Hollywood and the film and television industry as a whole goes through ups and downs on spending over the course of business cycles. Following a free-wheeling investment spree in content, the streamers and major studios have been racing for market share, subscribers, retention, and volume.
As we've seen happen many times, these periods are often followed by a retrenchment. Cost consciousness returns and the reigns are drawn in - a bit.
Netflix will still spend $17bn on content in 2024, up from a strike-induced lower $13bn number. While all the production and distribution companies, and streamers need to ramp volume, they will be watching the costs more closely going forward.
While much of this is strike induced, the trend was afoot as Wall Street slapped Netflix for its first subscriber drop, and it induced a re-examination of the streaming model, profitability, and accountability to investors. The bottom line is, as always for independent producers, the film budget matters, the cost must be reasonable, and in alignment with the market. The big kids are facing this factor as well.
Read the article @Variety on the changes taking place in the industry:
https://variety.com/2023/biz/focus/streamers-dealmakers-shift-strategies...
Happy New Year and stay focused!
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Thanks for sharing, @Jack Binder.
There's a part in the article that says, "But going forward, streamers are being more selective about the projects they greenlight. 'Everybody is coming out of this thinking about cost containment,' says David Eilenberg, head of content for Roku Media. 'Some degree of austerity is likely to impact content spend over the longer term.'" People in the industry have said for a while that studios and companies should make 10 mid-budget movies instead of one $100MM budget movie. That way if one of the mid-budget movies (or more than one movie) doesn't make a profit, the studio or company won't lose as much money.
Studios and companies will still make big-budget movies of course, but like someone said, every movie doesn't need to cost $100MM+.
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Great information!
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maybe we should follow more the lead of Jason Blum production strategies
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Great share! Thank you, Jack Binder!
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Eilenberg is a super smart and talented executive. Great perspective and I trust what he says, Maurice Vaughan.
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Great article - thank you for sharing!