Steven Spielberg’s production company Amblin Partners has signed a new partnership with Netflix allowing Amblin to produce multiple films for the streaming giant each year. The deal will co-exist with Amblin’s pact already established at Universal Pictures, with some features being produced by Spielberg for Universal and others for Netflix. The partnership, one long courted by Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer, is a major get for the company that, amid increasing competition, brings perhaps the most beloved film director more officially into the streaming fold.
The deal announced on Monday doesn’t specifically include any movies to be directed by Spielberg. This December, he will release West Side Story theatrically with Disney’s 20th Century Studios. Amblin has a separate deal with Universal Pictures for theatrical releases. “At Amblin, storytelling will forever be at the center of everything we do, and from the minute Ted and I started discussing a partnership, it was abundantly clear that we had an amazing opportunity to tell new stories together and reach audiences in new ways,” Spielberg said in a statement. “This new avenue for our films, alongside the stories we continue to tell with our longtime family at Universal and our other partners, will be incredibly fulfilling for me personally since we get to embark on it together with Ted, and I can’t wait to get started with him, Scott, and the entire Netflix team.”
Amblin, which takes its name from a 1968 short by Spielberg, has helped produce a wide variety of films outside of those made by Spielberg, including 1917 and Green Book. The two companies have previously worked together on TV series and the Aaron Sorkin movie The Trial of the Chicago 7, a film co-produced by Amblin that was sold by Paramount Pictures to Netflix during the pandemic. Amblin’s upcoming projects include Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical feature starring Paul Dano and Michelle Williams (expected to go to Universal), the comedy Easter Sunday that is close to wrapping production, the horror movie Last Voyage of the Demeter, which is prepping for filming this summer in Europe, and the already wrapped comedy-drama The Good House along with the sci-fi project Distant.
