The Head of Distribution and Acquisitions at Amazon MGM Studios highlighted that the company is also bringing its extensive lineup of feature films for 2025 to Mipcom.
*Produced by Luis Cabrera and Ana Paula Carreira, from Cannes, France.
Amazon MGM Studios Distribution arrived at Mipcom Cannes this year with a varied catalog of titles, but its biggest bet is the limited series Earth Abides.
This was commented on to ttvnews by Chris Ottinger, Head of Worldwide Distribution and Acquisition at Amazon MGM Studios. “The most important title we have at Mipcom this year is Earth Abides. It’s a big limited series, originally produced for our MGM Plus service in the US. It stars Alexander Ludwig and Jessica Dukes. Likewise, it was written and directed by Todd Komarnicki,” he said.
According to the executive, Earth Abides is an incredibly timely piece. “It’s six episodes long and set in a post-apocalyptic future, but a near future that feels real. We don’t have zombies or over-the-top sci-fi. It’s based on a classic work, a book by George R. Stewart. And it’s real. It feels real after Covid. It’s about a virus that wipes out most of the population,” he noted.
Earth Abides is a story about how we become a society and how we rebuild our lives and this world. “It has a strong environmental message, and we believe it’s very relevant right now,” Ottinger added.
Furthermore, the Head of Distribution at Amazon MGM Studios highlighted that they are also bringing their extensive lineup of feature films for 2025 to Mipcom. “We are presenting many new shows, and it has been a great effort to bring together our original movies and series, but we are happy to share this content with our clients. We are bringing 40 global films to the market, many of which were launched in our MGM Distribution Pipeline 18 months ago, and we’ve added new ones,” he said.
“We have over 20 films we are presenting to clients at the market, including movies like Counting Two, starring Ben Affleck. So, we have an interesting and varied content offering at the market this year. Other titles that have performed very well are also present, such as The Tomorrow War, ” he assured.
Distribution Window
Regarding MGM Studios’ strength at Mipcom as a content distributor, Ottinger mentioned that they like working with standardized, research-based approaches. “We are a data-driven company. We spend a lot of time trying to understand what will work best for our clients and what will work best for our service. And based on that data, that’s how we make decisions about distribution windows.”
“We’re distributing our content to third-party services approximately 18 months after release. In exceptional circumstances, we’ve done it sooner. Our big film *Air*, we put on ABC in the US 14 months after release, which was very early. So right now, we’re managing an 18-month distribution window,” he concluded.
