Hot off its Golden Globe streak, Amazon has gone gung-ho on the moviemaking biz. The company’s Amazon Studios division announced plans to bring as many as a dozen new films to both big and little screens. Production is slated to begin this year.
Amazon Original Movies will land on cinema screens, as well as online through the company’s own Prime Instant Video streaming service. The releases won’t be simultaneous, but Amazon plans to make the films available online in as little four to eight weeks after hitting theaters. Typically, movies can take a year or more to migrate to streaming services.
Streaming services have bet big on original programming over the past few years, with a move that seemed like quite a gamble until recently. But the hype over hits like Netflix’s House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black has set something of an example for the rest of the industry to follow.
Now the spotlight has shifted to Amazon. The company won two Golden Globes for its Transparent serial this month—one of them for Best Comedy Series, beating out Netflix, HBO, and all of the major cable and broadcast networks.
“We look forward to expanding our production efforts into feature films,” said Roy Price, vice president of Amazon Studios, in a press statement. He disclosed plans to release 12 movies per year, with production starting later in 2015.
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