By Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine
(Second of two parts)
The film studio, started from scratch five years ago, sees a handful of budding franchises: “Enola Holmes,” about Sherlock’s teenage sister, “Knives Out,” an Agatha Christie-style mystery, “Old Guard,” about a team of immortal mercenaries, action-thriller “Extraction” and zombie tale “Army of the Dead.”
Spy thriller “The Gray Man” debuts Friday. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, whom film chief Scott Stuber hailed as “franchise builders” at the movie’s Los Angeles premiere, said they created a rich world with expansion in mind.
“We’ve definitely specifically designed and thought of this narrative in a way to carry it forward in other forms,” co-director Anthony Russo said in an interview.
Netflix bolstered its franchise-building efforts through an October 2020 restructuring under new global TV chief Bela Bajaria, a former Universal Television executive who developed such Netflix comedies as “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and “Master of None.”
As subscriber growth slowed in fall 2020, Bajaria sought to extract more from pricey deals with such producers as “Bridgerton’s” Shonda Rhimes. She also formed a team to develop prestige series and spectacles (often big, effects-driven fantasy series) that could grow into franchises.
Scouting Material
Netflix added consumer products staff and hired in-house book scouts to find works to adapt, rather than waiting for outside agents or publishers to bring material to its executives. Thunell called this step a “game changer.” It also created a video games unit.
The company has begun involving marketing and consumer products staff early in the franchise-building process. These teams, for example, recently traveled to London to meet with Benioff and Weiss on the “Three-Body Problem” set.
“Army of the Dead” producers Zack and Deborah Snyder provided input on a virtual reality experience while they were filming, according to Josh Simon, head of Netflix’s consumer products and live experiences division. His team is now working with the Snyders on ideas tied to their next movie, “Rebel Moon.”
“We’re really deeply immersed in production meetings,” Simon said. “We can work years ahead because we have that level of trust and collaboration with the creators.”
Steven Ekstract, CEO of Global Licensing Advisors, said “Stranger Things” alone has the potential to generate $1 billion in annual retail sales starting in 2025 from products, events and possibly a theme park ride or digital avatars.
Netflix would reap royalties of about $50 million to $75 million from those sales, plus free advertising from merchandise. To reach that level, Netflix needs to keep people engaged with the “Stranger Things” world, he said.
The streaming service has considerably less experience in erecting franchises than its century-old Hollywood rivals, noted Julia Alexander, director of strategy at entertainment research firm Parrot Analytics.
“Do we have the same confidence in the Netflix machine as we do the Disney machine? No, but in part that comes from Disney spending years determining what that machine looks like,” Alexander said. “For all of Netflix’s dominance in the streaming space, they’re still relatively new to building out these types of worlds.” — Reuters
