Cash for content: Netflix is tightening its purse strings

1/7/24 7:00PM

The endless Netflix scroll…

‍…might be getting slightly shorter. Data from What's On Netflix, analyzed by Bloomberg, revealed that Netflix released ~130 fewer original programs in 2023 than the previous year, a 16% decline — contributing to the last 3 months being Netflix's lightest slate of new releases in 5 years.

After its first foray into original content, with the splashy release of House of Cards in 2011, Netflix spent much of the next decade pumping nearly every spare dollar it had into new TV shows, movies, and documentaries. This investment yielded global hits like Stranger Things, Squid Game, and Bridgerton — as well as a host of forgettable flops — with the streamer’s content spending peaking in late 2021, when it parted with $4.8 billion in a single quarter to win over increasingly flighty subscribers. That's equivalent to $52.6 million in content spending every single day.

Since then, however, Netflix has tightened its purse strings, spending just $3.2 billion in its most recent quarter. With Disney, Paramount, HBO, Peacock, and others all competing to fund that next smash hit, Netflix has shifted to a mantra of “quality over quantity” — a far cry from its 2020 strategy of making a new movie every week.

Millie Giles11h

Tamagotchis are making a comeback, 3 decades after first becoming a global toy craze

If you were a ’90s kid, you might remember the craze around little egg-shaped toys with an 8-bit digital screen, displaying an ambiguous pet-thing that demanded food and attention.

Now, on the brand’s 30th anniversary, the Tamagotchi — the Japanese pocket-sized virtual pet that launched a thousand cute and needy tech companions, from Nintendogs to fluffy AI robots — is making a minor comeback.

Tamagotchi Google Search Trends — Sherwood News

Looking at Google Trends data, searches for “tamagotchi” spiked in December in the US, up around 80% from just six months prior, with the most search volume in almost two decades.

While the toys are popular Christmas gifts, with interest volumes often seen ticking up in December each year, the sudden interest might also have something to do with the birthday celebrations that creator and manufacturer Bandai Namco are putting on, including a Tokyo exhibition that opened on Wednesday.

Game, set, hatch

More broadly, modern consumers appear to have a growing obsession with collectibles (see: Labubu mania), as well as a taste for nostalgia (see: the iPod revival, among many other trends).

But, having finally hit 100 million sales in September last year, the brand itself is probably just glad to exist, giving a whole new generation the chance to experience the profound grief of an unexpected Tamagotchi death.

Millie Giles

PANDORA’S BOX OFFICE

1/5/26

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” surpasses $1 billion globally after 18 days

James Cameron is now the first director in history to have four consecutive movies gross over a billion dollars.

$5.6B

Max Knoblauch12/23/25

Disney could be well on its way to its third billion-dollar film of the year following a $345 million opening weekend for “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” The film’s opening gross puts the “Avatar” franchise’s total box office earnings at $5.6 billion — and counting.

The latest film, the second “Avatar” entry under Disney’s tent, earned about 75% of its total box office gross internationally — in line with previous movies in the (as of now) trilogy. Domestically, this one earned $88 million, falling short of expectations.

“Fire and Ash” was the widest Imax release ever, debuting on 1,703 screens globally and earning $43.6 million through the format. The $345 million “Fire and Ash” opening weekend was the second-highest of 2025, behind Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which recently passed the $1 billion mark, globally.

Year to date, Disney has earned $5.8 billion globally at the box office.