A Last Minute Deal Saves a Large Number of Miramax Movies on Netflix

In May, we reported that Netflix was going to be pulling nearly 600 titles from their streaming library as a key contract with Miramax was set to expire.

But in a last minute deal, it appears that a large majority of these Miramax films will remain on the Netflix library, as a spot check this morning revealed that these movies are still available for instant stream. Deadline has also confirmed that a new deal has been made, but Netflix would not reveal what titles were saved and which ones still ended up being removed. In other words, this was not a renewal of the previous contract, but likely a reworked deal to include the most popular titles.

Some of these titles include:

• Good Will Hunting
• No Country for Old Men
• Life is Beautiful
• My Left Foot
• Pulp Fiction

Netflix has expressed that their current strategy will mostly focus on creating a unified library across regions, especially as they have launched in nearly every country around the globe. International Netflix subscribers have noticed that their new access to Netflix is relatively limited compared to US and other major regions. We reported on the discrepancies across each region, and found a wide variance in total number of titles available in each country.

In order to combat this, Netflix seems to be focusing on original titles of which they own the distribution rights; this would allow the service to offer a more consistent global experience.

Deals with third party content providers have started slimming down, as each passing month seems to show the Netflix library shrinking. Before Netflix’s streaming service became a major household service, content owners were quick to sell the rights to movies and TV shows, allowing Netflix to hold over 10,000 titles as recent as 2012. But that number has drastically shrunk to below 6000 titles available in the US library.

We recently polled Netflix subscribers regarding whether or not they prefer the new direction or if they liked the old Netflix and the results were pretty evenly split, with 54% of respondents saying they prefer the older library.

Netflix originals have proven to be popular, but as the quantity has increased, it seems like Netflix has had troubles finding another ‘House of Cards’ moment. The original titles produced by streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon have grown in quantity, making the “wow” factor seem even harder to come by in the past year.

We will report back if we can gather any more specific details regarding the Miramax renewal.