Streaming TV is ushering in a high-rolling, gold rush era, with Hollywood actors signing up to a slew of big-budget shows.
This month, two hotly anticipated shows will launch that encapsulate the genre’s newfound popularity. Julia Roberts stars in the Amazon series Homecoming, earning a reported £450,000 per half-hour episode, while YouTube makes its biggest foray into UK programming with the sci-fi series Origin – directed by the Resident Evil and Event Horizon director, Paul WS Anderson, and featuring Natalia Tena and Tom Felton, who both starred in the Harry Potter film series.
Roberts is not the first film A-lister drawn to the small screen of the streamers; Drew Barrymore and Winona Ryder have appeared in hit shows such as the Netflix zombie comedy Santa Clarita Diet and the supernatural series Stranger Things, while Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston are due to star in a new Apple drama based on a CNN journalist’s book called Top of the Morning.
Nicole Kidman also starred with Witherspoon in HBO and Sky Atlantic’s Big Little Lies, and other well-known actors are following in their footsteps as bigger budgets and a broader choice of channels has opened up what the agent Sophie Laurimore calls a “gold rush” for talent.
Netflix is forecast to spend about $12bn (£9.2bn) globally on its shows this year, while Amazon is due to spend $5bn, HBO $2bn and Apple more than £1bn, so it is no surprise to see film stars rushing to the new entertainment suppliers.
The rewards are high: Witherspoon and Aniston are said to be getting about £850,000 an episode from Apple and, according to Variety, Amazon is expected to pay Javier Bardem about £920,000 per episode for a new show.
The BBC’s general tariff last year to produce high-end drama – including payments to cast and crew – was around £1m per hour, a figure that would barely cover an A-lister’s salary.
Laurimore, who has worked for the global agency William Morris and now runs her own company, said: “The streamers create a hugely exciting opportunity for talent. With the ability they create for global reach, talent know they can find an audience wherever they are.
“While our traditional broadcasters continue to commission for their channel and its own particular character and core audience, the freedom the streamers have to reach whatever audience is out there feels like a gold rush moment.”
Andy Harries, whose company Left Bank Pictures broke the mould for Netflix with The Crown, said most actors are “all pretty reasonable; they know what they’re worth”.
Left Bank is aiming to improve content on YouTube with Origin – a pacy drama with an international flavour designed to attract a young audience.
Harries said it was “not difficult” getting people onboard. “The budgets are very, very good,” he admitted, but said talent is also attracted by being able to reach a global audience. “When you make a 10-part series and it goes up on YouTube or Amazon, you’re making a show that is going round the world at the press of a button.
“Origin’s trailer has already been watched by 6 million people; that’s what YouTube and others like Netflix can offer.”
The Company Pictures chief executive, Michele Buck, said the streamers also offer “more creative control” and the chance to make shows that actors, particularly women, want to be involved in. Company’s detective show Agatha Raisin, starring Ashley Jensen and based on MC Beaton’s bestselling books, was axed by Sky but resurrected by America’s largest UK and international programming streaming service, Acorn TV.
“We are now making the show we want to make; we don’t have to answer to lots of different people,” Buck said. “You can see why A-list talent love streamers; you get a freedom you don’t get in films as you have more of say and can explore different new ideas.
“You also don’t have the constraints of certain time slots. When we made the first series for Sky, we had to condense the books down to an hour each. Now each book is a film.”
