Demand for non-English-language content has been strong enough to lure Frank Spotnitz back to sci-fi – but are there signs that this popularity has plateaued? Leading drama execs tell C21investigates how the market is changing.
Ever since writing and exec producing the groundbreaking US sci-fi TV series The X-Files, Frank Spotnitz has declined any invitations to return to the genre. Until now.
Frank Spotnitz
Last month, the award-winning writer and producer announced his Europe-based production outfit Big Light Productions (Leonardo, The Man in the High Castle) was serving as coproducer on Black Spark Film & TV’s upcoming sci-fi drama We Come in Peace for Sweden’s TV4 and Germany’s ZDF.
After years of saying no to sci-fi projects, when making the announcement, Spotnitz said: “When I read the pilot for We Come in Peace, I had to say yes. This isn’t just another sci-fi series, it’s compelling, grounded, thought-provoking and deeply human.”
Aside from a return to the sci-fi genre, what is equally noteworthy about this project is that it marks Spotnitz and Big Light’s first foray into non-English-language drama.
Spotnitz has been working out of Europe for the past 14 years, but until now has only worked on big European projects that are in English, notably Medici, starring Dustin Hoffman and Richard Madden, and Leonardo, with Aidan Turner.
“I’ve been invited to participate in [them] because people think I would add value or have the skillset to do these big shows,” he explains. “Even shows in Italy and France have been done in the English language.” This is as much down to commercial decisions as creative, he maintains, “because if you do it in English, you can get big stars who are going to travel around the world and help draw attention to the show. And often, if you do a show in the local language there may be big stars in their home territory but they’re not names that are going to mean something in the US, for instance, or other territories.”
We Come in Peace turns that assumption on its head. Created and written by Lars Lundström (Real Humans) and produced by Piodor Gustafsson (Border, The Lamb), the TV series recounts the fall-out in Sweden when a mysterious jellyfish-like object appears in the sky over Stockholm. Apart from one or two English-language scenes in which the US ambassador to Sweden (played by Billy Campbell) appears, the show is “99% Swedish-language,” says Spotnitz, adding that the cast is almost entirely Swedish.
A Hollywood-trained exec, Spotnitz says he must first and foremost be drawn to a project on its creative strengths. “I have to love it first,” he says, but adds: “Also, you want it to sell.”
Big Light is on board upcoming European sci-fi drama We Come in Peace
Spotnitz certainly hopes his reputation and background will help raise the international profile of We Come in Peace, which is being sold by Newen Connect, but he won’t bet the farm on it being a global success. “Who knows? It’s a mystery how these shows travel,” he admits.
What is certain, however, is that the barriers to entry for non-English-language shows are now much lower than they were a decade ago. “We’ve seen shows like Squid Game, Lupin and Money Heist transmitted by Netflix around the world in their original language and they became giant hits – without stars that were known to these audiences. It just shows you that viewing habits are changing,” remarks the exec.
The data certainly bears out that observation. Parrot Analytics, which has developed a metric from all digital interactions about a show, not just the raw viewership figures, finds that global audience demand for non-English content approached 50% for the first time last year, and in the US the demand share for non-English shows increased from 12.8% to 17% between the first quarter of 2022 and Q3 2024.
According to Brandon Katz, senior entertainment industry strategist at Parrot Analytics, drama accounts for the lion’s share of that upward trajectory in non-English-language fare. “Within non-English-language content that is resonating, we are seeing historical epics, high-concept dramas, romantic dramas and family dramas,” he notes.
Polish crime drama Śleboda performed well for SkyShowtime
As to which language is grabbing most attention, Spanish, Korean and Japanese are “the top languages,” observes Katz, with the latter mainly due to Japanese animation being “an extremely popular subcategory worldwide.”
Beyond that, Katz says the data suggests Indian-language films are on the rise, while Arabic content “is seemingly primed for its own Squid Game moment.”
Few disagree that Netflix’s international expansion, which began in 2010, has been the catalyst for the rise in popularity of non-English-language drama around the world. And while other global streamers, such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, have helped to push open those doors, Netflix still dominates the market.
According to February’s estimated viewing data from Digital i, Netflix series and movies accounted for all top 10 non-English-language dramas across the main SVoD services (Netflix, Amazon, Max and Disney+) in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, Netherlands, Nordics, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Australia, Japan and Korea. Top of the table was Squid Game, followed by Spanish movie La Sociedad de la Nieve, French disaster film Sous la Seine (Under Paris), Norwegian disaster series La Palma and Spanish crime drama Berlin.
Kai Finke
Meanwhile, according to Netflix’s latest viewership report, released last month, non-English programming accounted for nearly one-third of total viewing on the streamer in the second half of 2024. In addition to S2 of Squid Game – the streamer’s most watched TV show in the second half of 2024 with 85.5 million views – La Palma garnered 52.2 million views and Mexican thriller The Accident hit 41.2 million.
Some of the other most watched non-English-language titles on Netflix in the second half of 2024 included Family Pack (41 million, France), Officer Black Belt (40 million, South Korea), Maharaja (25 million, India), S2 of The Empress (19 million, Germany), Senna (15 million, Brazil) and One Hundred Years of Solitude (nine million, Colombia).
The report, however, does not show an increase in viewership figures on Netflix for non-English-language programming when compared with its past three reports.
Some analysts are also noting a flattening out of the popularity of non-English-language content on a global basis. “If we look at the top 50 debut TV shows each year from 2020, roughly half of them tend to be in the English language and the other half tend to be in non-English-languages. So the trend has essentially flattened out,” says Rahul Patel, principal analyst at market research company Ampere Analytics.
With streamers, and particularly those backed by US studios, now under pressure to return a profit or at least reduce losses, Tim Westcott, practice lead, digital content and channels at global analyst Omdia, believes this is having an impact on international investments, including in non-English-language content.
“As [the streamers] were launching in new territories, they wanted to have something they could promote and say, ‘We’re here, we’ve got the series.’ I think now they are reaching a point where they’re no longer in the launch phase and they’re now looking to break even, and those kinds of strategic investments, they’re still doing them but they are fewer and farther between than they were.”
One streamer that is making strategic investments in non-English-language content as it establishes itself as a pan-European service is SkyShowtime. Launched as a joint venture by Comcast and Paramount Global in September 2022, the streamer is now available in more than 20 territories in Europe, and according to its head of content, Kai Finke, is on track to deliver around 30 original titles by the end of 2025.
“We are not a global streamer, we are a streamer that’s operating in 20-plus markets across Europe, which is why we cannot rely on viewing from other markets, from other continents or other parts of Europe where we’re not operating SkyShowtime,” says Finke. “So that’s why our shows – up to 30 originals by the end of 2025 – must be tailormade for the local audience’s demands and preferences. And that’s why that local authenticity that many of us in the industry often talk about, for us is particularly important.”
Non-English-language originals that have performed well for SkyShowtime in their home markets include Polish crime drama Śleboda and Swedish crime dramas Veronika and End of Summer. Out of those, Veronika has been recommissioned for a second season and Finke notes that Śleboda has been “a break-out hit” for SkyShowtime since it premiered in December 2024.
The Count of Monte Cristo is an Italian-led production based on a French story but filmed in English
“Almost half of our subscribers watched this crime drama within the first four weeks on the service, and now we can see that more than 90% of all viewers continued to watch the show after the first episode, which is a fantastic result and great engagement. And now, almost three months after launching Śleboda, the show does not just remain our best performing series in Poland, it also remains in the top five of our global acquisition drivers, if you look at the totality of our territories.”
Patel is not surprised that SkyShowtime’s non-English crime shows are performing well for the streamer. According to Ampere’s data, not only does the genre perform well across any language in the top 50 show debuts globally, but it’s in the top two when it comes to non-English-language, alongside romance. “So even when we change which languages we’re looking at, crime is always popping up as one that’s proven really popular,” he notes.
Magdalena Szwedkowicz, the producer of Śleboda, is no stranger to break-out hits. She produced Forgotten Love, which entered the top 10 most popular non-English-language films worldwide for the first five weeks after it was released on Netflix in September 2023.
So what does she put her success in non-English language drama content down to? “Polish content is very strong in Poland, but as I see it, if you have a good story and you are very honest with that story and with the characters, it can be very local. Language is not a barrier anymore,” she says.
Magdalena Szwedkowicz
According to Emmanuel Eckert, deputy director of acquisitions at Mediawan Rights, non-English-language genres such as crime, thrillers or disaster stories will always be in demand. “As a distributor we are always looking for two things: the ‘must have’ and the evergreen,” he says. “Evergreens will always work because it’s easy watching; the concept travels very easily and they works almost everywhere for streamers and networks.”
Two evergreen non-English-language shows that have been hits in the last year are Under Paris, a French shark movie set in the improbable location of the French capital, and La Palma, a Norwegian disaster miniseries about an imminent volcanic eruption on the Spanish island.
Lasse Greve Alsos, head of TV at Fantefilm, the Oslo-based production company behind La Palma, says this is the company’s first TV series, but it has specialised in Scandinavian disaster movies for some years, dubbing them ‘scandisaster.’
“It’s something that we just made up because we thought it was kind of cool. And it’s good to be able to explain the difference between the Hollywood disaster blockbusters and our kind of the genre,” he explains. Instead of featuring “the hero type who is invincible,” Scandisasters are about “normal people in extraordinary situations, often very tied up to family situations,” he explains.
Another difference is the size of the budget. “We focus more on the build-up to the disaster rather than the disaster itself. So it looks the same cost as the Hollywood blockbuster but we haven’t used all that money.”
Multi-language drama Kabul is set during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan
France has a track record of delivering returnable hit series when it comes to non-English drama, with shows such as Lupin, Le Bureau and Call My Agent. But according to Manuel Alduy, head of cinema and international and young-adult fiction at France Télévisions, the returning series is giving way to the miniseries. “Now the trend for French series internationally is more around miniseries that will create the impact rather than returning shows like Call My Agent used to be a decade ago.”
As for the ambitious, internationally driven series his department is responsible for, these are getting more complicated as the French public broadcaster grapples with a hole in it budget for 2025. France Télévisions is a member of the European Alliance, with pubcasters ZDF in Germany and Rai in Italy. They continue to work on projects together, but Alduy says these have become more complicated as the broadcasters look to take fewer risks.
“Four years ago, it was quite simple. One of us would have a project, two others would join and then, when the production was ready to go, we would confirm how much financing we would put in. But right now, it is more complex. We try to go into co-development from day one with either ZDF or Rai, meaning being involved in the script much more than before.”
Manuel Alduy
Current projects in this bracket include two multi-language shows, the thriller Kabul, set against the backdrop of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s sweep to power, and The Phoenix, formerly known as Alpha and announced at Series Mania last year. The latter is a Storia Television production from Films du Cygne with ZDF and France Télévisions on board. “[It] is about young green activists who decide to kidnap the children of CEOs to force them to take action on climate change,” says Alduy.
So what of the multi-language drama? Is this showing signs of revival?
Drops of God, a stylish French-, Japanese- and English-language thriller, is an example of multi-language drama that performed “very well” for France Télévisions, according to Alduy. Centred on the world of wine and based on a popular manga series by Tadashi Agi, it is a Hulu original series that was acquired by Apple+ and won the 2024 International Emmy for best drama series.
However, according to Alduy, from a French broadcaster’s point of view, this is the exception rather than the rule.
Multi-language dramas are harder to get off the ground in France, he says, because of the local quota system, which requires 40% of the dialogue be in French. And in Europe generally, concern that such projects could turn into ‘Euro-puddings’ tends to put broadcasters off, while the increasing level of regulation placed on streaming platforms is pushing them towards local- rather than multi-language content.
Alduy says there is also pressure from international distributors to have a version just in English, adding: “That’s not what we like – we prefer to have the multi-language version because an increasing part of the audience in France likes to have the original version with subtitles.”
But this is not what is being commissioned, he says, pointing to 2025 miniseries The Count of Monte Cristo, an Italian-led production based on a French story but nevertheless filmed in English. “It’s a big production, a great production, a Rai-led series produced by Mediawan’s Palomar in Italy. But Monte Cristo is a French book and the entire series is in English. I’m quite satisfied by the premium quality of the show, but the French audience will look at it not as a French series but as a series from elsewhere,” says Alduy.
France Télévisions, he notes, has some projects with Fédération Studios, but it too is focusing on English-language drama as it embarks on its next phase of growth.
Spotnitz would like to see more international shows with multi-language dialogue commissioned but suggests the current commissioning structure is too inward-looking. “The French streaming teams are buying shows that are in French, set in France for the French market, and the Italians and the Germans are doing the same. But if you have a great show that has French and Italian and British characters, there’s no home for that show,” he says.
“I absolutely believe there are series that are organically international and that huge numbers of people would watch, but there’s no commissioning team set up to make those shows. So it’s kind of like our politics. [They] have become very nationalist and so is our TV commissioning. And I think it’s unfortunate because there’s some great stories I’d love to tell that cross borders and you can see the value, culturally, right now in finding stories that cross borders.”
In the meantime, Spotnitz will be glad if his Swedish-language sci-fi series crosses borders, in the current challenging climate. “If it just works in Sweden and Germany, in Europe, then it will have been a great show and worth doing. And then, who knows, maybe it will travel beyond and find success globally. It’s hard to predict.”
