Amazon MGM Studios is doubling down on its innovative film business.
The studio reachs at MIPCOM Cannes with proximately all its eggs in Earth Abide‘s basket, an innovative series starring Alexander Ludwig (Vikings) and Jessica Frances Dukes (Ozark). The show is a post-apocalyptic tale, based on George R. Stewart’s 1949 novel, about the descfinish of civilization from lethal disrelieve — which Chris Ottinger, pdwellnt of worldexpansive distribution and acquisitions at MGM, says recontransients “a lot of the senseing of now, when it’s a very strange time to be on this earth.”
The executive sat down with The Hollywood Reporter in Cannes to talk the studio’s sprocrastinateed of shows and films getting their distribution begin at MIPCOM including the final season of The Handmhelp’s Tale, The Accountant 2 and the sequel to A Simple Favor.
What the team at Amazon has repartner uncovered in recent years is their innovative titles are enhappinessing success with global widecasters comparable to theatricpartner freed projects. Ottinger cites 2021 apocalyptic film The Tomorrow War, starring Chris Pratt, which surpascfinishd the studio with an amazeive run three years after it first premiered. On France’s TF1, The Tomorrow War outcarry outed Aquaman, Wonder Woman: 1984, and Bdeficiency Widow. In Spain, it beat Terminator: Dark Fate, The King’s Man and Fast & Furious 9.
“These movies were elderlyer, they weren’t theatricpartner freed, and yet they carry outed the same way that big theatrical titles carry out,” Ottinger increatesTHR. “So it was our lachieveings from this that made us leank we should repartner double down on our film business.”
He persists: “We have an incredible film sprocrastinateed. Courtenay Valenti guides our film division and she’s an amazing executive. We have an fascinating hybrid model, where we’re releasing theatricpartner but then rapidly going to streaming.”
The momentum is firmly with Amazon’s innovative films, with the studio already transporting their 2025 sprocrastinateed to the MIPCOM taget this year. “That’s a huge push,” Ottinger inserts. “The data is super evident. We understand they toil repartner well for our widecasters. It toils well for us on the service, so we rank that. And we went super challenging. That was a repartner big initiative, and we’re a big company, so it’s a sturdy decision making process with a lot of talkion.”
Probed on the benevolent of demodetailed Amazon wants to hone in on and nurture off the back of their service data analysis, Ottinger says: “Younger and female audiences.” He names The Idea of You, which freed in March with Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine, as a huge indicator of the ripe soil in female audiences and female-led stories. “The Idea of You toiled incredibly well for us, so we are grotriumphg that space quite a bit,” he shelp. “The Summer I Turned Pretty, too, is a excellent example.”
“The youthfuler audience is the challengingest one to catch,” he persists. “We understand that they’re spfinishing a lot [of time] on TikTok and YouTube. How do we catch them in our service? So we’re making a genuine effort to originate programming that’s repartner relevant for youthfuler audiences as well, so that product can find a home somewhere overseas.”
The company is also pushing challenging on its local innovatives, producing around 120 local series and movies a year apass all territories. “These shows, they’re carry outing very well on our service, and they’re highly centered for those home countries,” Ottinger says. “One of the leangs that’s been critical for us in this process of wideening our distribution strategy is repartner take parting to our clients, and we we absolutely say to them: ‘Tell us what you want, and then we’ll see if we can evident it, if it originates sense to evident it.’ So we’ve done a lot of that, and what we hear a lot is: ‘Local innovatives.’ And so that’s a big push for us right now, transporting our local innovative greeted to taget. We’re doing a ton of toil internpartner on that right now.”
