Amazon MGM Studios is doubling down on its original movie business.
The studio arrives at MIPCOM Cannes with nearly all its eggs in the basket for Earth Above, an original series starring Alexander Ludwig (Vikings) and Jessica Frances Dukes (Ozark). The show is based on George R. Stewart’s 1949 novel, a post-apocalyptic story about the collapse of civilization due to a deadly disease. Chris Ottinger, MGM’s president of worldwide distribution and acquisitions, says the story “represents a lot of the emotions of today.” , it’s a very strange time to be on this earth. ”
The executive spoke with The Hollywood Reporter in Cannes and talked about the studio’s slate of shows coming to MIPCOM, including the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Accountant 2 and the sequel to A Simple Favor. We talked about movies.
What the team at Amazon has actually discovered in recent years is that their original titles enjoy worldwide broadcast success comparable to theatrically released projects. Ottinger points to Tomorrow War, the 2021 post-apocalyptic movie starring Chris Pratt that surprised studios with incredible box office results three years after its initial release. At TF1 in France, Tomorrow War beat Aquaman, Wonder Woman 1984 and Black Widow. In Spain, it surpassed “Terminator: New Fate,” “King’s Man,” and “Fast and Furious 9.”
“Even though these movies were older and hadn’t been released theatrically, they still performed as well as the big theatrical titles,” Ottinger tells THR. “So what we learned from this led us to think we should really double down on our movie business.”
He continues: “We have a great film slate. Courtenay Valenti heads up our film division and is a great executive. We have an interesting hybrid model of releasing theatrically and quickly moving to streaming. Masu.”
Amazon’s original film momentum is solid, with the studio already bringing 2025 titles to this year’s MIPCOM market. “This is a huge push,” Oettinger added. “The data is very clear. We know they work very well for broadcasters. We prioritize that because it works well for our services. And we We worked very hard on it. It’s a very big undertaking and we’re a large company, so it was a robust decision-making process with a lot of discussion.”
“Young people and women are the demographics that Amazon wants to reach,” said Ottinger, who focused on analyzing data about its services. He points to March’s release of The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, as a big indicator of the ripeness for female audiences and female-led storytelling. “Ide of You worked incredibly well for us, so we’re developing that area quite a bit,” he said. “’Kirei na Natsu’ is also a good example.”
“Young viewers are the hardest thing to capture,” he continues. “We know they spend a lot of money [of time] on TikTok and YouTube. How do we capture them with our services? So we’re really committed to making programming that’s really meaningful to young viewers, and making sure that that product can find a home somewhere overseas. ”
The company also focuses on local original productions, producing approximately 120 local series and films annually across all regions. “These shows are performing very well on our service and are very targeted to their home countries,” Oettinger said. “In this process of expanding our sales strategy, one of the important things for us is to really listen to our clients. We absolutely say to our clients, ‘What do you want? Let me know and I’ll see if I can clear it.” If it makes sense to clear it. It’s a local original. So bringing local, original content to market is a big push for us right now. We’re currently doing a lot of work on this internally. ”
