Gen Z and Alpha Want IRL. This Is How Every Studio is Racing to Respond
I talk to Netflix, Uni, WBD, Paramount & Lionsgate execs about plans to win the $52B experience economy as streaming flattens, IP goes live & AI looms
Matthew Frank previously wrote about the AI wars at top film schools, where Participant execs landed a year after the company’s implosion and the viral trends behind A Minecraft Movie’s success. You can reach him at matthew@theankler.com
At Netflix’s Tudum live event in L.A. on May 31 — an afternoon of nonstop promotion for the dominant streamer — attendees got a look at the company’s hottest properties: final seasons of Squid Game and Stranger Things; new films from Guillermo del Toro and Rian Johnson; a dozen seemingly interchangeable YA projects. But to get a better sense of where Netflix is heading next, you had to step away from the stage and wander the concourse of Inglewood’s historic Kia Forum.
There was a man in a suit, channeling the recruiter from Squid Game, challenging passers-by to the red-and-blue tile game from the show. Pink guards posed for photos, and small groups of people walked around in the purple-and-white-striped uniforms of Wednesday’s Nevermore Academy. Roughly 9,500 fans joined the festivities — some for free, some paying $25 to $75 for tickets — and ate it all up.
But this wasn’t just marketing: It was strategy.
Netflix consumer products VP Josh Simon tells me their new Houses are the streamer’s “most ambitious venture yet.”
But Netflix, always in the vanguard, is far from alone.
To keep Gen Z — and now Alpha — engaged and spending, studios and streamers are realizing the next frontier isn’t more content, but more context: live, physical, sharable, and meme-able worlds built around the IP they love.
Here’s my studio-by-studio report on how each is building for a generation that doesn’t just want to watch — and the data to prove it.
I talk to Paramount’s Pam Kaufman, WBD’s Simon Robinson, Lionsgate’s Jenefer Brown, and Universal’s Page Thompson (no Disney — its focus remains squarely on the parks, with a new one coming to Abu Dhabi). Plus: outside experts and analysts weigh in on the size of the opportunity… and what could still go wrong.
