Sure, the world is seemingly falling apart, as a global pandemic still continues to wreak havoc all over the planet. And in the US, we’ve decided to also add a bit of civil unrest and a Presidential Election to the mix, just to spice things up. But not everyone is hurting right, now, as we’ve seen Netflix reap some major rewards from this new world. And according to one of the executives at the streaming service, things are still looking good through the rest of 2020 and into 2021, as long as productions can start soon, that is.
Over the past several months, with people being stuck indoors, Netflix has thrived, adding millions of subscribers and becoming the go-to place to find high-quality film and TV entertainment when theaters are shuttered and network TV series experience a break in production. And though the production delay is affecting Netflix also, VP of Original Films, Tendo Nagenda, spoke to THR and said the streaming service has plenty of “runway” left with scores of original content ready to be unleashed through the end of the year.
“We have a lot of runway, definitely through 2020 and part of 2021,” he explained. “We want to get to work and back into production just like everybody else, and we want to get through this year. We’re still in pretty good shape.”
During the era of COVID-19, Netflix has released a number of huge film projects, including the most popular ever (according to the service, at least), “Extraction,” and the most recent hit, “The Old Guard.” In addition, the service has announced major new films from the likes of the Russo Brothers (with a $200 million-budgeted feature starring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling), among others. But the streamer isn’t content with this level of dominance. Nagenda explained that his sights are on some of the biggest names out there for future collaborations.
“I’d love to get Jordan Peele to make a Netflix film,” Nagenda said. “We love Chris Nolan, we love Quentin Tarantino. We have to concentrate our efforts on finding people of that talent level that we can work with as early as possible and then get them to make movies only for Netflix.”
Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually be history (fingers crossed it’s sooner rather than later—get your shit together, Florida!) and theaters will be back to relatively full capacity. Can Netflix continue to thrive with the expanded competition? Nagenda isn’t overly concerned.
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“There are still going to be plenty of movies that people will want to see in the theater,” he said. “I just think that there is also going to be an awareness that there is a super-high-quality film available that might or might not be in theaters. The choice is not going to be, ‘Do I go to the theater or do I watch something in the comfort of my own home?’ It’s going to be, ‘What do I want to watch and where can I find it?’ If that answer is on Netflix, and not in a theater, then people will be a lot more used to, and happy about, watching it at home.”
For now, people don’t even have that choice. So, in the meantime, Netflix is happy to keep you entertained.
