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On Tuesday, Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr. Beast, confirmed that he is making a show for Amazon. The deal, which was previously reported to be worth $100 million, involves what Donaldson calls the biggest game show ever, including 1,000 contestants and a $5 million prize.
Believe it or not, I don't think the money was the main reason Donaldson signed a deal with Amazon MGM Studios. Sure, $100 million is a lot of money, but there are surely other studios that would pay whatever he wanted. If you believe Donaldson, however, it came down to something else that might just be more important.
"Amazon will give us the most creative control, and--by most--I mean all creative control, and they'll let me do whatever we want," Donaldson said on the Colin and Samir Show. "Other platforms, you know, didn't."
"Creative control."
Those are two powerful words if you are someone who likes to make things. They're even more powerful when you're someone who makes things that someone else is paying for. Usually, the person with the money gets to make the decisions. In this case, however, Donaldson says that his top priority was being able to make the show the way he wanted, without giving up control of the final product to someone else.
Throughout the interview, Donaldson frequently refers to another streaming platform that wasn't willing to give up control. He also refers to other unnamed creators who attempted to make the jump from YouTube to a studio streaming service and those projects failed. The implication is that the reason they failed is that they weren't authentic to the creator.
While he didn't mention Netflix by name, it seems pretty obvious that's who he was referring to. And, that's a big problem for the world's largest streaming service. See, Netflix used to be the place creative types went when they wanted to get away from the control of a Hollywood studio and do something different.
In a recent interview at New York Times' Dealbook Summit, Shonda Rhimes talked about how she felt that Netflix gave her control she wouldn't otherwise have had.
"I've been making television at one place for such a long time," Rhimes told Andrew Ross Sorkin. "And at the time, I remember The Crown was on Netflix. And I remember looking at that, and someone telling me that they spent $12 million an episode on The Crown. And I thought, like, that's an insane, amazing creative budget... you can really do stuff. And you could see that they could do things there that you can't do on network television. I liked the challenge of that."
Compared to network television, sure, Netflix is probably a lot more freeing. But, compared with YouTube, that's not necessarily the case. The content rules on YouTube are basically, don't break the law and don't make the music companies mad.
"There's no way I'm coming from YouTube where I can just do whatever I want in the videos, and then to a world where someone else tells me," Donaldson says. "There's a reason we went with Amazon. They're awesome."
Netflix, however, is a lot more like a studio now that it's all grown up. It has a particular view on the type of content it wants on its platform, and it isn't going to just give anyone $100 million, even if you are the most-watched YouTube creator with over 240 million subscribers. More importantly, Netflix has a lot more to lose. It has a position to defend, and it's less willing to take risks.
That should be a pretty big warning for a company like Netflix. I mean, Donaldson is one of the few YouTube creators who can say they have more subscribers than Netflix. Sure, the difference is that it doesn't cost you anything to subscribe to a YouTube channel, but this seems like the type of show Netflix would want on its platform.
Amazon definitely wanted it on theirs.
"MrBeast has captured the attention and imagination of fans of all ages, from all walks of life, and all over the world," said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, in a statement. "We are excited to work with Jimmy and his talented team to bring his brilliant, high production, and stakes-raising concepts to Beast Games for our global customers to experience."
So, here's the thing--$100 million isn't a lot of money to Amazon, but it's still a lot of money to hand someone to make something you have no control over. On the other hand, you can compare that with the $715 million the studio spent to make its Lord of the Rings Series, which was not just expensive, but bad. Reports suggest that two-thirds of people who started watching bailed before the season was over. I don't think that's going to be a problem with Beast Games.
"We're reinventing everything," Donaldson says. He's talking--of course--about the show he's making and how it's going to be bigger and more extreme than anything he's made so far. He might as well have been talking about the model for letting creative people make great things. That should have Netflix very worried.
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