Amazon Studios has made a name for itself by picking out some great niche independent projects to stock up its TV and movie library. It has been a regular fixture at the Sundance Film Festival in recent years where it buys these art-house movies. However, a new report suggests that Amazon is now changing gears as it looks to bring more people in for its Prime Video service. Amazon will reportedly focus more on big budget movies now and reduce the resources it devotes to independent films.

Amazon initially picked up a lot of niche independent movies that won awards and enabled its star to rise in the fiercely competitive industry in Hollywood.

Having done that, Reuters reports that Amazon now wants to focus on programming that’s aimed at a wider audience in a bid to get more people to sign up for its Prime service. The TV operation of Amazon Studios has made a similar shift and is also moving to big budget projects.

According to the report, Amazon now expects to go after films with budgets of up to $50 million. It will free up the resources for this by limiting the funding for indie projects in the $5 million dollar range.

Just to be clear, Amazon isn’t giving up on indie films entirely, but industry watchers are unsure how active Amazon will be at the festival this year following this change in strategy.

Filed in General. Read more about .

Discover more from Ubergizmo

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading