DreamWorks cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg wants to bring the 'James Patterson' model to TV - and he has nearly $600 million to do it
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Earlier this year, SEC filings revealed that Katzenberg had raised nearly $600 million for a new venture called WndrCo, which would sit somewhere at the intersection of tech and entertainment. And on Thursday at Cannes Lions, Katzenberg outlined a bit of what he's trying to do with WndrCo.
Katzenberg pointed to authors like Dan Brown and James Patterson, who he called "genius" for pioneering a new way people consumed the novel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He said he wanted to do a similar thing with TV.
What will that look like?
Katzenberg said he's looking to make ad-supported shows that have short, chapter-like episodes of around 6- to 10-minutes. These will have the production quality of "premium" shows. The examples he used were streaming shows like Netflix's "House of Cards," at around $200,000 a minute, and HBO's "Game of Thrones," at $300,000 a minute, according to THR.
These shows will be designed to be viewed on your smartphone, whose ubiquity is a big reason why Katzenberg thinks there's a market for this type of show in the first place.
"We have these devices with us the entire day and an incredible amount of in-between time," he said. WndrCo will fill those 6- to 10-minute bits of downtime you have.
Katzenberg didn't say whether these shows will be part of a separate platform, or be licensed to existing streaming services like Netflix and Amazon.
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