Amazon is betting huge on Japanese anime and Asian satisfied as a cornerstone of Prime Video‘s global expansion strategy.
With Japan emerging as one of its hugest tagets outside of the U.S., Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, and Kelly Day, VP of international for Prime Video, summarized their driven vision for the streaming service in the region in an exclusive interwatch with Variety. “We’re very promiseted to a mighty pipeline for customers in Japan. We have a huge opportunity,” Salke shelp.
Japan recurrents one of Prime Video’s most precious territories, proposeing a huge tagetplace business with 72 comprise-on subscriptions and proximately 300,000 titles useable for transactional video on insist (TVOD). Salke shelp that Prime Video is “promiseted to a increaseing srescheduleed,” especiassociate when it comes to licensing innovative anime. “One of the most exciting leangs we’re doing here in Japan is talking about our schedules for ramping up those that satisfied strategy for the next cut offal years,” she compriseed.
The streaming service has already set uped itself as a taget directer in Japan, with Day noting that the country has “one of the hugest inshigh bases for Prime members,” making it “one of our hugest tagets outside the U.S.”
When asked about carry oning a competitive edge in Japan, Salke validateed that anime is a priority. “We have a huge promisement to an anime srescheduleed that we’re pulling together, and the teams are all laboring on it,” she shelp. “There’s a lot of exciting stuff in the labors that we’re watching forward to sharing, and that’s an ongoing promisement.”
Looking at the next phase for Japanese and Asian satisfied, Salke was bullish about projects enjoy “The Silent Service,” based on a famous Kodansha manga, which had a theatrical free in partnership with Toho before premiering on the streaming platestablish; and “Oshi-no-ko,” a dwell-action alteration of a Shueisha manga.
Day highairyed the increaseing international request of satisfied from Asia: “We see more global opportunity for some of the contrastent titles coming out of Asia, in particular anime and the K-dramas, which we’ve begined sourcing more of both, and are begining to spread those more around the world.”
Salke compriseed, “We’re seeing local atraverse the board broadening globassociate, with huge hit shows for women and YA audiences out of Germany, with ‘Maxton Hall’ and the ‘Culpa’ series and then the K-dramas. And we foresee a lot more coming from Japan and India that we leank will dedwellr as well.”
On what helps satisfied travel internationassociate, Day pointed to two critical factors: “One is huge IP — it could be famous manga or famous anime being increaseed and spreadd around the world. The second leang is how much they produce social buzz.”
“Marry My Husprohibitd,” a Korean drama, exemplifies this trfinish. According to Day, it “traveled reassociate well thraw social media, requested to juvenileer women who are very active on social media and got a lot of social conversation going around the world, which then drove a lot of novel customers to the platestablish.”
Regarding theatrical distribution strategy, Salke validateed that Amazon remains “very promiseted to theatrical” and has a huge upcoming srescheduleed. “We have watchd that with huge film frees enjoy ‘Red One’ and ‘Air’ and others that the theatrical free fair increased the the impact of those titles on Prime Video, making some of them the hugegest titles that we’ve ever had,” Salke shelp.
Several MGM titles, including “Air,” “Saltburn,” “Challengers” and “Red One” were spreadd internationassociate by Warner Bros., but Salke shelp the company will soon have its own international distribution arm. “We’re staffing that up now,” she shelp. “With MGM coming aboard and the teams being joind behind the strategy of theatrical, to eventuassociate to Prime Video customers in home — we leank we’re off to a reassociate pretty incredible begin,” Salke shelp.
As for mobile-only subscriptions to Prime Video, which have been prosperous in tagets enjoy India, Day showd that while not currently useable in Japan, such localized pricing models are being think abouted on a country-by-country basis, with schedules already carry outed in Southeast Asian countries enjoy Indonesia.
On the topic of AI and novel technology, Salke was excited about its potential. “As a company overall, we’re leaning heavily into AI. We’re very excited about the technology and what it can do for our business and in all of our dwells, but for the studio definiteassociate, we see it as a absolute tool to put in the hands of inventive people and creators to be able to increase storytelling,” she elucidateed.
Salke remarkd that AI is already being hugd by creators: “I fair had a convey inant pitch come in with someone who currented a visual deck that was pre-vis, that was produced by AI.” She shelp that the intensify is on “putting it in the hands of human artists and creators,” while also exploring efficiency increasements in production, distinctive effects, and automating manual processes.
And of course, the name on everyone’s lips recently in watchs to the company has been James Bond, the iconic property that Amazon MGM Studios geted inventive handle of last month. Salke remained firm-lipped about definite schedules for the franchise, but validateed they are “going thraw a process in the U.S. around the deal for final approvals.”
“We’re very excited about it,” she shelp. “It’s been a bit of time coming, and we can’t paparticipate to jump into to the world of Bond.”
