In recent months, Netflix has found great success with titles like The Irishman, Extraction, and The Old Guard, while their recent deal with the Russo Brothers to bring The Gray Man to the streaming service looks set to launch a brand new franchise with A-Listers like Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling.
During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tendo Nagenda, the vice president of original films, explained that Netflix is now looking for a family friendly franchise of some sort.
"We're looking at big, broad-audience, PG-level adventure films as something that we want to get into," Nagenda explained. "Something along the lines of the first Star Wars, or Harry Potter 1 and 2. A lot of family live action, fantasy, spectacle movies that we think are big and can play great. A Jumanji-type of story. That is the next frontier."
Asked if he believes that will put Netflix into even greater competition with regular movie studios, he responded: "Well, we look at it as what aren't the studios focused on. New ideas. We want to encourage great talent to think that way. George Lucas created Star Wars — it wasn't based on a book. If you have that kind of imagination - like the Wachowskis with The Matrix - we feel like we're the place to take the chance on those types of innovative ideas and filmmakers."
Creating an original property like the one Nagenda is talking about is no easy feat, and Netflix could be better off adapting a pre-existing franchise of some sort. Whatever the case may be, the streamer has big ambitions, and it's going to be interesting seeing what comes of these plans.
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