Netflix loses its film division chief amid layoffs

Netflix has parted ways with Dan Lin: he is leaving the post of chairman of the film division after less than three years in the role. His departure became known on October 19 — amid cuts that will affect approximately a thousand Netflix employees. This is the company's largest wave of layoffs since 2022.

There have been reshuffles on the upper floors of management as well. Before Lin, chief content officer Bela Bajaria left the company, as did film vice president Doug Belgrad and a number of senior managers on the series side. The chief content officer post went to Peter Rice, and according to sources, it is he who will be looking for a new head of the film area: a successor to Lin will not be named until Rice arrives. On Monday morning, Lin was supposed to meet with film department staff after the news was announced.

Why Netflix hired Lin and what he managed to do

Lin came to Netflix in 2024, taking the place of then-film chief Scott Stuber. Under Stuber, the streamer became a place where well-known directors could get big budgets and fees while traditional studios were shifting to a more frugal model; the service's films regularly landed Oscar nominations for best picture, but the top awards never went to Netflix.

Lin, who was hired by Bajaria, was brought in to contain spending while raising the quality of the entire slate, not just the projects of directors with big names. Under him, the film department was reorganized by genre: areas such as science fiction, romantic comedies and family film went to individual managers, among them Kira Goldberg and Niija Kuykendall. Netflix began more often taking mid-budget films that theatrical distributors were not interested in — including the major book adaptations Remarkably Bright Creatures and People We Meet on Vacation, as well as the action films Apex and The RIP. The big bets remained in place: Greta Gerwig's "The Chronicles of Narnia" comes out next year, and David Fincher has The Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth in the works — but the flow of such projects slowed down.

Lin came to the streamer from his own production company Rideback, which has to its credit "Aladdin" with a box office of more than a billion dollars, as well as the films "It" and "The Lego Movie." With his move to Netflix, he left the company to his partners, and they released another billion-dollar hit — the live-action "Lilo & Stitch." Now that the work at Netflix is finished, he may return to Rideback.

The parting was handled properly. Netflix confirmed the departure and circulated statements from both sides. Ted Sarandos said that he had begun working with Lin even before his arrival at the company in 2024, and then saw up close how Lin's devotion to quality filmmaking, his discipline in deals and strategy, and his ability to work as part of a team had strengthened Netflix's film business. Lin himself called it a privilege to have been able to lead this team and to work with directors and artists, and thanked Ted, Greg Peters and Bela.

Why this is happening

The change of film chief looks like part of a broader restructuring: the cuts affected several upper levels of management at once, not a single area. By the estimates of the trade press, the service has lately not been holding the audience's attention at the pace that would satisfy co-CEO Ted Sarandos: viewing and subscriber growth are stagnating. This is probably also connected to the bet on a flatter structure with fewer layers of management between an idea and production.

In a letter to employees, Sarandos indicated that under Rice's leadership Netflix will focus on "creating big, loud hits." For the slate this probably means fewer projects, but more expensive ones aimed at a wide audience; in this logic it is harder for auteur and experimental ideas to break through, and competition for every slot grows. While there is no new film chief and the chief content officer is only just starting work, decisions on greenlights and budgets usually slow down — this is felt first of all by contract studios and creators waiting for an answer on their projects.

Community reaction

Dan Lin's departure from the post of head of Netflix's film division is being discussed more as a personnel symptom than as grounds for rejoicing or outrage. Under Matthew Belloni's post and in responses to pieces by trade publications the tone is skeptical: many believe Lin was made a scapegoat. He was hired to cut the number of pictures and spending, he did that — and he was removed when the strategy failed to produce loud events. Separately, people repeat that the same trap existed for his predecessor Scott Stuber: the service's model requires volume, and stable quality cannot be achieved at such volume, and changing the chief does not fix that.

The second line is complaints about Lin himself. He is reproached for the hard rejection of the big screen and for spoiled relations with directors, including around "Narnia." Some commentators are glad about the departure and are waiting for new people at the helm. People from production, meanwhile, are rather sympathetic: the assignment to cut costs after a period of large volumes was difficult from the outset, and the winding down of shoots hit the stages of Los Angeles harder than it looks from the outside.

"It looks like Dan Lin was fired partly for doing exactly what he was hired at Netflix to do: reduce the number of films and get spending under control. That is exactly what he did."

— @marlaseraphine (X)

"You can fire Dan Lin, Scott Stuber or anyone else, but a structural problem cannot be solved by changing executives: the service churns out too much product and at the same time expects stable quality."

— @rocketspv (X)

"The hard bet on showing only on the service completely spoiled Netflix's relations with leading directors. He didn't just cut budgets — he alienated creators by declaring war on the familiar big screen."

— @nightwriter22 (X)