Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he met President Trump for the first time at “a nice long dinner together” at Mar-a-Lago late last year. “It was interesting,” he said.
In a Q&A at a Paley Center event in NYC moderated by Semafor’s Ben Smith, the executive added, in response to a question, that POTUS had not tried to sell him the Melania Trump documentary that went to Amazon’s Prime Video for a reported $40 million. They didn’t “talk any shop” as they broke bread, Sarandos said.
Asked if he thinks Amazon overpaid, he offered, diplomatically, “I haven’t seen it yet,” then added, “for $40 million, “I hope it’s great.”
Smith asked Sarandos if Trump is a Netflix fan. The president, according to Sarandos, “said that Melania and Barron were big fans” of the streamer, referring the couple’s college-age son.
In an era of pressure from above (judging by name tags, the Paley Center lunch event was populated by some lawyers whose firms have been targeted by executive orders), Smith asked if Sarandos felt pressure “to be a little careful now.”
“No,” he said, “We program exactly the same.”
Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice, which premiered at Cannes, ran into trouble getting distribution as the president threatened lawsuits. Asked if he thinks there’s a chilling effect on producers, he said, “no, I don’t think so.”
“I thought … it was a good movie” but there are thousands of movies in festivals each year that don’t find distributors. “It’s not because they’re all politically motivated, or not politically motivated, it’s really cost relative to audience.”
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