A-List management company head Peter Micelli on the reach of Netflix, success of the horror pic ‘Longlegs’

Netflix recently held a meeting with the top agents in Hollywood to discuss how stars are paid for their shows and myriad other important issues in the streaming-dominant present.

Peter Micelli, the co-founder of Range Media Partners, which boasts clients like Johnny Depp, Bradley Cooper and Anna Kendrick, among others, predicted the rise of streaming a decade ago and tells ABC Audio what he learned from the meeting.

“I was really quite pleased in terms of — to see what they’ve built to, you know, [to] understand that they’re now in 278 million homes globally, but approximately 600 million eyeballs. And you’re like, well it’s just a different platform because nobody can deliver that volume of eyeballs in one fell swoop.”

Micelli says it’s important for studios to find a balance between streaming content and movies released in theaters, as the hit Nicolas Cage film his company co-produced, Longlegs, was. 

The horror thriller made more than double its production budget on its opening weekend in July. Amid super-budgeted superhero summer fare, its box office take kept climbing, to more than $108 million.

“The idea of getting out of the house and having an experience … is something we have to nurture and create … and theaters do that,” he comments. 

“I think we’ve got to figure out the right alchemy of theater projects that will get people to want to be in a room with others, to watch and enjoy and feel the energy of it together,” he continues, saying the shared communal experience is “really good for culture.”

He enthuses, “The exciting thing about a Longlegs is it just proves when you do something good, people want to engage. … To make something great is so exceptional and it’s so exciting when that happens.”  

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