In 2022, Dan Lin, producer of “The Lego Movie” and “It”, was in negotiations to become head of DC Studios. It was a unique opportunity to reimagine the company behind Superman, Batman and other costumed heroes. But the talks broke down. One of the alleged reasons was that David Zaslav, head of DC’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lin did not reach an agreement on how to adequately compensate him for leaving his production company Rideback for the new position.
So why, less than two years later, has Lin decided to take a different corporate job, overseeing Netflix’s film division? And what kind of obstacles will she have to overcome if she wants Netflix to improve the quality of the movies she makes?
For Lin, Netflix offers a broad consumer base, dwarfing that of rivals such as Max or Disney+. It is also more stable than other media companies. Its shares have suffered a sharp drop due to Wall Street’s skepticism about the streaming economy, but they have not collapsed like those of Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney or Paramount Global. At Netflix, Lin has the rare opportunity to help shape the future of the movie business at a time when traditional movie studios are struggling to find ways to reconnect with their audiences. Streaming has become the way most people watch movies, and Netflix has a clear advantage over its dizzying number of rivals in attracting customers.
The Berlin film “In the Belly of a Tiger” puts world cinema icons at the service of a story about an Indian village and releases a trailer (EXCLUSIVE)
The family-owned dry cleaner that serves film studios and fashion brands
Still, many in town were surprised that Lin relinquished control of his 16-year-old baby, Rideback, the company responsible for hits like “Aladdin” and the “Sherlock Holmes” film series starring Robert Downey Jr. Netflix You are not going to buy Rideback. It will continue producing films without its founder at the helm and with executives Jonathan Eirich and Michael LoFaso as co-CEOs. And while Netflix is known for offering its executives generous pay packages, the high-profile nature of the job means that Lin, who was able to go about his business without much fanfare for most of his career, will come under more intense scrutiny. That means a bigger target on her back.
But Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria, to whom Lin will report, clearly thought that Lin and his reputation for creating popular movie franchises out of toys (“The Lego Movie”), killer clowns (Stephen King’s It) and 19th century detectives (“Sherlock Holmes”) was just what the company needed. She was quick to announce Lin’s hiring just over a month after previous president Scott Stuber resigned in late January.
Sources close to Lin say that he saw the opportunity to create a dynamic similar to that of Rideback within Netflix: make auteur films by established masters and, at the same time, mentor a new generation of filmmakers. Some industry colleagues are even wondering if by taking on the film chief role, Lin is positioning himself for an even bigger job at the streamer down the road.
With Stuber, Netflix was able to become a true studio, producing big-budget movies with big talent. When he joined the company, Stuber’s main goal was to get big name directors like Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”), Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”) and David Fincher (“The Killer”) comfortable with the idea of producing films that would be broadcast on streaming instead of in movie theaters. (In some cases the theatrical release was limited so that the jump was less abrupt). And many of those films earned Oscar nominations and critical acclaim. But Netflix also earned a reputation for being overindulgent: It spent more than $100 million on Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” without winning any awards.
But more worrying was Netflix’s struggle to make many compelling, worthwhile movies. Netflix spent a fortune on action projects like “Red Notice,” which featured Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot and terrible special effects, as well as Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans’ spy thriller “The Gray Man,” ridiculed by critics, and, at first, the Will Smith adventure “Bright.” “Netflix has a massive audience, but there are more options than ever available to its customers when it comes to streaming. If Netflix doesn’t find a way to making action films, comedies and other popular genres that are better than those offered by Disney+ or Max, you risk losing subscribers to them.
The company has also struggled to find the right cadence for its releases. At one point, he committed to releasing a new movie every week, only to backtrack and cut that number in half. With Lin, will Netflix make fewer bets and spend more time developing material, or will it return to the volume business?
One of Netflix’s main problems is that it often has to bid higher than its competitors for shiny packages, regardless of their quality, because it lacks intellectual property of its own. Unlike Disney, Netflix can’t make live-action versions of dying animated classics or exploit “Star Wars” or “The Avengers” for a series of one-off adventures or interconnected cinematic universes.
But as a producer, Lin has been especially adept at finding unlikely material with franchise potential. Before “The Lego Movie,” brick toys didn’t seem to have much narrative potential. But Lin and his creative team found a way to use them to create a series of films with enough humor and heart to appeal to both parents and children. And in “Sherlock Holmes,” he was able to reinvent the Baker Street detective as a steampunk fighter, turning to Guy Ritchie to give the character a gritty makeover. There’s also “It,” a sprawling novel by Stephen King that had been stymied by attempts to bring it to the screen; Instead, the 2017 reboot became the horror auteur’s most commercially successful film because it stayed faithful to the source material by dividing it into two stories. The popularity of the films led to a prequel television series, “Welcome to Derry.”
Plus, Lin has a reputation for frugality, something Netflix will no doubt appreciate as all media companies face increasingly tight budgets. “The Lego Movie” cost about $60 million, while “It: Chapter One” was produced for a cheap $35 million. Lin also has experience in a wide range of films. He has produced summer blockbusters, big family animations and prestige dramas, and worked with Netflix on the Oscar-nominated “The Two Popes.” And although he has been his own boss for some time, Lin has experience working as an employee in larger institutions. Before founding Rideback, he spent eight years at Warner Bros. as senior vice president of production, working on films such as Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed.”
There are also Lin’s personal qualities. His colleagues describe him as an upright man, so even-keeled that he hardly seems to break a sweat or lose his temper when problems arise. Lin also tries to give creatives freedom, letting them make their films without drowning them in notes, sources say. One film executive pointed to the “Lego” franchise and its directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller as an example of his ability to cultivate talent. But despite his support for filmmakers, Lin “isn’t afraid to say when something isn’t working creatively,” another source added.
Lin has also demonstrated his astute business sense. One talent agent was impressed when Lin joined forces with Disney to take on certain live-action reboots of animated classics that the studio didn’t want to do in-house. The jury is still out on Lin’s remake of “Lilo & Stitch,” which is nearing production completion.
It can’t be easy for Lin to leave Rideback after nearly two decades, although people close to Lin insist that the company will continue under the leadership of Eirich (married to Daria Cercek, a highly regarded Paramount executive) and LaFaso. In recent months, Lin had been gathering key animators to discuss launching a Rideback animation studio. Plans to build that unit will continue under new management, a person with knowledge of the company said.
Right now, Lin is busy receiving congratulatory calls, texts and emails. But he’s in for a period of adjustment as he goes from making movies to navigating corporate politics. A former studio head noted in that things change when you are responsible for supervising an entire series of films. Instead of being intimately involved in the production of a particular film, Lin will spend his days in meetings about budgets and quarterly earnings. That means he will have to delegate and multitask if he wants to be effective.
That’s not the only thing that will be different for Lin.
“He’s going to say ‘no’ a lot more than ever in his career,” the studio head said. “It’s great to be the person who says ‘yes’. It doesn’t feel good to say ‘no.'”
2024-03-04 10:28:09
#Netflixs #film #chief #Dan #Lin #streaming #service #worthwhile #movies
