“Roma” is just the start of the company’s film plans. Traditional studios and multiplex chains are wondering if the strategy will cause people to skip theaters.
As hundreds of movie buffs waited in line to see Alfonso Cuarón’s “ Roma ” at the Telluride Film Festival in August, an S. U. V. rolled up and a tall, tanned man wearing sunglasses stepped out. He smiled and waved before breezing into the theater with his entourage.
“Was that some sort of celebrity?” one ticket holder asked.
Moviegoers may not know Scott Stuber, but he is fast becoming one of the most important — and disruptive — people in the film business. A former Universal Pictures vice chairman, Mr. Stuber, 50, is Netflix’s movie chief. His mandate is to make the streaming service’s original film lineup as formidable as its television operation, which received 112 Emmy nominations this year, the most of any network.
With the rapturously reviewed “Roma,” which arrived on Netflix on Friday, Mr. Stuber has pushed the internet giant into the center of the Oscar race. Mr. Cuarón’s subtle film about life in 1970s Mexico City is likely to give Netflix its first best-picture nomination. To make sure, the company is backing “Roma” with perhaps the most extravagant Academy Awards campaign ever mounted.
But “Roma” is just the start of Mr. Stuber’s cinematic onslaught, one that is forcing old-line studios and multiplex chains to confront a panic-inducing question: Will the streaming company that prompted many people to cut the cable cord now cause people to stop going to theaters? Having disrupted the television and music businesses, the internet is finally threatening the heart of Hollywood.
Mr. Stuber, armed with Netflix’s debt-financed war chest, has films coming from Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Dee Rees, Guillermo del Toro, Noah Baumbach and the king of spectacle, Michael Bay. “If you’re going to build a great film studio, you have to build it with great filmmakers,” Mr. Stuber said, noting that Hollywood royals — Meryl Streep, Ben Affleck, Eddie Murphy, Sandra Bullock, Dwayne Johnson — had also signed on for Netflix movies.
Mr. Stuber’s operation is set up to supply 55 original films a year, including some with budgets as high as $200 million. Add in documentaries and animated movies, handled by other divisions, and the number of annual Netflix film releases climbs to about 90. To compare, Universal, one of Hollywood’s most prolific traditional studios, releases roughly 30 movies a year.
Until now, moviedom has been relatively protected from the digital forces that have reshaped the rest of media. Most films still arrive in the same way they have for decades: first in theaters, for an exclusive run of about 90 days, and then in homes. Multiplex chains, including AMC and Regal, have fought off efforts to shorten that period. They worry that people will be reluctant to buy tickets if they can see the same film in their living rooms just a few weeks (or days) later.
“Given the marginal profitability of the theatrical business, if you lose 10 percent of the audience — some people stay home — some cinemas go out of business,” said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, a group whose members believe big screens are part of the very definition of film.
