Netflix’s Ted Sarandos says that they will stick to Warner Bros.’ current 45-day theatrical window
Netflix in the News
It’s been a busy year for Netflix. And this morning, the streamer made headlines for a deal unrelated to Warner Bros. It was recently reported that the company has just signed a Pay-1 global deal with Sony for an industry first. This historic deal will see Sony give exclusive streaming rights to Netflix after their films complete the time on their full theatrical and entertainment windows. The agreement was closed at over a whopping $7 billion. Per Deadline, “The big deal here is the overseas portion of the pay-1 deal. Sony movies will no longer be split up among myriad parties in their offshore pay-1 window.”
Ted Sarandos calms theatrical concerns
As Netflix works to fully close the deal with Warner Bros., Sarandos claims people are misunderstanding Netflix and in a new interview with The New York Times, he attempts to put fears of movie futures to rest. When told that people are skeptical of his commitment, Sarandos explains,
I understand that folks are emotional about it because they love it and they don’t want it to go away. And they think that we’ve been doing things to make it go away. We haven’t. When this deal closes, we will own a theatrical distribution engine that is phenomenal and produces billions of dollars of theatrical revenue that we don’t want to put at risk. We will run that business largely like it is today, with 45-day windows. I’m giving you a hard number. If we’re going to be in the theatrical business, and we are, we’re competitive people — we want to win. I want to win opening weekend. I want to win box office.”
When asked if he regrets saying that the theatrical business is an “outmoded” idea, he responds,
You have to listen to that quote again. I said ‘outmoded for some.’ I mean, like the town that Sinners is supposed to be set in does not have a movie theater there. For those folks, it’s certainly outmoded. You’re not going to get in the car and go to the next town to go see a movie. But my daughter lives in Manhattan. She could walk to six multiplexes, and she’s in the theaters twice a week. Not outmoded for her at all.”
When the interviewer addressed how Netflix changed the movie plane with fewer people going to the theater in favor of staying home to watch a movie, Sarandos thinks streaming and theaters actually go hand-in-hand. He explains, “You have to give them something to watch. And I think we’ve got to take ownership of the idea that when people are excited to go out and see something, they go. You’ve seen it in some really nice upside at the box office this year. You’ve seen it in our Stranger Things finale experience. You saw it in our KPop Demon Hunters experience with people. You give people a reason to leave the house, they will gladly leave the house.
I would say one of the other myths about all this is that we thought of going to the theaters as competition for Netflix. It absolutely is not. When you go out to see a movie in the theater, if it was a good movie, when you come home, the first thing you want to do is watch another movie. If anything, I think it helps, you know, encourage the love of films.
I did not get in this business to hurt the theatrical business. I got into this business to help consumers, to help movie fans.”
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