James Donaldson, aka MrBeast aka that YouTuber who does weird charity videos aka that guy who sold me a terrible burger, is reportedly close to signing an estimated $100 million deal with Amazon to create a competition series on the company’s Prime Video streaming service.
According to a new report from Puck News, the 25-year-old content creator’s team went out recently and pitched a show to streaming platforms. Apparently, according to Puck News, Amazon won the bidding war and is now close to signing a deal with MrBeast—who has 233 million subscribers on YouTube—that would potentially be worth around $100 million.
Specific details about the TV show aren’t known yet, but one source told Puck News that it’s a competition show and that the first episode of the series will premiere on MrBeast’s popular YouTube channel. After that, future episodes will be available exclusively on Prime Video. It’s also reported that other brands will be a part of the series, which will likely help Amazon pay for the expensive show. That’s assuming the deal is finalized.
It’s not surprising at all that streaming platforms—who are hungry for content and need to inflate their numbers in a big way as many of them keep losing money—would be open to a deal with MrBeast. The content creator’s Squid Game-inspired competition show on YouTube was a massive hit. And his videos where he helps blind people see for the first time have racked up hundreds of millions of views, too, even if there’s a lot of controversy around his charitable videos and how many find them exploitative and gross.
All this success has led to MrBeast expanding his empire, starting with MrBeast Burger in 2020, which served up some nasty food, so nasty in fact that MrBeast himself sued the company. The company then turned around and sued him back. His most recent venture is a line of candy bars.
I ate one. It was fine. I’d like to not have to think about MrBeast anymore.
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