Don't bother sitting down to stream up Easy A, Grown Ups or The Other Guys from your Netflix queue. Those films have gone missing from the service's streaming selection.
The movies were actually pulled on Friday, due to a contract dispute. "You may have noticed that Sony movies through StarzPlay are not currently available to watch instantly," said Pauline Fischer, Netflix's VP of content acquisition, on the company's blog. "This is the result of a temporary contract issue between Sony and Starz and, while these two valued partners work through their differences, we hope you are enjoying the wide variety of new movies and TV shows added daily."
So according to the statement above, it appears to be a dispute between Sony and Starz, with Netflix being an innocent bystander. However, analysts seem to think otherwise. According to Bloomberg, it more likely has to do with Netflix's growing subscriber base and a clause in the current agreement with both Sony and Starz.
"All parties are working diligently to resolve the issue and return these films to Netflix members," said a Starz spokesperson on Monday.
Netflix is still offering Sony's movies, if you're willing to wait for the disc to arrive via good old-fashioned snail mail. However, we have to wait and see how this "temporary" issue affects Netflix. The Starz contract is up next year, and a new deal could change Netflix rates and/or its streaming selection.
Earlier this month, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told AllThingsD that the new negotiations could end up costing Netflix $200 million, which is $170 million more than what they are currently paying. "We haven't done the deal yet, but that wouldn't be shocking," Hastings said.
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