As distributors, executives and filmgoers entered the Eccles theater in Park City, Utah on Monday for the Sundance screening of Netflix’s buzzy rom-com “Hit Man,” discussion wasn’t on the movie so much as on the news primed to shake up the streamer’s entire film unit: Netflix’s Chairman of Film, Scott Stuber, is leaving the company in March.
The move, on the surface, seemed surprising. Stuber ushered in Netflix’s entire original film strategy after joining the company in 2017. Just this past November, he and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos stood together at the unveiling of the newly renovated Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, a continuation of the company’s attempt to give films from some of their most esteemed filmmakers a semblance of a theatrical release.