Private capital is reshaping Hollywood moviemaking

At the Toronto International Film Festival last month, audiences saw "Wicked" star Cynthia Erivo return to the big screen for her newest movie, "Prima Facie."

While "Wicked" was a massive Universal undertaking, Erivo's new movie was produced in part by Camelback Productions, a smaller Hollywood venture aiming to fund independent film, according to CEO Anita Verma-Lallian.

She's one of many private investors who are betting big on Hollywood as the moviegoing landscape shifts and a handful of indie films catch fire.

"It's a different point of view to invest in these projects," Verma-Lallian said. "It's been so hard for people that are not in Hollywood to get into the industry ... We've been able to fund stories that otherwise would have had a hard time getting greenlit by the traditional studio system."

Camelback has also produced films "Doin' It" and "Runner," with stars such as Lilly Singh and Owen Wilson.

Big blockbuster films such as this year's "The Odyssey" and "The Devil Wears Prada 2" are still the domain of legacy Hollywood studios. But with the number of annual releases dwindling, and with forthcoming consolidation among major players Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, there's growing opportunity for smaller production companies to hit it big.

And while the business of making movies is still generally capital-intensive, recent breakouts including "Backrooms" and "Obsession" have found success on lower budgets.

To thread the needle, private capital is buying into production companies, acquiring the infrastructure and diving deeper into the financing structure of entertainment. For example, private equity firm Silver Lake backs talent agency WME, and Blackstone is behind content studio Candle Media.

According to consulting firm AlixPartners' 2026 Media and Entertainment Industry Predictions report, private equity investors in media are growing with precision, especially as studios and audience aggregators increasingly become vertically integrated.

While the cost of entry has increased, private investors are eager to own intellectual property and audiences, the report said.

"Private equity can build scaled, defensible businesses that profit regardless of which large media player owns the next blockbuster, effectively ensuring a central role in the future media value chain," the report read.

And while deep-pocketed companies such as Netflix and Amazon continue to raise the bar for content spend to make or acquire new media, traditional studios are finding new ways to keep pace.