It started with a dinner.
Peter Rice and Ynon Kreiz met for a meal in late September, days before Kreiz surprised the industry by jumping from the CEO job at Mattel to become co-chief executive of Skydance with David Ellison.
The report of the Kreiz-Rice meeting came in the New York Post’s Page Six after Kreiz’s role at Skydance was announced. That set off speculation that he was recruiting Rice for a big role at the enlarged studio. It turns out Kreiz had been trying to persuade Rice to take a board seat at Barbie’s house.
Rice, however, was not destined to advise on matters of Uno and Matchbox cars. The former Fox Searchlight and Fox Networks Group chief — who went to Disney in 2019 as its top TV executive only to be unceremoniously axed during the Chapek regime — has vaulted back to one of the town’s most powerful posts: chief content officer of Netflix.
Media coverage of Kreiz’s courtship of Rice is one of the spurs that pushed Netflix to make the move on a hire that will have ripple effects across its expansive film and TV operations. The ouster of Bela Bajaria from the role that Rice now occupies was messy, and angered many inside and outside of Netflix.
“We don’t live in Hollywood right now. We live in Silicon Valley,” said a prominent agent, citing the general mood of the creative community. The brusque treatment of an executive of Bajaria’s stature is a sign that no one is safe from scrutiny, and no one should ever count on making a graceful exit.
“It feels like more of a tech approach than a studio approach to letting someone go. It’s shameful, it sucks and it adds to the feeling that we’re all working by Silicon Valley rules,” the agent said.
The source noted the irony of Bajaria getting the ax just two weeks after the executive that she replaced at Netflix — Cindy Holland — was also hastily ousted from her new role at Skydance. Holland’s role was sacrificed to make room for Casey Bloys, the HBO chief who is taking over all streaming now that the Warner Bros. Discovery merger is completed.
The bombshell executive upheaval at Netflix, coupled with signals that insiders are reading from the layoffs that Netflix implemented this week, has set off renewed speculation about the streaming giant getting back in the hunt for a major studio or some other significant content assets. NBCUniversal is a logical target, given that the company will be spun out from Comcast next year and thus would make for a much smaller and more manageable acquisition than the entirety of Comcast.
The switch to Rice also raises questions about whether Netflix will remain as aggressive in its local-language content strategy as it had been under Bajaria. Rice’s reference in his first memo to Netflix staffers to the need to deliver more buzzy hits for the “UCAN” market (Netflix’s wonky term for the United States and Canada) did not go unnoticed.
Bajaria, according to multiple sources, learned the harsh reality of her fate on Wednesday evening when she cornered Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos at the streamer’s offices in Hollywood, just before the screening at a private residence in L.A. for the Season 3 premiere of comedy “Nobody Wants This.” (Notably, neither Sarandos nor Bajaria are seen in any of the publicity photos that have been shared from the event.)
Bajaria asked Sarandos point-blank whether there was truth to the rumors gaining stream — and Sarandos, who it’s believed was originally going to break the news on Monday, told her at that moment.
Rumors about Bajaria’s fate have swirled in recent months. As the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger saga soldiered on, there was much speculation about HBO chief Bloys jumping ship for a big role at Netflix or to launch a well-funded prestige label for the streamer. But once Bloys was confirmed as the new top boss of streaming for Skydance, the Bajaria speculation cooled off. On Monday, Bajaria was on stage at the Mipcom content conference in Cannes, where she accepted the Vanguard Award for contributions to the global marketplace as bestowed by Variety and Mipcom.
But even as top European content industry insiders gathered to hear Bajaria speak, chatter about her future fired back up in Hollywood this week. It turned out to be a perfect storm of events, with Netflix bracing for its largest-ever layoffs and its third-quarter earnings report coming on Oct. 20. The layoffs, amounting to 6% of the company’s workforce, or about 1,000 positions, were implemented Tuesday and Wednesday. That meant Netflix staffers were already on edge when the shock of the Rice news hit just after lunchtime in L.A. on Thursday.
Meanwhile, as recently as two weeks ago Rice was telling friends that he had no interest in becoming an executive again — which is a sign that Sarandos acted fast as soon as he learned Rice was available.
Bajaria is understood to have received an outpouring of support from her wide network of contacts in the creative community, at home and abroad. Multiple sources say the executive has been telling friends outright that she is shell-shocked, in keeping with her reputation for candor. Bajaria declined to comment.
The microscope now turns to Bajaria’s two top vertical lieutenants — Dan Lin in film, and Jinny Howe in original TV series.
Lin has been a steady hand in Netflix’s film operations for two-and-a-half years, ushered in to stop the lavish spending of the streamer’s formative Scott Stuber era. Slashing budgets carries an emotional price, though, and Lin has been forced to ensure talent delivers quality product without a widely perceived blank check signed by Sarandos.
In addition to making cheaper movies, Lin also backed some high-profile acquisitions (“Emilia Pérez” and Netflix’s current best-hope Oscar contender “La Bola Negra”). Yet, numerous reports have suggested that Lin will exit the company as Rice comes into power. It couldn’t be a more sensitive time, as Netflix will launch Greta Gerwig’s anticipated “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” with a full theatrical release in February. As Bajaria got the boot, the rumor mill instantly offered forth Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy — the ousted Warner Bros. Pictures chiefs — as potential replacements (which actually started a month ago, as Paramount and WBD finally found a path to combine).
According to insiders, with Rice likely to kick off his tenure by focusing on the film side of things, U.S. and Canada scripted head Howe appears to be safe in her role. With whispers in Hollywood that Netflix has struggled recently to produce another megahit in the vein of “Stranger Things” or “Bridgerton,” Howe, who took over in August 2025, has a hefty slate on her plate and is just starting to see some of her own development come to fruition.
That includes Meryl Streep in “The Corrections,” Adam Driver and Michael Fassbender in “Rabbit, Rabbit,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Roman” and the live-action/CGI “Scooby-Doo: Origins.”
“They want her to stay,” said one source. “If she left, that’d be a disaster for them.”
Meanwhile, given Rice’s experience, some also wondered whether Sarandos just hired someone who could ultimately be a candidate to replace him — should the stock continue to suffer and the company see a need to make more changes.
The week has indeed offered more drama than anything Netflix will put on its service this year.
(Pictured: Peter Rice, Bela Bajaria, Dan Lin and Jinny Howe)