[ad_1]
Zoom Director Steven Spielberg’s appearance at Comic-Con 2017.
Amblin Partners, the production company founded and chaired by director and producer Steven Spielberg, has signed a multi-year deal with streaming platform Netflix.
In a press release on Netflix, the two companies announced that the partnership will lead to “several new feature films each year.”
Some may see it as an unexpected turn from Spielberg’s company, given the director’s previous positions in film broadcasting. Two years ago, an Amblin spokesperson publicly announced that Spielberg intended to support changes to the Academy Awards that would reclassify Netflix movies as TV movies, ineligible for Academy Awards like Best Picture.
The push was planned at a time when the Netflix-distributed movie Roma was about to sweep up award shows. But in the end, the academy rejected calls from Spielberg and others to restrict eligibility.
As is often the case, today’s press release was accompanied by pre-written statements by several of the CEOs involved, including Spielberg himself. The quote attributed to him says:
Ads
At Amblin, storytelling will forever be at the heart of everything we do, and from the moment [Ted Sarandos, Netflix co-CEO and chief content officer] And a partnership discussion began, and it was just so obvious that we had a great opportunity to tell new stories together and reach audiences in new ways. This new route to our films, along with the stories we continue to tell with our longtime family at Universal and our other partners, will be incredibly satisfying to me personally because we’ll embark on it with Ted, and I can’t wait to get started with him, [Scott Stuber, Netflix Head of Global Film]And the entire Netflix team.
Amblin is not new to streaming. The company has already produced films that have been featured prominently or exclusively on streaming platforms, perhaps most notably the Netflix original The Trial of the Chicago 7 that was released last fall. Amblin has also produced a post-apocalyptic drama called Finch which is scheduled to air on Apple TV+ later this year.
Today’s announcement could be a win for Netflix, which is now facing several surviving competitors (like HBO Max or Disney+) in the TV/movie streaming space it once dominated.
But if you’re a Spielberg fan, don’t get too excited just yet: Amblin makes films by directors other than Spielberg, so this deal doesn’t guarantee we’ll see the next Spielberg movie on Netflix.
[ad_2]
Picture Credit!