While answering questions from analysts during quarterly earnings, Netflix co-CEO had high praise for his newly hired chief content officer Peter Rice, noting that his reputation for strong talent relations was a major reason why he has been called upon to lead the streamer out of its recent slump.
“I’ve known Peter for about 15 years, and I’ve got to tell you the outpouring of excitement for him about him coming to Netflix from across the industry and from the creative community has been nothing short of overwhelming,” Sarandos said on Tuesday.
“Peter Rice understands talent relations, and in a competitive market, creative talent have choices of where they want to work. We want Netflix to always be the place that they love to do the best work of their life. Peter is the exact right person to lead those efforts in the U.S. and around the world,” he added.
While Sarandos was responding to questions about Rice, he also gave some praise to Rice’s recently ousted successor Bela Bajaria, thanking her for the “incredible contributions” she brought to Netflix during her decade as chief content officer.
“She put a lot of great hits on the board. She led the teams through a lot of expansions of new types of content. She also did the hard work of building this incredible international team, who’s been making local for local content around the world, which has become a great competitive differentiator for us over the last decade. So I just want to take that moment to thank Bela,” Sarandos said.
Ricebuilt his executive career at Fox Searchlight and has partnered with filmmakers such as Danny Boyle, with whom he produced the hit 2002 horror film “28 Days Later” and the 2008 Best Picture Oscar winner “Slumdog Millionaire.” That film also grossed $378 million at the global box office and still stands as one of the top five highest grossing Best Picture winners since 2003.
After a tenure at Searchlight that also included “Juno,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” and “Sideways,” Rice became president of 21st Century Fox and CEO of Fox Networks Group. Once Disney acquired the studio, he became chairman of Walt Disney Television as well as chairman of General Entertainment for The Walt Disney Company, though he was let go in 2022 by then-CEO Bob Chapek.
During the earnings call, Sarandos said that when it comes to Netflix’s business strategy, he believes that the fundamentals don’t need to be changed, but “better execution in the U.S.” is needed.
“We see titles across Latin America, EMEA and APAC driving engagement, subscriber growth, revenue, and profit. Now the U.S. is also working; it’s just not growing as fast as it could, or as fast as we’d like,” he said. “There’s a ton to be excited about in our Q4 slate, and a ton to be excited about in 2027. And I believe that Peter will actually be able to have an impact on that project, those projects that are in the works, even in the short term.”
Those projects include one of Netflix’s biggest tentpole films it has ever produced: Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew,” which is reported to have a budget north of $250 million.
Set for theatrical release on Valentine’s/Presidents Day weekend in February 2027 ahead of a spring streaming release, the film marks Netflix’s deeper ventures into theatrical releases alongside films like “La Bola Negra,” which earned the second-highest per theater average ever for a non-English film from its New York/Los Angeles release this past weekend, and David Fincher’s “The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth,” which will be released exclusively on Imax screens on Thanksgiving weekend.
Netflix’s stock price has dropped 5.8% in after hours trading to $64.70 at time of writing. The stock has fallen 44.5% year over year.
