Netflix to begin ordering movies

Netflix is currently talking to producers about its movie plans and is open to all feature genres.

Chief financial officer David Wells said: “On the movie side, I would keep my mind wide open to what those films would be and what they would look like. The driver of it is like we are able to kind of break convention on television by operating all episodes at once… and we’re hoping to do more of that in the movie space.”

He added that its move to commission original films has come as a result of its aggressive windowing strategy.

“Today we are kind of held to the traditional pay model meaning the movies are not coming to Netflix until they hit pay television almost a year after they are in theatres. Even through that window is moving, I don’t know if it moving aggressive enough… so I think that the more we [are] aggressive with windowing by taking more control over the content earlier in the process, that would be good for our members,” he added.

International

The company is also eyeing a number of new international launches in Germany and France, as well as possible Asian expansion in Japan and South Korea.  

The strategy is to expand its service into some of the larger broadband markets. While it is available in Canada, across Latin America, the Nordics and the Netherlands, only three of the countries where it has launched – the US, UK and Brazil – are in the top ten broadband markets.

Chief executive Reed Hastings said that next year it would look to launch in some of the remaining top ten countries, which include Germany, France, Japan and South Korea.

“When we look forward to next year, we will definitely be looking at some larger expansions, in terms of their size of broadband markets,” he said.

Content

On the content side, Netflix claimed that Lionsgate-produced female prison drama Orange Is The New Black was the most watched show that it has launched, ahead of House of Cards, Arrested Development and Hemlock Grove.

It reiterated plans to double the amount of original programming and highlighted forthcoming projects including sci-fi series Sense8 and a new thriller from the creators of Damages.

Chief content officer Ted Sarandos said that he now believes Netflix is one of the first places that producers and television creators bring their ideas.

“I would guess that on most major projects, we are the first and not the second stop for these content creators because I think they are mostly incredibly enthused about the idea of how we make and release the content and how we support it once it’s live. So far it’s been incredibly door opening which was the intent of doing high profile shows like House of Cards, right out of the gate,” he said.

Subscribers

The company is set to break 10m international subscribers in the last three months of the year. It currently has 9.19m total global subs and is on target to reach 10.5m by the fourth quarter. This includes 8.08m paid members, up from 7.01m paid subscribers last quarter, which is attributable to its launch in the Netherlands as well as aggressive promotion in Latin America and across the Nordic countries.