It started with dinner.
Peter Rice and Yvonne Craze met for a meal in late September, just days before Craze surprised the industry by leaving the CEO job at Mattel to become co-chief executive of Skydance with David Ellison.
The Craze-Rice meeting was reported on Page Six of the New York Post after Craze’s role at Skydance was announced. This led to speculation that he was recruiting Rice for a bigger role at a bigger studio. It is revealed that Craze was trying to convince Rice to take a board seat in Barbie’s house.
However, Rice was not scheduled to advise on the Uno and Matchbox cars. The former Fox Searchlight and Fox Networks Group chief — who left as Disney’s top TV executive in 2019 but was unceremoniously ousted during the Chapek regime — is back in one of the most powerful positions in town: Netflix’s chief content officer.
Media coverage of Craze’s courtship with Rice is one of the inspirations that led Netflix to make the move, which will have a wide-ranging impact on its broader film and TV operations. The removal of Bela Bajaria from the role Rice now plays was a mess and angered many people inside and outside of Netflix.
Citing the general mood of the creative community, one prominent agent said, “We don’t live in Hollywood right now. We live in Silicon Valley.” The brutal treatment of an officer of Bajaria’s stature is an indication that no one is safe from investigation, and no one should count on an honorable exit.
Hear Variety’s Matt Donnelly, Cynthia Littleton and Michael Schneider break down the shakeup at Netflix
The agent said, “It seems like this is more a technical approach than a studio approach to letting someone go. It’s embarrassing, it’s wasteful and it adds to the feeling that we’re all working by Silicon Valley rules.”
The source noted the irony that Bajaria was fired just two weeks after the executive who replaced her at Netflix — Cindy Holland — was immediately fired from her new role at Skydance. Holland’s role was sacrificed to make room for HBO chief Casey Bloys, who is now taking over all streaming following the completion of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger.
The tumultuous executive turmoil at Netflix, coupled with signs that insiders are reading in on the layoffs Netflix implemented this week, has led to renewed speculation about the streaming giant returning in search of a major studio or some other significant content assets. NBCUniversal is a logical target, given that the company will be spun off from Comcast next year and thus would be a much smaller and more manageable acquisition than Comcast as a whole.
The switch to Rice also raises questions about whether Netflix will remain as aggressive in its local language content strategy as it was under Bajaria. Rice’s reference to the need to deliver more entertaining hits for the “UCAN” market (Netflix’s weird term for the United States and Canada) in his first memo to Netflix employees did not go unnoticed.
According to multiple sources, Bajaria learned the harsh reality of his fate on Wednesday evening, when he cornered Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos at the streamer’s offices in Hollywood just before a screening at a private residence in L.A. for the Season 3 premiere of the comedy “Nobody Wants This.” (Notably, neither Sarandos nor Bajaria are visible in any promotional photos shared from the event.)
Bajaria asked Sarandos directly if there was any truth to the torrent of rumors — and Sarandos, who is believed to have originally broken the news on Monday, told her on the spot.
Rumors have swirled about Bajaria’s fate in recent months. As the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger saga unfolded, there was much speculation about HBO chief Bloy jumping ship to a bigger role at Netflix or launching a well-funded prestige label for the streamer. But once Bloys was confirmed as the new top boss of streaming for Skydance, Bajaria’s speculation subsided. On Monday Bajaria was on stage at the MIPCOM content conference in Cannes, where she accepted the Vanguard Award for contribution to the global market. Diversity And MIPCOM.
But when top European content industry insiders gathered to hear Bajaria this week, the conversation about his future in Hollywood reignited. It turned out to be a perfect storm of events, with Netflix set to make its biggest layoffs ever and its third-quarter earnings report coming up on October 20th. The layoffs, representing 6% of the company’s workforce, or about 1,000 positions, were implemented on Tuesday and Wednesday. That means Netflix employees were already worried when the Rice news hit just after lunch in LA on Thursday.
Meanwhile, as recently as two weeks ago Rice was telling friends that he had no interest in becoming an executive again – which is a sign that Sarandos acted quickly as soon as he learned Rice was available.
Bajaria is understood to have received immense support from his wide network of contacts in the creative community in the country and abroad. In keeping with her reputation for candor, multiple sources say the executive is bluntly telling friends she is shocked. Bajaria declined to comment.
The microscope now turns to Bajaria’s two top vertical lieutenants – Dan Lynn in the film, and Jeannie Howe in the original TV series.
Lin has been working steadily for two and a half years at Netflix’s film operations, which was started to curb the lavish spending of the streamer’s early Scott Stuber era. However, budget cuts have an emotional cost, and Lynn is forced to ensure the talent delivers a quality product without the widely perceived blank check signed by Sarandos.
In addition to making affordable films, Lin also backed some high-profile acquisitions (“Emilia Perez” and Netflix’s current best-hope Oscar contender “La Bola Negra”). Nevertheless, several reports have suggested that Lynn will exit the company once Rice takes over. It couldn’t be a more sensitive time, as Netflix will launch Greta Gerwig’s anticipated “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” with a full theatrical release in February. As soon as Bajaria took over, rumor mongers immediately introduced Michael De Luca and Pamela Abedie – the ousted heads of Warner Bros. Pictures – as possible replacements (which had actually begun a month earlier, as Paramount and WBD finally found a way to tie up the deal).
According to insiders, Rice is likely to begin his tenure focusing on the film side of things, with US and Canada scripting head Howe seemingly secure in his role. With whispers in Hollywood that Netflix has struggled recently to produce another megahit like “Stranger Things” or “Bridgerton,” Howey, who takes over in August 2025, has a heavy slate on her plate and is just starting to see some of her own developments come to fruition.
These include Meryl Streep in “The Corrections”, Adam Driver and Michael Fassbender in “Rabbit, Rabbit”, Martin Scorsese’s “The Romans” and the live-action/CGI “Scooby-Doo: Origins”.
“They want him to stay,” a source said. “If she left, it would be a disaster for them.”
Meanwhile, given Rice’s experience, some also wondered whether Sarandos hired someone who might be a candidate to eventually replace him – should the stock continue to suffer and the company feels the need to make more changes.
This week really offered more drama than anything Netflix has offered on its service this year.
(Pictured: Peter Rice, Bela Bajaria, Dan Lynn and Jeannie Howe)