Netflix Doubles Down on Theatrical Release Strategy: ‘Driving Folks to a Theater Is Just Not Our Business’

thewrap.com:

Ted Sorrandoes was asked point-blank in Tuesday’s quarterly earnings call about resisting Netflix’s current reluctance to give their films conventional theatrical releases, a stance that has now put the company at odds with most of their streaming competition.

The short answer: Don’t stop a horse in mid-stream.“The film division is doing great,” stated Sarandos. “They really are building out some great films.

The success at the Oscars [like “All Quiet on the Western Front”] was great but even better than that [was that] the movies that won so big were also very popular with fans.” We’re really happy with the investment in film.”The comments came as rival streaming companies, including Apple TV+ and Amazon’s Prime Video, reportedly made moves to invest around $1 billion each per year in theatrically-targeted movies.

Alongside David Zaslav’s stated preference for theatrical titles, this makes Netflix an outlier in still prioritizing streaming premieres sans more than a token theatrical commitment. “Remember there’s a lot of ways to create and collect demand for film,” he continued. “Driving folks to the theater is just not our business.”Netflix’s reluctance to embrace theatricality for its feature films is slowly becoming a potential sore spot, both in terms of generating revenue and chasing awards season glory.