Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos has taste-tested theatrical, and it appears he likes it.
The famed executive sat down with Bloomberg this weekend for his first interview since Netflix lost the bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery
When the interviewer said on this transaction his company had to deal “with an unusual other buyer,” Sarnados responded: “Unusual, yeah, unusual, irrational, whatever words you want to use in that.”
Things turned interesting when the topic of theatrical distribution came up. Now that the Warner Bros. deal hasn’t gone through, he was asked if he was still planning to put more Netflix movies in cinemas.
While conventional 45-day theatrical window style releases aren’t likely anymore, their recent experiments in the theatrical arena are set to continue and potentially increase:
“Everything I talked about [45-day windows] would require us buying that theatrical distribution entity. But one thing that’s been great about it [this deal] is getting to know and have open dialogue with the theater owners. I really didn’t have much reason to before.
We’ve figured out some really creative things to do together like you saw with ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘KPop Demon Hunters’. We have ‘One Piece’ in theaters next week in the US and Japan. I think we’re gonna find a bunch of cool things to do together going forward. I could see us doing things that we haven’t done before.”
He also spoke more about passing on the deal; essentially, Netflix had a price ceiling and stuck with it, and when Paramount’s offer surpassed it, things were pretty much over.
In purchasing Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Skydance takes on a debt load so large it has been speculated they may eventually have to sell content to Netflix.
