GoPro angers investors with charity gift

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Sounds great, but there's one catch that's angered investors, who sent shares down 7% Thursday.

JPMorgan, the IPO's underwriter, is letting Woodman's charity sidestep a rule that prohibits insiders from selling stock within the first 180 days of a company's IPO, which could potentially send shares lower.

The bank made an exception and will let the charity sell the shares starting Friday, Oct. 3. That's nearly two months before the lockup period expires late November, which is when GoPro (GPRO) managers and directors can start selling.

GoPro's head honcho just announced his new charity, called the Jill + Nicholas Woodman Foundation, on Wednesday. A press release says that details about its mission will be announced "at a later date."

Related: Is GoPro becoming a movement?

Shares of the extreme-camera maker closed Thursday at $85.40, well above its June IPO price of $24. That makes the gift from Woodman and his wife worth $450 million. GoPro didn't say whether the charity will sell its shares immediately.

JPMorgan (JPM) and GoPro declined to comment.

The gift represents a small share of Woodman's holdings; at the time of the IPO he held about 52.4 million shares, according to SEC documents.

GoPro stumbled a bit in early August when it issued its first earnings report, which failed to meet investors' lofty expectations. But the stock has gone nearly vertical since the last week in August, until Thursday.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 5:28 PM ET

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The real queen of Silicon Valley

The hot Andreessen Horowitz dinner parties are the brainchild of Margit Wennmachers, an operating partner who could fairly be called the VC firm's secret weapon.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The dinner parties are the brainchild of Margit Wennmachers, an operating partner who could fairly be called the VC firm's secret weapon. The German immigrant, 48, invites reporters, investors and entrepreneurs to her San Francisco home to talk, drink and sup, all off the record. It may be the softest, smoothest marketing pitch in the Bay Area. Or maybe it's not a pitch at all. Reporters love discovering, says Wennmachers. "And discovery is best done breaking bread."

Read more from Ozy: What you never knew about Harvard

For the wonks and techies in Silicon Valley, marketing was once sneered at — that is, when it was thought about at all. But armed with Wennmachers, Andreessen Horwitz has changed all that. Now telling a story about products and companies is considered crucial, both for press and investors. "It's been fascinating to watch," Matt Marshall, founder and editor-in-chief of Venture Beat, says via email of Andreessen Horowitz's swift rise. "[W]hat it has done is nothing short of brilliant. Every single move it makes is orchestrated carefully, to push more PR spin."

Of Wennmachers, he writes, "Margit is about as good as you can get as a PR professional. She's managed to filter out the best players in the valley and put a vise grip on them."

Read more Ozy: How to ace STEM

In person, Wennmachers is extraordinarily self-possessed, a lithe, fashionable woman who speaks four languages — German, English, Spanish and French — and favors Euro-chic designers like Erdem and Brunello Cucinelli. The daughter of a pig farmer in Bruexgen, Germany, she was the shy one in high school but was also considered a "quiet revolutionary." She studied humanities in college but was exposed to the American way of doing business in her first job out of school. She worked for an American tech company based in Germany and was impressed by its culture of transparency and optimism. She started out as the CEO's assistant, but by 25 she was running the European marketing division. It wasn't that young, she recently told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Here, they start coding at 8!"

Or even younger, apparently. She is the single mom of a six-year-old daughter who is already studying programming at school. Wennmachers is an avid hiker and likes to cook, mostly German specialties.

Read more from Ozy: Stuck in traffic? Text your way out

But what she really loves is putting people in touch. In 1997, she cofounded OutCast, a prominent PR agency that focused on tech companies like Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon. (The company was sold in 2005 to British PR powerhouse Next Fifteen for a reported $10-$13 million.) Her OutCast clients included Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, and in 2010, the two men managed to poach her for their own eponymous firm.

The firm didn't originally have marketing in mind, says Horowitz. But he and Andreessen were so impressed by Wennmachers that they convinced her to join. "She's one of the most important partners that we have," he said. "The thing that we are known for most is how differentiated our network is and how we built it so big and powerful so fast. She's been the architect for that."

In response to his firm's success with marketing, Horowitz says other VC firms have jumped to hire marketing execs, too. But that's "really silly" says Horowitz, comparing her influence on Andreessen Horowitz to Steve Jobs' on Apple. "It's like saying he's a designer; let's hire a designer. She's not a marketing person; she's Margit."

He continues, "The thing that gets lost on people about Margit is that she's more accurately described as an entrepreneur and as a CEO than a marketing person."

Read more from Ozy: Is Alzheimer's brain diabetes?

Her clients agree. "Far beyond the PR reputation she has, she's been a strategic advisor," says Kakul Srivastava, founder and CEO of Tomfoolery, one of Andreessen Horowitz's seed investments and one of three companies Wennmachers snagged for Andreessen Horowitz. Srivastava meets with Wennmachers monthly. "Her feedback ranges quite a bit from product feedback to strategy feedback. She's been an incredible connector for us," she says.

So, is Wennmachers everyone's darling with never a misstep? Of course not. Venture Beat's Marshall said that while he admires Wennmachers, he doesn't "particularly like everything she's done." He adds, "Sometimes her hardball tactics can backfire." He cites a story where Andreessen Horowitz missed out on an estimated $100 million by declining to invest more in Instagram, because of a conflict of interest with another company in its portfolio, PicPlz.

"We called them, and Margit declined to allow us to get comment from them," he says. "Then the story got bigger, and everyone else (other media) jumped in, and they eventually had to address it, but it just got worse because they had declined to talk."

Read more from Ozy: What millennials want in the workplace

Nevertheless, Wennmachers and Andreessen Horowitz ended up spinning the story into how loyal they are to companies they invest in, even if that might not benefit them monetarily.

Wennmachers compares her job to combining the TV shows The West Wing, Scandal and PBS's science series Nova. She's constantly balancing decision-making, putting out small fires, crafting stories and dealing with innovation and technology.

Her own secret weapon might be how she has adopted the United States as a second country. She refers to immigrants as "underrated," even while demurring that the notion might sound self-serving coming from her. For immigrants, she says, everything is an upside. "You're not entitled, you're not expecting anything and you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. This is what makes the United States special. When you come here, once you get your green card or citizenship, they really want you here. They do their vetting and then they say, welcome and go nuts. Go to town. No other country does that."

The United States has welcomed Margit Wennmachers, and in return she has spun quite a web of talent around Silicon Valley, cultivating strong ties and connecting power players in technology along the way. You can almost see the spin, spin, spin.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 5:05 PM ET

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JPMorgan: 76 million customers hacked

More than 80 million JPMorgan account holders had their information hacked.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The revelation follows news back in August that hackers had infiltrated seven of the country's largest banks, using sophisticated malware to burrow into their computer systems and manipulate records.

At JPMorgan (JPM), the hackers got contact information for 76 million households and 7 million small businesses, including names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, as well as "internal JPMorgan Chase information relating to such users."

Related: What you need to know about the big bank hack

But the bank said that the hackers didn't get any account information -- account numbers, user IDs, dates of birth or Social Security numbers -- and that it hasn't seen "any unusual customer fraud related to this incident."

"The Firm continues to vigilantly monitor the situation and is continuing to investigate the matter," JPMorgan said in a securities filing, adding that it is cooperating with law enforcement.

Although it appears that the hackers haven't been able to access bank accounts, they could still cash in by selling email addresses and other personal information to spammers.

The source of this summer's attack still isn't clear. Some analysts have pointed to hackers Russia, though the evidence is only circumstantial.

Related: FBI investigating hack on JPMorgan

Hackers from Russia and eastern Europe are often top FBI suspects in cyberattacks. The timing of the hack raised suspicions given the mounting tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine and economic sanctions.

In a letter to shareholders earlier this year, JPMorgan said it planned to deploy over 1,000 people and budget $250 million annually to focus on cyber security.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 6:07 PM ET

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Federal workers lose big by pulling out of low-cost retirement plans

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The Thrift Savings Plan, used by millions of federal workers, is like a 401(k), except it's a lot cheaper. Last year it charged an average expense ratio of a mere 0.03%. That means just $3 in fees for $10,000 in savings, or $30 for a $100,000 portfolio.

IRAs or employer-sponsored 401(k)s typically charge more than 10 times that amount.

Nevertheless, federal workers are rolling billions in savings out of the low-fee plan when they leave their jobs, even though they don't have to.

Last year nearly half (45%) of participants who left federal service in 2012 had withdrawn all of their savings -- nearly $10 billion collectively.

Workers on government message boards cite a number or reasons for leaving, including frustration with the thrift plan's limited investment options and strict withdrawal rules.

Related: What I gave up to save $1 million

But some retirement savings experts suspect that a heavy sales pitch by private financial firms and advisers might also be a factor.

Gregory Long, the executive director of the agency that runs the thrift plan, wrote in a memo that he thinks some federal workers and retirees may be "swayed by the financial industry's marketing efforts" to roll their money out of the low-cost plans into higher-cost IRAs.

Spokespeople for Thrift Savings Plan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

John Turner, an economist and director of the Pension Policy Center and a former federal worker himself, said he became troubled when he heard of friends who had pulled out of their funds only to pay thousands in fees.

As an experiment, Turner called up major IRA providers and asked for advice, explaining he was a former government employee with savings in the thrift plan. Only one firm acknowledged he could do better by staying with the plan's super low fees, while the rest all encouraged an IRA rollover.

Related: Is this retirement move right for you?

CNNMoney asked FutureAdvisor, an online investment advisor, to run some numbers to compare fees and investment returns:

FutureAdvisor created three sample portfolios to show how much more savers can pay in fees if they roll their money out of the Thrift Savings Plan.

Let's say a worker has $100,000 invested in the Thrift Savings Plan. Even if she rolled her money into the cheapest comparable ETFs on the market, she would still spend $54 more in fees each year despite getting similar returns.

If the worker were to roll that money into an IRA, invested in mutual funds with average fees of 0.74%, she would pay an extra $716, FutureAdvisor found.

And if she opted for a pricier portfolio, say one with fees of 2.4%, she could shell out more than $2,300 in extra fees in a single year.

"Over years, it's a substantial difference in what you end up with," Turner said. "It's not a trivial issue."

Related: Retirement plan providers misleading savers

To be sure, participants in the Thrift Savings Plan, which has five main funds, can find more investment options in private IRAs.

Yet Turner said the thrift plan offers enough stock and bond index funds that track domestic and international markets to give most savers what they need.

Military veteran Ryan Guina, who writes a military-focused personal finance blog, agreed.

"Unless they're advanced investors, I think they should leave their funds in the TSP because it's simple and it's easy enough that most investors can do it and do it well," he said.

FutureAdvisor, in its analysis for CNNMoney, found that typical investors can almost always get higher returns from the government plan compared to similar investments, especially after fees are taken into account.

Last year, for example, the thrift plan outperformed the sample high-cost portfolio by 3%.

So how does the government thrift plan keep fees so low? It partly subsidizes plan expenses with revenue from loans taken from the plan and forfeitures from employees who leave before fully vesting -- a practice termed "quite unique" by FutureAdvisor Chief Investment Officer Simon Moore.

"They are able to drive costs below market value, which is great for their investors," Moore said. "A corporation wouldn't do that."

First Published: October 1, 2014: 6:55 PM ET

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Adam Sandler is making 4 movies for Netflix

HONG KONG (CNNMoney)

The veteran comedian has agreed to produce and star in four feature films that will be released exclusively on the streaming video service.

The deal is yet another effort by Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) to bolster its content portfolio, and one that is expected to be a hit with users. Sandler is one of the few actors whose films consistently rank among the most viewed by subscribers, Netflix said.

"His appeal spans across viewers of all ages -- everybody has a favorite movie, everyone has a favorite line -- not just in the U.S., but all over the world," said Ted Sarandos, the company's chief content officer.

Netflix did not announce any additional details about the four films, or when they would be released.

Related: DirecTV, NFL renew Sunday Ticket deal

Sandler made full use of his unique humor in a statement released by Netflix.

"When these fine people came to me with an offer to make four movies for them, I immediately said yes for one reason and one reason only: Netflix rhymes with Wet Chicks," he said. "Let the streaming begin!!!!"

Related: 'Crouching Tiger' sequel to hit Netflix and theaters simultaneously

Netflix announced a deal earlier this week that will allow it to premiere a feature film -- the sequel to the 2000 hit "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" -- at the same time moviegoers can see it in theaters.

The deal is a first for the film industry, and yet another sign that Netflix plans to be a major player in original content.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 12:55 AM ET

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Hong Kong resident travels 3,000 miles to fight for democracy

HONG KONG (CNNMoney)

For Jennifer Moberg, the answer is nearly 3,000 miles. After hearing from friends that pro-democracy protests in the city were escalating and that police were using tear gas on protesters, she immediately decided to return from Afghanistan, where she is working as a music teacher.

"The crazy part about that is that Sunday was also the inauguration of Afghanistan's new president," Moberg said.

"I just couldn't understand how I could be in one of the most dangerous countries on the planet, watching a peaceful transfer of power, while at the same time, Hong Kong -- one of the most peaceful, stable, organized places in the world -- was in protest," she said.

"At that point, I thought -- well, I have to come back."

Moberg lobbied for a few days off from work, and flew out the following day to join other Hong Kongers on the streets.

"I want to vote [in Hong Kong]," she said. "[We should] be able to pick our own leader."

Related: Police use tear gas as 'Occupy' comes to Hong Kong

Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement exploded last weekend as huge crowds of students flooded the city's main business district, and blocked several key arteries in the city.

Heavy-handed police action against them Sunday brought even more people into the streets. Protesters want free and open elections, while Beijing has proposed a system that will allow it to basically screen candidates for the city's top office.

Moberg, 34, a violin teacher, moved to Hong Kong from the U.S. nearly nine years ago. She has since founded a music academy in the city, and received her permanent residency, which allows her to live and work here without a temporary visa. Last month, she started a year-long stint teaching at the only music school in Afghanistan.

Moberg landed in Hong Kong late Wednesday morning and was out on the streets within a few hours, wearing yellow pants and twirling a yellow umbrella in a show of solidarity. The umbrella has quickly become a protest symbol after students used them to protect against pepper spray and tear gas.

It wasn't long before Moberg added yellow ribbons to her ensemble, and began chatting with other supporters while handing out protest stickers.

Related: Gallery: Why I'm protesting in Hong Kong

"I'm flabbergasted ... here are the students handing out crackers; this guy is handing out fans; he's handing out water; there's a first aid tent over there," she said. "A girl walked by carrying a sign saying, 'Need translation? I can help.' "

Moberg marveled at the fact that she could walk down empty stretches of Hong Kong's main thoroughfares, which are normally packed bumper-to-bumper with traffic.

She said that securing true universal suffrage is the most important protest goal, but also expressed concern about Hong Kong's wealth gap and rising property prices. In recent years, a wave of buyers from mainland China have pushed home prices to extreme levels.

"There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor -- only wealthy people can buy a home," Moberg said. "It's not that poor people can't, it's also that regular [middle class] people can't -- it's hard to keep this place as your home if you can't own a part of it."

The contrast to Afghanistan was stunning, she said. In Kabul, she can't get groceries without protection; in Hong Kong, it's the total opposite -- "anything goes."

Related: Hong Kong protesters are so freaking nice

"They have democracy, but not safety; here we have safety, but no democracy," she said.

Although she is American by birth, Moberg now considers Hong Kong her home, and is proud of the freedom the city allows.

"Here is a place where you can be anything you want to be; there is no stigma attached to what you believe," she said. "As soon as I arrived here, I knew that this was the place for me.

First Published: October 2, 2014: 2:39 AM ET

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Stocks: 'September slump' strikes again

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The "September stock slump" came back with a vengeance in 2014. The S&P 500 finished the month down over 1.5%, its worst performance since January. The Nasdaq -- the main gauge of tech and biotech stocks -- lost 1.9%. Even the Dow, the index that tracks America's large and well established companies, ended slightly in the red, down 0.3%.

How did things unravel?

It's a valid question to ask. There was so much excitement in September, what with Alibaba (BABA, Tech30) becoming the largest initial public offering in history, and the S&P 500 and Dow actually setting records. Then things turned sour.

Starting on Monday, September 22, investors hit the pause button and kept hitting it for much of the rest of the month. There were concerns again about how fast the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates. Would it move before next summer when most people expect it to take action? Fed chair Janet Yellen tried to soothe the markets, but the second guessing is back.

Related: Thank Janet Yellen or not?

Traders were also alarmed by a so-called "death cross" among small and mid-cap stocks that make up the Russell 2000 index. That's a technical term for when the 50-day moving average for an index falls below the 200-day average. In other words, the trend is down.

There's a clear polarization emerging again in the market where larger, more established companies are going strong and smaller, riskier ones are faltering. It was an excellent month for companies such as Nike (NKE) (up 13.5%), DuPont (DD) (up 8.6%) and Clorox (CLX) (up 8.4%).

So was September just a blip in an otherwise upward trend or is this a turning point? It depends on your perspective.

The pessimist's case: The bears of the investment world see stocks that are expensive and a market overdue for a correction. This is already the fourth longest bull market since 1928, according to Bespoke Investment Group, and we haven't had a true correction where the market dips 10% or more since 2011.

"We've had one record after another on the Dow and the S&P and yet the underlying economic and geopolitical fundamentals are still worrisome," well known investor Mohamed El-Erian told CNN last week.

Layer on top of that concerns about the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, a flat-lining European economy and ongoing strife in many parts of the world from Ukraine to the places ISIS is terrorizing in the Middle East. Furthermore, there's a case to be made that many companies have been boosting their bottom lines by cost cuts, not genuine growth and innovation for the future.

Related: Is it time for Wall Street to issue a correction?

The optimist's case: Most investment strategists that CNNMoney hears from are sticking with U.S. stocks. They believe the slow, but steady growth will continue. Consider this: despite the lackluster September, the S&P 500 is still up 6.7% for the year.

Optimists see an economy that is getting gradually better with manufacturing and employment picking up, among other positive signs. For example, FedEx (FDX) was one of the best performing stocks in September. The company is often seen as a beacon of corporate health.

They also see companies with a lot of cash. Even if there are headwinds, they're a lot easier to deal with when you have a rainy day fund. Corporate cash and short-term investments (some companies temporarily invest their cash to get a little extra bang for their buck) are near all-time highs, according to FactSet.

"We don't go into bear markets because stocks are too expensive. Typically, it's because of a policy error by the Fed or government," reminds Robert Landry, a fund manager for USAA.

The market always has bumps in the road, even during a bull run.

First Published: September 30, 2014: 5:22 PM ET

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House Dems want NY Fed hearings, too

A frustrated ex-Fed investigator provided several news outlets with apparent secretly-made recordings from her time as a Wall Street regulator.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

The three members — Reps. Maxine Waters of California, Al Green of Texas and Keith Ellison of Minnesota — signed a letter Tuesday urging hearings on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and whether it's too close with the banks it supervises.

They were responding to a collaborative This American Life and ProPublica story centered around the experiences of a frustrated ex-Fed investigator who said her bosses refused to get tough with investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS). The news outlets posted audio she apparently secretly recorded when meeting with her supervisors.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called for such hearings late last week. None have yet been scheduled.

The Republicans addressed in the letter -- Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina -- are senior members of the House Financial Services Committee. Hensarling, as the committee's chairman, has the authority to call hearings. Representatives for neither congressman immediately responded to requests for comment.

"The article ... suggests that additional scrutiny is needed to ensure that management practices and workplace culture at the FRBNY do not serve to undermine the effectiveness and integrity of the FRBNY's supervision of the financial institutions under its purview," the Democratic congressmen wrote in a statement.

Related: Dodd-Frank financial reform bill only halfway done

Their appeal mentioned Hensarling and McHenry's criticism of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, another financial regulatory body, over data privacy issues.

"We hope that you will honor this hearing request given the extensive resources and attention this Committee has dedicated to reviewing the management culture at the [CFPB]," they wrote.

First Published: September 30, 2014: 7:41 PM ET

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This app is helping Hong Kong protesters organize without a cell network

HONG KONG (CNNMoney)

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong -- who need functioning phones to organize -- appear to have found a solution to this problem.

More than 100,000 people in Hong Kong downloaded an app called FireChat in a recent 24-hour period. The app allows protesters to keep chatting, even when their phones lose mobile network connectivity.

FireChat works by connecting users in a daisy chain, or mesh network, via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. No mobile network is required, and users can choose to remain anonymous.

"With FireChat, it's completely decentralized," said Micha Benoliel, CEO of Open Garden, the app's developer. "And that means you can get connectivity from the people and devices around you -- directly."

Related: Hong Kong protesters willing to pay economic price

The benefits of FireChat have caught the attention of demonstration organizers, many of whom are encouraging protesters to download the app.

"Before you go near the government headquarters, please go to the App Store and download FireChat," Joshua Wong, the 17-year-old leader of a student protest group, urged supporters on Facebook. "Use this app to broadcast our situation to the outside world."

Photo essay: Police use tear gas as 'Occupy' comes to Hong Kong

Benoliel, who was in Hong Kong as protests escalated over the weekend, said the protesters were well prepared and well organized, and had anticipated that large crowds would complicate communication.

"They knew that at some point the cellular networks would be shut down or would just be overloaded by a number of people gathering in the same place, so they know that Firechat is a way to remain connected and communicate," Benoliel said.

While Benoliel said that FireChat was not designed specifically with protest movements in mind, it does seem to be catching on at demonstrations. In Taiwan, "Sunflower Movement" protesters also used the app earlier this year as they protested closer ties with Beijing.

First Published: September 30, 2014: 11:05 PM ET

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'Crouching Tiger' sequel to hit Netflix and theaters simultaneously

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

On that date, Netflix will premiere a feature film -- the sequel to the 2000 hit "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" -- at the same time moviegoers can see it in theaters.

The dual release will be the realization of Netflix's long-held goal to let subscribers see films at the same time they're in movie theaters.

Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) has achieved its goal by working directly with the Weinstein Company, the independent studio chaired by Bob and Harvey Weinstein. The studio is producing "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend" for both Netflix and the IMAX chain of super-sized theaters.

"The film is to be the first of several major films backed by Netflix to premiere on the same day on the world's leading Internet TV network and in select IMAX theaters globally, giving consumers and exhibitors around the world unparalleled flexibility in how, when and where they enjoy a major motion picture," the companies said in a statement.

Related: New owner for Shrek and DreamWorks Animation?

Netflix did not identify the other films, and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. For now, none of the major Hollywood studios -- like Warner Bros., which like this website is owned by Time Warner, or 20th Century Fox -- appear willing to try a simultaneous streaming and in-theater release.

Such a release would risk the ire of box office partners including AMC and Regal Entertainment that rely on ticket sales.

Executives at Netflix have long been interested in offering films concurrently with their theatrical release. They have portrayed the reigning model -- theaters first, then DVDs, then streaming -- as outdated.

"By the time we could watch a movie in the subscription window, it's a year after it's been in the theater," Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said in an interview with CNN earlier this year.

That timing, of course, limits the value of a monthly Netflix subscription.

Defenders of what's known as "windowing" say it maximizes opportunities to recoup financiers' investments in expensive films.

In the interview, Sarandos criticized it as an "antiquated distribution model" and said Netflix was looking at a new model. He compared the idea to the all at once, on-demand release of the drama "House of Cards."

"Maybe in the movie space, we'll do the same thing," he said, "and try to figure out: is there a way that we can, you know, get the movies out there at the same time they're in the theaters? And we'll probably have to make a bet on the programming ourselves to make that work."

Future of media - a custom Flipboard magazine

Indeed, that's what Netflix is doing with "The Green Legend," and it's sure to garner lots of publicity for it.

Sarandos told The New York Times that he hoped the partnership with the Weinsteins and Imax would convince others in Hollywood to strike similar deals.

"What I am hoping is that it will be a proof point that the sky doesn't fall," Sarandos said. "These are two different experiences, like going to a football game and watching a football game on TV."

Earlier this year, in a release that foreshadowed Monday's announcement, Netflix streamed a documentary called "The Square" at the same time it was released in a small number of theaters. But that theatrical release took place primarily so that "The Square" could qualify for Academy Awards consideration.

"The Green Legend" is a different arrangement altogether, with higher stakes for the movie industry. The first "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" earned more than $210 million worldwide.

"The moviegoing experience is evolving quickly and profoundly, and Netflix is unquestionably at the forefront of that movement," Harvey Weinstein said in a statement Monday night.

First Published: September 29, 2014: 11:07 PM ET

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