The local industry has been left wondering where we fit in. Photo / The Spinoff
Originally published by The Spinoff.
Following the opening of the Netflix ANZ office in Sydney and lacklustre commissioning of New Zealand content, the local industry has been left wondering where we fit in.
Here at the bottom of the globe, we’re used to being overlooked. New Zealand has been left off the world map so many thousands of times that the phenomenon now has its own Wikipedia page, and a 119,000-strong Reddit community. There are hundreds of people in another corner of the internet that believe New Zealand used to be in a different location, and others elsewhere who question whether our country ever even existed.
And after the opening of a brand new Netflix “ANZ” office in Sydney last month, and media coverage that barely mentioned New Zealand at all, our local screen industry has been left wondering if we have been forgotten once again. Coinciding with the launch of Territory, a Yellowstone-style outback drama and Netflix’s most expensive Australian commission to date, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters committed to telling more “ambitious, authentic stories at a significant scale” from down under.
“It’s been an amazing journey to be able to work with incredible storytellers,” he said in his launch speech in Sydney, going on to list exclusively Australian shows telling Australian stories. “We’ve created shows like Boy Swallows Universe, Heartbreak High, True Spirit, Love is in the Air and The Stranger.” Speaking with industry publication C21, Netflix ANZ’s director of content Que Minh Luu added: “we’re trying to define what Australian content means for us on the Netflix service, and to an Australian audience first.”
It’s not that New Zealand didn’t get a mention at all during the Netflix ANZ coverage. When asked about attracting international productions or coproductions into Australia and NZ, Minh Luu said this: “Certainly there’s so much talent and filmmakers and studios that want to bring productions to Australia, because of how great our crews are, as well as New Zealand, because the infrastructure and talent is incredible there as well.” [emphasis added]
The comments have been described by Irene Gardiner, president of local screen producer guild Spada NZ, as “rubbing salt in the wound” during a time where our screen industry is already hurting. “Netflix are calling their Australian office ‘Netflix Australia New Zealand’ but the New Zealand part of the equation is completely ignored – apart from a reference to our crews being good and NZ being a good place for internationals to shoot,” she said in a SPADA press release this morning. “New Zealand is not just a service centre for international production.”
Since arriving on our shores a decade ago, Netflix has shot several big international productions in New Zealand, including Sweet Tooth (set in post-apocalyptic USA), Cowboy Bebop (set across the solar system in 2071), and The Royal Treatment (set in the fictional Lavania). Sci-fi thriller A War Machine currently has a unit from Australia shooting in New Zealand until the end of the month, and an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden is currently filming here with Florence Pugh, capturing “the dark side of the California dream” across the motu.
“We don’t want to discourage international production companies from using New Zealand as a location, because that’s brilliant for growing that part of our industry,” Gardiner said. “But we also don’t want to send a message to the world that New Zealand exists only as that.” She added that only three Netflix titles have truly been local co-productions: The Power of the Dog, The Legend of Monkey and Dark Tourist, which featured local key creatives in Jane Campion, Gerard Johnstone and David Farrier respectively, but are not distinctly New Zealand stories.
“We thought that might all change when Netflix opened an Australian office and called it Netflix ANZ – we assumed they would want some of the ‘NZ’ part,” she said. “But there’s no sign of any New Zealand commissions, there’s never been an easy line of communication, and there’s never been any special initiatives to invite us into the tent. It’s like NZ is in the title, but just gets totally ignored, which has become really frustrating for our producers.”
Greenstone TV CEO Rachel Antony has been working in television in Aotearoa for nearly 30 years, and agrees that Netflix ‘ANZ’ only adds insult to injury. “It just really hurts because, as New Zealand producers, we are already out in the world and hustling hard for international investment in an incredibly challenging market,” she told The Spinoff. “It just feels like these big international streamers care so little that they can’t even be bothered considering the optics of not treating us like a service economy.”
Antony added that the responsibility doesn’t fall on Netflix – nor Disney, Apple TV or Prime Video – to ensure that our local stories are being told. “The reality is, the streamers are doing exactly what they have to do, which is nothing,” she said. “We don’t have a quota for them to make local content and so they’re not delivering to a small market when they don’t have to.” Across the ditch, Australia tabled a piece of legislation in 2023 pushing for major international streamers to spend as much as 20% of their Australian revenues on local productions.
“Successive governments have utterly underestimated the impact of under-regulation,” said Antony. “So now we’re not working on a level playing field when a number of countries have a quota for their screen sector … It’s like you’ve got one team playing in a stadium with a full kit and we’re standing on the edge of a cliff, barefoot.”
Instead of a quota, the local industry is currently lobbying the Government to regulate the big streamers with a levy. Because, as Gardiner explained, they have “completely broken the model” for making television made in this country. “They have taken an enormous amount of viewing eyeballs from free-to-air television, and they’ve done that operating with no real responsibility here,” she said. “And it’s really hit a crunch point this year where advertising dollars, which used to pay for a lot of our local television, have fallen off a cliff.”
This year alone, Gardiner said that TVNZ have slashed their local content budget by $30 million and Three by $20m. “So that’s $50 million immediately out of our local storytelling, and that’s been pretty devastating.” Spada’s preferred option is for the likes of Netflix, Disney, Amazon and Apple to pay a small percentage of their New Zealand revenue back to New Zealand screen funding agencies. “All we’re saying is: if you want to be a part of our screen ecosystem, then make a contribution here,” she said.
Antony added that it’s not just about the streamers either, but how New Zealand has “ceded all of its power” to big tech companies such as Meta and Google. “It feels like this government wants to run New Zealand like an effective business. I also run a business and if we, as taxpayers, are therefore the shareholders of Aotearoa New Zealand, then this government, and many successive governments, in the face of the streamers and particularly Meta and Facebook, have been allowing our business to be really badly ripped off.”
Netflix ANZ declined to comment on this story, and it could be as long as two years to find out whether there will be a move to regulate the streamers, but Gardiner said there is still a light in this “devastating” period for the local industry. “The real bright spark at the moment is how many great local shows we’ve got screening all around the world,” she said, listing off the international success of The Brokenwood Mysteries, Under the Vines, Creamerie, A Remarkable Place to Die and Escaping Utopia.
Perhaps then, is it time that New Zealand gets a crack at making its own version of Territory? “Absolutely,” says Antony. “Give the right New Zealand production and creative team the kind of budget and support that Territory had, and of course we can deliver. We absolutely deliver.”
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