Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners and Netflix Partner Up For Film Deal

Amblin Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg, previously a critic of Netflix’s model, has changed his mind. Today, it’s been announced that Amblin Partners will be producing original films for the streaming giant.

 

Per Variety, Steven Spielberg and Amblin will be producing multiple movies for Netflix as part of a deal that was finalized today. Amblin Partners are expected to make two or more movies per year for the dominant streaming platform for quite some time, some of which may be directed by Spielberg himself. It is not clear how long this partnership is set to last or how extensive it will be, as Amblin offices are set to remain on Universal’s lot, while Spielberg will still remain involved with directing movies for other studios. Spielberg issued the following statement today:

“At Amblin, storytelling will forever be at the center of everything we do, and from the minute Ted [Sarandos] and I started discussing a partnership, it was abundantly clear that we had an amazing opportunity to tell new stories together and reach audiences in new ways. This new avenue for our films, alongside the stories we continue to tell with our longtime family at Universal and our other partners, will be incredibly fulfilling for me personally since we get to embark on it together with Ted, and I can’t wait to get started with him, Scott [Stuber], and the entire Netflix team.”

This move is surprising, given Spielberg’s skepticism of the streaming model, although it seems to be a result of the success of The Trial of the Chicago 7, an Amblin production that Paramount planned to distribute before selling the film to the streamer during the peak of COVID-19 devastating the film industry. Spielberg previously criticized Netflix as a disruptive format for the medium of film, specifically being dangerous to smaller films as studios instead opt to make more expensive blockbusters instead:

“It is a challenge to cinema in the same way television in the early 1950s pulled people away from movie theaters and everyone stayed home because it was more fun to stay home and watch a comedy on television in the 1950s than it was to go out and see a movie. So Hollywood is used to that, we are accustomed to being highly competitive with television. The difference today is that a lot of studios would rather just make branded, tent-pole guaranteed box office hits from their inventory of branded successful movies than take chances on smaller films. And those smaller films that studios used to make routinely, are now going to Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. And by the way, television today is greater than its ever been in the history of television. There’s better writing, better directing, better performances, better stories are being told. Television is really thriving with quality and art but it poses a clear and present danger to film-goers.”

In any case, it seems likely that Amblin Partners will get to make the kinds of movies that wouldn’t sell in theaters these days, but given Spielberg’s clout, it’s likely that he will try to push for a theatrical window for at least some of these new productions. In the meantime, Spielberg’s next big film, West Side Story, is set to play in theaters on December 10, 2021.