Today’s Highlights:
Netflix UK Profits Surge by Almost 75% - Netflix UK saw a 74% rise in profits to £46.5 million due to a password-sharing crackdown, subscription price hikes, and popular content like Baby Reindeer.
ABC and Screen Well Host Mental Health Summit—ABC and Screen Well will hold a summit in January at ABC's Sydney studios, focusing on mental health and well-being in the Australian screen industry.
Screen Australia Funds 15 Projects - Screen Australia announced $8.1 million in production funding for 15 film, TV, and online projects, including Chasing Millions and Leviticus.
Grierson Trust Welcomes New Patrons - Dorothy Byrne, Asif Kapadia, and Louis Theroux join The Grierson Trust as new patrons, supporting documentary filmmaking.
Hypewriter Pitch Forum Winner Announced - Anastasia Hoppanova's drama Earthling won the Hypewriter international competition, receiving €10,000 and a development deal with Paprika Studios.
Craig Meade Discusses Planet Weird - WildBear Entertainment's Craig Meade introduces Planet Weird, a quirky wildlife series that addresses industry shifts towards social media and AI.
Netflix's Bela Bajaria Defends Compensation Model—At the Bloomberg Screentime event, Bela Bajaria reaffirmed Netflix's commitment to the cost-plus compensation model for talent.
Amazon Studios Exec Jennifer Salke Teases New Projects - Jennifer Salke discusses Amazon's global strategy, teasing major projects like Citadel: Diana and highlighting the Waller-Bridge deal during the European tour.
Busan International Film Festival Awards—Lee Ran-hee's The Final Semester won three awards at the Busan International Film Festival, including the DGK Plus M Award.
DOC NYC Lineup Announced—DOC NYC has revealed its lineup, which features 31 world premieres and 24 US premieres, including Blue Road and Drop Dead City.
Plus: News, Insights, Executive Moves, Festivals & Markets, In Development, Deals, Renewals, Opportunities and Jobs with WBD, SBS, UKTV, Sky, ITV, Prime, Disney & M6.
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NEWS
Netflix UK Profits Soar by Almost 75% to £60M
Netflix UK’s profits surged 74% last year to £46.5m, driven by a password-sharing crackdown, subscription price hikes, and popular content like Baby Reindeer. Pre-tax profits rose 70% to £53.7m, with an 8% revenue increase to £1.7bn, mostly from streaming. Subscriber numbers grew by 7%, boosting revenue. Netflix issued a £35m dividend, down from £50m in 2022, and faced a larger tax bill of £14.2m compared to the previous year. Read More
ABC and Screen Well to Present Health and Wellbeing Summit
The ABC and Screen Well will host a leadership summit on mental health and wellbeing in the Australian screen industry at ABC's Sydney studios in January. Titled Mental Health Matters: A Screen Leaders Summit, it will bring together industry leaders and provide a Q&A platform for cast and crew. Screen Well, founded by Ben Steel in 2022, also offers mental health resources and training. Earlier this year, it collaborated with MEAA for mental health first aid training. Read More
The Grierson Trust Announces Three New Patrons
The Grierson Trust has appointed Dorothy Byrne, Asif Kapadia, and Louis Theroux as new patrons, joining existing patrons Sir David Attenborough, Nick Broomfield, Christopher Hird, Kim Longinotto, Charlotte Moore, Norma Percy and Sir Grayson Perry. These patrons support the Trust's mission to foster a diverse documentary filmmaking community. The Trust runs the Grierson DocLab programmes, offering training and mentoring with partners like Prime Video and Netflix. It also hosts the British Documentary Awards, celebrating global excellence in documentary filmmaking. Read More
Screen Australia Announces Production Funding for 15 Projects
Screen Australia has announced over $8.1 million in production funding for 15 projects across film, TV, and online platforms. Highlights include Chasing Millions, a crime drama co-production with Ireland, Displaced, a sci-fi comedy series for YouTube, and Leviticus, a horror feature from the producers of Talk to Me. Additional projects include the romantic comedy Love Adjacent and the thriller Watching You. Screen Australia also announced $1.7 million in development funding for 27 television dramas, 23 feature films, and six online projects. Read More
Hypewriter Pitch Forum Winner Announced
Anastasia Hoppanova’s drama series Earthling won the top prize at the Hypewriter international series concept competition. The series follows a quirky woman claiming to be an alien in a small town, with only a conspiracy theorist and single father believing her. Selected from 250 submissions across 40 countries, the finalists presented their ideas in Budapest, where Earthling was awarded €10,000 and the opportunity to develop the project with Paprika Studios and RTL Hungary. Read More
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INSIGHTS
Star Baker
Cindy Swanepoel, Koek (Cake) star, discusses the award-winning South African drama about a housewife, Christelle Smit, who uncovers her husband’s affair and is pulled into Cape Town’s criminal underworld. Swanepoel won Best Actress at the Silweskerm Film Festival for her role in the series, which debuted on Showmax in February. Koek has become one of the platform's top 10 Afrikaans series and has been renewed for a second season. Read More
Everyday TV: A New Era of Entertainment
DirecTV commissioned a study on American TV habits, surveying 9,442 adults. Results revealed that most viewers use multiple services periodically, with only a few platforms being used daily. While premium streaming services are popular for weekly binging, churn rates are high, with 40% of new SVOD subscribers switching services frequently. FAST and AVOD services are growing but used intermittently, whereas Pay TV subscribers, especially DirecTV users, report daily use. Read More
WildBear’s Craig Meade Talks Planet Weird and New Content Ecosystem
Craig Meade, general manager at WildBear Entertainment, discussed the company's new wildlife series Planet Weird, a light-hearted look at the planet’s most bizarre creatures, narrated by UK comic Ross Noble. Meade highlighted wildlife producers' challenges as younger audiences shift towards social media and AI increasingly influences program creation. With a focus on adapting to these changes, Planet Weird aims to engage audiences with a quirky and entertaining approach to nature, distributed by Blue Ant Studios. Read More
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Komplizen Film Co-Founders Discuss Staying Independent and Maren Ade’s Next Project
Janine Jackowski and Jonas Dornbach, co-founders of Komplizen Film, met at the Hof International Film Festival in 2003 and later partnered at the company Jackowski formed with Maren Ade. Dornbach joined Komplizen full-time in 2010, leading to successes like Toni Erdmann, A Fantastic Woman, and Spencer. Komplizen nurtures new talent and maintains creative freedom, benefiting from German and EU funding. While initially considering distribution, they expanded into TV production with Netflix's Skylines, finding greater creative freedom and bigger budgets in TV. Read More
Netflix’s Bela Bajaria on New Compensation Models
Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria clarified that the company is not moving away from its cost-plus model for compensating talent in film and TV. Speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime event, Bajaria emphasised that Netflix’s current model works well for filmmakers and the company, and they have no plans to change it. She acknowledged only two exceptions where non-cost-plus deals were made but reaffirmed the model's success and longevity amidst recent discussions in Hollywood about changing compensation structures. Read More
Golden Globes Event and the Dynamics Behind Hollywood’s Power Struggles
Three years after Todd Boehly of Eldridge Industries set out to turn the Golden Globes into a for-profit entity focusing on restoring integrity, scepticism persists despite efforts for transparency. In December 2022, Boehly praised a new model that brought accountability to the previously opaque Hollywood Foreign Press Association. By June 2023, Penske Media Eldridge, in partnership with Dick Clark Productions, took over the awards telecast. In light of these changes, questions about accountability, transparency, and trust in the organisation. Read More
Amazon Studios Exec Jennifer Salke Teases New Projects and Waller-Bridge Deal
Last week, Amazon Prime Video showcased its global presence with events across Europe, including the Prime Video Presents Trailblazers event celebrating women in entertainment, featuring appearances by Octavia Spencer, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Amy Pascal. The European tour also included the Citadel: Diana premiere in Italy. During the tour, senior Amazon executives Jennifer Salke and Kelly Day discussed celebrating women in the industry, changes over the past five years, and the international strategy for major franchises like Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider. Read More
SPI International’s Erwan Luherne Talks Strategy for Growth
Now wholly owned by CANAL+ Group, SPI International is leveraging its channel management expertise and digital assets to grow its free-to-air, pay-TV, and SVOD services portfolio. Erwan Luherne, who became managing director after the CANAL+ acquisition, previously served as CANAL+ International’s director of business integration. Here, Luherne outlines his strategy for utilising strengths as they adapt to the evolving channels ecosystem. Read More
Cristian Mungiu and Ana Mihai Team Up for "Traffic"
Belgian-Romanian director Teodora Ana Mihai continues to blend genres with her new film Traffic, a mix of politically charged social drama and heist movie, premiering as the closing film of the Warsaw Film Festival. Written by Palme d'Or winner Cristian Mungiu, Traffic stars Anamaria Vartolomei, known for her role in Happening. The film follows Romanian immigrants in Belgium, frustrated by their second-class status, marking a thematic shift from Mihai’s debut, La Civil, which combined investigative thriller with social realism. Read More
Study Explores Why People Pirate TV Shows and Films
According to a new Deloitte survey, Seven per cent of consumers admitted to watching pirated movies and TV shows, though the actual number is likely higher. Only 18% of pirates cited cost as their primary reason, while 40% said they sought early access or convenience. Additionally, half of the pirates feel that SVOD content isn't worth the price, with 46% preferring to pay per show or movie rather than subscribing monthly. Many also pirate content for uncensored versions and quicker availability than legal streaming platforms offer. Read More
How Los Angeles Can Expand Production Incentives
Revitalising Los Angeles as a film hub requires unified county permitting with consistent pricing and reduced regulations, location fee caps for filming sites, and tax breaks for film-specific vendors to stay competitive. A robust statewide film rebate program would attract out-of-state productions and retain local workers. Additionally, unions and guilds could temporarily lower crew minimums and halt increases to stabilise the market and ensure LA remains a desirable filming location. Read More
Severance Showrunners Plan for Series Finale
Severance is already looking ahead to Season 3, even though its second season, set to premiere on January 17, 2025, hasn't debuted yet. While Season 3 hasn't been officially greenlit, writer and co-executive producer Mohamad El Masri revealed that creator Dan Erickson and producer Ben Stiller have mapped out the entire arc. Read More
Hollywood’s Most Influential Influencers of 2024
The Hollywood Reporter’s inaugural content creators power list highlights the influencers shaping New Media. This list celebrates comedians, writers, producers, makeup artists, and fashion moguls who captivate audiences through talent, relevance, and brand growth. Chosen for their magnetism and diversity in thought, these TikTokers, Instagrammers, and YouTubers set trends and redefine fame. Though attention spans are shorter in this digital age, the influence of these creators promises long-term impact in Hollywood and beyond. Read More
Will AI Chatbots Help Netflix-Like Platforms with Script Selection?
Six months ago, Los Angeles’ anxiety about AI was palpable, with fears that tools like ChatGPT could soon replace jobs. Although no one believed AI could truly make movies, the paranoia was real. Since then, AI usage has surged, with 250 million weekly active ChatGPT users by late 2024, and AI now drives everything from international dubbing to social media highlight reels. As AI becomes integral to Hollywood, new tools like ScriptSense’s chatbot offer constant virtual assistance in script analysis and casting, merging creative brainstorming with AI's practical capabilities, reshaping the future of content creation. Read More
Isabelle Huppert and James Gray Face Off in Feud; Nicole Kidman Joins Babygirl
At the Venice Film Festival, Babygirl, directed by Halina Reijn, stars Nicole Kidman as a corporate CEO engaging in kink with a younger intern, played by Harris Dickinson. The provocative film draws comparisons to Isabelle Huppert’s The Piano Teacher, with Kidman’s performance earning her the Best Actress award, judged by jury president Huppert. Reijn, also an actress, shares connections with Huppert through collaborations with theatre director Ivo van Hove and filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, deepening the thematic ties between their works. Read More
SAG-AFTRA General Counsel Jeffrey Bennett on AI Laws
AI protections recently signed into law by California Governor Gavin Newsom aren't a "silver bullet" for addressing all the challenges posed by advancing technology, according to SAG-AFTRA’s general counsel Jeffrey Bennett at TheGrill conference. The laws require contracts to specify the use of AI-generated digital replicas of performers' likenesses and prohibit using AI replicas of deceased performers without estate consent. Bennett emphasised a web of protections at state, federal, and local levels to safeguard performers against unauthorised replication. Read More
Canary Islands Film Expands Production Developments
Canary Islands Film announced key developments, including support for minority co-productions, the opening of Gran Canaria Studios, and the 15th anniversary of the audiovisual industry being declared a strategic sector. In 2023, seven co-productions received subsidies, while Gran Canaria Studios hosted productions like The Abyss for Netflix and Deep Water. The sector has increased, with real-image productions doubling and animation projects quadrupling, contributing over €223 million in 2022. Read More