Netflix blitz takes aim at Hollywood’s heart
Streaming company threatens traditional model of cinema
As hundreds of movie buffs waited in line to see Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma at the Telluride Film Festival in August, an SUV rolled up and a tall, tanned man wearing sunglasses stepped out. He smiled and waved before breezing into the theatre with his entourage.
“Was that some sort of celebrity?” one ticket holder asked.
Moviegoers may not know Scott Stuber, but he is fast becoming one of the most important — and disruptive — people in the film business. A former Universal Pictures vice-chairman, Stuber, 50, is Netflix’s movie chief. His mandate is to make the streaming service’s original film lineup as formidable as its television operation, which received112 Emmy nominations this year, the most of any network.
With the rapturously reviewed Roma, which arrived on Netflix on Friday, Stuber has pushed the internet giant into the centre of the Oscar race. Cuaron’s subtle film about life in 1970s Mexico City is likely to give Netflix its first best-picture nomination. To make sure, the company is backing Roma with perhaps the most extravagant Academy Awards campaign ever mounted.
But Roma is just the start of Stuber’s cinematic onslaught, one that is forcing old-line studios and multiplex chains to confront a panic-inducing question: Will the streaming company that prompted many people to cut the cable cord now cause people to stop going to theatres? Having disrupted the television and music businesses, the internet is finally threatening the heart of Hollywood.
Stuber, armed with Netflix’s debt-financed war chest, has films coming from Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Dee Rees, Guillermo del Toro, Noah Baumbach and the king of spectacle, Michael Bay.
“If you’re going to build a great film studio, you have to build it with great filmmakers,” Stuber said, noting that Hollywood royals — Meryl Streep, Ben Affleck, Eddie Murphy, Sandra Bullock, Dwayne Johnson — had also signed on for Netflix movies.
Stuber’s operation is set up to supply 55 original films a year, including some with budgets as high as $200 million (U.S.). Add in documentaries and animated movies, handled by other divisions, and the number of annual Netflix film releases climbs to about 90. To compare, Universal, one of Hollywood’s most prolific traditional studios, releases roughly 30 movies a year. Until now, moviedom has been relatively protected from the digital forces that have reshaped the rest of media. Most films still arrive in the same way they have for decades: first in theatres, for an exclusive run of about 90 days, and then in homes. Multiplex chains, including AMC and Regal, have fought off efforts to shorten that period. They worry that people will be reluctant to buy tickets if they can see the same film in their living rooms just a few weeks (or days) later.
“Given the marginal profitability of the theatrical business, if you lose 10 per cent of the audience — some people stay home — some cinemas go out of business,” said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners.
Netflix mostly bypasses theatres. To qualify for awards, a handful of Netflix movies appear simultaneously online and in art theatres in New York and Los Angeles. Pressed by Stuber, Netflix unveiled a third release model in October, making Romaand two other prestige movies available in cinemas first — but only for one to three weeks — and on its service second.
Most theatres have refused to comply, although Netflix has cobbled together about 140 theatres in North America for Roma and nearly 600 more overseas. (The other two films are The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, which only played in 21 domestic theatres last month; and Bird Box, a thriller starring Bullock, that arrived in four theatres Thursday.)
Netflix’s new-found attention to theatres is an olive branch to Oscar voters. Heavyweights like Steven Spielberg have chafed at Netflix’s policy of streaming films immediately, suggesting that all of the service’s content should be considered television.
But Netflix needs the Oscars and the validation they bring to compete with traditional studios for top talent.