In Episode 4 of The Deadline Podcast, Mike Fleming Jr joins me to review the options facing filmmakers in creating movies for streaming services versus for theaters. How do audiences respond to a major Netflix comedy-satire like Brad Pitt's War Machine, viewing it at home compared sharing it with a crowd of filmgoers…

With President Donald Trump traveling in the Middle East and talking his hopes for peace, Netflix couldn't have strategized a better time to debut its Brad Pitt-starring military satire War Machine. Unfortunately, despite a few good swings from Pitt, the May 26-launching film from director David Michôd is a…

When Scott Stuber took himself out of contention to replace the late Brad Grey as Paramount chairman, and instead accepted an offer from Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos to run Netflix's feature film division, many felt he'd taken the more exciting job. Why? While Jim Gianopulos has to dig Paramount out of a deep hole…

Scott Stuber has started work at what is arguably the best job in town. Presiding over the feature slate of Netflix, Stuber will have formidable resources at his command to challenge the set-in-stone processes and procedures of Hollywood's studio system. As such, he will be a disruptor – albeit unexpected casting as…

“We cannot help them and kill them at the same time,” says Brad Pitt’s super confident general in this new trailer for Netflix’s fact-based, absurdist War Machine. “It just ain’t humanly possible.” Inspired by the book The Operators: The Wild & Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan by the late…

“Most of us here will know Gen. McMahon as the man who kicked al-Qaida in the sack.” How’s that for an introduction. Here’s the first trailer for War Machine, the Netflix original film starring Brad Pitt as a four-star U.S. general who is tasked with leading the war in Afghanistan and his roller-coaster rise and fall…

European content will play a key role in Netflix's strategy for international growth, CEO Reed Hastings told attendees at a press event in Berlin on Wednesday in advance of unveiling details of the new slate. Hastings told delegates that since 2012, Netflix had committed more than $1.75B to European licensed and…

Netflix has unzipped the first teaser for its absurdist war story, War Machine. Brad Pitt stars in the David Michôd-directed satirical comedy that the streaming giant acquired in 2015. In what was considered a game-changer for the company at the time, Netflix made its then-biggest investment in a feature (around $30M)…

EXCLUSIVE: Brad Pitt found his military sidekick in his new Netflix feature War Machine. Anthony Michael Hall has been cast to star opposite Pitt in the satirical comedy from writer-director David Michôd (The Rover, Animal Kingdom). The project, which was inspired by the bestselling book The Operators: The Wild And Ter…

EXCLUSIVE: Scoot McNairy has been set to join Brad Pitt in Netflix’s war-on-terror-themed black comedy War Machine. Last seen in Gone Girl, McNairy reunites here with Pitt and his Plan B partners after he worked with them on Killing Them Softly and 12 Years A Slave. He worked with War Machine helmer David Michod on The…

Exclusive: The Graveyard of Empires has a new plot, as Not Fade Away‘s John Magaro has signed on to Netflix’s Plan B-produced black comedy War Machine. Based on Michael Hasting’s best selling nonfiction book The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan, the film takes a satirical…

EXCLUSIVE: Topher Grace has been set to play Brad Pitt’s wingman in Netflix's war-on-terror-themed black comedy War Machine. The film is based on Michael Hastings' best-selling nonfiction book The Operators: The Wild And Terrifying Inside Story Of America's War In Afghanistan and satirizes the handling of that war…