Dan Lin Re-orgs Netflix Film Division Into Genres
Dan Lin has been head of Netflix Film for a week, and he’s already leaving an impression. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the executive has been planning a reorganization of the entire department ever since his contract was signed; it’s now that it’s going into full effect.
Lin coordinated the effort with her immediate superior, content boss Bela Bajaria, as well as outside consultants. From now on, Ori Marmur will oversee action, fantasy, horror, and sci-fi movies; Kira Goldberg will oversee thrillers, dramas, and family films; Niija Kuykendall is in charge of holiday, young adult, and faith-based movies; and Jason Young will take over comedies and rom-coms.
Lin is also bringing a new team, with some dozen layoffs set to happen soon and new replacements handpicked by him and his team joining soon. Bajaria’s priorities for the film division, according to THR, will be to maximize what’s been working best for them so far: mid-budget rom-coms, comedies, and family films. There will also be some bigger movies, à la Red Notice, their biggest English-language film ever, and awards contenders too, like this year’s Maestro or The Power of the Dog in recent memory.
Lin is replacing Scott Stuber, who had been at the head of the Netflix Film division since 2017, when Ted Sarandos and former co-CEO Reed Hastings began their expansion into the feature business after a successful venture in TV with House of Cards and the first season of Stranger Things. At the height of that process, Netflix released over 80 movies a year, effectively becoming the biggest production machinery in Hollywood — something that turned out to be very hard to manage in terms of quality control.
Stuber was always against the idea of more = better, according to years-old reports, and he recently departed his position to start his own production company. His first non-Netflix feature will be the Bob Dylan biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, which just landed at 20th Century and which Jeremy Allen White is in talks to star.
But in its post-Stuber era, Netflix has committed to shrinking its film ambitions and implementing more quality control over its slate. With the new re-org, and the addition of intermediate overseers, Lin is already starting to introduce those guardrails. No number has been given yet, but the thought in town is to reduce the number of films from 80 to 20-30.
Of course, it will take another year or two for us to notice this.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
