Are you still watching? Talent exodus sparks questions over Netflix’s content strategy
David Fincher was with Netflix at the start of its originals mission. With his exit and a plummeting stock price, does the streamer still know what it’s doing?
David Fincher was there at the beginning.
When word trickled out that Fincher, a real cinephile’s filmmaker, was to direct and executive produce an American remake of House of Cards for Netflix, it brought immediate cache to the then DVD mail-out company’s streaming ambition.
If you’re going to start making your own originals (House of Cards was the second series badged as a Netflix production, after Lilyhammer), then you could do worse than the commercial auteur behind Seven, Fight Club and The Social Network.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.This week, it was revealed Fincher would not be renewing his long-term deal with Netflix.
After a relationship that spanned not just House of Cards and the acclaimed series Mindhunter, but also three films including the upcoming The Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, Fincher is now a free agent.
He’s not the only creative name to have left in recent times. There’s been a mini-exodus with Shawn Levy (Stranger Things), the Duffer brothers (Stranger Things) and Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) also making for the doors, to Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros, respectively.
Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos was magnanimous when asked by The Hollywood Reporter about these exits, with Sarandos often pointing to artists’ desire to make theatrical films (Netflix generally doesn’t release its movies in cinemas), and wishing them well.
Outwardly, Sarandos doesn’t seem to be concerned – and if he was, he’s not going to admit that and watch Wall Street take a further thumping to Netflix’s stock price, which is already down 27 per cent year-to-date.
But there is something amiss with the Netflix success narrative, and Sarandos had to at least acknowledge it.
He said at a Bloomberg event on Wednesday, “Overall, we’re not growing as fast as I want us to, and we’re working on making that move faster.”
Netflix viewership increased 2 per cent in the first half of 2026, a figure that sparked questions over whether the company had plateaued.
Since then, it’s been plagued by commentary that its recent attempts to diversify would be enough in the face of YouTube’s aggressive growth as the online video platform of choice.
A lot has changed since Fincher called “action” on that House of Cards set, for Netflix and for the entertainment industry at large.
The early days of Netflix’s foray into original programming seemed to be chasing the prestige of HBO. In 2020, as it increasingly pushed into reality TV and true crime docuseries, Netflix made a decision that it would broaden its appeal. Rather than positioning itself as an elite product, it would be something for everyone.
In the past few years, that has meant expanding into areas it never before would have, including video podcasts, social media personalities, gaming and live sport. It has, for some time, invested heavily in wrestling and recently signed a deal with the American NFL
So far, it’s not quite paying off in terms of viewership. According to the Hollywood Reporter, live programming costs 5 per cent of Netflix’s content budget, but only brings in 1 per cent of its viewership.
At the Bloomberg event, Sarandos said live programming drove sign-ups, reduced subscriber churn and was beloved by advertisers.
But Netflix stock has been downgraded by a raft of analysts including by HSBC and Wells Fargo last month who are not convinced by the state of affairs.
Much of the criticism is pointed at its content strategy – and at this point, you would have to umbrella it using the dreaded C-word, content.
Video podcasts, for example, started appearing on the platform at the start of the year. It was clearly a play for some of that YouTube audience, but any viewership numbers there may be wasn’t included in the half-year engagement report.
In fact, that report, which revealed the number of accounts and hours each show and movie racked up between January and June, will be the last one Netflix would disclose in the same format. Instead of every six months, it would now be annually.
You don’t stop promoting something if there was good news to share. The company also stopped publicly disclosing subscriber numbers in 2025 after it started to plateau.
There is a web of reasons of why a multi-billion dollar business seems to be sagging, but with a company that is so embedded in its customers’ lives, what’s obvious is that it is, at least at the moment, not a hitmaker.
It doesn’t have enough tentpole shows and movies that people are talking about. It’s not penetrating the zeitgeist, it even slipped out of the top two networks at the Emmys awards three weeks ago.
Stranger Things has ended, Squid Game has ended, Bridgerton and Wednesday’s next seasons are still a while off, fewer people are watching Emily in Paris and One Piece, and there’s no guaranteed new hit on the horizon.
Every week is a barrage of mostly mediocre fare that have little marketing support, which gives the overall impression that the whole slate is underwhelming.
And its movies, well, see above re the lack of theatrical with three rare exceptions on the cards – Greta Gerwig’s Narnia film, Cliff Booth and La Bola Negra. That those films are getting any sort of semi-traditional cinema release is a compromise it wouldn’t have made if Netflix didn’t have to.
Something needs to change if Netflix wants to set the cultural agenda rather than trying to chase YouTube. It needs to remember a lot of its customers came for Fincher, not influencers.
