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Netflix’s Hollywood Red Line

As Hollywood grapples with the gritty new economics of streaming, industry dealmakers are closely watching whether Netflix will ever pull the ripcord on its singular refusal to provide backend comp.

Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos
Photo by Stefania D'Alessandro/Getty Images
Eriq Gardner
May 2, 2022

I’ve been talking with a lot of transactional attorneys in Hollywood, and the No. 1 topic by far right now is what’s going on with Netflix. The streamer was, until very recently, the most profligate content machine in Hollywood, spending tens of billions of dollars every year on dozens upon dozens of shows, many of them low quality. Now, with its stock in the toilet and layoffs on the horizon, everyone in town is looking to Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos for clues as to how Netflix might begin to pare back or restructure future deals.