Film studios · 01 · Answer

Should an independent film studio keep its IP or take a work-for-hire fee from a streamer?

The honest answer is that the number you would need to decide this is not public. No audited cost-plus margin exists in any primary source, and no multiple was disclosed on any independent-studio transaction between 2024 and 2026 — not one. What is knowable is what retained libraries actually fetched, and the range is enormous.

The evidence

The margin figure everyone quotes is trade-press characterisation.

Thirty to forty per cent of production budget in the early streaming era, with Lionsgate reported to have made about $3m per episode on Orange Is the New Black. Jeff Sagansky says streamers now offer “10 or 20 percent more than your usual producer fee” with nothing from later viewing or relicensing. Directional only — there is no audited figure.

What retained libraries actually sold for.

MGM to Amazon: $8.45bn in 2021. Village Roadshow, in Chapter 11: Alcon paid about $440m in total, $417.5m of it for a 108-film library — roughly $3.9m a film.

A library is a real, measurable income stream.

Lionsgate's library produced $1.0bn of revenue in the trailing twelve months to March 31, 2026, up 5% year over year — roughly 38% of total revenue of $2,631.8m.

And no transaction in the window priced one publicly.

No EV/EBITDA or revenue multiple was disclosed on any independent-studio transaction from 2024 to 2026. A24 was valued at $3.5bn in a June 2024 round and has disclosed no revenue; none exists in the public record.

What would have to be true for this to be wrong

If the fee on offer covers your fixed cost base for a year and your alternative is not making the film, the IP question is academic and the fee is the answer. This decision only bites for a studio with enough balance sheet to carry the risk of keeping what it makes.

Sources: SEC EDGAR full-text search and company filings, with each figure's period stated above. AI-answer measurements are CULT+MATH primary research, criteria registered before retrieval. Published 2026-10-21 by Ipalibo Da-Wariboko, CULT+MATH LLC. Figures carry the date they were pulled; where a number could not be sourced, this page says so and gives none.

This is one of six decisions covered in the film and television studio decision brief — each with the evidence behind it, who owns it, who it is contested with, and what would have to be true for the answer to flip.

See the brief →