Netflix has been spending a lot of money to ramp up its efforts to produce original content. These efforts have cost the company billions of dollars, but they have mostly seemed to have paid off. Recently, the subscription streaming service revealed the next step in pushing out new originals: European content. In case you wondered how much Netflix wants to spend to create shows for a European audience, we'll go ahead and tell you that the company is spending $1.75 billion on European productions alone.
Clearly Netflix has been playing with billions of dollars over the past several years, and the company hasn't even been quiet about it. But that money has been used to create original movies, original TV dramas, original comedies, stand-up specials, documentaries and even reality programming. That's in addition to Netflix aggressively moving into countries around the world. When you hear billions of dollars being thrown around for all of these purposes, it's not so heart attack inducing. However, when you hear Netflix is about to spend upwards of $2 billion dollars just to create shows with a European focus, the number seems a whole lot higher.
So far, Netflix's services are available in 13 different languages, and Variety says that right now more than 90 programs are being put together across Europe. We've seen the fruits of some of those labors, including The Crown and Marseilles, which were both renewed for Season 2 by Netflix. Obviously, even when looking at those two programs, some shows have fared better in reviews than others, with The Crown becoming a critical darling while people have not been as pumped for the French series Marseilles. When getting into a new type of programming you can't expect every new project to become a hit.
I would expect a lot more hits and a lot more misses over the next year or two, though. Even if every project Netflix attempts in Europe is wildly expensive, there should still be a ton of new stuff coming, as that 90 number indicates. If those programs do well, Netflix might even continue pushing hard on the European front.
So why Europe? Apparently there are nearly 100 million Netflix subscribers worldwide who enjoy the European content. Therefore, the company feels like it's a valid place to start playing with a little more money. Netflix is still touting that Germany drama Dark we've been hearing about for months and months now and an Italian show called Suburra, as well as a slew of projects the company will be co-producing with BBC One.
The end result for all of this will be there is more European content sprinkled around shows like Orange is the New Black and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Let's just hope it doesn't have an affect on the overall cost of the subscription streaming service. I'm already not looking forward to having to pull out my wallet.
Check out what the subscription streaming service has coming up with our Netflix TV premiere schedule.
