Streaming analysts always pointed out that services like Amazon Prime Video had an advantage over Netflix or HBO Max: the platform didn’t need to be profitable in order to continue operating with peace of mind. Being just one more service of a company that earns 1,290 million a day, the production of series and films could be perceived as a whim. But, it seems, this carte blanche when it comes to producing content could be over. As Bloomberg reports, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is looking closely at series budgets and their audience among the platform’s subscribers.
Jassy, ??arguing that the market is in a moment of uncertainty and with an unpromising future, is in a phase of restructuring and cuts: “Like so many businesses, we have been closely monitoring the economic conditions and our organizational needs, and we have made the decision to adjust our resources.” This plan includes measures such as eliminating 100 jobs at Amazon Studios, its audiovisual production studio, and since January it has planned more than 27,000 layoffs at Amazon.
With these objectives in the company, it is understood that the executive director now looks at the content produced by Amazon Studios, especially when in the last year they have made headlines for the waste of dollars in some of their productions. For example, after acquiring the television rights to The Lord of the Rings, Amazon Studios produced The Rings of Power, the most expensive series in history.
The budget for the first eight episodes, spectacular on a technical level (and with the Catalan J.A. Bayona behind the camera in the first two), was around 400 million. The problem? That, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the ratio of subscribers who started the first season and who finished it did not fit with the story of the phenomenon or at least of success: only 37% of Americans who got the series finished it, and in the rest of the world this figure rose to 45%, which is not a stellar result either.
The most controversial case for the managers of Amazon Studios, however, is that of Citadel. The studio entrusted the Russo brothers (Avengers: Endgame) with the creation of an original television franchise, based on a new idea. Citadel, which is a longtime spy series with Stanley Tucci, Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra about a supra-government intelligence agency, was thought to have spin-offs set in Mexico, Italy or India.
But, after having creative disagreements with screenwriters Josh Applebaum and André Nemec and having to reshoot episodes, the budget skyrocketed: the first season cost more than 200 million. The critics were not kind to the fiction, which was criticized for being too generic due to the budget it had cost and the commercial and expansive ambitions behind its premiere. And, despite the fact that Amazon tried to sell that it had been a success among its subscriber base without giving figures, the audience measurement company Nielsen revealed that in the United States it had had mediocre results: it was never one of the 10 most watched series on the week in the streaming world despite its hefty budget.
Jassy, ??therefore, could close a stage started by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who in 2018 brought Jen Salke to lead the television offensive after the results achieved by Roy Price with more author series such as Transparent and Mozart in the jungle. Bezos was clear about what he wanted: to spend, put the money on the screen and launch an unquestionable phenomenon like Game of Thrones. But, with series like Citadel, The Rings of Power or The Peripheral without penetrating this level of social conversation and audience, it will be necessary to see what measures are taken.
It should be remembered that, apart from fictions as expensive as these, Amazon Prime Video has not abandoned its interest in more personal works. Only so far in 2023 has it released rarities such as Inseparable in which Alice Birch rewrote David Cronenberg’s film with a patina as feminine as it is disturbing; Swarm from Janine Nabers and Donald Glover, a psychological horror thriller about a sick fan of a Beyoncé sort of thing; the surreal I’m a virgo where Boots Riley tells the story of a four meter tall black boy without using CGI but only camera effects; and this Friday he has released The Horror of Dolores Roach about an ex-convict who, after being released from prison, begins to serve human meat empanadas.
