Director Mike Flanagan’s battle with ‘hostile’ Netflix: ‘Doing enormous harm’

The Haunting of Hill House creator has revealed that his working relationship with Netflix had grown complicated behind the scenes.

Director Mike Flanagan has lashed out at Netflix, labelled the streaming giant “hostile”.

The film executive, who was recently hired to reboot the Exorcist movie franchise, has worked with Netflix on such hits as Gerald’s Game, Hush and The Haunting of Hill House.

However, their working relationship has soured recently after his latest series failed to become a big hit for the streamer, and now Flanagan has claimed bosses were “actively hostile” toward him when he raised the notion of releasing his projects on physical media.

“I tried very hard to get them to release my work on Blu-ray & DVD,” he said at a panel last week.

Mike Flanagan has hit out at Netflix over a disagreement. Picture: Getty.

“Netflix refused at every turn. It became clear very fast that their only priority was subs, and that they were actively hostile to the idea of physical media. This is a very dangerous point of view.”

He went on to suggest that Netflix is doing serious “damage” to the industry, and said it’s likely to lead to “enormous harm” within Hollywood as a whole.

“While companies like Netflix pride themselves on being disrupters and have proven that they can affect great change in the industry, they sometimes fail to see the difference between disruption and damage,” he added. “So much that they can find themselves, intentionally or not, doing enormous harm to the very concept of film preservation”

The acclaimed horror filmmaker announced late last year he and his creative partner Trevor Macy would be leaving Netflix after the release of his latest miniseries The Fall Of The House Of Usher.

Flanagan has a long working relationship with the streaming giant. Picture: Netflix.

Speaking of the streaming platform’s acquisition with the highly acclaimed horror filmmakers, Vernon Sanders, head of global television at Amazon Studios, told Deadline: “Mike and Trevor are remarkable at telling immersive, suspenseful stories that masterfully keep audiences engaged from start to finish.

“We are excited to welcome them to Amazon Studios and are looking forward to our global customers experiencing their genre-bending creativity.”

Macy and Dr Sleep director Flanagan said they had “long admired” Amazon Prime’s work.

“Their commitment to engaging in groundbreaking series and content aligns with the ethos of what we have built at Intrepid,” said the pair. “We are looking forward to working with the entire Amazon team as we bring our brand of genre productions to the service and audiences around the globe.”