Co-CEO, President & Director, Netflix Inc
'Cinema is not outdated, streaming and theaters can coexist': Ted Sarandos
In a conversation at Day 3 of WAVES Summit 2025, Saif Ali Khan and Ted Sarandos spoke about how storytelling is shaping the future of Indian cinema.
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About Theodore Sarandos
Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, has been active in public appearances discussing the company's strategy and responding to regulatory scrutiny. In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Josh Hawley pressed Sarandos on the proposed Netflix–Warner Bros. merger, labor practices, and children's programming. Hawley accused Netflix of promoting a "transgender ideology" in children's content, which Sarandos denied, stating that Netflix has "no political agenda of any kind" and that the platform offers a wide variety of programming to meet diverse tastes. Sarandos also committed under oath to a 45-day or longer theatrical release window for major Warner Bros. films, and said domestic production would increase, with content spend forecast to grow to $20 billion. On business strategy, Sarandos discussed Netflix's expansion into live sports, including NFL games, describing it as part of a "live event strategy" that started with comedy. He said Netflix is not bidding on whole seasons but is looking to add value to leagues and expand audiences. Sarandos also addressed the company's financial outlook, maintaining guidance for 12-14% revenue growth and a 31.5% operating margin in 2026, with plans to double the advertising business to about $3 billion. He commented on AI in entertainment, saying it will "unlock the ability to tell stories you couldn't before" but that it requires great storytellers. Regarding production costs, Sarandos stated that California has not been competitive for production, and that Netflix has filmed in all 50 states, with a new $1.3 billion studio in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
Transcript (15 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
T
Theodore Sarandos0:01
And again, I feel when I say these things, I always remind myself what a big, broad, diverse place we are in India. So in those productions, we've done 150 original films and series that have filmed in 90 different cities around India.
I
Interviewer0:16
Wow. Pretty cool. Yeah. So I want to ask you, do you mind if I ask you a question?
T
Theodore Sarandos0:22
Of course.
I
Interviewer0:25
So when you took a very big swing with us, where we had not proved ourselves at all in India, we were very exotic, I think, when we got here first. And how do you find, as an actor, how has your world changed with streaming and cinematic television since Sacred Games?
Oh my god. I mean, it's been the most liberating thing and the most amazing thing for all actors all over the world. Earlier, we had to kind of fit into specific boxes and there was a formula, a look, a style for the kind of thing you had to do. And today, thanks to streaming, we can explore characters in a very different way and go into much more depth. And it is a fantastic platform to showcase all kinds of things, long-form storytelling, and to get into... there's a kind of intimacy on the platform. I consume a lot of it myself and when you're watching, you can spend more time and there is a great amount of detail that you can go into as an actor and as a storyteller. And it's the reach as well. It's not just the layered storytelling, but the fact that it goes out around the world. And so many people... I mean, I get phone calls from people who wouldn't normally call me for a cinematic release, but on Netflix, everybody rings up. People ring up from Europe and America and say, 'Oh, we watch this and we watch this and we're compared to the rest of the world.' And it's a very, very exciting space. And you know, it's got a longer shelf life. People are discovering old shows and films years later and that kind of longevity is a real gift.
T
Theodore Sarandos2:04
I think it's funny as a culture, it's much better to talk about films that we've all seen than it is to talk about memes that we're going to forget tomorrow.
I
Interviewer2:13
Yeah. Yes. Can I ask the audience a question? Please, just a show of hands. How many people are using Netflix that are here? Oh, okay. All right. This audience has good taste. I like this.
I mean, for artists, streaming is like this massive creative playground, you know, with no school bell. I mean, it is a creative revolution. And speaking of revolution, streaming has been a true disruptor. The pace, the access, the reach... I mean, it's mind-blowing. Please tell me, is there any way to really measure how big this impact has been globally and especially in India?
T
Theodore Sarandos2:53
Well, it's interesting. Some of my reference points, if you don't mind, I'll use it from the US because I see that they're consistent around the world. India has a great cinema culture. People love to go to the films. They like to watch movies on TV. They like to talk about cinema. That's been true for many, many decades. So what makes India so exciting for me too... what streaming has done is kind of got to the audience where they were. What I was saying earlier, well, if you want to watch a movie, well, I want to be able to deliver it to you. And sometimes it's not convenient, sometimes it's not affordable, sometimes it's not to see it. So what's been great about India is they've been very fan-centric, getting the movies very quickly from the cinema to streaming so that people can get to them and see them, which has been fantastic. But I also think that this idea of democratizing film and being able to get to film... again, India was way ahead of the curve on this, traveling film canisters on bikes to sit at small towns and all this was happening forever in India. So but what streaming has done, I think, is bring the audience where they were, focused on entertaining. I'm more concerned that people keep watching movies and that this is a business model that people can keep making movies. So in the US, the average person sees two movies a year in the cinema. Two movies all year. They watch seven movies a month on Netflix. So this is a business model and a distribution system that will enable filmmaking forever, which is what excites me.
I
Interviewer4:29
Absolutely. That is incredible. Well, can you tell me, where does cinema, like films releasing in theaters, fit into this scenario? I mean, can streaming and theaters share the stage?
T
Theodore Sarandos4:42
Absolutely. And I think they do here. I mean, I think in India, it's probably one of the more fan-centric places that enables this to happen because they don't get into these debates necessarily about how long the windows need to be. I think that's a very big debate in a few countries around the world. But again, I assure you that nobody except for distributors are talking about windows. And if you go to the dinner after a movie and talk about the window, you've missed the mark with that movie. So most of the people just want to see movies and how do we get to them. And I do think they can coexist in the same way. I was asked recently in New York if I thought cinemas were outdated and I said no, for some people, for sure. It's not... if I was being interviewed in Manhattan, there's a movie theater on every corner. You can just walk and go see a movie. I grew up in a small town in Phoenix, Arizona. When I grew up, it was much smaller than it is today. I had to drive 45 minutes to go see a movie outside of the norm. You wanted to see a foreign language movie or a documentary or any of those things. And now, because of streaming, you can deliver movies that are very obscure. It isn't all one kind of big movie for the world. It's what kind of movies do you like and you can pick that night. So that's the opportunity. And I'm sure, I hope cinema continues to exist because I love going to the movies too.
I
Interviewer6:11
So I want to ask you, sir, about the different various streaming platforms and it's caused obviously a shift in consumer behavior. Has it changed... how has it changed in your professional life?
Well, honestly, it's the writing. I think the writing has generally become sharper, a little more complex, and streaming allows for, like I was saying earlier, real character development. And we can go into depth and get into all sorts of angles that perhaps you don't have the time to do in a movie. And that's exciting. And there's no rush to wrap things up in two hours. We can let the story unfold at its own pace. And for someone like me who enjoys exploring characters in depth, I mean, it's a great time to be an actor. Also, it gives the opportunity to bring longer stories to light. Like there's certain books that we've read that, you know, you couldn't maybe see the movie of. And in our culture, there are so many stories that kind of haven't been told. Where the amazing epics, of course, like the Mahabharat and Ramayan, and how to make that into a movie? It would be a very long kind of movie to select which parts to do. And you can really flesh those things out. Even the Panchatantra, our folk stories in India... I mean, there's so many that I don't know, there's so many that I've discovered, and there's so many I do know that I didn't know earlier that I think the world would benefit from if we could tell them. And this is like such a great platform to be able to do that.
T
Theodore Sarandos7:44
Yeah, I see that. I see it for sure. And I actually believe that, you know, for an Indian story to be told and loved across the world... like if a friend of mine in Europe or America said, 'Show me some film that you've done,' even though I've done a lot of films that have been kind of shot in New York and London, the film I would show them would be the one most rooted in our culture. You know, whether it's probably Omkara or a film like that, Parched, something rooted in our culture. And to be loved, you know, I mean, it has to be authentic. So may I please ask you, what your message is for Indian creators who aim for their content to be taken, you know, globally?
Yeah, we were talking about this just backstage. I think the most interesting thing is if you try to engineer something to be global, you are making it for nobody. The things that have proven to be the most global, the things that have traveled, that have been watched the most outside of its country of origin, have been the things that have been the most locally authentic. So if people... nothing will work outside of India if it isn't loved in India. I promise you. So don't try... don't try to water it down. Don't try to amalgamate this, you know, reverse engineer into what a movie is supposed to look like for the world because I don't think people even think that. People just won't recognize that world you've created. But they will recognize that thing that was quite local to them. A few years ago, the movie Roma, with Alfonso Cuarón directed, won three Oscars, a very Mexican film. We were traveling around presenting the movie and he couldn't come to India for the film festival and he asked if I would come and present the film, which I did. And I was thinking to myself all the way here, I don't know that Indian audiences are going to like this movie, it's a very Mexican film. And then when I got here, five sold-out shows, lines out the door waiting for sold-out for overflow tickets. People loved the movie, standing ovation, and because it spoke to... they saw themselves in these characters.