Ben Affleck may have played a role in Dan Lin being shown the door at Netflix, sources say.
News dropped yesterday that Lin was out as the streamer’s head of film amid a major shakeup.
We’d previously reported that Affleck had soured on Lin, an executive said to be making $12 million a year, over the release of the star’s latest film, “Animals” — and that Lin didn’t introduce the film at its premiere, and was only spotted on the red carpet.
But sources say the issues were also over Netflix’s purchase of Affleck’s AI company, InterPositive.
We hear that Lin, known for his penny-pinching, questioned the deal that Netflix made to buy Affleck’s outfit for $587 million.
Then again, Lin wasn’t the only one inside Netflix who was skeptical of the eye-popping price — and many staffers there remain unsure if the tech is worth the bill.
“Part of Dan’s appeal when he was hired was his dispassionate approach to budgets and cutting output, which is what [co-CEO Ted Sarandos] wanted at the time and liked about him. But that same dispassionate personality ultimately cost him his job,” says an exec at a production company with business at Netflix.
Sources further tell Page Six Hollywood that Lin and Affleck also clashed over some notes Lin allegedly gave on Affleck’s latest film “Animals.” Other employees apparently also saw the notes, sources said, and Affleck was outraged when they trickled back to him, we’re told.
“[Ben] was like, ‘I’m not talking to them anymore,” says a source familiar with the drama. A source previously had told us Affleck “couldn’t stand” Lin.
Meanwhile, we hear that Affleck likes Netflix VP Ori Marmur — who could be promoted into Doug Belgrad’s slot, sources said. (Belgrad served as Lin’s No. 2 and was cut from the company last week.)
Reps did not comment. (When we’d previously reached out about the alleged rift between Affleck and Lin over “Animals,” Affleck’s reps told us: “We’ve had nothing but the best and most supportive partnership with Netflix.”)
Variety reported yesterday that Lin also clashed with another filmmaker, Greta Gerwig, and that the two fell out during a Zoom call about her big-budget project, “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” — when Lin was seen as being “dismissive” to the director. The falling out prompted Gerwig’s new agents at CAA to go to Sarandos about the matter, and Lin stepped back from the film so Belgrad could take over, the report said.
We’d first reported that Lin was in the firing line last week when the Netflix layoffs hit — and well-liked Belgrad, a former Sony vet usually known for his solid talent relations — stepped down.
A day later, Netflix axed its chief content officer Bela Bajaria in a shocking shakeup, and we reported that Bajaria only learned of her firing at 5p.m. on Wednesday before a VIP screening of “Nobody Wants This,” after going through the company’s brutal layoffs, sources said. (Netflix did not comment, except for Sarandos’ statement saying, in part, “I want to thank Bela for a decade of dedication, innovation, creativity and leadership.”)
Either way, now the race is on to replace Lin after Netflix swiftly closed the deal for former Disney TV boss Peter Rice to take over Bajaria’s role.
The list of replacement names being bandied about includes a number of veteran former studio heads as well as a relative newcomer, indie darling Noah Sacco of A24. The cool company is currently riding high on the current Elizabeth Holmes doc, “You Can See Everything,” as well as this year’s hits “Backrooms,” “The Invite” and others.
Established names we are hearing in the mix include: Stacey Snider, Jeff Robinov and Emma Watts, plus DC Studios’ Peter Safran.
- Watts worked closely with Rice for nearly two decades at Fox before they both transitioned to Disney following the 2019 merger. Snider and Rice also worked together at 21st Century Fox from 2016 to 2018.
- Robinov was president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group from 2007-2013, a magical stretch in which the studio ranked No. 1 at the domestic box office for seven years in a row, boosted by such films as “The Dark Knight,” the “Harry Potter” franchise, “Inception,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and Oscar Best Picture winner “Argo.”
- Sacco has no experience at a major studio, having worked for more than a decade at A24 and the Weinstein Co. before that. But he is the executive most responsible for the weekend’s most talked about film with the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim doc on Holmes. Rice’s producing deal was at A24, where he worked closely with Sacco.
- DC Studios co-chief Safran’s contract is up in the early summer. As a producer, Safran is behind the hugely profitable “Conjuring” franchise in addition to running the DC portfolio for both film and TV.
- Also said to be in the mix are frontrunners Pamela Abdy and Michael De Luca, the former co-chairs and CEOs of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group. Multiple sources believe that either De Luca or Abdy could have the Netflix job wrapped up solo.
One well-placed source could see Sacco landing at Netflix and Robinov returning to Warner Bros., which also has movie boss vacancies to fill.
The Netflix job will report to Rice, who succeeds Bajaria, and is part of the latest course correction for the streamer that hired Lin two years ago in a bid for fiscal prudence.
(In the three years since Rice’s exit from Disney — courtesy of former CEO Bob Chapek — Rice has brought six films to the screen in challenging environs for producers, including “The Social Reckoning” and “Misty Green.” “It would be hard to find any producer at any level, let alone someone just starting out, who could match that level of productivity,” says one agent with A-listers.
Meanwhile, we hear Sarandos boasted recently to a fellow industryite that in his entire career he has never received more congratulatory calls than he has about bringing Rice into the fold. Still, Sarandos’ hands certainly got bloody in the process.
We exclusively reported that Bajaria was let go after being reassured her job was secure and she’d heard the rumors she would be replaced, sources said.
Soon enough, the music will stop and the vacant executive chairs will be filled at Netflix and Warners.
And there may be a move toward the type of executive who says less and allows the work to do the talking. By all accounts, Rice is that type.
Back in 2018, former Variety editor Peter Bart wrote about the most powerful TV executive with the lowest profile. “He dislikes parties, doesn’t do interviews, avoids fundraisers and, in meetings, may be cryptic to the point of silence,” Bart wrote back then, anointing Rice the new face of the “Silent CEO” era.