“We all see a race for film”: What next for Amazon Studios in Europe?

For the past two summers, Amazon Studios’ head of local originals James Farrell has travelled around Europe with his wife and two young children. The Los Angeles-based executive spends the working week at each of Amazon Studios’ seven European offices — London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm and Amsterdam — while his family explores the city. He joins them for the weekend.

It is clearly a way for Farrell to keep in touch with his young family while overseeing the original TV shows and films produced by Amazon Studios outside the US (Farrell manages 20 local originals teams, including in Latin America, Asia, Canada, Australia, India and Africa).

Amazon Studios has ramped up its commissioning of local originals in Europe since 2018, recognising that a global platform needs to offer local content alongside US productions. “You can’t have a successful service in France if you don’t have French content,” Farrell says.

The arrival of deep-pocketed streamers in Europe caused understandable excitement among local producers, helping to swell the number of places where they could pitch for business. Yet, all things considered, Amazon Studios’ local originals teams in Europe commission a relatively small amount of content. Talk to most of its European country heads and they will say they are focused on “quality over quantity”.

The Dutch slate, for example, “is very curated”, says the Netherlands’ head of originals Jacomien Nijhof. Dan Grabiner, head of originals for the UK and Northern Europe, says Amazon Studios is “very, very picky” about its investments.

Amazon Studios, stresses Farrell, “is not a large volume producer”. That is because it does not need to be — unlike Netflix, Prime Video is not a standalone streaming service, but one part of the wider Amazon Prime membership offer. The ultimate goal is to help attract and retain Amazon Prime members. “The average person watches four hours of TV [per day], so 120 hours [per month] — but we don’t need you to stream 120 hours a month,” expands Farrell. “If you are watching 10-20 hours a month, and also buying some stuff from the shipping service, maybe listening to music through your Echo device, you might think, ‘My Prime membership is amazing.’”

The teams in each European country aim to launch 10-12 local productions a year — roughly one a month — spanning film, scripted TV and unscripted. Recent examples include UK series The Rig, The Devil’s Hour and Clarkson’s Farm through to French feature Overdose, Spanish feature comedy Manana Es Hoy and series Sin Huellas, and unscripted format LOL: Last One Laughing, which has been a hit in Italy, the Nordics and Germany.

For those who secure a commission, the experience is often good. “They don’t take on that many scripted shows so they can give proper attention to the ones that they do,” says Derek Wax, managing director of Wild Mercury Productions, which produced Amazon UK original The Rig. He credits the streamer for taking a risk on a large-scale original project from a new writer (David Macpherson) rather than a big-name creator, and for having “a very good creative team who were collaborative and very empowering… they were real partners”.

With Amazon Studios’ local teams only commissioning up to a dozen projects a year, some producers say they feel left out in the cold. Many producers point out that Amazon Studios is quick at responding to ideas and gives clear steers and timely feedback, but a number complain about not hearing from executives or finding it difficult to know exactly what they are looking for.

For others, Amazon Studios can be a confusing place to do business. Two German executives tell Screen International that ultimate decision-making seems to happen in the US rather than on the ground. A UK executive talks of its reputation for a data-led rather than a creative approach to decision-making and production.

Some of the confusion about Amazon Studios’ commissioning strategy stems from the fact its US and local original teams inevitably overlap. The US-based team greenlights roughly 50-70 big-budget global movies and TV shows each year, such as The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, Reacher and The Boys, which are designed to travel internationally. Many of these are produced outside of the US — season two of The Rings Of Power, for example, is produced in the UK (having moved from New Zealand), while The Boys is made in Canada.

Grabiner acknowledges this can cause confusion: “Especially in the UK, because lots of British talent are involved in global originals — there’s a lot of crossover and some producers will be talking to both teams.”

Frugal focus

At a time of wider economic challenges, there is also talk about cost-cutting at Amazon Studios, with the streamer reportedly reducing the number of projects it is developing and being more cautious about greenlighting second seasons of dramas. As Screen International went to press, Amazon Studios and Prime Video announced that 100 staffers out of approximately 7,000 employees were to be laid off. This is against a wider backdrop of aggressive cost-cutting at e-tailer Amazon itself, which has seen widespread layoffs, a corporate hiring freeze and a slowing of warehouse expansion.

Farrell says there are no plans for Amazon Studios to cut the number of shows it makes. However, there is now a notable emphasis on frugality at a studio that has a reputation for spending huge sums of money on major projects such as The Rings Of Power and Citadel.

Farrell emphasises the need for Amazon Studios “to be a good corporate steward… on every production we are saying, ‘Is this the right budget or should we be more frugal? Is there a way to do it with a little bit less?’”

He and his European commissioners also say they are prepared to be more flexible about rights, both to share the cost of programmes and films and to help drive word of mouth. This is especially true in scripted TV, which is both expensive and takes a long time to build audiences. “A series can take months or seasons before it is a hit, so you need to stick with it,” explains Farrell. Sharing rights with other broadcasters and platforms gets more people talking about the shows, he says. “That enables you to get to series two and series three. [It’s] good, smart business.”

“We are increasingly open to more flexible deal-making and interesting models of delivering shows to audiences,” adds Grabiner, who says it is a myth that Amazon only makes wholly owned series. “We do lots of different deals, lots of licensing, lots of collaborations with the licensing team and take different windows, as suits the show.”

Amazon Studios’ local European originals are designed to supplement the streamer’s global originals slate and the thousands of licensed movies and series across the service. The vast majority of content on Prime Video comprises acquisitions rather than original commissions. In total, $7bn was spent on originals, live sport and licensed third-party video content in 2022.

Farrell says that commissioners will “look at what are the holes — you’re not going to waste one of your 12 bullets on something that’s not going to work in the country of origin”. He adds that the European teams will seek content that meets three key goals: to be “highly resonant locally”; encourages viewers to sign up to the service; and is of a “quality that a lot of people finish [watching to the end]”. The ambition, too, is that the content will travel internationally via Prime Video.

The local original teams in Europe are still relatively new, with most of the senior executives having been appointed by director of European originals Georgia Brown, who left the company last year after five years in the role. There are no plans to replace Brown, although Grabiner was recently handed an expanded role to also oversee Germany, the Nordics and the Netherlands as well as the UK.

Philip Pratt took charge of German originals in 2018. Grabiner was hired from ITN in 2019 to establish the UK originals business, the same year Nicole Morganti was appointed to run Italian originals and Thomas Dubois was named head of French originals. Maria Jose Rodriguez Perez was drafted in to run Amazon Studios in Spain in 2020. In 2021, Amazon Studios expanded to the Nordics, appointing Karin Lindström, and to the Netherlands, which is headed by Jacomien Nijhof.

Each oversees a local commissioning team of about 10 people across film, scripted TV and unscripted. “We are pretty lean, and we like it that way,” says Grabiner. “There is a bit of a myth in the industry that we have these gigantic teams.”

Italy head Morganti likens it to being part of “a start-up within a huge company”, with the job being to understand what Italian viewers want to watch and translating that onto the screen.

Grabiner says the teams are “fully empowered to greenlight local shows for their local audiences” without referring back to Los Angeles. Before they do this, many commissioners stress they talk regularly with their European counterparts to swap ideas and insights. “I have never had the experience where I have had total conviction in Spain to do something and then it hasn’t been done,” says Rodriguez Perez.

Talk to each of the country heads and it becomes clear there are familiar elements to the kinds of films and series that each of them is looking for. With roughly 12 projects a year to greenlight, on average most are aiming for four films, four scripted TV series and four unscripted shows, although these numbers can be flexible.

With the European team having only been in place for a few years, most of the shows that have made it to air so far are unscripted and therefore quicker to produce. The Netherlands, for example, has launched reality show Modern Love Amsterdam and its version of the LOL: Last One Laughing format. The Nordics launched 18 titles between November 2022 and January 2023, most of them unscripted such as prank show Nicklas Pranker and four local versions of Banijay format Good Luck Guys. Italy, meanwhile, was first to bring LOL: Last One Laughing to air in Europe, and has also had success with celebrity and culinary travel­ogue Dinner Club.

A race for film

Features are identified as a priority in most territories. Film “is the one area we are really looking to scale”, says Farrell. “A lot of customers come to Amazon on a Thursday or Friday night and — whether it’s the economic times, Ukraine or politics — they’re like, ‘I just want to watch a movie, something fun, like a comedy, romcom or an action movie.’”

“We all see a race for film,” says head of Dutch originals Nijhof. Scripted TV might have boomed during the pandemic lockdowns, but now people have more demands on their time and find it difficult to keep up with the many series on offer. By comparison, a 90-minute movie requires less of a commitment — and this is increasingly attractive to many subscribers. “Movies will be more important going forward, I’m sure about that,” adds head of German originals Pratt, who first brought German original films to the service in 2021 with Martin Schreier’s comedy One Night Off.

The French service has so far released six original movies, beginning with Mélanie Laurent’s 2021 feature The Mad Women’s Ball. Olivier Marchal’s action thriller Overdose was a hit internationally as well as at home, and there are more pending, including Franck Gastambide’s action-comedy Medellin.

In the UK, the 2022 holiday movie Your Christmas Or Mine?, starring Asa Butterfield, was its first local original feature. It “performed brilliantly”, says Grabiner.

“We saw what the opportunity was, and we wanted to go and make a film like that, as opposed to picking it up from the licensing market,” he continues. “You’ll see a lot more film coming to the service over the next few years.”

In Spain, Amazon Studios is set to launch its second local original movie this June, the young-adult romance Culpa Mia from Pokeepsie Films with Domingo Gonzalez as director and screenwriter. Rodriguez Perez points out it is based on “incredible IP” — author Mercedes Ron’s bestselling Culpables trilogy — which she asserts has 40 million readers around the world. Amazon Studios’ third local original film in Spain is Awareness, an upcoming sci-fi feature produced by Federation Spain and directed by Daniel Benmayor. Sci-fi is not a traditional Spanish genre, says Rodriguez Perez, highlighting Amazon Studios’ “ambition” for movies in the country.

Features for all

For movies, Amazon is in general focusing on broad-appeal comedy, action and romantic comedy films. This is a change from the early days of Amazon Studios, when the focus was more on prestige movies. “As we’ve grown from 50 million to 200 million [Prime subscribers], you would hope to add more [film] content that large numbers of people want to watch and talk about,” says Farrell.

He adds that not all Amazon Studios movies “need to fit into that box”, citing its backing of Oscar and Bafta-nominated Argentina, 1985. At first glance, it is an arthouse courtroom drama, says Farrell, “but it performed just as well as any action movie because of its execution, relevance and timeliness”. Such films will “continue to be part of our plan”, he says. By contrast, movies that are likely to “play small and be very niche” are less in demand.

Scripted TV series, of course, remains a “key pillar” of the Amazon Studios originals offer, says Ger­many’s Pratt. He has had success with series such as We Children From Bahnhof Zoo and coming up in Germany is big-budget fantasy series The Gryphon. For Pratt, the latter title is representative of the “exceptional entertainment” he is looking to offer viewers with local originals. The idea is to present a show that cannot be found anywhere else, and that attracts attention in a sea of choice. “Entertainment is the core focus. It doesn’t have to be prestige TV,” says Pratt. “It needs to be world-class entertainment to stick out.”

France’s Dubois says that with so many series available to viewers, a key priority is “how your content will generate conversation organically”. Coming up in the territory is Cédric Klapisch’s original series Greek Salad, a sequel to his popular features L’Auberge Espagnole, Russian Dolls and Chinese Puzzle. Attaching a strong cast is particularly important to pull in customers, says Dubois (Greek Salad is fronted by French star Romain Duris).

Grabiner says he is looking for shows that “sound good immediately”, perhaps because of a strong title, compelling cast or “some wild flavour to it”. He adds: “What is tricky for us is a show that could be very high quality, but just struggles to punch through. There is so much competition, including on our own homepage.” When pitching, he encourages producers to ask themselves, “Why are people going to try this show in the first place?”

Grabiner also stresses that he is not looking at shows that emulate existing success. “I’m sure I’m about to receive a pitch for another Scottish rig show, but that is the last thing we want. We’ve renewed The Rig — it is doing a brilliant job, and has a big, passionate fanbase. It’s not a great use of money to go and find another one.”

In the Netherlands, Nijhof says Amazon Studios tries to “find something with an actor and a surprising hook that people might not expect”, and that resonates with a Dutch audience. She points out the streamer has a first-look deal with Achmed Akkabi, the creator, showrunner and star of hit Dutch crime series Mocro Maffia, and is working with him on a comedy and action series. Coming up in Italy is Everybody Loves Diamonds, a heist series with a comic twist from Fremantle-owned Wildside, inspired by the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist. The Nordics, meanwhile, has eight series and films in funded development.

Observers will be watching eagerly to see how these Amazon Studios originals perform. Within the industry, there is a perception that, despite shows like Transparent and Jack Ryan, the streamer has yet to have a truly defining breakthrough hit on the scale that Netflix has enjoyed with Stranger Things and The Crown.

“One programme can change the perception of a service,” says Farrell. “That’s certainly happening for us in France right now with LOL — it is such a cult hit.”

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