On Wednesday, Netflix CEO and chairman Reed Hastings addressed a number of recent controversies surrounding the streamer, namely the company’s decision to side with Saudi Arabia over Patriot Act host Hasan Minhaj
In January, Netflix removed an episode of the political comedy in Saudi Arabia that was critical of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
“We’re not in the news business,” Hastings said at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, per Variety, of the decision to remove the episode after Saudi Arabia threatened legal action
“We’re not trying to do ‘truth to power.’ We’re trying to entertain…We don’t feel bad about that at all
” That said, they do have limits. Hastings said that if the Saudi government came to Netflix “and said, ‘You can’t do gay content,’ we wouldn’t do that
” Other things the streamer is not in the business of? Theaters. Netflix has long had an ongoing beef with exhibitors because of its lack of interest in the classic 90-day theatrical window
It seemed the streamer might have to change its ways after backing Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, but after negotiations with theaters broke down, that film is having a fairly limited theatrical release as well
“We’re not in the business of theaters,” Hastings said. “Personally we love theaters…it’s a different experience,” Hastings added, but noted that doing wide theatrical distribution “depends on the theaters
We’re clear.We’re in the business of pleasing our members.” Hastings was also asked about the company’s recent testing of different playback speeds, which would allow users to watch content from half speed up to 1
5 times. The feature has drawn outrage from artists, including Judd Apatow, who vowed to fight against this decision if it became widely available to users, and Aaron Paul, who recently starred in Netflix’s Breaking Bad movie spin-off El Camino and also voices a role in the Netflix series BoJack Horseman
“There is NO WAY Netflix will move forward with this,” he said, per Variety. “That would mean they are completely taking control of everyone else’s art and destroying it
Netflix is far better than that. Am I right Netflix?” At the conference, Hastings responded directly to Paul’s remarks…sort of: “Aaron is right in that our job is to have both consumers and creators feel excited about Netflix
” However, he noted, the streamer must “balance both of those constituencies.We’re always doing experiments to see if consumers are interested [in a new feature]
” On a less controversial note, Hastings had a lot of surprisingly nice things to say about Disney+, the streamer that will be the company’s biggest competition come November 12
Hastings said Netflix admires Disney: “They’re a wonderful competitor.” Hastings plans to subscribe to the streamer, noting that out of all the impending competition (from HBO Max to Apple TV+), “Disney is the one we have the most to learn from
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