Film Industry Trends

Netflix and Disney+ will soon look a lot more like TikTok. The major streaming platforms are going all-in on short-form video as part of a broader shift that’s reshaping viewing habits. Rather than compete with TikTok on UGC, they’ll surface clips from longer-form content like live events, stand-up specials, and original series, designed to meet short-form cravings while driving users back into full-length viewing. 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴: → ESPN rolled out vertical videos to recap game highlights and offer commentator analysis. → ABC News launched a daily short-form show, What You Need to Know. Netflix has been testing a vertical video feed that serves up clips from its original titles to inspire users to start a movie or series. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗽𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁-𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗮 𝗶𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗮𝘀. → The global microdrama industry is projected to reach $26bn in annual revenue by 2030. → Vertical mini-dramas have surged over the past few years. → Dedicated apps like DramaBox and ReelShort are seeing subscriber growth but still operate at a loss due to high customer acquisition costs. For Netflix and Disney+, that CAC pressure is far less acute. They already have hundreds of millions of subscribers to seed short-form discovery natively. The line between cinema, streaming, and social content continues to blur, and the competitive set is no longer just other streamers. It’s the entire entertainment ecosystem. → The Oscars and the NFL are on YouTube. → Apple is competing for Emmys and Oscars. In 2025, Netflix delivered $45.2bn in revenue, with ad revenue rising above $1.5bn. The company crossed 325m paid subscriptions in Q4, yet a barrage of price hikes, ads, mergers, and live sports rights battles has left streaming increasingly similar to the cable era it aimed to replace. That’s fueled subscription fatigue. Younger viewers in particular are shifting time and money toward free streaming services, physical media, and social platforms. 40% of US streaming subscribers plan to cancel at least one service in the next 12 months (eMarketer). 𝗠𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲: As an alum of both Disney and TikTok, I’m not sure this convergence is good in the longer term. As product differentiation decreases, Disney and Netflix are betting that their content will outshine TikTok. Otherwise, they risk falling into a trap. What’s your take?

Hollywood’s superhero bubble has burst. Video games are taking center stage. Studios are increasingly turning to the rich, built-in fan bases of gaming franchises—such as Call of Duty, Minecraft, Super Mario Bros., Sonic, and Five Nights at Freddy’s—for box office success and broader appeal.. Paramount’s deal with Activision to adapt Call of Duty, alongside the massive theatrical wins of The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.3 billion) and Minecraft (~$958 million), underscores why game-based IP now rivals, and potentially surpasses, traditional comic-book franchises. For studios, video game adaptations offer de-risked, multigenerational storytelling with high brand recognition, cinematic scope, and engaged audiences. . What this means for studios and media leaders: Source material with built-in audiences: Video games are accompanied by passionate fandoms and global recognition. Narrative depth & cinematic potential: Many modern games—like The Last of Us, Fallout, Resident Evil, God of War—already boast rich storytelling that translates well to screen Next-gen leadership: Executives who grew up immersed in gaming are now shaping these adaptations, ensuring authenticity and fan trust. Demographic advantage: Gen Alpha’s top entertainment preferences are led by video game properties, with franchises like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, and Pokémon ranking higher than even Marvel’s Avengers. If you're in content strategy or studio leadership, now is the moment to revisit your IP strategy: Please look at your IP pipeline for gaming opportunities that can deliver both narrative and commercial impact. Collaborate closely with game developers to honor the essence of their worlds—and earn credibility among core fans. Design multi-platform storytelling that connects film, streaming, and gaming ecosystems. Engage next-gen audiences authentically, speaking their language and honoring what they love about the original game. Let’s shape the future of entertainment—where blockbuster movies and gaming converge. https://lnkd.in/g-kJZYSG #VideoGames #Hollywood #EntertainmentIndustry #IPStrategy #MediaTrends #ContentStrategy #GamingIndustry #MovieBusiness #GenAlpha #FutureOfEntertainment

Hollywood’s biggest risk right now isn’t disruption. It’s the normalization of decline. Los Angeles just logged 19,694 shoot days in 2025, according to FilmLA. That’s the lowest level outside of 2020, when production shut down entirely. This wasn’t a one off bad year. It’s part of a longer pattern. Here’s what stands out: → This decline is structural, not cyclical. Los Angeles hasn’t seen year over year growth in shoot days since 2021. The erosion has been steady since the 2018 peak. → Television is the pressure point. TV production finished 2025 more than 50 percent below its five year average. Features declined too, down 31 percent year over year. → Policy is moving slower than production decisions. California expanded its Film and TV Tax Credit Program, and 119 productions have been approved. Many haven’t started filming yet. Incentives matter, but timing matters more. → There are early signs of stabilization, not recovery. Fourth quarter shoot days ticked up quarter over quarter. Encouraging, but fragile. This isn’t about nostalgia for old Hollywood. It’s about whether Los Angeles still knows how to compete at speed. Production flight doesn’t just affect studios. It ripples through crews, vendors, stages, small businesses, and the entire creative workforce that made Los Angeles the default production hub in the first place. The talent is here. The infrastructure is here. The question is whether policy, cost structure, and execution can finally align. If Los Angeles wants to remain the default, not the fallback, this is the moment to move faster, not debate longer. What would it take for Los Angeles to act like production is a privilege to win, not a birthright to protect? #EntertainmentIndustry #FilmProduction #Hollywood #MediaStrategy #CreativeEconomy #LosAngeles #FilmTaxCredits

From the LA Times: Beyond the financial blows inflicted by the pandemic and the actors’ and writers’ strikes, the vast Los Angeles-based entertainment industry known as Hollywood is facing the far greater forces of economic disruption that have already struck the rest of the United States. Much like manufacturing, agriculture and other major segments of the U.S. economy before it, the result for Hollywood appears to be mixed: a possible return to prosperity and good times for some, ever tighter times for others. “There is something of an existential question mark over large swaths of the traditional #Hollywood economy,” said Stuart Ford, chairman and chief executive of Los Angeles-based AGC Studios, which develops, produces, finances and licenses films and television series. The decades-long way of making money in the film and TV industry has been turned upside down by new technologies, changing public appetites and the globalization of the workforce. What is clear is that the numbers are bleak — for box office receipts, filming activity and especially employment. Coming out of the strikes in the fall, many expected a rebound in local film and TV jobs. But employment in L.A. County’s motion pictures and sound recording industries — the main category for film and #television production — has barely budged from about 100,000 through April, which is about 20% less than pre-pandemic levels. What’s disrupting the future for #entertainment industry workers is much like what began convulsing U.S. manufacturing decades ago: new #technology that has transformed the business and reduced the need for workers, as well as the rise of cheaper production sites elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad. Even before the strikes, studios had already dramatically cut back on spending on new shows after the so-called #streaming wars — when companies lavished huge amounts of money on direct-to-digital content to compete with Netflix. Globally, #film and TV production lagged by about 7% in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the same period in 2023, according to tracking company ProdPro. Los Angeles probably will remain a thriving center for those who work at the top of the film and #TV industry, but much of the production and distribution work may continue to move elsewhere. “The very basis of what made Hollywood universally popular in the 20th century was the theatrical feature film. That seems to be ending now,” Kuntz said. “It seems the audience has moved on to other things.” Charlie Fink, a former The Walt Disney Company executive who teaches at Chapman University, chalks up the malaise to the fact that “people have other things to do with their screens. They prefer to spend their time on YouTube and play video games on their phones. That’s the problem for Hollywood.” #cinema

#UK studios appear to be the big winner in analysis of locations used to shoot the first-run original US TV shows released in 2024 prepared by FilmLA. The number of projects shot in the #UK almost doubled from 22 in 2023 to 39 last year, while the volume shot in Los Angeles fell by over 25% to 77. Interestingly, the UK leapfrogged New York as a destination for TV production where production volumes fell 55% to 25. The choice of the UK as a filming jurisdiction has been driven primarily by #streamers, with three quarters of the 2024 UK-shot shows being made for #streamers. The total number of new US #TV shows distributed has fallen 31% since 2022, the year that can be considered to be 'peakTV' and the end of the 'content arms race' driven by the '#streaming wars.

📌 Startup Strategy: Create New Markets, Don't Just Compete Most startups try to fight for scraps in crowded markets. The best ones? They create entirely new spaces to play in. Let's break down what this looks like in practice: 🎪 Cirque du Soleil: The Ultimate Growth Case Study When Cirque launched in the 1980s, the circus industry was dying: • High costs • Shrinking audiences • Animal welfare controversies • Price-sensitive market Instead of competing head-on, they examined the marketplace and dove deep into what their audience wants: 🔹 What they eliminated: ❌ Animal performances (high cost, ethical issues) ❌ Star performers (salary demands) ❌ Multi-arena formats (operational complexity) ❌ Traditional concessions (low-margin distraction) 🔹 What they created instead: → Theatrical productions with artistic themes → Global shows running simultaneously → Premium ticket prices (10x traditional circus) → High-end viewing experience → Original music & immersive tech The startup lessons are crystal clear: 1. Don't compete where everyone else is playing → Find the intersection between industries → Question industry assumptions 2. Eliminate what others consider "essential" → Which "must-haves" actually hold you back? → What costs can you completely remove? 3. Elevate what truly matters to customers → Which elements can you take beyond industry standards? → What new value can you create? By removing the expected and inventing something new, Cirque du Soleil created a billion-dollar company in a "dying" industry. They didn't just disrupt - they created a new category. 💡 This is how startups win against incumbents. What assumptions & myths in your industry are ripe for challenging? Share below 👇 Image: Royal Albert Hall Corteo ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost to share with your network. ⚡ Want more content like this? Hit follow Maya Moufarek.

🎬 🏢 LA soundstages are gathering dust. A new FilmLA report shows only 63% of LA soundstages were occupied in 2024, down from 93.5% between 2016-2022—the fewest on-stage shoot days in recorded history. Meanwhile, competing hubs like the UK, New York, and Georgia have more than doubled their production space over the last five years, creating a perfect storm for Hollywood's bottom line. TV productions, which normally make up 30% of stage bookings, slumped to just 20% in 2023, aligning with industry-wide episode count shrinkage and longer gaps between seasons. Adding to the irony: this vacancy crisis hits just as investment firms went all-in on pouring money into acquiring and building soundstages, with 13 planned studio projects currently in the pipeline for LA. As these struggles continue, the "Stay in LA" initiative keeps fighting against runaway production, pushing for studios to commit at least 10% more LA-based filming over the next three years

It is a pivotal moment for Hollywood. And not only because of the fires that have recently ravaged our beautiful city. Rival content production markets have been offering larger and more flexible tax credits for years. And while Los Angeles remains the worldwide leader in film and television production, the historic industry strikes of 2023 and the slower-than-anticipated production recovery have exacerbated the feeling that we are losing competitive ground to places like Atlanta, Vancouver and London. The problem isn’t that famous actors and directors are jetting off to film in other cities. The highly skilled and hardworking below-the-line crew members are the ones disproportionately impacted when production moves out of Los Angeles. And they are the heart of the entertainment industry. I have seen this firsthand at our Sunset Studios and Quixote facilities, where we employ hundreds of Teamster 399 members, stage managers, lighting and grip technicians, warehouse workers, and many other often overlooked yet critical roles that keep productions running smoothly. Members of our Quixote manufacturing team, for example, have been building custom cast trailers for over 30 years. They recently developed our state-of-the-art solar all-electric line of trailers – built in-house and in Los Angeles. These are the types of jobs California needs to fight to keep. Fortunately, there is widespread recognition among lawmakers and the public more broadly that California must get more competitive with its tax incentives. Governor Newsom’s recent proposal to more than double the tax credit program, which would make it the largest capped program in the U.S., is a great first step. It has also been heartening in the wake of the Palisades and Eaton fires that displaced so many Angelenos to see the outpouring of donations and support from major studios including Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon MGM, Comcast/NBCU, and Sony. The logical next step for these media giants is to double down on productions in Los Angeles to get our impacted community members back to work and drive broader economic activity. 

I have been in the entertainment business for the past few years, and this one lesson from Amazon's CEO changed my approach towards how I run our business. When Andy Jassy shared Amazon's success principles, frugality stood out. It is a catalyst for breakthrough thinking. This insight transformed how we approach entertainment experiences. Bringing Dave & Buster's Inc.'s to India immediately tested this principle. The original US model demands 40,000+ sq ft venues, which are economically unfeasible in India's premium real estate markets. Instead of compromising the experience, we embraced these constraints to drive innovation. We deconstructed the entire guest journey to identify what truly matters to our target audience. → We reimagined bowling with proprietary lighting systems and dynamic lane projections that create an immersive atmosphere beyond traditional alleys → We integrated advanced projection technology into pool tables, transforming static surfaces into interactive, responsive gaming experiences → We developed social gaming systems that blend physical skill with digital engagement, creating friendly competition enhanced by personalized elements The results were remarkable:  By strategically focusing on young professionals, an underserved market in India where entertainment typically targets families, we created a distinctive experience that resonated deeply and travelled well across different cities. By implementing this approach, here are the 3 lessons I learned: 📍Resources should follow results, not the other way around.  📍Small, focused teams consistently outperform larger ones.  📍Operational discipline becomes a competitive advantage that's hard to copy. Most importantly, I've learned that true innovation thrives when we embrace limitations rather than fight against them. What business constraints have sparked unexpected creativity in your company? #entrepreneurship #business

I stayed through the credits of BUGONIA last night and saw something I’ve never seen before: “AI Training.” Most people would miss it. I didn’t. I googled it and I couldn’t find anybody talking about it. I reached out to a friend who works a ton of studio films and they confirmed AI was already a major part of the pipeline (VFX, color, data). Not “someday.” Not “experimental.” Already happening. Then a 30+ year industry veteran told me something even bigger: A company she works with is buying finished films purely to train AI how to MAKE films. Not distribute them. Not license them. Train AI. So let’s stop pretending this is theoretical. AI isn’t coming to filmmaking. It’s already here, quietly, behind the scenes, without transparency or consent from most of the creatives whose work is being used. At Dreamland Studios and the American Film Association, we’re not anti-AI. We’re pro-transparency. And we believe filmmakers deserve to know exactly how their work is being used to train the next era of cinema. So here’s the real question: -Is this innovation… or a line being crossed? -Should AI be allowed to train on films without clear consent? -Where do YOU draw the line? Filmmakers: this is your industry. Speak now, or someone else will shape the rules for all of us. Feel free to message me to learn more about what Dreamland and the AFA are doing to help filmmakers! #DreamlandStudios #AmericanFilmAssociation #AIInFilm #FutureOfCinema #CreatorsFirst