Netflix Announces New Physical Production Team in Australia

Netflix Announces New Physical Production Team in Australia

Netflix has announced a new physical production role at Netflix ANZ with the intention of creating content in Australia and New Zealand.

Previously, Netflix hasn’t focused all that much on physical production in Australia, apart from the odd movie or series, such as I Am Mother, Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun, Clickbait or Tidelands.

Although the company previously announced a $515,000 partnership with AFTRS on an Indigenous voices scholarship, Netflix ANZ has never been all that active in the Australian content creation space.

That is, hopefully, until now, with the announcement of this new role. The head of the newly created physical production team role at Netflix will be Chris Oliver-Taylor, who was previously the CEO of Fremantle in APAC.

What’s his job going to be? As Netflix ANZ director of content Que Minh Luu puts it, “Chris will be responsible for driving all aspects of productions of Netflix content in Australia and New Zealand”.

“As we build up and roll out this growing slate of local content, the ANZ team that helps bring it all life is also on the grow.”

That includes the development of local and international titles within Australia, with production management, post production, visual effects, studio strategy and resourcing factored in. Something tells me this is a bigger deal for Australia’s arts scene than just a new role.

“Working at Fremantle has given me the privilege of leading one of the biggest and best production companies across Asia Pacific.” Oliver-Taylor said.

“I am absolutely delighted to be joining Netflix at a time of significant local investment, and working with some of our most talented creators in taking Australian and New Zealand content to the world.”

This could mean some pretty big things for the Australian arts sector, which has seen a steady boom during the pandemic from the likes of Disney (even though COVID-19 exposed a sheer lack of jobs in the sector).

Netflix says that with Oliver-Taylor coming on board, they’re “levelling it all up”, so we’ll keep an eye on what Netflix gets up to in 2022.