Dan Lin Is Out as Netflix Film Chief After Bajaria

Netflix dismissed film chief Dan Lin on October 16, a day after it replaced content head Bela Bajaria with Peter Rice. Lin had started on April 1, 2024, and was still at a campus screening for La Bola Negra on October 18. Rice will run film until a new head is named, and the only pair being seriously discussed wants theatrical terms the company has long refused.

Sarandos Rang Lin the Day After Bajaria Left

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos called Lin on Friday, October 16, three people with knowledge of the conversation said. Bajaria’s exit had been announced the day before. Lin still went to the Academy Gala on October 17, in the same room as Sarandos, and to the La Bola Negra tastemaker screening on October 18. He met his film staff on October 19. Netflix then confirmed the departure and put out statements from both men.

Lin said, “It’s been a great privilege to lead this incredible team and work with amazing filmmakers and talent to bring their movies to the world. Thank you to Ted, Greg and Bela for the opportunity.” Sarandos said he had worked with Lin before 2024, that his “dedication to quality filmmaking, rigor around dealmaking and strategy, and collaborative spirit elevated our film business,” and that he was grateful for what Lin had done for Netflix films.

When I took this job, Bela gave me a simple piece of advice: Be yourself. You work here because it’s personal. Because of that unspoken pact between your individual passion for movies and the audiences we serve. To them, movies aren’t about business. They’re about feeling something.

Dan Lin, in an October 19 memo to staff

Matthew Belloni posted on October 19 that Lin had been fired over the weekend and that new leadership would be named later by Rice. One Netflix insider summed up the week as collateral damage. That is the blunt reading of a five-day wipe of the people who had been running movies and series.

The Cost-Cutter Mandate Lin Was Hired For

Netflix named Lin on February 28, 2024, to replace Scott Stuber, who had run film since 2017. Lin reported to Bajaria, who had been chief content officer since January 2023 and had been at the company since 2016. Stuber’s years were the ones in which Netflix paid up for Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuarón and Jane Campion, and also poured money into spectacles such as Red Notice and The Gray Man.

Lin was hired to spend less and lift the floor of the slate, not only the films from famous directors. He reorganized film by genre instead of by budget band, with Ori Marmur on action, fantasy, horror and sci-fi, Kira Goldberg on thrillers, dramas and family, Niija Kuykendall on faith, young adult and holiday, and Jason Young on comedies and rom-coms. The division leaned into mid-size book adaptations such as People We Meet on Vacation and Remarkably Bright Creatures, and mid-budget action such as Apex and The Rip.

He said in June that he had greenlit or acquired 88 movies. He also spent one day a week with animation, where KPop Demon Hunters became a breakout and later won an Academy Award. The job was a five-year deal. Two and a half years is halfway. He came from Rideback, the company behind the Lego movies, the It films, and the $1 billion live-action Aladdin. After he left, Rideback landed another $1 billion film with the live-action Lilo & Stitch.

A June interview framed him as done coddling Hollywood, unwilling to fawn over stars or write blank checks. That was the brief. Removing him now, after he cut volume and cost, is a reset of the people around Sarandos more than a scorecard on those 88 titles.

First Box-Office Report, Then the Film Chief Goes

The same weekend, Netflix posted theatrical grosses for the first time. La Bola Negra, the Spanish-language awards film by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, opened October 16 in New York and Los Angeles at the Paris Theater, the Angelika, AMC Century City and AMC Burbank. Netflix said the film took $277,500 from four U.S. theaters, a per-screen average of $69,375.

OPENING WEEKEND, LIMITED

Netflix called that the second-highest per-screen average ever for a non-English-language film, behind Parasite, and the highest ever for a Spanish-language film. Box Office Mojo lists a Spain gross of $26,477,867 and a worldwide total of $26,839,616. The company is giving the film a 45-day theatrical window. It opened October 16 and is due on the service December 2, with a wider U.S. break planned for November 6.

Lin had argued inside the company that family IP should get exclusive theatrical runs before streaming, people with knowledge of those talks said. Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew and a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film are the tests of that argument next year. Posting grosses is the public half of the same turn. For years Netflix graded most movies by how a Netflix thriller’s view count moved in a week, not by tickets. The film chief who helped drag the company toward a box-office scoreboard is gone the morning after that scoreboard went live.

Who Wants the Film Chair, and on What Terms?

Rice will oversee the films division until a new head is announced. The names that keep coming back are Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, the former heads of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, who are treated as a package. They were passed over at the new Paramount-Warner operation after Netflix lost its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery to Paramount Skydance. People close to De Luca say he would report to Rice. They also say he will not sell a 45-day window to the directors he has worked with, among them Ryan Coogler, Paul Thomas Anderson and Ridley Scott.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The vacancy: Lin is out and Rice is the interim boss of film until he hires someone.
• The timing: A successor is not expected before Rice’s first day, and his first day is October 26.
• The pair in the rumor: De Luca and Abdy are still closing the payout on their Warner Bros. contracts and cannot take a new job until that is done.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The hire: No offer has been announced, and Netflix has not said De Luca and Abdy are coming.
• The window: No public pledge from Sarandos matches the longer theatrical runs that pair would need.

That is the live trade. Netflix gets two studio operators with deep talent ties only if it behaves more like a studio. If it will not move past a 45-day window, it keeps an empty chair and a Searchlight veteran as a stopgap.

Narnia’s $250 Million Bet Now Has No Film Head

The movies already in the pipe do not pause for an org chart. David Fincher’s The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, with Brad Pitt, is due later this fall. Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is a $250 million theatrical-first bet for next year. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is on the same theatrical track. La Bola Negra is already in theaters.

THE SLATE SITTING WITHOUT A FILM CHIEF

• La Bola Negra: In a 45-day theatrical run now, streaming on December 2.
• Cliff Booth: Fincher and Pitt, still headed for a fall date.
• Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew: Gerwig’s $250 million film, with Lin already off the project.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Another family title Lin had pushed toward a real theatrical window.

Four people said Lin and Gerwig clashed on a Zoom earlier this year about Narnia’s progress, and that Lin came off as dismissive on a call packed with other Netflix executives. Bajaria then called producer Amy Pascal to smooth it over. Bryan Lourd, Gerwig’s agent at CAA, took the complaint to Sarandos. Lin was pulled off the film. Doug Belgrad, the VP of film, stepped in as the Netflix executive on the project, then lost his job in the October 14 cuts. None of those people said the Zoom got Lin fired.

There is also talk of a strain with Ben Affleck around Animals. Treat that as gossip unless someone on the record owns it. The load-bearing fact is simpler. The most expensive film on the slate no longer has the executive who greenlit the theatrical-first plan, or the deputy who replaced him on the movie.

October 26 Is When Film Reports to Rice

The content purge ran five days, then stopped on an empty film job and a start date.

THE WEEK NETFLIX CLEARED ITS FILM BENCH

1. October 14, 2026: Sarandos and co-CEO Greg Peters tell staff they are cutting about 1,000 jobs, 6% of the company, mostly in product, technology, legal and HR. The cuts also take Belgrad and independent-films director Sheroum Kim, plus TV executives Lisa Lang McMullen, James Oh, Carolina Garcia and Andrew McQuinn.
2. October 15, 2026: Bajaria leaves after nearly 10 years. Netflix names Rice Chief Content Officer, effective October 26, over scripted and unscripted series, film and live events in every region.
3. October 16, 2026: Sarandos calls Lin and dismisses him. La Bola Negra opens in four U.S. theaters.
4. October 18, 2026: Netflix posts the $277,500 gross. Lin attends the campus screening anyway.
5. October 19, 2026: Lin meets his teams. The company confirms the exit.
6. October 20, 2026: Netflix reports third-quarter results after markets close.
7. October 26, 2026: Rice starts. Film still has no named chief.

Rice ran Fox Searchlight when it released Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine and Sideways. He later ran Disney’s general entertainment group, was ousted in June 2022 under Bob Chapek, and had been producing films since, including the 28 Years Later series and The Social Reckoning. Sarandos called him “one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry” and said Netflix would focus on “creating big, buzzy hits.”

The company still has more than 325 million subscribers. Its share price is down more than 40% over the last year. Sarandos said in late September it is not growing as fast as he wants. Some people around town say Lin was removed so that story could be sold as a clean slate on earnings day. Others say he never found the balance between sticky streaming titles and theatrical experiments. The Gerwig meeting is a sideshow those same people decline to blame.

Rice now holds series, film and live events, and he holds them before he has walked in. Lin goes back to the producer life that minted Aladdin. De Luca and Abdy wait on a contract payout and on a theatrical promise. Until someone writes that promise down, Netflix has a Searchlight executive at the top of content, a Spanish-language film on a box-office chart it had never published, and no film chief to take the call on a $250 million Narnia.