The senior leadership turmoil continues at Netflix as they make big moves to arrest their recent slip. Now comes the news that Dan Lin is out. Lin was the Chairman of Netflix films.
He follows chief content officer Bela Bajaria, and VP of film Doug Belgrad, out the door just after Netflix also let around 1,000 staff go. With new boss Peter Rice incoming, he will almost certainly be picking his new leadership team and bringing some people in with him.
It looks like Netflix is swinging back again, as Lin was brought in to replace Scott Stuber. Stuber had made Netflix a destination for some big names and big projects, with suitably big budgets. Lin’s mission was to reduce costs, and he introduced smaller, more prestige projects like Remarkably Bright Creatures among one or two tentpoles such as Gerwig’s Narnia project. Whereas all the press releases around Rice coming in talked of “creating big, buzzy hits” again.
On his exit, Lin released a statement, as shared via The Hollywood Reporter:
“It’s been a great privilege to lead this incredible team and work with amazing filmmakers and talent to bring their movies to the world. Thank you to Ted, Greg [Peters] and Bela for the opportunity.”
Netflix CEO Sarandos also released a statement:
“I started working with Dan well before he joined us in 2024 and his strength as a producer was always clear. Once he joined Netflix, I saw up close how his dedication to quality filmmaking, rigor around dealmaking and strategy, and collaborative spirit elevated our film business. I’m grateful to Dan for everything he’s done for Netflix films.”
In the corporate world, it is common for incoming senior leaders to demand carte blanche to entirely replace their entire direct report structure, and press releases like the one above are the top dogs way of signalling to each other that the outgoing leader was highly rated, and it was an amicable separation.
