With submissions in five Emmy categories, indie Dropout is playing for the win with the hit comedy game show Game changer. Among the gongs they seek out is game show great and host Sam Reich, who believes their success is driven in part by the fact that they’re based in Los Angeles — and that’s not going to change.
“I can’t imagine a version of the show, or Dropout, that doesn’t exist in Los Angeles,” he enthuses of the Eastside studio space where they film many of their shows, including their fellow Emmy contender. Very important people. (Game changerHe points out that it was filmed in different studios around Los Angeles — “It all depends on what chaos the season calls for!”).
“We live here,” Reich adds. “It’s a community project, and it’s worthless without the talent community.” “If we were to move to Canada or Austin, it would be a different group of people.”
However, Reich, who is also the streaming company’s CEO, wished he could say the city had been “at all helpful” with the tax breaks, lamenting: “They haven’t given us a dime.”
Game changer It’s exactly what its name suggests: it’s a game show where the game changes every episode. Not only that, but when the game starts, the players – an assortment of comedians and improv actors hand-picked by producer Jazzy Collins (Bachelorette, Traitors) – They have no idea what the rules are and must figure them out as they strive to win. The show has already run for seven seasons. The eighth film premiered on May 18, and the ninth film is now being shown, much earlier than usual.
“We opened a space version of the writers room in February,” Reich reveals. “We won’t be filming until October or November, but I already have a shortlist of 15 ideas from which we will choose 10.”
Once each episode is filmed, it goes through a six-month post-production process. With each passing season, things get more complicated.
“We now have rings with more than 20 cameras,” he says. “Sam Geer is the lead editor and showrunner as well. We have editors who work with and under Sam on their own episodes, and the episodes go back and forth between editors as people become available or unavailable. And then there’s me.”
Reich says he submits “about 200 notes” for each episode and does “five or six” reviews of each, adding: “It’s a labor-intensive part of the process.”
For those who are interested in evolution Game changer Since his debut in 2019, it is easy to see that there is confidence in him now; However, despite having a bigger budget these days, it never betrays its roots. Reich describes Dropout’s shows as “criminally expensive by podcast standards and criminally cheap by TV standards.”
“There’s a rawness to Dropout’s content that I’m reluctant to lose. It’s a big part of our authenticity,” Reich says. “with game changer, Sometimes you’ll see offstage, and we’ll integrate the crew into the show, and we’ll refer to camera people by their first names and things like that. He cannot imagine a world where… Game changer It doesn’t remain the “fourth show that breaks the wall.”
The beginner may be surprised by this Game changer He has gained a very loyal and very active fan base online. The show’s Instagram has 1.3 million followers, and more than 15 million subscribers to Dropout’s YouTube channel, where she posts eight- to 12-minute snippets of Game changer Episodes. Dropout itself has over a million subscribers who pay a monthly or annual fee to watch full episodes Game changer And other series. This is a number that Reich never expected when he created the show.
“The #1 streaming show in the world right now, which is the house“It has a ravenous fan base online, and you’d expect that,” he says. “We’re online, and that’s where our audience lives. What’s surprising is that Game changera game show, that would develop that kind of following, because you don’t see Wheel of fortune or The price is right Having this.”
between Game changer and Very important peopleDropout was presented in a total of 11 Emmy categories this year. Is it now time for the industry to take this absurdity seriously? What does this recognition mean for the future?
“We could be 10 times larger than we are today, and still be 10 times smaller than the largest fish, so the ceiling is still incredibly far away,” Reich says. “In terms of the rest of the industry opening up to us, an Emmy nod would be a great symbol of validation and bring in an audience that might be skeptical of us. They might take a chance on us. There are definitely a few talents who are waking up to Dropout as something they want to be involved in.”
This story first appeared in the June standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To obtain the magazine, click here to subscribe.
