Netflix’s master plan is to pursue “broad-audience” films like Star Wars or Harry Potter

Netflix is already the biggest streaming service around, and it has a plan to stay that way.

The TV and movie industries are hurting in the age of COVID-19, with so many productions shut down while they put safety measures in place, or wait for the danger from the virus to pass. But Netflix has been sitting pretty, picking up millions of subscribers as people stay at home without the option to go to the theater.

The next step is giving them something to watch. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix executive Tendo Nagenda said the company is after “new ideas” that other studios may have passed on. “People want to be entertained, and they don’t necessarily need a preexisting brand or a sequel of something they’ve already seen for that to be the case,” he said. “They are showing that they are hungry for new stories and new IP. Netflix is a good place to find those things and discover…We know there will be a big audience on Netflix all the time, and so our willingness to make new things and build IP is very strong in that regard.

"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."

And Nagenda’s efforts have already started to bear fruit. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, which was the first project given the greenlight under his tenure, generated a lot of buzz, while the superhero drama The Old Guard has been eagerly embraced by fans who are now clamoring for a sequel. “It’s a high possibility,” is all Nagenda is willing to say on that score.

Speaking about the company’s strategy more generally, Nagenda said they’re “looking at big, broad-audience, PG-level adventure films as something that we want to get into. 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.”

So Netflix’s plan is to go big and broad with fun for the whole family, huh? It could work, although a lot of their hits so far have been grittier, with The Old Guard and Da 5 Bloods being exhibits 1 and 2.

Then again, Stranger Things might be their most successful original series, and that definitely has family-friendly broad-based appeal. Maybe Nagenda is onto something.

Nagenda also a list of big-name directors he’d love to work with, including Jordan Peele, Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino. Nolan, the guy behind stuff like The Dark Knight and Inception, has said he doesn’t want to work with Netflix because of their anti-movie theater stance, but you wonder how long that conviction can hold in a world where movie theaters are increasingly giving way to streaming service. If Martin Scorsese, an old-fashioned filmmaker if there ever was one, can make a movie like The Irishman for Netflix, the door is open for anybody.

Netflix has gone back to work on shows like The Witcher, but there will probably be a delay in rolling out new content thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. But the streaming service is in such a good place, I don’t think it’ll hurt it much. It’s also rolling out nifty new features like video speed controls, which will allow viewers to speed up or slow down a movie or TV show so they can watch it at their own pace.

At the moment, Netflix is definitely winning the streaming wars, but the tide can always turn.

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