After tv the end of strikes, agents, managers and producers quickly moved in to assemble high-profile packages to take out in what was expected to be a frothy marketplace following six months of inactivity. But, while there have been a few bidding wars and big sales with a couple of others pending, the level of demand has not been what many anticipated. The biggest casualty of the tight market — packages with A-list stars attached.
“This has been such a head-scratcher,” one agent said about the situation. Agencies are keeping record of all the star packages that went out and failed to draw interest over the past few months despite the level of talent that has included Oscar and Emmy winners and nominees in front or behind the camera, stars of blockbuster movies and iconic TV series and, in a couple of instances, famous IP. The total now exceeds 20.
“We call it the whiff list,” one manager said of the roster of casualties.
The dry spell may be rooted — at least partially — in the current state of the streaming TV evolution.
Netflix
It was the rise of streamers that brought along the proliferation of star-driven packages. Netflix announced itself in the original series arena in 2011 by outbidding HBO for House of Cards, headlined by then-top draw Kevin Spacey, with a two-season order. Other streamers similarly went after splashy, star-driven packages as they were establishing themselves, including Apple TV+ with The Morning Show, starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, Amazon with Homecoming, headlined by Julia Roberts, both of which also commanded two-season orders.
The streaming arms race has largely subsided as media and tech companies have shifted their priority from building scale to profitability, not willing to overspend on talent and projects.
“Money is so tight everywhere. These are huge investments, massive packages, and a lot of them are not necessarily the best return on investment,” one agent said, noting that streamers have not seen upticks in subscribers based on those expensive originals. Most game-changing series, which have driven up subscribers for platforms, like Stranger Things, Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon and Reacher, have not been star vehicles but star-makers.
With budgets cut across the board amid economic headwinds, “there is fear, executives are scared to spend that kind of money,” another rep said. “They don’t want to be the first one to jump in and spend if they don’t need to.”
According to the rep, probably factoring in that newfound resistance is the massive success of a lower cost acquisition like Suits, which thoroughly outperformed star-driven series that cost $100M+ per season, which has made streamers even more reluctant to spend big on packages.
“There’s a little bit more rationality in the market,” one buyer said. “Packages used to come through, and it used to be Netflix will buy it or now it’s Apple will buy it. But we’re seeing things go out that don’t get any buyers, which is unusual. That hasn’t happened in a while.”
As to why, “I think that it’s capacity and willingness to pay expectations. What would have been straight-to -series is now maybe development,” the person said.
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