Producer Authority Rapidly Weakening Under Platform-Led Structure
Implications for Korea... Balance Can Be Easily Disrupted
In Hollywood, the role of the "career producer," who oversees the entire process from planning to completion of a project, is now at risk of disappearing. As streaming platforms take control of production, producers are increasingly being sidelined in terms of authority, compensation, and credits. This is not simply a matter of the status of a particular profession. It represents a structural transformation that shakes the very foundation of the content industry.
On November 19 (local time), the American media outlet Variety published an in-depth analysis on this issue. While the symptoms appear to be individual problems such as the weakening of producer authority, budget constraints, and confusion over credits, in reality, they are all interconnected results of a single structural shift caused by streaming platforms taking the lead in production.
In Hollywood’s traditional production model, producers have been the key coordinators of a project. For decades, they have been responsible for discovering original works, recruiting directors and actors, managing budgets and schedules, and overseeing post-production-a vertically integrated production structure.
However, over the past decade, as streaming giants have begun asserting control from the planning stage, the center of production has shifted from producers to platforms. This change has even disrupted the way production budgets are managed. Under the pressure of profitability, platforms have started to control risks by reducing production costs and the number of projects produced.
With platforms holding the power over budgets, producers’ negotiating power and authority have naturally diminished. This vacuum has been filled by actors, investors, and agencies, leading to instability in the credit system. There have been cases where dozens of producers are credited on a single project, while the producer who actually managed the production on-site is excluded.
Gus Van Sant’s "Dead Man’s Wire," which was released this year, is a prime example. The announcement that as many as 93 producers participated shocked the industry. Variety described this as “a quintessential rupture of the streaming era.”
Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of the "Transformers" and "G.I. Joe" series, said in an interview with Variety, “The producer is the last line of defense for the honesty of narrative and emotion,” adding, “When this role is weakened, it is the audience who first feels the loss.”
This means that the status of the producer is not simply a matter of job function, but is directly connected to content quality and the balance within the industry. Producers maintain the consistency of a project by coordinating the interests of directors, screenwriters, actors, staff, and investors. If this role is undermined, the industry will eventually lose its core foundations of planning capability, quality, and protection of creators.
Although Korea differs from Hollywood in terms of market size and production methods, the growing dominance of streaming platforms offers significant implications. Signs of this include the spread of platform-driven production systems, concentration of budgetary power, and the restructuring of the production ecosystem. While this may appear efficient in the short term, in the long run it risks undermining the consistency and quality control of content.
The recent achievements of Korea’s content industry have been possible because creators, producers, and platforms maintained an appropriate balance. However, this balance can be more fragile than expected. The key question is how to protect the authority of producers who are responsible for on-site production, while leveraging the capital and distribution networks of platforms. Hollywood’s current crisis signals that there is still time to answer this question.
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