No Doubt Theaters Will Reopen in ‘Some Capacities,’ Says Sarandos

Netflix “came pretty close” to its Q3 forecast of 2.5 million net paid additions (see 2010200056) “to land within 300,000 members on a member base of roughly 195 million,” said Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann Tuesday evening. “It's super difficult to forecast with perfect precision given all the unknowns,” he said. “Retention trends in our business are healthy.” The company is forecasting slower first-half 2021 growth due to the tough comparisons, said Neumann. “We grew by 26 million members in the first two quarters of 2020. That's more than twice the level of growth we had in 2019.” Since the COVID-19 shutdowns, Netflix has completed work on more than 50 productions, “and we expect another 150 before the year is over," said co-CEO Ted Sarandos. “All that ramp-up puts us back to nearly fully operational in most parts of the world.” Consumers’ desire to watch films at home has been growing during lockdowns, “and we've been satisfying it,” he said. “I think at some point theaters are going to reopen and people are going to go back out to the theaters. I hope so.” People crave “the social interaction to go out and see a film with an audience,” he said. “I don't doubt that is going to come back in some capacities.” Theaters just reopened in Japan at 100% capacity, and people are "looking at the impact of that around the world," he said. The stock closed down 6.9% Wednesday at $489.05.