While Hollywood and the US in general remain at the top of the film, TV and streaming industries, new data proves that there’s a thirst for shows from other countries – and perhaps this could signal that we’ll see less of the Americanised remakes that are so often commissioned.
During a panel discussion called Understanding Entertainment Trends at SXSW London, CEO of analytics company Luminate, Rob Jonas, delved into the data behind TV, music and fandom, and had some pretty interesting comments on Netflix’s biggest British breakout hit of this year:
“A prime example of UK success is Netflix’s Adolescence, a UK scripted show which garnered an impressive 1.5 billion minutes viewed in its first week in the US, and it’s even outperformed the impressive debut of Baby Reindeer and perennial favourite Black Mirror. And this achievement powerfully underscores the appeal of UK storytelling on a global scale.
There’s both a long history of success and a growing demand for UK scripted programming in international realms like the US, and the series’ success demonstrates how UK narratives resonate with US audiences driven by unique perspectives.”
Often, in the past, we’ve seen US studios push remakes of UK content that retain the narratives of the original but lose the cultural nuances that made the show so interesting in the first place. Some examples include The Inbetweeners, a UK favourite that birthed two films – while the US version only lasted a season, and more recently Ghosts, whose American remake has notably softer, less biting humour.
That’s not to say that US remakes can’t be successful, sometimes even more so than the shows or films that inspired them, just look at The Office and What We Do in the Shadows as examples. However, the rise in people enjoying stories from across the globe proves that not everything needs to be localised – you can syndicate something from anywhere in the world, providing its bigger themes resonate.
Netflix has sort of backtracked on a US remake of its most popular show worldwide, Squid Game, the third and final season of which drops at the end of this month. The plan was for David Fincher to direct, but in spite of the director’s popularity, the initial announcement received a ton of backlash, and for good reason.
Netflix
A lot of the appeal of Squid Game was its South Korean setting and lifestyle. Plus, some of the games themselves are rooted in Korean traditions and history. The show broke barriers as a non-English language production, outpacing many international rivals by some distance.
Therefore, a US remake seemed like a slap in the face to the origins of Squid Game. So, while the project is still going ahead, it’s instead being called a ‘new spinoff’, which makes a lot more sense (and I’m betting will be teased at the very end of season 3). The financial pressures that motivate the desperate contestants can be felt globally, and the format of the games could be tweaked to fit anywhere in the world. But the characters and situations can change to reflect the US setting. And this way, we’re getting more than a paler version of the original story.
Perhaps the Squid Game spinoff will provide inspiration for a new way of handling US TV remakes. After all, production houses are always looking to expand their own universes. Why not branch out across the world, and collaborate with talent from other countries to tell stories that are related to the original, rather than simply imitating it?
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