugh-deprived superhero farce, or “The Last Thing He Wanted,” a dreary Anne Hathaway drama that no one, it seemed, wanted to watch. It never got around to making “Medellín,” Vincent Chase’s passion project from “Entourage,” but the strain of producing so many films showed. In 2020, for instance, Netflix announced it planned to release a new movie every week. Scott Stuber, the head of Netflix’s film division, is the man responsible for feeding the algorithm, and for much of his six-year run, his mandate was clear: quantity, not quality. In a satiric ad, the late-night program hawked the streaming service as an “endless scroll,” promising that “by the time you’ve reached the bottom of our menu, there’s new shows at the top.” And when it came to movies, “SNL” joked that Netflix was so desperate for things to make, it had resorted to shooting the fake films from “Entourage.” In 2018, “Saturday Night Live” captured the public perception of Netflix as a ceaseless river of content.
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