Netflix plans to boost its number of original titles by 700 this year, with a total spend of $8 billion (around £5.8bn / AU$10.3bn) on all content across the service. That’s two-thirds the GDP of North Korea.
These plans were detailed by Netflix CFO David Wells at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.
It represents a healthy jump of $2 billion (around £1.5bn / AU$2.5bn) over the amount it spent on programming in 2017.
Originals worth watching
Netflix streaming exclusives we’ve already seen in 2018 include Duncan Jones’s interesting but critically panned Mute and sci-fi TV series Altered Carbon.
Other oddities to look forward to in 2018 include a TV reboot of sci-fi classic Lost in Space and the The Ballad of Buster Scruggs mini-series, directed by the Coen brothers.
As of January 2018, Netflix had 117.6 million subscribers worldwide. Amazon’s rival Prime video lags behind, despite having an estimated 90+ million Prime subscribers in the US alone. IHS Markit estimates there were 44 million active Prime Video users in 2017.
Fancy returning to Netflix or, finally, giving it a try? A standard subscription costs $10.99 (£7.99, $AU13.99) a month, while the premium sub with 4K video and four concurrent streams costs $13.99 (£9.99, $AU17.99).
Update: This story was corrected to reflect that Netflix is adding 700 new original titles in 2018, but the $8bn is total spend across the catalogue, not just the Netflix originals.
- Looking for what to watch from Netflix's current catalogue? Check out: Best shows on Netflix or Best movies on Netflix UK
- These are the best Netflix sci-fi movies around right now
Via Variety
