Though Netflix's stock price has plummeted, the streamer has already locked in its content budgets for 2022 and 2023.
have launched a charm offensive, stressing to top creators and agents that they will continue to spend aggressively to make and market movies and shows. In calls and in-person meetings, sources say they have positioned the April stock drop as a setback, reassured filmmakers and showrunners that they remain well-capitalized and informed them that they don’t believe the answer to their current predicament is to stop competing for buzzy content.
Also mentioned: that their content budgets are locked for 2022 and 2023 . A source familiar with the company says that agency and creator check-ins are routine. The source also stresses that Netflix continues to have over 200 million paying subscribers, giving it financial heft. Netflix has made two recent moves that signaled a willingness to still spend big. On May 21, the streamer dropped $50 million on the feature film package “Pain Hustlers,” from Emily Blunt and David Yates, out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Then last week it set up a “Squid Game”-inspired reality competition series with an eye-popping grand prize of $4.56 million.
But producers and production companies have already begun bracing for belt-tightening, as has the streamer, with a second round of layoffs expected this week. Even before Netflix ceased to be a Wall Street darling, the company was economizing. In pitch meetings, executives said that they were looking to cap shows at three seasons, according to sources familiar with the process.
Regardless, many of the creatives hoping to make Netflix their home have spent more time sketching out alternate scenarios for the shows that they pitch, giving the streamer a wider budget range and providing them with more information about what the cost structure would be look like for, say, a six-episode season versus a nine-episode order.