Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently talked about the hype around Barbie and Oppenheimer last year.
In an interview with a New York Times reporter, Ted claimed that the movies would’ve “enjoyed just as big an audience” on the streamer as they did in theaters.
When asked what sort of content sits well with Netflix, he replied, “I don’t think that there’s a clean answer because the best version of something may work really well for Netflix but just hasn’t worked to date. There’s some obvious ones, like we don’t do breaking news and that kind of thing, because I think there’s a lot of other outlets for it. People aren’t looking to us for that.”
The journalist then pointed out the theatrical releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer ended up garnering $1.44 billion and $951 million worldwide, respectively.
“Are there things that just don’t feel like they’re in your wheelhouse right now?” the reporter asked to which Ted replied, “Both of those movies would be great for Netflix. They definitely would have enjoyed just as big an audience on Netflix.”
“And so I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that certain kinds of movies do or don’t work. There’s no reason to believe that the movie itself is better in any size of screen for all people,” he added.
