Welcome to the Story Surveillance, your weekly intel briefing on the business of Hollywood and intriguing intellectual properties (IP) ripe for adaptation. We want to make SS more useful for us, but also for you. Please take a moment to let us know what's useful, what's not working, what you'd like more of and we'll make sure to do our best in future editions. As usual we’ve scoured the latest books, long-form journalism, podcasts, backlist gems, and international hits to uncover high-concept stories with cinematic potential, but we also added new sections about commissioning mandates and cultural vibes. Happy hunting!
Contents (Issue #55)
🔮 Mandates & Market Trends
- Unscripted TV hits a contraction point: A24 shutters docs, Media Res exits, and budgets collapse across Hollywood. Netflix leans into global formats and sports docs. Disney slashes NatGeo’s legacy shows and pushes star-led prestige. Amazon might sell MGM Alternative, while Fox, CBS, and NBC double down on safe bets, reboots, and reality mainstays. CW and TNT pivot to cheap content and live sports. Syfy goes fully scripted.
💅 The Vibes
- TikTokers roast societal “propaganda,” boomers and zoomers bond in public, and “quirk pride” becomes a badge of honor. Chaos storytelling, pastel-satire aesthetics, and Gen Z’s love for self-aware fails hint at the tone buyers are vibing with now.
📚 Books (Fresh IP, Just Announced)
- Direwolf competitions, erased lovers, dystopian mob schools, time-bending romances, and Southern Gothic kid-horror. Recent book deals ripe for adaptation—spanning romantasy, prestige thrillers, and bold genre hybrids.
🎧 Podcasts (Narrative Audio)
- A stun-gun empire unravels in a high-stakes docuseries. A hiker vanishes in Utah’s deadliest range. Both offer rich cinematic bones for doc or limited series treatment.
🌍 International IP (Foreign Language & Global Hits)
- Spain’s Crisálida blends folk horror and family cult trauma in a fever-dream literary thriller. Minimal sets, maximum dread—ripe for prestige horror buyers.
🔮 Trends: Unscripted's Narrowing Windows
The unscripted television sector is flashing warning signs. In the past week alone, industry players have hit the brakes on non-fiction content. A24 abruptly shuttered its documentary film division, cutting five staff in a move that underscores broader factual-market challenges. Indie studio Media Res reportedly halted new unscripted development, following a wave of cost-cutting that's seen producers close up shop and budgets slashed across Hollywood.
As one veteran noted, when networks aren't buying or demand rock-bottom budgets, production companies' margins evaporate. This contraction comes on the heels of last year's collapse of Participant Media's doc unit, prompting worries that reality TV may no longer be the safety net it once was.
Against this backdrop, here's how key U.S. platforms and networks are adjusting their unscripted mandates (after the jump)...
