Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos was in Mumbai as part of the Jio MAMI 20th International Film Festival, which will also see the screening of four Netflix films— Rishi Kapoor-starrer Rajma Chawal, Ivan Ayr’s Soni, Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma and the Coen brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
The Quint caught up with Sarandos, who spoke about the fall out of the Me Too movement and the future of the popular series Sacred Games, which was recently hanging in the balance following allegations of sexual harassment against Vikas Bahl, who was one of the show’s producers and part of erstwhile production house Phantom Films. Varun Grover, who was part of the writing team, too had allegations levelled against him.
Shortly after the allegations came to light, Netflix had announced that it was “evaluating options on the path forward” for the show.
The media giant recently put out a statement saying that they had carried out an independent investigation and were “satisfied with the result”. Netflix has made a decision to continue with Bahl’s former Phantom Films partners, Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap, as well as Varun Grover on season 2 of Sacred Games.
You took a firm stance with Kevin Spacey in the US following the Me Too movement and made a decision to eliminate his character from House of Cards, which was really popular. How did you go about arriving at a decision when the allegations against the producers of Sacred Games came out?
Ted Sarandos: All these circumstances, unfortunately are very, very different. We are very committed to safety and respect on the set and our offices—of anyone who works for Netflix. We extend the same training programme on [the prevention of sexual] harassment to our Indian productions as we do in the US. We have the exact same standards around the world.
Every case is very different and every outcome is very different and every individual is very different. So comparing [Sacred Games] to House of Cards is not very helpful in that way. We looked at all the facts for an investigation by professionals that lasted several weeks and came to the conclusion that we could move on. The fact that Phantom was going to dissolve... They were all appropriate steps under the circumstances.
The initial consensus on the future of the show was unclear.
Ted Sarandos: We made an initial announcement just to let everyone know that we were taking this incredibly seriously and that this was not something we were going to sit quietly about. Our investigation was under way at that time and we were upfront about the fact that the future of the show would depend on the outcome of the investigation.
What can Netflix tangibly do to make the workplace safer?
Ted Sarandos: All of these rules [against sexual harassment] extend to everyone on the show—from famous directors and stars to the extras. Everyone is held to the same standards of behaviour. Sometimes it’s just about knowing what the rules are. This makes people more heightened (sic) to report an inappropriate interaction. I think it’s very important that we go upfront to say that, “These are the rules of this set”. It doesn’t matter what happened on your last set, last film, or the last place that you worked—these are the rules on this set.
Sacred Games has had this tremendous response in India and people are really looking forward to what’s going to come next. What’s the India plan going to be from now on?
Ted Sarandos: So we have got 10 original series right now, which is mostly coming for 2019 and six films which will be growing rapidly. We are filming in locations all over the country, which we are really excited about. We’ll be telling stories that are very uniquely Indian that will hopefully travel the globe.
What is the secret to entering a new market? Because I read that you said, that the more rooted a show is to a country’s culture, the easier it is for it to work globally. You used Casa De Papel as an example, it’s Spanish but so many people in India are watching it too. So how do you penetrate into a new market?
Ted Sarandos: Well, hopefully what you do is you pick good storytellers. I have a way of picking good stories.. that’s why I made a joke earlier that it’s about picking people who pick people who pick the thing. It’s kind of the same way if you pick the storytellers right, they have already done the job of picking the stories right and they’ve gotten through about how they are going to tell them and how they are going to adapt them and put their own voice into it, their own stamp on it. And of course it’s their relationship with the talent, with the directors and creators who then you know, bring the best stories to the world.
But is there a focus that a show has to appeal internationally?
Ted Sarandos: I wouldn’t trade local one bit for global. But like we wouldn’t insert a character to make it global cause then it would be very unauthentic. Narcos was one of our first examples of a show that was a show that was mostly in Spanish and it wouldn’t have been believable if it was in English. And people watch it and don’t even realise that it’s in Spanish. They love it. It travels the world perfectly. Sacred Games plays beautifully in Latin America and in America, because people realise that that it’s a very unique and authentic story they have never seen before.
What do you have to say about filmmakers who think Netflix is taking away the cinema experience and probably want to have that collective viewing experience? Is that something you feel like you need to defend?
Ted Sarandos: We are not against the theatres. I love the theatres. We are meant to have windows. So I don’t want to create the - you have to live in a certain place to get to see a movie 3 months early before everyone, 5 months or even 10 months before everyday else. So, we have 137 million people around the world who are paying for these movies and I want to make them available to them as soon as we can. We will also put them in theatres but I love the fact that people would go and see them too. Every time we put a movie in theatres on a day and they do quite well and people go to see them are mostly Netflix members and they just wanted to go out (laughs), so I don’t think they are mutually exclusive at all. In fact it’s growing because of the love of movies, it’s giving people access to movies. If I love movies, I’ll also go see them in theatres and watch it more, buy DVDS and all that kind of stuff.
What do you make of a price sensitive country like India especially when there are competitors like Amazon Prime and Hotstar, why should they pick Netflix over the others?
Ted Sarandos: If they love the programmes and if we give them enough shows to watch. The price is one thing that will drive an audience but the thing you’ve got to understand is that the technique and the story telling has to be great, the technology... when you press ‘play’, it has to work. And that’s the thing that we have invested in, that it has to work better. If you can’t tell the difference between us and another service provider a year from now, we have failed.
There is also absolutely no advertising on Netflix...
Ted Sarandos: Yes, yes and we are committed to that.
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