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The profile of what a Hollywood executive is — the role, the methods, the priorities — is now in the midst of a transformation. The old definition of a successful studio executive was someone who’s commercially victorious,
with a track record of great movies. But what we once called a movie executive might now be called a content officer, and there’s a larger change as well. Where film executives used to have to follow the numbers, now they follow the algorithms. And here’s the difference: Numbers are something you’re in charge of, while algorithms have a way of taking charge of you.
Peter Rice, the former president of 21st Century Fox and former chairman of Walt Disney Television who was just hired to be the chief content officer of Netflix (replacing Bela Bajaria, who was ousted in a dramatic shake-up), has worked in Hollywood C-suites for 15 years. But his roots are in the world of old-school movie-executive passion. In his new position, he’ll oversee both movies and television, which is a perfect role for him, since he has worked on the small-screen side ever since he was promoted to chairman and CEO of the Fox Networks Group back in 2012. But when he was president of Fox Searchlight, from 2000 to 2009, Rice was one of the most revered movie executives of his time, overseeing titles like “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Juno,” “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Sideways,” to name just a few. His only competition as the consummate movie-executive maven might be Tom Rothman, the original head of Fox Searchlight. These two sustained the single best model for how to expand the independent film revolution as a mainstream movement beyond the Harvey Weinstein model.
In recent years, Rice, born in the U.K. and now 60, has been semi-retired, or maybe just in a holding pattern. But Ted Sarandos, the Netflix co-CEO, having now given the ax to Bela Bajaria (there’s speculation that she was let go as a scapegoat for the company’s current growth squeeze), made an incredibly smart move in hiring Rice to be his chief content officer. Recently, there had been rumors that Rice was going to be offered a major position within Skydance. His ascension into the Netflix brain trust is every bit as significant, and given his historical tendency to rise in a company (without, somehow, making enemies), one could see that happening over the next five years at Netflix. Being the chief content officer at Netflix is like being in charge of hamburgers and fries at McDonald’s. In his new role, Rice will help to shape the company’s spirit and aesthetic. The question is, how?
Sarandos is a hands-on CEO — a visionary, if you will — who likes to have things his way. (Apologies for the switched-up burger-chain metaphor.) He must have a good idea of what he wants from Rice. Right now, that could be: more of what Netflix has been doing. Except that Netflix is now flirting with what may be the biggest change in its business plan since the company stopped mailing physical media to consumers.
Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” — the “Forget ‘Harry Potter,’ ‘Lord of the Rings,’ and ‘Dune!’ This is your new global-conquest fantasy franchise!” adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s sixth “Narnia” book — has been conceived from minute one to be a game-changer. The movie cost $280 million (hello, budget that makes “Digger’s” look like chump change!). And Gerwig, operating off the uber-A-list power she acquired after the megasuccess of “Barbie,” insisted that the film receive a full-scale theatrical release. (It will open on the world’s Imax screens, and many other screens as well, on Feb. 10, 2027.) Even after that agreement was made, Gerwig had to fight battles to ensure it would happen.
But she prevailed, and Netflix, with “Narnia,” will now be in the movies-released-in-actual-theaters business in a way that is hasn’t been … ever. (I’ve written about how a token Netflix theatrical release inevitably gets covered by the media as if it were bigger than it is, because critics and entertainment reporters tend to live near the few theaters in New York and L.A. where Netflix movies are playing.) As if in acknowledgment of what a profound change all this represents, Netflix recently announced that it would be taking greater general strides into the theatrical realm. (“La Bola Negra,” its big 2026 Oscar hopeful, will receive the longest theatrical rollout Netflix has given any film to date.) The company will also now report box-office numbers, a major change for the transparency-shy Sarandos.
As someone who’s been highly critical of what I’ve characterized as Netflix’s master plan to convert the world of movies into glorified home viewing, I applaud these developments. I hope they become part of the larger “comeback” of movies that everyone, in 2026, is talking about. This is pure speculation on my part (I’m a critic, so I’m allowed to speculate), but Netflix’s hiring of Peter Rice, at this moment, does not feel disconnected to any of this. Rice, in his heart, is a movie guy. I don’t care how much small-screen content one has greenlit — you can’t take that cinematic DNA out of someone. If Netflix’s new movie plan is successful, I could foresee that precipitating Rice’s rise within the company.
But what if the “Narnia” film, which only this week has been plagued by rumors of an underwhelming test screening, turns out to be a flawed blockbuster that doesn’t cut the commercial mustard? (I want the film to be great; I’m just floating the possibility.) What then? Will Netflix’s plan to expand into theatrical distribution be threatened? That depends on what Sarandos wants. And I could easily see him buckling on that. But if Rice becomes the voice of theatrical movie passion within Netflix, then that could lead to a major corporate clash. Or maybe he’ll be the one to help Sarandos see the light! Tuning into the offscreen drama of Netflix, it will be fascinating, and maybe an indicator of where the future of movies is going, to see who brings who into the stream of things.
