After only three years, Netflix has fired its film chief, Daniel Lin.
Last week, Netflix fired its chief content officer, Bela Bajaria.
Currently, Netflix is in the process of cutting 1,000 other jobs, the biggest layoff by a wide margin in the company’s history.
“Lin was let go at the start of the weekend and will address his teams throughout the day Monday. It’s unclear who will replace Lin, and rumors have abounded that ousted Warner Bros. film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy could be in the running,” writes IndieWire.
“Netflix is clearly in the midst of a major restructuring that goes beyond layoffs. Lauded film and TV executive Peter Rice has already been tapped to replace Bajaria.”
There’s more to it than that…
“The bigger picture isn’t pretty for Netflix,” reports World of Reel. “Engagement at Netflix grew just 2 percent in the first half of 2026, and the stock is down more than 40 percent since the failed bid for Warner Bros.”
Lin was specifically brought in to counter the indulgence of his predecessor, who handed blank checks to A-list filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Joel and Ethan Coen, David Fincher, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Iñárritu, Jane Campion, and Steven Soderbergh. The problem is that those investments didn’t pay off with the kind of timeless, prestige classics and legitimizing Oscar wins Netflix hoped for — although I honestly believe time will be very kind to Scorsese’s masterpiece The Irishman.
In his cost-cutting role, Lin apparently angered David Fincher over Finch’s desired reshoots for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth. Recently, there are reports he bitterly bumped heads with director Greta Gerwig about his ideas to “fix” Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. Time will likely prove Lin’s biggest mistake was handing the beloved Narnia franchise to a non-Christian and extremist feminist.
Overall, though, while Lin may have succeeded in cutting costs, where he failed miserably was finding and producing mid-budget movies that were any good. Netflix remains a half-trillion-dollar pile of below-average content. Prior to Lin, Netflix could at least claim the company was working with top-shelf directors to achieve their dream projects. Sure, most of the movies sucked, but they had big names attached to the suck.
Under Lin there was still the suck, only without the prestige of the Big Names.
Between production and promotion costs, Netflix will probably pour about a billion dollars into Cliff Booth and Narnia, and for what? To what end? Where’s the upside as far as the only thing that matters to the bottom line, and that’s attracting new subscribers?
Netflix needs to decide whether it’s fish (a studio) or fowl (a streaming service). I’d suggest it stick to the latter and focus on mid-budget content that doesn’t suck.
