The New Paramount+ Mandates — And Why Indie Film Should Be Paying Attention
- Gato Scatena
- 13 hours ago
- 10 min read
The Meeting That Finally Happened
During Cannes, I was operating on a very different time zone while still trying to make a Zoom work with our acquisitions contact over at Paramount. Needless to say, between the back-to-backs, screenings, meetings, dinners, and the general chaos of a market, actually finding a workable time proved harder than expected.
Still, last Friday, we finally got the meeting done — and honestly, it may have been better outside the noise and pressure of Cannes anyway.
We have a decent number of titles that are potentially of interest to Paramount+, but as always, I tried to spend as much time asking broader strategic questions outside the specifics of our own catalog. Because frankly, understanding where a buyer is headed is often more valuable than discussing one or two individual films.
And after that conversation, I came away genuinely excited about where Paramount and Skydance appear to be heading.
Not because I think they’re suddenly going to buy everything under the sun.
But because for the first time in a while, it feels like a major platform is thinking offensively again instead of defensively.
Why Paramount+ Matters Right Now
There’s a very important distinction happening right now in Hollywood that I don’t think enough people are talking about.
Most of the major media companies are currently trying to survive.
Paramount+ under David Ellison and Skydance appears to be trying to win.
That difference matters.
For the better part of the last several years, the streaming wars created an environment where most of the major buyers became increasingly defensive. Mandates narrowed. Risk tolerance evaporated. Acquisitions departments shrank. Independent film licensing slowed dramatically outside of a handful of favored genres or ultra-packaged titles. Entire sectors of the business — especially documentary — were quietly left for dead.
Netflix’s pivot away from broad indie acquisitions nearly a decade ago changed the entire ecosystem. Once the largest streamer stopped behaving like an aggressive buyer of independent product, everyone downstream felt it. The unscripted and documentary markets became especially brutal. Mid-budget adult dramas struggled. Romance became algorithmically driven. Buyers consolidated around “safe” performance categories. (See the 2025-26 Netflix mandates here)
Then came consolidation.
Warner Bros. Discovery. Disney/Fox. Amazon/MGM. Layoffs everywhere. Mandate tightening everywhere. Fewer buyers. Fewer experiments. More fear.
Which is why what’s happening at Paramount right now is genuinely interesting.
The Ellison Difference
David Ellison isn’t coming into Paramount as a traditional “corporate caretaker” executive. He’s coming in as someone who actually loves movies. And whether people want to admit it or not, that matters in this business. Creative passion at the executive level changes acquisition behavior. It changes risk tolerance. It changes how companies think about long-term subscriber growth versus quarter-to-quarter Wall Street optics.
The public-facing messaging around the Ellison regime has already signaled aggressive ambitions. The company has openly discussed expanding theatrical output, increasing programming investment, and revitalizing the studio.
At the same time, Ellison has repeatedly emphasized rebuilding Paramount into a modernized media company that combines technology with Hollywood storytelling.
And frankly? The timing is perfect.
Because Netflix has become so dominant that nearly every independent producer, distributor, and sales company quietly wants another legitimate heavyweight competitor to emerge.
Competition is healthy.
When one platform becomes too powerful, mandates become inflexible. Licensing leverage disappears. Pricing stagnates. Risk tolerance shrinks. The ecosystem suffers.
That’s why this new Paramount+ strategy matters far beyond Paramount itself.
Understanding Paramount+’s Current Audience
The company already understands something very important about its current subscriber base: they have a lock on a very specific audience demographic.
Middle-America. Male-skewing. More mainstream. More populist. Strong engagement with action-oriented programming, procedural-style content, and what many in the industry jokingly call the “white guy with a gun” audience.
And to be clear — that audience is valuable.
But it’s also limiting.
Because if Paramount+ wants to seriously pressure Netflix, Disney+, or even HBO Max over the next several years, they need broader demographic penetration. They need daytime viewing. Younger audiences. Female audiences. Cultural conversation titles. Sticky subscription behavior beyond franchise IP.
And from everything we heard, they know that.
🔒 Let’s get to the goods!
Below we're going to get into detail on the following and more.
Paramount+’s updated acquisition mandates under Skydance
Which genres and demos are suddenly becoming priorities
Paramount+’s actual licensing fee range under the new regime
How Pluto TV factors into the acquisitions ecosystem
What Justin Rutsky’s move from Netflix likely signals internally
What distributors and producers should realistically be packaging right now
Why Paramount+ may become the first meaningful “middle lane” challenger to Netflix in years