The Duffer brothers, creators of Netflix’s marquee hit Stranger Things, are reportedly leaving Big Red for Paramount, per Puck’s Matthew Belloni. The fact that Netflix does not want to put movies in theaters is reportedly “the deal-breaker” for the Duffers. Paramount is now owned by David Ellison’s company Skydance, and the TV division is headed by former Netflix executive Cindy Holland, who was fired from Netflix in September 2020. Stranger Things season five is still set to air on Netflix later this year. There’s also the brothers’ upcoming sci-fi series The Boroughs and Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, both of which they are producing through their production company, Upside Down Pictures, along with an animated Stranger Things spinoff.
New Paramount president Jeff Shell said on August 13 that he is “100 percent” committed to theatrical, per Deadline. “That’s what makes a movie a movie, and we’re all united in that,” he said, referring to his fellow Paramount executives. Previously, in May, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos confirmed that he sees movie theaters as an outmoded idea when asked, saying, “I think it is — for most people, not for everybody,” per Variety. It looks like the Duffer brothers on the “not everybody” side.
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