Doug Belgrad is departing Netflix where he has been Vice President of Film for more than two years. His exit, which was confirmed by the streamer, is part of the major layoffs at Netflix today.
Ironically, Belgrad was Head of Film Dan Lin‘s first hire after a round of layoffs when Lin replaced Scott Stuber and restructured Netflix’s film department.
There have been rumblings of late that there would be a shake-up in the motion picture department at Netflix. This due to the decline in viewership for their movies, i.e. during the first half of 2026, features clocked 23 billion hours of viewership, -3.1% vs previous cycles. In an effort to stunt their movies more, Netflix for the first time is committing to longer windows in theaters and will be reporting grosses. This all occurring after losing their bid to buy Warner Bros. Studios. There’s been heavy gossip that former Warner Bros Studio heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy would be going over to the streamer, however, sources say their recent lunches with CEO Ted Sarandos were merely on a peer basis. Netflix would need to make a fire breathing commitment to theatrical for De Luca and Abdy to make the segue to the streamer; the duo recently passed over by Skydance co-CEO David Ellison for top posts at the Paramount-Warner Bros merger.
Before joining Netflix in May 2024, Belgrad spent 25 years at Sony Pictures, and was ultimately co-president under Amy Pascal. He joined the Culver City lot in 1989 and was promoted to become co-president of production at Columbia in 2003 and president in 2008. He shepherded the Men in Black franchise, the Adam Sandler canon at Sony, and Oscar-nominated American Hustle and Captain Phillips, to name a few.
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Upon stepping down from Sony as President of the Motion Picture Group in 2016, he formed 2.0 Entertainment, which was key in producing and co-financing such Sony movies as Gran Turismo and the last two Bad Boys, 2024’s Bad Boys: Ride Or Die and Bad Boys for Life, the latter a massive pre-Covid hit grossing $426.5M, the highest in the franchise.
More to come.