Moviegoers may not know Scott Stuber, but he is fast becoming one of the most important — and disruptive — people in the film business.
A former Universal Pictures vice chairman, Stuber is Netflix’s movie chief. His mandate is to make the streaming service’s original film lineup as formidable as its television operation, which received 112 Emmy nominations this year, the most of any network.
With the rapturously reviewed Roma, which arrived on Netflix on Friday, Stuber has pushed the internet giant into the center of the Oscar race. Alfonso Cuarón’s subtle film about life in 1970s Mexico City is likely to give Netflix its first best-picture nomination. To make sure, the company is backing Roma with perhaps the most extravagant Academy Awards campaign ever mounted.
But Roma is just the start of Stuber’s cinematic onslaught, one that is forcing old-line studios and multiplex chains to confront a panic-inducing question: Will the streaming company that prompted many people to cut the cable cord now cause people to stop going to theaters? Read more.