for the record

Spielberg Would Like to Be Excluded from This Netflix-Hating Narrative

“I want people to find their entertainment in any form or fashion that suits them,” Spielberg says, as sources close to the director insist he’s actually been sticking up for Netflix in conversations with theater chains.

By Laura Bradley

April 24, 2019

Steven Spielberg and those close to him would like to set a few things straight. Despite a bombshell report earlier this year indicating that the director reportedly planned to lobby for an Oscar rule change that would potentially make it more difficult for streaming films to be nominated for Academy Awards, two sources close to Spielberg are saying that this is not the case. And further, those sources—as well as the director himself—insist that curtailing Netflix was never his plan. Instead, it seems quite the opposite: the sources claim Spielberg has been trying to broker peace between Netflix and theater chains, going so far as to speak with theater-chain executives in the hopes of loosening their exclusivity windows to screen at least one Netflix film, Roma.

What Spielberg really wants, according to the New York Times report, is to save the theatrical experience.

“I want people to find their entertainment in any form or fashion that suits them,” Spielberg told the Times in an e-mailed statement. “Big screen, small screen— what really matters to me is a great story and everyone should have access to great stories. However, I feel people need to have the opportunity to leave the safe and familiar of their lives and go to a place where they can sit in the company of others and have a shared experience—cry together, laugh together, be afraid together—so that when it’s over they might feel a little less like strangers. I want to see the survival of movie theaters. I want the theatrical experience to remain relevant in our culture.”

The Times report characterizes the Spielberg vs. Netflix narrative that’s emerged over the past couple months as hyperbole and nothing more. A source who works for Spielberg told the Times that the director never planned to appear at an Academy Governors meeting that unfolded on Tuesday in his absence; the source said that Spielberg had been long scheduled to be in New York at the time, to oversee rehearsals of his West Side Story remake. And while Spielberg himself has remained quiet amid months of reports, two sources close to him told the Times that he’s been frustrated with the way his views have been characterized. On the one hand, the Times reports that Spielberg does want to preserve the theatric experience—and that if the Academy formulated an eligibility change that would allow only films with, as the Times put it, “robust theatrical releases” to compete at the Oscars, he’d probably vote for it.

That said, the Times reports that its sources claim Spielberg is annoyed not by Netflix, but by the intractability shown by theater chains and their proprietors.

According to the Times, which points out that Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment helps produce multiple streaming projects, Spielberg pleaded with AMC and Regal to screen Roma after its best-picture nomination—only for both chains to shoot him down. Roma did screen in other theaters, with a three-week exclusivity window ahead of its wide release on Netflix. The Times reports that a similar scenario is reportedly being brokered for Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, which will likely also hit theaters ahead of its streaming debut (scheduled for later this year). For now, however, the point is simple: Spielberg and his colleagues would really like everyone to cool it with the Spielberg vs. Netflix narrative, and head to their local theater for a movie—probably any movie—instead.

A representative for Netflix declined to comment.