Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos doesn’t believe the streamer is a disruptor, he revealed in a playful main stage chat with Black Mirror creators Annabel Jones and Charlie Brooker at France’s Series Mania.
Sarandos said he is “not a fan” of the word because it has negative connotations. “It gets hung on my head a lot, but I feel like it’s more ‘burning things down and seeing what happens’ and that’s not really what we are up to. I feel like what we are trying to do is preserve and improve on the formats, and improve and grow storytelling,” he said.
“Disruption is often for disruption’s sake and we never want to do that,” he added. “It’s never been our initiative to export Hollywood to the world. That’s never what we stepped into this for. Our goal was always to find the great storytelling from anywhere in the world and take it to the rest of the world.”
Sarandos said that Netflix is preserving filmic traditions, while giving creatives new opportunities to tell stories. The California-based company is investing $1 billion in local content production across Europe, including 15 series currently at various stages of production in France.
