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Exclusive: Gabriela Ortega (Huella), Bo Mitchell (Cobra Kai), Alice Kremelberg (The Sinner), Daryl “Chill” Mitchell and Oliver Yellin have joined the ensemble cast of the international thriller 52nd State.

Deadline first told you about the indie project, which is being directed by Netflix’s former longtime VP product Todd S. Yellin and is executive produced by Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings in his first credit as a producer.

Production is currently underway across Colombia and Costa Rica, with Bogota-based production company Jaguar Bite overseeing physical production.

The new cast additions join previously announced leads Moisés Arias, Teresa Ruiz, Ignacio Diaz-Silverio (Primo) and Ken Jeong.

Inspired by real events, 52nd State centers on Felipe, a disillusioned Costa Rican It worker who stumbles into a high-stakes scam operation that preys on vulnerable Americans.

As the scheme spirals out of control,...

The most valuable assets in any business are people and relationships.

I may have neglected to appreciate this at the time, when we were down in the fray. Now that I am a bit older and slowing down, just a little, I have realized that, all along, the most important element was who was involved, not what. The people whom I befriended, learned from, and fought against — rather than the deals or the payoff — gave me the most satisfaction. And the right people produced the highest upside — giving my journey meaning and enriching my knowledge of the world.

It has been enormously exciting and at the same time gratifying to play a role in the digital revolution. Our original intent was to deliver broadcast TV signals to far-flung rural valleys and mountainous terrain that antennas couldn’t reach. That very same cable evolved into the backbone of the broadband network...

Colombia’s three major studios, Tis Studios, Rcn and Caracol, have opened their doors ever wider to the growing influx of international projects, lured by the country’s generous incentives.

Since about five years ago, Rcn transitioned from being “a TV network with studios to a studio with a network,” said Alex Marín, VP of Distribution, who took up his post at Rcn after 20 years at Sony Pictures Entertainment. “Our three-pillar approach is 1. To produce for our channel, 2. Produce content with partners or for partners and 3. provide production services,” he pointed out.

Established some 30 years ago, all three companies boast a depth of experience, sprawling facilities and multiple sound stages, with Rcn claiming the largest in Latin America.

Tis Studios (formerly FoxTelecolombia) boasts a standing jail set, the only one of its kind in Colombia where “Sound of Freedom” and “Perfil Falso” shot some scenes, while Rcn has housed various cooking reality shows for years,...

An actor who is most well-known for his comedy chops in movies like The Hangoverfranchise, Crazy Rich Asians, and the television series Community has been cast in a different type of role in a new film. The project will also bring together two Netflix alums.

Ken Jeong, who recently appeared in Animal Control with his Community co-star Joel McHale, has been cast in what is being called a key role in a new indie crime-thriller. Per Deadline, Jeong will star in 52nd State, which is currently in production in Bogotá, Colombia.

He will portray a U.S. Postal Inspector named Jay Hailey who is described as a “quirky agent thrust into the center of a sprawling investigation that uncovers a tech-driven scam preying on elderly Americans.. As Hailey follows the trail across borders and through layers of deception, he’s forced to confront both his personal demons and the bureaucratic...

Exclusive: Ken Jeong, best known for comedy turns in hit film and TV projects including The Hangover, Crazy Rich Asians, Community and as a panelist on The Masked Singer, is stepping into the crime-thriller genre with a key role in movie 52nd State, which is filming in Bogotá, Colombia.

We first told you about the indie project, which is being directed by Netflix’s former longtime VP product Todd S. Yellin and is exec-produced by Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings in his first credit as a producer.

Jeong will play U.S. Postal Inspector Jay Hailey, a quirky agent thrust into the center of a sprawling investigation that uncovers a tech-driven scam preying on elderly Americans. As Hailey follows the trail across borders and through layers of deception, he’s forced to confront both his personal demons and the bureaucratic system he’s sworn to uphold.

Inspired by true events, cast...

Reed Hastings, co-founder, chairman and former CEO of Netflix, has signed on as an executive producer of Costa Rica-set crime thriller “52nd State” — his first official credit as a producer on a film or TV show.

However, “52nd State” is not a Netflix production. The indie film is co-written and directed by Todd Yellin, a former longtime Netflix exec who served as VP of product before he exited in 2022 to pursue a career as a filmmaker.

According to the production’s reps, Hastings’ decision to join the project was “deeply personal” and driven by his attraction to the film’s “bold, high-stakes storytelling” and his long relationship with Yellin. Hastings, after 25 years at the helm of Netflix, in January 2023 stepped down as CEO of the company and now serves as chairman.

“At Netflix, Todd poured his creative energy into shaping the product experience and pioneering our personalization efforts — work that helped storytellers connect with millions,...

Reed Hastings, co-founder and former CEO of Netflix, has signed on as an executive producer of the upcoming crime-thriller 52nd State, which is currently in production in Bogota, Colombia.

This marks Hastings’ first ever credit as a producer on a film or TV series. In 2023, after 25 years at the helm, Hastings stepped down as co-ceo of Netflix and now serves as Chairman. 52nd State marks one of his first independent film ventures outside of his role at the streamer.

As we first told you, the film is co-written and directed by longtime Netflix executive Todd S. Yellin and produced by Fernando Ferro and The Witch producer Jay Van Hoy. It’s an independent feature and not a Netflix production.

Moisés Arias (Fallout) and Teresa Ruiz (Narcos: Mexico) lead the ensemble that also includes Ignacio Diaz-Silverio (Primo), and Augusto Aguilera (The Predator).

Set against the backdrop of Costa Rica and inspired by true events,...

Since its release in 2011, Black Mirror has become a streaming hit. Created by Charlie Brooker, he and co-executive producer Annabel Jones were given a $100 million investment deal with the streaming giant, as Netflix was committed to working with the British creators. However, after the five-year deal had lapsed, Deadline reported that the duo had left their Netflix-owned production company, Broke & Bones.

Broke & Bones was first founded in 2020, and Netflix invested in the production company in a first-of-its-kind deal. Deadline reported back in 2020 that Netflix's investment in Broke & Bones would give the streamer exclusivity over the Brooker and Jones' projects. Additionally, Netflix's former CEO, Reed Hastings, commented on this deal, stating that this investment would enable Netflix to develop content outside the U.S.

Aside from Black Mirror, Broke & Bones has produced numerous TV shows for the streaming giant, including Cunk on Life and Cunk on Earth, Death to 2020 and 2021, and,...

There was a valedictory undercurrent to Netflix VP Don Kang’s keynote appearance Wednesday at the Apos media and entertainment summit in Bali, Indonesia. The streamer’s head of Korean content arrived armed with third-party research underscoring the company’s instrumental role in fueling the global K-content boom — and he spoke just days ahead of the launch of Squid Game Season 3, the final installment in what remains Netflix’s most-watched series of all time.

“We’re all very excited about the Squid Game launch on Friday,” Kang said. “And I’m very confident about the health and the growth of Korean content,” he added.

In past years, Netflix founders Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos have used the Apos keynote stage to outline the company’s Asia strategy. But this year, it was Kang who received top billing — yet another marker of how far both Netflix and Korean content have come in the last decade.

Netflix’s board has decided to keep tech investor Jay Hoag as a director — after shareholders had voted to oust him — and is adding a new board member: Airbnb CFO Ellie Mertz, who previously spent seven years as a finance executive at Netflix.

As a member of the Netflix board, Mertz will serve on the audit committee. Leslie Kilgore, a former CMO of Netflix, is moving from the audit committee to the compensation committee, where she will serve as chair.

At Netflix’s June 5 annual meeting, 78% of the shares that were voted on Hoag’s reelection to the board were against him. As such, Hoag — Netflix’s lead independent director — “offered his resignation from the board, conditioned upon board acceptance,” Netflix said. Prior to the meeting, proxy advisory firm Iss recommended shareholders vote against Hoag, citing his poor attendance at board meetings (with an attendance rate of 50% in 2024).

On Tuesday,...

Robin Wright is detailing how Netflix did her wrong as an actress for “House of Cards.” Wright co-starred alongside Kevin Spacey in the hit 2013 series; she later took over as the lead star after Spacey was fired amid abuse allegations before Season 6. “House of Cards” concluded in 2018.

Wright told Variety during the Monte-Carlo Television Festival that she had to fight to get paid the same as Spacey. “Yes, it was difficult. I am going to be honest,” she said. “When I said, ‘I think it’s only fair because my character became as popular as [Spacey’s], they said, ‘We can’t pay you the same as an actor, so we will make you exec producer and you can direct. We will give you three different paychecks.’ I asked, ‘Why can’t you pay me as an actor?’ ‘Because you didn’t win an Academy Award.’”

Spacey won the Academy Award for...

How is Netflix celebrating its 10th anniversary in Spain? By turning up the heat in investment ambition and production values.

On June 10, Ted Sarandos, Netflix co-ceo, announced in a wide-ranging if brief speech at a Madrid press presentation that the U.S. streamer will invest over €1 billion ($1.14 billion) in Spain over 2025-28.

That figure is a shade up on Mexico, where Netflix pledged this February $1 billion for series and films over 2025-28. Pointedly, the commitment ranks on a broad par with France, where investment in French series, movies and documentaries now stands at an annual €250 million ($285.1 million), Netflix VP of content in France, Pauline Dauvin, said in April.

Also, on June 10, Netflix held a party to celebrate its first 10 years in Spain, closing off central Madrid from its Plaza de Cibeles to Puerta de Alcalá – which is rather like closing Paris’ Champs d’Elysées – to roll out a 500-yard carpet...

Jay Hoag, who has served on Netflix’s board since 1999, failed to get reelected at the company’s annual shareholder meeting this week — and now the board must decide whether to keep him or let him go.

At Netflix’s June 5 annual meeting, 78% of the shares that were voted on Hoag’s reelection to the board were against him. As such, Hoag “offered his resignation from the board, conditioned upon board acceptance,” Netflix disclosed in an 8-k filing Friday.

Per the board’s policy, Netflix’s nominating and governance committee “will consider Mr. Hoag’s resignation and recommend to the board regarding whether to accept or reject the resignation or take other action.” The board “will act on the committee’s recommendation and publicly disclose its decision and rationale within 90 days from the date the election results are certified,” Netflix said.

Why did the vote go against Hoag? What seems...

Netflix co-founder and executive chairman Reed Hastings has joined the board of Anthropic, the San Francisco AI company behind the Claude chatbot series, after being elected by the firm’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, a governance body charged with safeguarding the public interest as the start-up scales its technology.

Trust chair Buddy Shah said Hastings’ “leadership experience and commitment to addressing AI’s societal challenges” made him an ideal addition, while Hastings praised Anthropic’s focus on reliable, steerable models and vowed to “help humanity progress.” Anthropic executives Daniela Amodei and Dario Amodei said the appointment deepens the board’s mix of operational and research expertise at a moment when the company is preparing its next-generation Claude 4.

Hastings spent 25 years as Netflix chief executive before handing control to Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters in January 2023, remaining executive chairman while expanding philanthropic work that includes a $50 million gift to Bowdoin College for an “AI and Humanity” initiative.

Reed Hastings, the former CEO of Netflix that now serves as the streamer’s chairman, has been appointed to the board of directors of Anthropic, the AI company announced on Wednesday.

Hastings has experience serving on the boards of Facebook, Microsoft, and Bloomberg and served as CEO of Netflix since its founding, stepping down in 2023.

Anthropic, which is behind the Large Language Model (Llm) Claude designed to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, hasn’t been as focused on image and video generation models that would speak to the entertainment space, but the company last year received $4 billion in funding from Amazon to continue growing. It also is known for its Constitutional AI initiative that is designed to align AI with human values.

Hastings recently donated $50 million to Bowdoin College to establish a research initiative on AI and Humanity. The program examines how AI will transform work, relationships,...

Reed Hastings, chairman and co-founder of Netflix, has joined the board of directors of fast-growing AI firm Anthropic.

The company, which competes with OpenAI and has been valued at north of $60 billion in recent fundraising, said its Long Term Benefit Trust selected Hastings because it valued his experience. The exec stepped down as Co-CEO of Netflix in 2023 after leading the streaming giant since its DVD-by-mail days and has served on the boards of Facebook, Microsoft, and Bloomberg.

The move comes as the business of AI continues to boom, with tech giants collectively pledging to spend trillions of dollars on the technology even amid ongoing debates about ethical considerations.

Hastings acknowledged the broader societal discussion around AI two months ago in making a $50 million gift to Bowdoin College, his alma mater, to establish a research initiative on AI and Humanity. The program examines how AI will transform work, relationships, and education,...

Netflix’s founder and former CEO Reed Hastings is joining the board of directors of the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, the creator of the popular Claude large language models.

Hastings was appointed by the Long Term Benefit Trust, which has the right to appoint some of Anthropic’s board.

“The Long Term Benefit Trust appointed Reed because his impressive leadership experience, deep philanthropic work, and commitment to addressing AI’s societal challenges makes him uniquely qualified to guide Anthropic at this critical juncture in AI development” said Buddy Shah, chair of Anthropic’s Long Term Benefit Trust, in a statement.

Hastings, of course, is a giant of the entertainment business, having founded and led Netflix from its days as a DVD by mail company to a Hollywood powerhouse that is the dominant player in streaming entertainment. He stepped aside as co-ceo in 2023, and as chairman of the company earlier this year.

Barry Diller’s colorful, candid new memoir Who Knew is a book that can’t help but read a bit like a bookend. Not necessarily for himself, or even for his cohort, but for the era of colorful, candid memoirs authored by Hollywood heavyweights.

It’s an entertaining shelf. Paramount head Bob Evans’ The Kid Stays in the Picture is the lodestar, followed by volumes from a pair of trailblazing female producers: Julia Phillips’ You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again and Lynda Obst’s Hello, He Lied. Those at the margins of the business have told some of the most memorable stories (recall Golden Age sex broker Scotty Bowers’ Full Service), although there have been revealing accounts at or near the top from managers Bernie Brillstein and Jerry Weintraub, indie legend Christine Vachon and the super-agent Michael Ovitz.

These days, two factors are pushing the fun out of memoirs.

In Hollywood’s first year after a double labor strike, top media executives included in TheWrap’s annual compensation analysis raked in a combined $522 million.

Topping the list for the highest-paid media executive in 2024 was one exited from his job in April: Paramount’s ex-ceo Bob Bakish, with a 178% increase. He resigned more than a year ago as controlling shareholder Shari Redstone pushed to broker a deal with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, which still remains in regulatory limbo. The majority of his $87-million package — $58.8 million to be exact — came from benefits associated with his severance from the media giant.

In order to have the same year-over-year comparison, TheWrap’s list excludes the $61.3 million from Paramount’s co-CEOs, who were new additions to the 2024 list. Without them, the combined comp figure came to $461 million, a decrease of 9% from the total $508 million in 2023.

Scaled back roles for Netflix’s Reed Hastings...

Exuding confidence amid a volatile economic climate, Netflix leadership unveiled solid Q1 results that were on par with or beat Wall Street estimates.

Leadership also said that co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings was segueing from his executive chairman role to chairman of the board and non-executive director.

Thursday marked the streamer’s first quarterly earnings without an update on the subscriber count. In Q4 the company reported 18.91m paid global adds to 301.6m.Thursday’s letter to shareholders said 700m people watched worldwide, over two-thirds of whom live outside the United States.

Widely regarded as the winner in the so-called streaming wars,...

Exuding confidence amid a volatile economic climate, Netflix leadership unveiled solid Q1 results that were on par with or beat Wall Street estimates.

Leadership also said that co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings was segueing from his executive chairman role to chairman of the board and non-executive director.

Thursday marked the streamer’s first quarterly earnings without an update on the subscriber count. In Q4 the company reported 18.91m paid global adds to 301.6m.Thursday’s letter to shareholders said 700m people watched worldwide, over two-thirds of whom live outside the United States.

Widely regarded as the winner in the so-called streaming wars,...

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters saw total compensation of, respectively, to about $61.9 million and $60.3 million in 2024, up sharply from the year before.

In 2023, Sarandos had a package worth $49.8 million while Peters was at $40.1 million.

For last year, Sarandos saw base pay of $3 million, unchanged, but received stock awards valued at $42.7 million, option awards worth $2.25 million and non-equity incentive plan compensation (like a cash bonus) of $12 million, according to a proxy statement filed with the SEC.

Peters base salary of $3 million also included stock awards for $42.7 million, option awards. for $1.95 million and non-equity incentive plan pay of $12 million.

Neither executive received stock awards in 2023.

Proxies list the annual compensation of the top five highest paid executives at a public company.

The numbers hit as the duo were wrapping up an earnings call after Netflix posted strong 2025 first quarter financials. The company has been among the best performing stocks in...

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters saw a significant pay bump in 2024, with both executives’ paychecks rising above $60 million.

In 2024, Sarandos’ total compensation was $61.92 million and Peters’ pay for the year totaled to $60.27 million, according to Netflix’s proxy statement filed on Thursday.

Sarandos’ pay check for 2024 rose by 24% from 2023, when the co-ceo’s total compensation was $49.83 million, while Peters’ compensation saw a 50% uptick from 2023, when Peters’ took home $40.12 million.

Likewise, Reed Hastings, who shifts from Netflix’s executive chairman to chairman of the board and a non-executive director as of Thursday, saw a total compensation of $1.75 million in 2024, down considerably from his 2023 pay check, which saw him make $11.29 million as he transitioned from co-ceo to executive chairman.

Spencer Neumann, Netflix’s CFO, brought home $22.9 million in 2024, up from his 2023 pay check of $17 million, which remained flat from his 2022 compensation, which totaled to $17.06 million. Netflix’s chief legal officer,...

Netflix may be doing more programming locally, but it is definitely still thinking globally.

Asked on Thursday’s earnings call about the current worldwide economic uncertainty, which for lay people means President Trump’s tariffs, Netflix co-ceo Greg Peters acknowledged he is “playing close attention, clearly, to the consumer sentiment and where the broader economy is moving.”

Not that he and his fellow co-ceo Ted Sarandos are worried.

“We pay taxes and levies around the world consistent with all sorts of local regulations. And there’s always some of that that has existed, always has,” Sarandos said. “But what we’re seeing today, we’re not changing anything in the forecast.”

Peters said he and Sarandos “take some comfort … that entertainment historically has been pretty resilient in tougher economic times.” And you can pretty much double that for Netflix, he said, which Sarandos called “a tremendous value in absolute terms and certainly in competitive terms.

Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters saw their pay packages rise to more than $60 million each in 2024.

Sarandos’ total compensation for the year was $61.9 million (up 24% from what he made in 2023), while Peters pulled $60.3 million (up 50.2%), according to a proxy statement filed by Netflix Thursday. The release was posted just as the execs were fielding analyst questions about their first-quarter 2025 earnings during a livestreamed interview.

Both Sarandos and Peters were given significant cash bonuses of $12 million for the year. They each earned a base salary of $3 million and received $42.7 million in stock awards. Sarandos was granted $2.3 million in option awards and Peters received $2 million. “Other” compensation for the co-CEOs totaled $2 million for Sarandos and $613,091 for Peters.

The more than $60 million paydays for Sarandos and Peters put them ahead of Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, who made a whopping $52 million in 2024 and is widely known as one of the...

Netflix’s co-founder Reed Hastings will be stepping down from his role as Executive Chairman.

Moving forward, Hastings will be Chairman of the Board as well as a non-executive director. The news, which was made “as part of the natural evolution of our leadership structure and succession planning,” was announced as part of Netflix’s first quarter earnings report for 2025.

Additionally, Tim Haley, who is the longest standing independent director for the company, will not be returning for re-election. This decision was not related to Hasting’s role change.

“For more than 27 years, Tim has been on this journey with us and his counsel and leadership have been a much valued part of our success. We thank Tim for his long service and many contributions to the Netflix Board of Directors,” Netflix wrote in a letter to shareholders.

Hastings co-founded Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1997 and served as the streamer...

Reed Hastings, co-founder and longtime former CEO of Netflix, is shifting from executive chairman to chairman of the board.

The move to a non-executive role on the board was described by the company as “part of the natural evolution of our leadership structure and succession planning.”

Hastings, 64, passed the baton to Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters in 2023 and became executive chairman of the board. The executive has pursued business interests apart from Netflix and has also become an active philanthropist, recently giving $50 million to his alma mater, Bowdoin College.

Along with the Hastings move, which was announced in the company’s quarterly letter to shareholders, the company said longtime board member Tim Haley does not plan to continue in the position.

The letter referred to Haley as “our longest standing independent director,” with a tenure dating back to the company’s inception as a DVD-by-mail operation.

“For more than 27 years,...

Netflix founder Reed Hastings has stepped down from his executive chairman role at the streaming service. He will now serve as chairman of the board and in a non-executive director position.

Hastings’ role change was announced in Netflix’s latest quarterly earnings report Thursday, with the streaming giant calling the move “part of the natural evolution of our leadership structure and succession planning.” Also included in the financials was the news that Netflix’s longest-standing independent director Tim Haley will not stand for re-election.

“For more than 27 years, Tim has been on this journey with us and his counsel and leadership have been a much valued part of our success,” Netflix said in a letter to shareholders. “We thank Tim for his long service and many contributions to the Netflix Board of Directors.”

Netflix reported Q1 revenue of $10.54 billion, up 12.5%, and earnings per share of $6.61 (compared with $5.28 a year prior...

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Netflix shares jumped as much as 4% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company beat Wall Street expectations for its first quarter of 2025.

Revenue grew 12.5% to $10.5 billion, driven by higher pricing and higher-than-forecasted subscription and ad revenue, the latter of which the company said is still “very small.” The company remains on track to reach “sufficient scale” with its ad-supported offering in 2025.

Here are the top-line results:

Net income: $2.89 billion, compared to $2.33 billion a year ago.

Earnings per share: $6.61 per share, compared to $5.69 per share expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue: $10.54 billion, up 12.5% year over year, in line with analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Operating income: $3.35 billion, up 31.7% year over year, compared to $2.63 billion a year ago.

The latest earnings disclosure marks Netflix’s first...

In its first quarterly earnings report without disclosing subscriber numbers, Netflix pointed Wall Street toward revenue and operating income as the streaming giant seeks to control the story of its growth potential.

Netflix reported $10.5 billion in revenue, operating income of $3.3 billion, and a margin of 31.7 percent. All up substantially from a year ago.

Netflix also said that Reed Hastings, its founder and executive chairman, would give up that role to become chairman and non-executive director of the company. Hastings moved from co-ceo to executive chairman two years ago.

The company beat Wall Street expectations handily, continuing to demonstrate its strength in the marketplace.

The company also raised prices in many markets (including the U.S.) earlier this year, a move that also included the first hike to its ad-supported plan. The hikes likely bolstered the company’s margins, given its low churn.

Netflix said that in Q2 it expects revenue to grow by 15 percent,...

Netflix is no longer reporting number of subscribers on a quarterly basis. But it’s still motoring with a hot growth engine, delivering financial results for the first quarter of 2025 that topped Wall Street expectations.

The industry-leading subscription streamer reported Q1 revenue of $10.54 billion, up 12.5%, and earnings per share of $6.61 (compared with $5.28 a year prior). Operating margin was 31.7%, up from 28.1% in Q1 of 2024. It’s the first quarter Netflix will stop disclosing subscriber counts, a longtime metric investors have used to gauge its growth, as the company wants to focus the narrative on financials and user engagement.

On average, Wall Street analysts expected $10.51 billion in revenue and earnings of $5.66 per share, according to Lseg Data & Analytics.

In its quarterly letter to shareholders, Netflix said the revenue was driven primarily by membership growth and higher pricing. During Q1, Netflix hiked prices in the U.S., the U.K. and Argentina and...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News No Other Land.Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was violently attacked by a group of masked Israeli settlers and subsequently arrested by the army, apparently under suspicion of “hurling rocks.” The following day, Yuval Abraham, who codirected No Other Land (2024) with Ballal, wrote that “after being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family.” According to the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, there have been at least 43 attacks against the Palestinian residents of Susya since the beginning of the year. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie,” says Basel Adra, who also codirected the film. “It feels like a punishment.

Netflix chairman and co-founder Reed Hastings has donated $50 million to launch the Hastings Initiative for AI and Humanity at Bowdoin College in Maine at a time when artificial intelligence continues to be a hot-button issue.

The largest gift in the college’s 231-year history will be “a step forward in Bowdoin’s growing engagement in this breakthrough technology and ensure that students graduate well-prepared to lead in a world reshaped by AI,” it said. “Funding and fellowships will allow current and new faculty to explore the pedagogical and scholarship opportunities — and challenges — generated by the vast AI revolution.”

Initial priorities include hiring 10 new faculty members in a range of disciplines; supporting current faculty who want to incorporate and interrogate AI in their teaching, research and other work; and conversations about the uses of AI and the changes and challenges it will bring, including workshops, symposia and support for student research.

Netflix co-founder and executive chairman Reed Hastings has given $50 million to his alma mater, Bowdoin College in Maine, in support of a new initiative centered on AI.

The gift, which is the largest in Bowdoin’s history, will enable the school to hire 10 new faculty members in a range of disciplines. It will help current faculty members looking to incorporate AI in their teaching, research, and artistic work and also support conversations about AI’s uses and challenges, including workshops, symposia, and support for student research.

“This donation seeks to advance Bowdoin’s mission of cultivating wisdom for the common good by deepening the college’s engagement with one of humanity’s most transformative developments: artificial intelligence,” Hastings said in a press release. “We aim to develop leaders who can be ‘at home’ in both the present and future technological landscape.”

Hastings graduated from Bowdoin in 1983 and went on to...

Even though Netflix was on the edge of glory at the time, co-founder Reed Hastings doubted how well his partner Ted Sarandos could deal his hand for series “House of Cards.”

Hastings recalled to Variety how Sarandos was determined to rival HBO with prestige TV, and start producing original series beginning with auteur David Fincher’s “House of Cards.” The series, which debuted in 2013 on Netflix, was in the midst of a bidding war due to the high profile talent attached: Fincher was producing and directing the first two episodes, with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright leading the remake of the BBC miniseries. To land the show as a tentpole series, Sarandos had to swing big — something that Hastings was hesitant to agree with.

Sarandos told Fincher that Netflix would commit to spending $100 million on the series and greenlight it for two seasons before a pilot had even been shot.

“No late fees.”

When Netflix launched as a DVD rental service in 1998, that was its most effective pitch to potential customers — an unmistakable reference to the thing that people hated the most about Blockbuster. With more than 9,000 locations, Blockbuster was the biggest video rental chain in the world, but it was alienating members because its profits came from charging hefty fines for movies that weren’t returned on time.

“It was an obvious sore spot,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder, says. “People loved renting movies and watching them at home, but the late fee became the symbol of everything painful about that model. So we decided to create something different.”

Netflix didn’t just do away with late fees by allowing customers to keep movies for as long as they wanted. It offered subscribers unlimited rentals for a monthly flat fee. As a bonus, it delivered DVDs directly to customers’ homes,...

Apollo 13, NASA's third planned moon landing mission after Apollos 11 and 12, saw an extremely unlucky and nearly fatal problem become a triumphant display of human ingenuity. In April 1970, after suffering a catastrophic mechanical failure that rendered astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert unable to reach the moon, the three men were able to successfully turn around and land their stricken ship safely in the Pacific Ocean, leading NASA to dub the mission "a successful failure." Two and a half decades later, filmmaker Ron Howard accurately reenacted the harrowing NASA mission in his 1995 film Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks as Lovell, which was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Two years later, another embarrassing failure involving Apollo 13 (the film) would lead to an incredible success, when Reed Hastings found a VHS copy of Apollo 13 that he had borrowed from his local Blockbuster long ago and forgotten to return.

John Malone.

Cable television pioneer John Malone is working with the biographer of his book “Cable Cowboy” to write a new memoir that takes a deeper dive into the complex relationships forged during some of his biggest business deals.

The book, “Born to Be Wired,” is expected to debut in bookstores on September 2 and will examine a number of business launches and transactions — from the formation of Tci Cable and the subsequent sale to AT&T, to the development of the Discovery Channel and QVC.

Malone also discusses working with some of the television and media industry’s biggest power players, including News Corporation and Fox Broadcasting founder Rupert Murdoch, Turner Broadcasting and CNN founder Ted Turner, Barry Diller of Iac, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Reed Hastings of Netflix. He also explores the formation of Liberty Global and his subsequent investments in brands and services like Formula 1 and SiriusXM.

John Malone, the architect behind some of the most consequential media deals of the past several decades, is ready to go public with his own take on the entertainment and tech landscape.

The mogul, whose moniker “Cable Cowboy” nods to his roots running Tele-Communications Inc., has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster for a new memoir titled Born to Be Wired. Malone reteamed with Mark Robichaux, the author of 2003’s biography Cable Cowboy, to edit the tome, which is set for release on Sept. 2.

“Over a lifetime of business deals, the most valuable currency has been relationships,” stated Malone of the new memoir. “This book is about the people who changed my thinking, the hard-won lessons that nearly broke me, and strategies that helped me navigate chaos and carve my own path to success.”

Malone, whose net worth is $9.83 billion per Bloomberg Billionaires Index’s latest tally, controls Liberty Media,...

Billionaire media sage John Malone, who has built and presided over a number of influential companies in telecom, cable, sports and digital, will publish his memoir in September.

Simon & Schuster said Wednesday it will publish Born to be Wired: Lessons from a Lifetime Transforming Television, Wiring America for the Internet, and Growing Formula One, Discovery, Sirius Xm, and the Atlanta Braves. The book, due to hit stores September 2, lets Malone tell the story of his key role in the growth of cable TV, the launch of high-speed internet and many other chapters in his decades in the industry.

Malone, who will turn 84 next month, is chairman of Liberty Media and a member of Warner Bros. Discovery’s board of directors.

While he appears regularly at Liberty’s annual investor day and at occasional conferences, Malone maintains a fairly low public profile but his insights travel. With a doctorate in operations research from Johns Hopkins,...

At Sunday night’s premiere of “Together,” a body-horror film starring real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie, the Eccles Theatre erupted with shrieks, nervous laughter and cries of “Oh, shit!” Sundance audiences couldn’t get enough of the gory madness unfolding on-screen, and word quickly spread that “Together,” with its twisty look at relationships and gross-out set-pieces, had all the elements of an indie breakout. Studios and streamers, including A24 and Neon, started circling the film, trying to one-up each other in a feverish effort to land the buzzy project. The festival was already well underway, but it finally seemed like old times.

Before Covid upended things, leaving the indie film business that Sundance showcases struggling to regain its footing, the festival routinely hosted fierce bidding wars of the kind “Together” inspired. But with ticket sales in a rut, entertainment companies have been hesitant to hand out big...

Wolf Hall director Peter Kosminsky has revealed that Mark Rylance took a “significant” pay cut on the Tudor drama after streamers declined to co-produce Season 2 with the BBC.

In written evidence to British lawmakers, Kosminsky said it was only possible to begin production on the Golden Globe-winning series after “the producer, the writer, the director and the leading actor all gave up a significant proportion of their fees.”

Reflecting on the Playground drama, titled Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, he added: “We had shepherded the series through a ten-year development process but, in the end, it was necessary for us to work for very little to get the show made.” PBS boarded the Hilary Mantel series in the U.S.

He said Wolf Hall was indicative of a wider reticence among U.S. streamers to invest in British storytelling. The BBC and others have said that the shrinking...

The stage is set for global streaming giant Netflix to disclose its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 results, including what is expected to be its final period of quarterly subscriber disclosures. After all, the company said last year that it is more focused on other performance metrics.

Led by co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters and executive chairman Reed Hastings, Netflix had ended September with 282.72 million global subscribers, with Wall Street experts estimating that it finished the year above the 290 million mark, helped by season 2 of Korean hit drama Squid Game and those Christmas NFL games.

Despite a recent drop in Netflix shares, which has left it down 5 percent so far this year as of Thursday’s stock market close, after a strong run-up last year, various experts continue to recommend the stock, some even as a top pick for 2025, and several analysts have further raised their price targets heading into the latest earnings report.

The following article is an excerpt from the new edition of “In Review by David Ehrlich,” a biweekly newsletter in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the site’s latest reviews and muses about current events in the movie world. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter in your inbox every other Friday.

Hello hello, and welcome to 2025, which my five-year-old son has boldly proclaimed “the year we’ve been waiting for.” Full disclosure: He also insists that “Elf” is a documentary and that he can see his grandparents’ house from our living room window (they live on the other side of the country), so I would advise against accepting any of his other declarations as the stuff of fact, but — when it comes to the movies of 2025, at least — the little guy might have a good point.

For one thing, this will be the first...

Quite literally one of the biggest streaming platforms of all time, Netflix is continuing to grow and expand the streaming industry as it rages with numerous different plans to choose from along with offering multiple options. But while it’s growing, it’s also posing a real threat to the cinema, pretty much proving filmmaker Christopher Nolan right about his thoughts.

Credits: Tm/®Netflix Inc. / Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons.

A few years back, the Oppenheimer director expressed his disapproval and criticism of the streaming giant’s “day-and-date release” strategy. And with the orders for the screenwriters along the same lines, the streamer seems to be proving Nolan just right about his thoughts. If anything, these new strategies could kill cinema faster than how AI taking over Hollywood would do!

Netflix’s new strategies and orders are far scarier than AI killing cinema

Ever since Netflix came out, while it has...

Earlier this year, Ted Sarandos backed a winner in new Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, and now the Netflix co-ceo is heading to Florida to make friends in even higher places.

One day after Donald Trump bragged in a Mar-a-Lago press conference that “everybody wants to be my friend,” Sarandos will be breaking bread with the President-elect, sources close to the situation have confirmed for Deadline.

Neither Netflix nor the Trump transition team replied to requests for comment on the scheduled Tuesday sit-down. If and when they do, this post will be updated.

Having scored a $15 million payout and an apology from ABC News this weekend to settle a defamation suit Trump had hit the Disney-owned outlet and anchor George Stephanopoulos with, the former and future Potus has indicated pretty strongly he intends to sue more and more media organizations even after he gets back in the Oval Office.

Stock shares in Netflix, Inc. recently closed at an unprecedented high of $886.81 (usd) suddenly making the value of all other studio streaming services look like chopped liver:

“… founded by Marc Randolph and Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. in 1997, ‘Netflix, Inc’, a streaming entertainment service company provides subscription service streaming movies and television episodes over the Internet and sending DVDs by mail.

“It operates through the following segments: Domestic Streaming, International Streaming and Domestic DVD. The Domestic Streaming segment derives revenues from monthly membership fees for services consisting of streaming content to its members in the United States.

“The International Streaming segment includes fees from members outside the United States.

“The Domestic DVD segment covers revenues from services consisting of DVD-by-mail.“

Click the images to enlarge…...

The suit says that Meta colluded with Netflix to shut down its Facebook Watch streaming service in a quid-pro-quo agreement.

Is it possible that Netflix’s climb to the top of the streaming heap included some underhanded dealings? That’s what a new lawsuit against the service and co-defendant Meta alleges. An antitrust suit seeking class-action status filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by two residents of that state says that Meta and Netflix unlawfully colluded to hobble the Facebook Watch streaming service, to the detriment of consumers.

Key Details: The suit alleges Meta agreed to shut down Facebook Watch to cede the streaming marketplace to Netflix. In return for this pledge, Netflix agreed to funnel subscriber data to Meta to help it boost its ad business. Netflix’s advertising spend on Netflix jumped considerably after the alleged bargain was struck. Sign Up $6.99+ / month netflix.

A lawsuit seeking class action status accuses Meta of rolling back its now shuttered Facebook Watch streaming video service to give Netflix a clear path as part of a deal to split the spoils of the new digital landscape.

The antitrust suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by two residents of the state (and Netflix subscribers) said that documents recently unsealed from an earlier lawsuit against Meta show that the two companies agreed to collude shortly after Facebook “began to directly compete against Netflix in the market for video-streaming services by launching Watch, a video-streaming platform that offered consumers the same kind of TV-like shows that were Netflix’s bread and butter.”

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was on Facebook’s board of directors at the time and, the suit alleges, conversations with Facebook (now called Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg “ultimately led to a...

In 2015, Meta had a problem with its ad business. The company, then Facebook, was reckoning with a slowdown in ad pricing growth, caused by a shortfall in data needed to train its system that personalized ads and other content for users. Against this backdrop, Meta in 2017 launched in-house streaming platform Facebook Watch. It announced plans to spend more than $1 billion on the vertical, signing splashy deals for original content starring Elizabeth Olsen, Bill Burry and Catherine Zeta-Jones, among other names, and licensing premium content with plans to become an exclusive TV hub. By Meta’s thinking, the service could be a gold mine of user data it could exploit for targeted ads.

Last year, Meta quietly shut down its original programming arm for the streaming platform. A proposed class action, filed in Illinois federal court on Monday, points to the shuttering of the service as part of an allegedly anticompetitive...