Month: December 2025

Streaming

Streaming, Windowing, and the New Access Economy: Why Control Beats Content in 2026

December 28, 2025 FilmTake Comments Off on Streaming, Windowing, and the New Access Economy: Why Control Beats Content in 2026

For most of the past decade, the streaming business was defined by a single, deceptively simple premise: more content equals more subscribers. Platforms raced to outspend one another, greenlighting volume at unprecedented levels, compressing windows, and treating exclusivity as an absolute virtue. That era is over. By 2025, the streaming industry reached a quieter but more consequential conclusion: content alone does not create value—access does.

Distribution

The 2025 Film Markets Reality Check: Cannes, Sundance, TIFF, and AFM Under a Tighter Rulebook

December 20, 2025 FilmTake Comments Off on The 2025 Film Markets Reality Check: Cannes, Sundance, TIFF, and AFM Under a Tighter Rulebook

The 2025 film markets delivered a consistent message across continents and calendars. Sundance tested demand. Cannes refined presales. TIFF amplified select winners. AFM clarified the new floor. Together, they confirmed that the industry is not rebounding to its old shape. It is stabilizing at a smaller, more disciplined scale. Fewer films will move. Fewer territories will matter. Fewer buyers will decide outcomes.

Distribution

Film Distribution in 2025: Consolidation, Content Austerity, and Shrinking Leverage

December 14, 2025 FilmTake Comments Off on Film Distribution in 2025: Consolidation, Content Austerity, and Shrinking Leverage

Hollywood spent 2025 pretending it was in a cyclical downturn. It is not. The business is reorganizing under a harsher premise: fewer buyers, fewer viable windows, and less tolerance for anything that doesn’t behave like a franchise asset. The result is an ineluctable narrowing of the market—one that punishes independents, rewards scale, and converts distribution into a political and financial instrument as much as a commercial one.

Distribution

The Fight to Control Warner: Ellison’s Power Project vs. Netflix’s Strategic Ambition

December 9, 2025 FilmTake Comments Off on The Fight to Control Warner: Ellison’s Power Project vs. Netflix’s Strategic Ambition

Hollywood is no longer shaped by audience demand but by competing political blocs and foreign capital. Netflix’s $82.7 billion bid for Warner Bros. triggered immediate scrutiny, with President Trump signaling he would “be involved” as regulators examine the streamer’s expanding market power. Within hours, Paramount, backed by Larry Ellison, RedBird, Gulf sovereign funds, and Jared Kushner, countered with a hostile $77.9 billion all-cash bid.