Dan Lin, the new film boss at Netflix, says his company will no longer work with directors “who still want theatrical.” David Fincher has his latest project for Netflix – which isn’t called The Adventures Of Cliff Booth – going to IMAX cinemas this year. Further ahead, Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is also ... Netflix says it won’t work with directors who like cinemas
Dan Lin, the new film boss at Netflix, says his company will no longer work with directors “who still want theatrical.”
David Fincher has his latest project for Netflix – which isn’t called The Adventures Of Cliff Booth – going to IMAX cinemas this year. Further ahead, Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is also getting the large screen treatment.
According to Dan Lin, chairman of Netflix’s film division, however, the streaming giant won’t be working with directors who insist on a cinema release for their work in future.
“There is a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical,” Lin said in a widely-shared quote from The New York Times’ recent profile. “Those are filmmakers that we’ve accepted we just won’t work with,” Lin told the paper with what the article describes as his “trademark bluntness.”
It certainly feels like a stark message to filmmakers who’ve previously managed to negotiate cinema releases as part of their deals with Netflix. From now on, what’s made for Netflix will stay on Netflix. Interestingly, Fincher’s lengthy contract with the firm also ends this year. By the sounds of things, it won’t be renewed unless the filmmaker agrees to Lin’s hard-line terms.
The New York Times piece draws a contrast between Lin and his predecessor, Scott Stuber, who actively courted major Hollywood filmmakers with multi-million dollar deals which also included the promise of a cinema release from time to time. It was Stuber who secured the services of such directors as Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and the above-mentioned Gerwig.
With Netflix having emerged as winner of the streaming wars and Hollywood in the process of being turned into a single mega-corporation, Lin is now overseeing a version of the company that makes dozens of films per year for less money. And one way of saving money is to spend less on expensive directors who make annoying demands about cinemas.
There’s an anecdote in the NYT piece about Lin courting Charlize Theron for the survival thriller, Apex. Ordinarily, a movie star of that calibre would be taken to an expensive restaurant and bought a fancy lunch. Instead, the negotiations took place at the canteen in Netflix’s office. Lin said that it was an effort to “make a big company feel small.”
The less charitable reading might be that, with Netflix now the biggest player in filmmaking, it can afford to make big movie stars feel small.
One final irony: Apex emerged on Netflix in April 2026. It’s not a classic by any means, but director Baltasar Kormakur directs some impressive set-pieces that sell the danger of its vertiginous heights and flesh-rending rapids. You know where Apex would have really worked? On a big screen. In a cinema.
