Days of fire for Netflix: the streaming giant, apparently due to very slow growth and viewership not meeting expectations, is carrying out cuts, laying off nearly 1,000 people company-wide. Although until yesterday it was denied that among the laid-off there was Dan Lin, head of the Original Films division since mid-2024, the news arrived promptly, with a move that is fueling controversy. Considering the reasons why Lin had been placed in that position, those targets were not achieved? Did something specific cost him his job?
Dan Lin leaves Netflix, no longer head of the Original Films division: is it Narnia’s fault?
Dan Lin had been chosen by Netflix’s top executives to succeed Scott Stuber in April 2024: those executives, i.e. Ted Sarandos and peers, were not happy with a strategy for original films that had leaned toward big-name auteurs or casts without regard to costs, with monumental budget outlays for works such as Red Notice, The Electric State, and The Irishman. Lin had taken the mission to heart, according to gossip fed to Deadline perhaps a bit too eagerly, generally favoring cheaper, more mainstream-oriented projects, with proposals more steered by the infamous algorithm, handling prominent figures like Ben Affleck and Greta Gerwig with little tact. In particular, it seems there was a months-long fallout with the latter regarding the management of one of the few monumental auteur-driven projects remaining, namely Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, significant because it was conceived as one of Netflix’s first real theatrical releases, scheduled for theaters from February 11, 2027. The crisis would have subsided following intervention from the highest levels, but it appears Lin was sidelined from that project, shortly after the dispute. Deadline sources deny that the layoff was solely due to that: since his appointment Lin had not managed to deliver big numbers, except in a few cases like The Rip or Swapped, especially considering that the KPop Demon Hunters phenomenon, Netflix’s most-watched original film of all time, was actually approved by Stuber.
What happens next? Other persistent rumors want the Original Films division (at this point one might dub it “cinematographic”) entrusted to Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, former presidents of Warner Bros. Pictures, who were just ousted after the Paramount-Warner merger. Certainly they’re heavyweight names, but some of their bets at Warner didn’t pay off, such as the latest Digger; one wonders how they would fare in a system that can lay off a top executive in as little as two and a half years, a short span to see the full results of a strategy in this industry.
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