Netflix’s Amanda Duthie details ANZ strategy

If you’re familiar with that famous Australian sporting chant “Aussie Aussie Aussie”, you will understand Netflix ANZ’s commissioning mantra under the new content director, Amanda Duthie.

Speaking to Broadcast International ahead of this week’s launch of its 2026 slate, Duthie is clear on the brief for her commissioning team for the years ahead.

“The brief is liberating. It’s that we are absolutely looking for local first, authentically Australian. What work will resonate for those Australian audiences?

“We will be developing and commissioning genuine Australian stories, looking for that work to resonate for local audiences. And that’s position number one, two, and three, and then if it has a global grow, amazing - but the primary focus is on local.

“That’s a pretty great brief, and it’s been met with sort of whoops and, maybe, a gasp or two or just general delight through a long list of pitch meetings that we’ve been doing.”

Such a focus has been consistent throughout Duthie’s career. In her six years as creative director/chief exec of the Adelaide Film Festival, for example, she supported 58 projects through the festival’s investment fund, including films The Nightingale, Sweet Country, Charlie’s Country and 52 Tuesdays.

And, in her most recent former role as head of originals at Australian streamer Stan, Duthie aimed for quantity as well. Thirty original Australian productions a year by 2025 and Stan was the biggest commissioner of Australian drama.

Not so at Netflix.

“It’s a handful that we are delivering across 2026. Big, ambitious productions - My Brilliant Career, Heartbreak High, and Allen coming from Ludo’s studios (makers of Bluey).

“At this stage, I would consider that we’ll have a handful again in 2027.”

Duthie has been in the job for just over three months, along with her newly appointed development manager, Katherine Slattery, and co-ordinator, Emily O’Connell.

“The job is a total privilege, because we wake up in the morning and we think about content. We spend our day talking about content. We go to sleep dreaming about content.”

It helps that Netflix fully funds its productions. “It’s liberating because you don’t have to have a Canadian uncle or a French cousin [to encourage co-productions and extra funding], and we can bring it home.”

So, how does Duthie like her pitches? “It’s the usual short, sharp. What is it? Who’s involved? We don’t necessarily want to be sent huge amounts of materials, but something that can pique our interest. We will reach back out and get those materials.”

And advice for international producers?

“It comes back to that central brief of, is this an Australian project? How is it connected to Australia via IP or producer connections or an original story? Local first is the brief.”

But, with the Netflix mandate of “entertaining the world”, Duthie says there’s no reason why local stories can’t take over the world stage. As examples she cites Adolescence and Squid Game.

“Squid Game couldn’t have been made in Australia. It couldn’t have been made in Ireland. It couldn’t have been made in Japan. It is absolutely enough to be an amazing Korean story.

“That’s evidence that Netflix backs local voices, local creatives - and with the spectacular number of eyeballs that are watching Netflix, you then have the potential to have that global breakout.”

Duthie is also keen to encourage new voices into the Netflix ecosystem and across the production cycle.

“I would hope that the people that we’re meeting with can recognise the commitment and the passion that the ANZ Netflix content team have in unearthing surprising [voices] and not just going with experience, and [we’re] also finding ideas and series potential from those new voices, giving them an opportunity in the scaffolding to be able to reach that vision.”

Duthie adds that she is “focused primarily on scripted series” but says that should an unscripted project present itself ”that absolutely works for us then, clearly, that conversation will be opened up.”

The future of international productions made in Australia also seems to be on an even footing, with six major global productions announced. “It’s an ongoing, excellent opportunity for us to have enough production to fill all of our existing and newly to be opened studios across the country,” Duthie says.

Netflix ANZ already delivers enough local content to meet the recently imposed streamer quotas and it has also contributed A$10m (£5m) to build capacity through its training programmes since 2021. It’s a commitment Duthie supports.

“It’s important because we are part of this brilliant ecosystem. We have been a committed partner since we arrived in Australia in 2015, and it goes to the heart of what we were talking about before with a steady, brilliant pipeline of Australian content.

“We must be enabling opportunities for emerging and brand new people, whether they’re from a region or a city, in post-production or in writers’ rooms.”

And, finally, what did she last watch and enjoy on Netflix?

Korean duo Culinary Class Wars - a cookery series - and drama When Life Gives You Tangerines are picked, alongside hit period series Bridgerton - the latter chosen partly because [Australian actor] Yeren Ha “is so amazing.”

Denise Eriksen is executive director of Screen Careers Australia, a not for profit organisation designed to further the careers of crews in Australia. Screen Careers has received Netflix training funding on many of its productions in the last year.