Recently, Paramount TV Studios did not just reward the Creators of “Yellowjackets” for their runaway success. It bought an insurance policy. The exclusive overall deal with the Creators is less an investment in their next idea than a defensive manoeuvre to ensure that whatever it is, it does not happen at a rival studio. This reveals a risk-averse entertainment industry that now prefers to purchase proven formulas rather than gamble on new ones. The price of predictability is soaring.
The assets in question are the architects of a cultural phenomenon. “Yellowjackets”, a dark fable about plane-crash survivors, became a highly-streamed show for its original network. The new agreement moves the Creators from a contract with one part of the business to a deal with the main studio. It is an acquisition of the source of intellectual property itself. Paramount TV Studios is not just buying scripts; it is buying the factory that makes them, hoping to secure a pipeline of similar hits.
Such a move is central to the studio's strategy. One of its senior executives has a simple mantra: “taking the big hits and making them bigger,” using an ever-expanding hit universe as a template. The studio's leadership has echoed this focus on building out existing franchises. Locking in the Creators of a potential new universe is a logical, if unadventurous, step towards building a reliable content factory for the studio's voracious streaming service.
Other major players pioneered the practice of securing proven showrunners with “golden handcuffs” deals, paying vast sums in recent years to poach a prominent producer from another studio.
Paramount TV Studios is a latecomer to a brutal game. Other major players pioneered the practice of securing proven showrunners with “golden handcuffs” deals, paying vast sums in recent years to poach a prominent producer from another studio. These agreements, whose financial terms are rarely disclosed, are designed as much to deny a rival a reliable hitmaker as they are to generate new programmes. This high-stakes competition for a small pool of established talent concentrates creative power and inflates the price of a track record. It makes a handful of showrunners extraordinarily wealthy. And captive.
To be sure, a certain logic is compelling. With streaming services under intense pressure to turn a profit, de-risking a content slate of immense value can be seen as a fiduciary duty. For every breakout success, studios burn fortunes on pilots that go nowhere and series that are cancelled after a single season. In that light, paying a premium for creators who have already delivered a ratings smash looks less like extravagance and more like sound portfolio management. In a saturated market, a familiar name is a powerful marketing tool, promising a degree of quality control for time-poor viewers. A studio would be foolish not to pay to keep a winning team.
But this relentless pursuit of certainty has a chilling effect on invention. By funnelling vast, undisclosed sums to a few dozen established creators, studios are implicitly deciding not to fund the development of the next generation. The system rewards past performance so lavishly that it leaves little oxygen for future breakthroughs. The pipeline for new voices narrows. For an unknown writer with a brilliant but unproven script, the odds of getting a meeting, let alone a production budget, grow longer. The industry becomes a closed loop, endlessly iterating on its own successes.
There is a final irony in the studio's bet. The studio praised the Creators as “singular, fearless, and groundbreaking storytellers.” Yet the very show that earned them this lucrative deal, “Yellowjackets”, has been labouring under a copyright infringement lawsuit. The suit alleges the series copied its core concept from an earlier film. The claim challenges the very originality that Paramount TV Studios is paying so handsomely to secure.
The ultimate prize for Paramount TV Studios is not whatever the Creators create next. It is the guarantee that their next hit, original or not, will not appear on a competitor’s balance sheet. Imagination has become a futures market.
