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The Long Story with Simon OwensAuthor: Simon Owens
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What Hollywood can learn from MrBeast
Wednesday, 12 March, 2025
My newsletter: https://thelongstory.substack.com/ Heading into 2025, we knew that MrBeast had a huge online following. After all, his main channel has grown to over 300 million subscribers and 74 billion views. He’s built out an entire studio in North Carolina and is mobbed by legions of fans wherever he goes. But what we didn’t know was whether this online fame would translate into traditional Hollywood success. MrBeast famously signed a $100 million deal with Amazon to create one of the most ambitious game shows of all time, and it debuted in December with 1,000 contestants and $5 million in grand prize money. Flash forward to today, and it’s clear that the show was an unequivocal success, with Amazon claiming it reached record viewership numbers. Now, Hollywood studios are casting about for other projects that can be helmed by popular creators. What will those projects look like? To answer that question, I spoke to Lucia Moses, the co-author of a Business Insider piece titled “What MrBeast can teach Hollywood.” We discussed why previous creator-led shows failed, how the Beast Games viewership compared to other popular shows, and whether MrBeast’s production mishaps that led to a class action lawsuit will give studio executives any pause.
