Hollywood purists and Netflix haters get ready because the company that’s seemingly trying to take over the world is now one step closer to their goal. Paramount Pictures CEO Jim Gianopulos recently announced that the company made a multi-picture deal with Netflix, producing films exclusively for the streaming service.
Paramount Pictures is one of the oldest and most historic film studios in the world, having a legacy of over 100 years and producing Oscar winners like The Godfather franchise and all the multi-million dollar Transformers. This is huge.
The Hollywood Reporter claims that Paramount is choosing to take a gamble on Netflix, teaming up with them unlike competitors Disney and Warner Bros who are trying their hardest to take their content from the website and build streaming services of their own.
A24, a young but incredibly beloved and successful production company, is also doing something similar to Paramount, striking a multi-picture deal with Apple. Much less is known about this partnership since both companies are notoriously secretive.
These new films that’ll be especially designed for Netflix and Apple will likely be ones with low to mid-budgets, those that would normally not make a lot of money at the box office and that could benefit from a streaming service release. One of the films in discussion within the Paramount-Netflix partnership is the sequel to To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, the very successful movie that took over the internet when it was released in April 2018.
The deal between Paramount and Netflix is not surprising since both companies share some history, with Netflix bailing out Paramount and buying the rights to Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman when the film went over-budget. Netflix also became the home of The Cloverfield Paradox, which was initially set for theatrical release, and for Annihilation, a film that didn’t get an international theatrical release because Paramount deemed it to risky for overseas audiences.
These new business deals and partnerships could mean a lot of different things. They could lead to more movies and more opportunities for creativity and inclusiveness or they could result in two media giants consuming two respectable film studios. It’s all up for grabs now.
