What Hollywood can learn from MrBeast

Hollywood studios are casting about for other projects that can be helmed by popular creators.

Heading into 2025, we knew that MrBeast had a huge online following. After all, his main channel has grown to over 300 million subscribers and 74 billion views. He’s built out an entire studio in North Carolina and is mobbed by legions of fans wherever he goes.

But what we didn’t know was whether this online fame would translate into traditional Hollywood success. MrBeast famously signed a $100 million deal with Amazon to create one of the most ambitious game shows of all time, and it debuted in December with 1,000 contestants and $5 million in grand prize money.

Flash forward to today, and it’s clear that the show was an unequivocal success, with Amazon claiming it reached record viewership numbers. Now, Hollywood studios are casting about for other projects that can be helmed by popular creators.

What will those projects look like? To answer that question, I spoke to Lucia Moses, the co-author of a Business Insider piece titled “What MrBeast can teach Hollywood.” We discussed why previous creator-led shows failed, how the Beast Games viewership compared to other popular shows, and whether MrBeast’s production mishaps that led to a class action lawsuit will give studio executives any pause.

You can check out the interview over here.

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Transcript

Hey, Lucia. Thanks for joining us.

1:22

Hey, Simon. Great to be here.

1:24

So you wrote this really excellent piece at Business Insider. In fact, I enjoy all of your media reporting. As you've probably noticed, I link to it often within my newsletter. But you wrote this really good long-form piece about Mr. Beast and specifically about his work with Amazon and And, you know,

1:46

what his success with that show that he did with Amazon, what that means for the larger Hollywood ecosystem, especially as it's starting to think about how it can work more within the creator economy and with creators. I'd love to start with maybe just like a fun thought experiment that I like to talk

2:03

about on social media sometimes is like, how do you think Mr. Beast ranks on the list of world's most famous characters? I mean, that's everybody from Taylor Swift to LeBron James and stuff like that. Do you think he's within the top 10 or even the top five or anything like that?

2:25

Based on data I've seen in the U.S., I would think it would be safe to say he's in the top 10, at least in the U.S., among young people. He's definitely one of their most admired people, admired celebrities out there.

2:40

Well, like, I have this hot take that I've put on social media that just gets people angry. It's like, I actually think he's the most famous person when you count it with just, like, people who would say that they're fans. And, like, people are always like, no way, no way he's more famous than Taylor Swift. But, like,

2:54

you think about just the raw number of fans he has, not just in the U.S., but, like, now that he's, like, translating his, like, his videos into multiple languages, like Hindi and Mandarin and Spanish and stuff like that, like... I just don't think the average person over the age of 30 just really understands how popular he is.

3:12

Yeah, for sure. And his style of video really translates well because you probably don't even need to hear anything he's doing. It's very stunty. It's like, you know, I buried myself alive. I tied somebody to a chair and threw axes at them or whatever.

3:36

Yeah, and one of the things I found out reading about it, I don't know if you saw this, is when he gets his videos dubbed into different languages for his various channels, like Spanish or something like that, he'll actually hire a famous actor from that country so that people who are

3:53

watching the videos can actually recognize the actor's voice and stuff like that, which adds even more... basically more fuel to the fire in terms of like helping like it's just it's just

4:07

fascinating more credibility for sure and you know i think something that maybe gets misunderstood or lost when people talk about about influencers or creators is that you know somebody at a mr beast level who is to be clear in a class by himself um they they

4:25

put enormous amounts of money, you know, Hollywood type dollars into these productions. This is not like, you know, a kid filming their, you know, their cat jumping, you know,

4:38

jumps the hole or it's not even it's not even Casey Neistat with his like DSLR camera this is like I think I saw a figure that he spent like 3.5 million dollars on a single YouTube video so like this is almost I think the average TV show costs

4:53

like two to three million dollars per episode so like he's spending on the same levels as like actual Hollywood productions yeah yeah And so, as a media reporter, why do you think Mr. Beast is so fascinating to cover, outside of the fact that he's the most popular creator?

5:09

Like, what it is about him that's, like, so fascinating as, like, a media entrepreneur?

5:14

Well, fundamentally, he's completely... What he represents is completely disruptive to the traditional Hollywood system. He owns his own IP. Um... You know, he is born and bred on YouTube, which is a UGC platform. You know, everything is user generated. you know, the he's extremely popular with young people, which is a an age group, you know,

5:49

an age group that is not watching TV shows and movies as much as as older people are. So he represents a threat. And if you want to be optimistic, an opportunity.

6:03

And I guess like for me as a journalist who covers media, like what I find so fascinating is like how obsessed he is with You know, the algorithm and, you know, like to like a such a specific degree of like what the thumbnail should look like

6:19

and what the analytics are telling him about why people drop off and stuff like that. Like he is someone who is just and I think you said this in your piece is just like. so obsessed with every minute detail and doesn't cut any corners. And like, you know,

6:35

if you're a media entrepreneur is trying to get insights into the creator economy and how YouTube works and stuff like that, he's kind of an open book on that front.

6:43

Yeah. And I would say, you know, he's not doing anything that any successful creator on YouTube isn't doing or that anybody who's seriously publishing on YouTube isn't doing, you know, you're paying attention to the meta, you're paying attention to the SEO, you know, to that thumbnail, you're testing, you're looking to see when people drop off, you're pivoting,

7:05

you're bobbing and weaving. He's just doing it really, really well, taking it super seriously. And one thing I didn't mention is that he's all of 26 years old. His empire is worth billions and billions. I'm sorry, millions. He's not a Hollywood exec who's been doing this for decades and decades and has an MBA.

7:37

Yeah, he's completely just upending all these kinds of norms and stuff like that. And I guess that kind of segues into your piece of this Amazon show he did called Beast Games. I think the reported number is that he was basically given $100 million in pretty much like a blank slate, right?

7:58

To complete creative control over the show. Was that your reading on it as well?

8:04

Yeah, and... you know people people may um you know turn their nose at that or uh sort of credit you know uh be critical of amazon for that you know that they gave him complete creative control um because there were all these reported problems with the production um you know with with safety issues uh but

8:31

For an Amazon to get a character like Mr. Beast to partner with him, I'm sure they had to give him creative control.

8:43

Yeah, because he wouldn't accept any other way. In fact, he's talked in interviews about he was taking meetings at Netflix and Hulu and stuff like that. It wasn't until he spoke to Amazon that they were really on board and they seemed like they knew his work and they were clearly fine with giving him that creative control.

9:05

I think you mentioned in your piece previous missteps in Hollywood of trying to work with creators Um, but, but not giving that creative control and how it didn't really work. I think like one of the things you mentioned was Lilly Singh. And can you talk a little bit about that?

9:20

Yeah. Yeah. And I just, you know, I have to give props to my, uh, my colleagues, uh, Jeff Weiss and, and Dan Waitley, who reported this piece with me and know a ton about the creator economy. Um, in, in the past when, uh, legacy Hollywood companies have worked with creators,

9:37

they've often tried to kind of shoehorn them into these. tried and true Hollywood formats and made them very polished. And whereas what it is people love about these creators that they follow is their so-called authenticity. They wanna feel like they are really hearing this kind of unfiltered, direct, having this direct connection with these people.

10:01

And so it didn't really work when you kind of put them in these spiffy studios and with all the bells and whistles.

10:10

Yeah, and I've seen interviews with Lily Singh. I think she had like a late night show on NBC or something like that where I think her entire writing staff was hired by the studio and she was getting notes from the studio and she kind of described it as being very meddlesome and she kind of blames

10:29

that as the reason why, you know, it didn't really work out.

10:33

Yeah, yeah. So you see an evolution now where, you know, For example, this is not the first time Amazon is doing a deal with a creator. They've put creators in competition shows where they have them play the host. And they're just playing themselves. So that seems like a better way to go about it.

10:54

Yeah. So you mentioned the labor issues. So some of the things that came out, and I think there's a current lawsuit going on, was that some contestants weren't properly fed and workers were overworked and they weren't properly staffed and stuff like that. Would you say that's a potential kind of...

11:16

Clash that's going to continue to happen as like the Hollywood embraces the creator economy is like, you know, a lot of creators, they're just hiring. A lot of them are hiring contractors or friends. A lot of these people aren't like union workers and stuff like that. And my kind of outsiders understanding of Hollywood is like.

11:34

shoots are much more structured. There's union rules. There's rules around when people get breaks and child actors and all the kinds of stuff. Would you say that a lot of these creators who might sign these deals might not really be prepared for that level of structure and how they shoot their stuff?

11:54

Yeah, I think, again, the Beast Games example is such an anomaly. It involved such a big, famous creator. The production was kind of over the top, $100 million. for the pre-production, for the first episode that they filmed early on in Vegas. And I think his people would readily admit they weren't quite prepared, but they course corrected.

12:32

So I think there'll be some lessons learned from that. I don't think you're gonna see another Mr. Beast anytime soon because he's just kind of in a class by himself. But to your point, I think writ large, you're gonna see not just legacy media companies try to take lessons from creators and pick them up,

12:59

pick up their shows, but you're gonna see creators kind of move in the direction of Hollywood and adopt some of these conventions and some of these safer practices, labor practices, production practices that are the bedrock of Hollywood.

13:17

Yeah, you make a good point. Like a lot of those accusations came from kind of the early filming when he was doing the initial filtering of contestants. And it did seem looking at the various making of documentaries that are all over YouTube now for it.

13:31

It seems like they had a tighter ship when they actually filmed most of the show itself. Is that the kind of read that you got on it?

13:41

Yeah, yeah. I think things did get tightened up over time for sure.

13:46

And one thing that he said in interviews prior to this was that the success or failure of Beast Games would be kind of like a bellwether for how much Hollywood would want to invest in creators. And if it was a huge failure, they'd be like, what they do on YouTube doesn't transfer over.

14:03

Is that kind of from talking to your sources? Do you think now that... And we'll talk about how successful it's been, but now that it is considered a success in terms of number of streaming hours and Amazon seems to have signaled that it's a success,

14:18

do you think that there's a lot more interest with Hollywood agents and production companies and stuff like that and trying to figure out what other projects they can greenlight from the creator economy?

14:31

Yeah, definitely. And this started happening, I think, more before the Mr. Beast deal got done. It's been an ongoing build. I've talked to agents and people who represent creators, and they talk about how these streamers and studios are asking more and more about what creators they can work with. And definitely they are paying attention to Mr. Beast,

14:55

but they also just are paying attention to the numbers. and the popularity of creators among younger people. And these studios and streamers need more content. And they need more content that's going to appeal to that demographic. And they need less expensive content. They're not spending the big dollars they were spending in the past on content.

15:21

So, yeah, I think they're going to keep looking. I just don't think you're necessarily going to see a sea change. You're not going to see a big change overnight. You're not going to see, you know, you're not going to turn on Netflix and see, you know, squares of creators, shows, you know, covering the home screen.

15:43

There are just not that many that can kind of carry the billboard, as they say, as Mr. Beast can. That said, you've seen Netflix pick up some shows such as Miss Rachel. It's hugely popular with the preschool set and a bunch of others.

16:06

I think what you're referencing is I think within the last year or two, Nielsen or someone started coming out with all these figures of showing share of streaming on just TVs alone and YouTube is just beating everybody like by a wide margin, like even Netflix.

16:25

And I think that would you say that was like a wake up call for Hollywood? Like maybe like YouTube before that was the sleeping giant. Maybe they thought of it as like something that a lot of people watch on their phones and desktop computers.

16:38

But it wasn't until those numbers came out that like they really realized how much it's also dominating television screens as well.

16:45

Yeah, for sure. I started to just hear the conversation change in the industry last year when it was month after month and then finally a year where YouTube was clearly dominating TV watching with something like 10% of TV viewing share. Netflix was next with maybe eight or 9%, but YouTube was always growing.

17:09

Netflix seemed to be kind of holding its own, but staying about the same. And then everybody else, 4% and below, from Amazon Prime to Disney Plus even.

17:21

So Amazon is touting Beast Games as being a huge success. What's your read on how successful it was? Like, is this like blockbuster Game of Thrones level or is this like a mid-level success? What's your what's your reading on like how I think it was something like 50 million hours worth of watching or something like that.

17:40

But obviously that's like completely context free for a lot of people.

17:45

Um, yeah, it's always hard to tell with Amazon. They tend to put out numbers when they're happy with things and here they put out a number. Um, I think they also said it was their biggest launch. Um, um, you know, the, the second biggest launch they've ever had for a TV show.

18:01

I think it ranked in the top 10 for Nielsen. I don't think the reported problems on set had any bearing. If anything, maybe it helped. And there were plenty of ads in the show. So there's a class of advertisers that are not gonna be at all turned off by the fact that there's a little controversy around it.

18:30

Yeah. Have we seen anything, whether they've greenlit a second season, or is that still up in the air?

18:35

No, I can't speak to that off the top of my head.

18:38

Yeah. I haven't seen anything either. And maybe your sources have told you something, but I don't think anything's been publicly reported on that. You mentioned Miss Rachel. So Netflix is doing some interesting stuff with that, and Cocoa Melon, and Hulu does this with Hot Ones, where instead of...

18:57

you know, backing up a dump truck full of cash to start a whole new show. They're finding shows on YouTube that have like repeatable formats and they're just licensing that. Like, what do you think are like the benefits of doing that versus creating a whole new piece of IP that they have a hundred percent ownership of?

19:15

You know, it's, it's interesting because, um, Netflix has talked in the past about how they, they prefer to own and not rent content. Uh, but here they are. Um, as you said, licensing shows like Miss Rachel in some cases, they're airing at the same time on YouTube. So you think, well, why should I watch that on Netflix?

19:38

Well, maybe it's a different need state. Maybe the production value is a little spiffed up on Netflix. I think from talking to people who deal with Netflix, they think that over time, Netflix would want to create its own original things such that know when you're paying for netflix you're getting something a little different um

20:03

but these creators you know have uh you know poured blood sweat and tears into building their channels on youtube and they don't want to give them up anytime soon

20:12

yeah i kind of think it's a perfect deal because they get to just continue with their normal production values you know production schedule for youtube and then netflix is probably paying a fraction of what it would pay if it if it was getting this content exclusively so it can kind of

20:27

Spread its money across a lot more creators. And like I think of this as being kind of filler content. So it has its big tentpole series that people sign up for Netflix for like Stranger Things and stuff like that. But it needs like more kind of ambient television so that people can have things to

20:43

watch in between those big tentpole series. So if they're not spending a lot of money and they can invest in licensing a lot of creators, I think it can work for both sides for sure. Um, and then I think, I don't know if you've seen this reporting or maybe you already,

20:58

maybe you were the one who reported on it is like Netflix is now looking at long form podcasts, uh, video podcasts and, and talking about licensing for that. So that's even more, it's probably even less expensive. And, you know, another example of them just giving their users extra content that isn't that expensive for them to license.

21:19

Yeah, yeah, we did report on that. And it's funny. To me, it speaks to the constant or an ongoing blurring of the lines of what is What is premium? What is entertainment? What is video? Podcasts are now video, right? People watch them. So much for having a voice for radio, right?

21:45

One thing you wrote about in your piece is just like, you know, some of the lessons that we can learn is like, obviously, like YouTubers are very incentivized by revenue sharing because like they get like 55% of all the revenue that's generated through AdSense on their videos. And you talk about how Hollywood,

22:03

to kind of adapt to this ecosystem, could structure its deals so it's less focused on upfront payments and more on giving these creators some kind of stake in it. Can you talk a little bit more about what that would look like?

22:17

Yeah, and I haven't heard that there's any big sea change happening yet, but I think... And a gripe that talent has had is that with these Netflix upfront deals, they get paid a lot upfront, but they don't get to share in the rewards if a show does really well. Of course, that said,

22:45

if you don't do really well, those upfront deals could be to your advantage. But overall, the Hollywood approach is we buy your show and we control it. I can see a model where creators do something like Mr. Beast and they continue to own their shows and, you know, they have more, you know,

23:18

they use their leverage to maintain some kind of ownership or maybe they co-create with the studio and they share in the ownership.

23:29

Yeah, they're showrunners. Because I think obviously with traditional TV, showrunners did get some upside if a show was syndicated or something like that. That kind of went away with the upfront deals. But I think one of the outcomes of the strikes, the Hollywood strikes,

23:48

was that they would go to some kind of reward-based model based on how well a show performed. I don't know how much you've been following, that kind of thing.

23:59

Yeah, if a show was, you know, performed to a certain level. So I think that was just going to apply to those that were the big hits.

24:09

Most of the shows that have been created by YouTubers and traditional Hollywood studios have been reality TV and game shows and stuff like that. Do you see that as really the kind of future? Obviously, there are some burgeoning actual filmmakers and... stuff like that on youtube who are trying to make actual fictionalized tv series

24:34

and or fictionalized series and uh films and stuff like that but do you think it's mainly going to be in the reality tv show space to to start with because obviously those kind of like dramas and stuff like that are a lot more expensive to produce

24:48

I think that's where the comfort level is now, the unscripted stuff. Although, well, as you said, this is a repeatable format. It's kind of safe. The creator can play themselves and maintain that kind of authenticity. There are a few examples of creators being cast in things.

25:15

Tubi's got a couple movies out there, but they're kind of a toe in the water at this point. It's probably true over time, but it's a toe in the water.

25:25

And I guess there's this theory that if you cast people who have already existing followings, that some portion of their audience might go and be more likely to check out a show or something like that.

25:36

um yeah yeah uh it's it's about you know driving viewership back to their youtube channel uh when mr beast uh when beast games launched on on amazon it actually was you know previewed first on youtube yeah so there's so there is this theory but i'm

25:56

guessing it's it's uh it's pretty hard to like really tell if that's even working um okay lucia uh those were all the questions i have for you where can people find you online

26:07

I'm on all the platforms, LinkedIn, X, Blue Sky, Threads.

26:12

Awesome. Well, this is a lot of fun. Thanks for joining me.

26:14

Hey, thanks for having me.