Amazon is not just trying to compete against Netflix on streaming platforms; he also wants to do it on the big screen. The company founded by Jeff Bezos has confirmed that plans to invest $1 billion in original movies that will be released in theatersan amount that translates into a number of releases similar to those of Paramount Pictures per year and that, moreover, far exceeds that of its main competitors.
The company, specifically, he hopes to release between 12 and 15 films a year. It will start, yes, with a smaller number of feature films during 2023, and its production will increase over time. Its goal, however, seems to be to replicate the highly successful formula of Netflix, which releases original titles on the big screen a few weeks before their movies are available on its streaming platform.
Daggers in the Back: The Glass Onion Mystery, for example, is currently available in theaters before its premiere on Netflix on November 23; a strategy that could allow the company to raise at least a large part of the cost of its production. Especially considering the success of the original film, which grossed $312.9 million in theaters in 2019.
Amazon wants to increase its number of original productions
Amazon, yes, does not have the same number of original movies as Netflix, which releases approximately 100 titles a year. The company, yes, has spent months planning to increase its number of own productions with acquisitions such as the Metro-Goldwyn-Maye (MGM) studio, which was closed last March for 8.5 billion dollars and allowed the firm to hold titles such as those of James Bond.
Amazon’s purchase of MGM, however, does not appear to have gone as smoothly as the company had hoped. Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdy, two of MGM’s top managers, left the firm just a month after the acquisition closedwhile Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, is looking for an executive after Mike Hopkins (former CEO of Hulu and current director of Prime Video) met —unsuccessfully— with executives such as Emma Watts, who worked at Fox and Paramount or Sean Bailey president of production at Walt Disney Studios.
