Hired by Netflix to succeed Scott Stuber, Hollywood producer Dan Lin (“The Departed”) began his new poster yesterday as the streaming giant’s new head of their film division.
In the report from THR, the outlet cites a blunt conversation between Lin and the streamer’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, before he was hired. During that chat, Lin reportedly pointed out that their “movies were not great, and the financials didn’t add up.” Bajaria was said to appreciate the producer’s honesty and then probed to see if the veteran producer would be willing to leave his company Rideback to come work for Netflix. It’s unclear if Lin’s candor got him the job, but it’s clearly this kind of frank assessment of Netflix’s issues that the company wanted to hear and likely improve themselves.
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Part of Lin’s reevaluation of the streamer might be reducing its output as well, something that Netflix has been criticized for in the past, too beyond just the sometimes dubious quality of its films: flooding the zone with too much content and content that sometimes barely gets promoted.
“Netflix, the victor and the great disrupter of Hollywood, now needs stability,” the report reads. “It has already been well reported that Netflix has wanted to get into the ‘fewer, bigger, better’ business for some time, and Lin, who has a reputation for coming in on budget, may be the executive to finally get them there.”
According to insiders, Lin will adopt a different approach from the Scott Stuber era. “The Lin-era Netflix film slate will be made up of a majority of midsized offerings, with the streamer having found its biggest hits with comedies, rom-coms, and family films. Scattered in, there will be a handful of big movies and requisite awards contenders.”
It’s worth noting that Lin is not a stranger to Netflix. He has previously collaborated with the streaming giant on the popular live-action series adaptation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” This familiarity with the platform and decades of working within Hollywood as a producer at various studios, building those relationships, should be reassuring factors in his new role.
His hiring isn’t all that shocking. Lin had been one of the influential film producers in line to oversee DC Studios before Warner Bros. Discovery ultimately landed on James Gunn and Peter Safran, so his viability to run a studio or film division had been spotted for some time now. The problem with his DC Studios negotiations at the time was that he was still determining how Rideback would operate without him. In this Netflix gig, that issue has been ironed out: he’ll retain a stake in Rideback with partner Jonathan Eirich and Rideback COO Michael Lofaso taking the reins as the new co-CEOs of the company.
With a prolific career spanning over 20 years in Hollywood, it’s no surprise that a seasoned producer like Dan Lin has navigated between various studios, leaving his mark on projects such as “The Two Popes,” “The Lego Movie,” “Sherlock Holmes,” the MonsterVerse franchise, the live-action “Aladdin” remake at Disney, and most recently, the live-action “Lilo & Stitch” movie. His experience in developing franchises from the ground up instills confidence in his ability to elevate Netflix’s original films.
