Peter Rice Replaces Bajaria as Netflix CCO — SkimNews
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- Peter Rice, former president of Fox Searchlight and chairman of Walt Disney Television, was hired as Netflix's chief content officer, replacing ousted Bela Bajaria and bringing 15 years of Hollywood C-suite experience
- Ted Sarandos removed Bajaria in what the piece calls a "dramatic shake-up," with speculation she was scapegoated for Netflix's current growth squeeze
- Greta Gerwig's "Narnia: The Magician's Nephew" — a $280 million C.S. Lewis adaptation conceived as a global fantasy franchise — will open theatrically on Imax screens on Feb. 10, 2027, after Gerwig reportedly fought to secure the wide release
- Netflix announced a broader theatrical push, including the longest theatrical rollout in its history for 2026 Oscar hopeful "La Bola Negra" and a new policy of publicly reporting box-office numbers, a shift for the "transparency-shy" Sarandos
- The piece frames Rice's cinematic DNA — honed on titles like "Slumdog Millionaire," "Juno," "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Sideways" — as a potential counterweight to Sarandos's "follow the algorithms" content strategy, or the seed of a major corporate culture clash
Why it matters: A Hollywood veteran who built his reputation on theatrical indies now oversees Netflix's $280 million Gerwig gamble. If Rice's movie-passion instincts win out internally, the streamer-first, algorithm-led model starts bending toward cinema; if they don't, "Narnia" becomes a costly one-off and Netflix's box-office reporting is window dressing.
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