Studios Are Spending Big Again — Just Not On Hollywood

Writers, actors and producers across Hollywood could be forgiven for thinking they got an early Christmas present in November. After all, Paramount, now under the ownership of David Ellison, committed to upping its content spend by some $1.5 billion next year. Disney followed in short order, revealing Nov. 13 plans to pump an extra $1 billion into its content pipeline in fiscal 2026, to total $24 billion.

After years of stagnation (and in many cases declines) in content spending from entertainment giants, the cash spigot appears to be turning on once more. Or, as Ellison told Wall Street analysts in his first earnings call as Paramount CEO, “We need to increase our investments, obviously, in content.” 

The public positioning comes at a tumultuous moment for Hollywood, with Ellison (and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts) coveting Warner Bros. Discovery. The entire industry remains at an inflection point, with major deals and strategic positioning up in the air.

“We believe [Paramount] has the potential to be a dynamic global media company,” Bank of America analyst Jessia Reif Ehrlich wrote in a note after its earnings report. “However, there are no easy fixes and a turnaround such as this will take a significant amount of time, require substantial investment and investor patience.”

Much of that investment, it seems, once again will flow to content. The public maneuvering from Disney and Paramount follow Netflix’s callout of a $1.6 billion or so increase in 2025 to about $18 billion, with CFO Spencer Neumann declaring at an investor conference this year, “We’re not anywhere near a ceiling.”

The business has been in something of a holding pattern since 2023, when the writers and actors strikes put much of the industry on ice. Every studio cut back on spending that year, though many not by choice. FX president John Landgraf told reporters last year that 2023 marked the end of “peak TV,” though he noted that the decline in scripted series was beginning even before the strikes accelerated it.

According to a report from Wall Street analyst firm MoffettNathanson, content spend from Amazon and Apple was more or less flat this year compared with last (Apple up a tick, Amazon down a tick). Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery also were set to keep their content spend about the same in 2025 as they did in 2024, while Paramount (which was mid-sale during this window) saw a relatively steep 7 percent decline in spending. NBCUniversal also was cutting back on its spending. In that report, only Netflix was likely to see a meaningful increase in content spend. The result was something of a content plateau.

But the public declarations from Disney and Paramount, combined with some big bets being placed by others (most notably NBCUniversal’s play for Taylor Sheridan) suggest that things might be turning around.

It’s the sort of news that should get executives excited. But beneath the surface are warning signs for Hollywood that belie the underlying numbers. Multiple sources across the industry note that, while content spend is going up, it is not uniform across platforms or genres.

Spending on sports and sports-adjacent content is rising rapidly (the new $76 billion NBA deals with NBCU, Amazon and ESPN kicked in this fall, and Paramount just inked a $7.7 billion deal for the UFC that begins next year), and companies are increasingly focused on locking in deals with such key talent as Sheridan, Stranger Things creators the Duffer brothers and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, investing in franchises while pulling back in other parts of the scripted ecosystem.

Even Netflix, which has been the lone holdout in consistently increasing its content spend during the past year or two, has made no secret of its expansion in international content (where do you think Squid Game or Adolescence came from?), and it, too, is pouring more and more cash into live sports and events.

And while Paramount and Disney have touted their content spend increases, they also have been making sure to note that some of that investment will flow to international markets, meaning that it might not result in the windfall Hollywood’s betting on.

“Our content investment is going to be global, not just domestic,” Shell told Wall Street analysts.

“We’ll obviously continue to invest at a reasonable level in content, leaning a bit more towards the international side as we identify opportunities in specific markets to grow the international business where we have a big opportunity,” Disney CFO Hugh Johnston told analysts.

To become a global player, you need global content. The days of major studios offloading culture on the world has morphed into something closer to a give-and-take as the entertainment industry has matured in many countries. The business is rushing toward something akin to a content spend mirage: The numbers will be rising on the balance sheets of companies like Disney, Paramount and NBCUniversal, but the cash may not be flowing to many Hollywood coffers.

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This story appeared in the Nov. 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.