Netflix cancels Meghan Markle animated collection ‘Pearl’ | Engadget

Netflix is tightening its purse strings after a drop in subscribers. Deadline reported that the streaming platform canceled production on Pearl, an animated collection created by Meghan Markle, earlier than it was even completed. The venture was part of a multi-year manufacturing deal that Markle and Prince Harry signed with Netflix again in 2020. The animated household collection adopted a 12-year lady as she realized about influential ladies all through historical past. The present is just the most recent casualty in a current collection of cost-saving measures by the streamer, together with firing a lot of the writing workers for its fan web site venture and canceling the present Space Force. It additionally axed two different animated kids’s collection, Dino Daycare and Boons and Curses, reported People.

Netflix confirmed to CNBC that the cancellation of Pearl is part of strategic selections it’s making round animated collection. The platform has invested closely in animation since 2018, and was projected by Loup Ventures to spend $5 billion on unique animated content material this 12 months. But the corporate’s boomtown mentality seems to have shifted, at the least for now.

The firm’s market worth dropped a staggering $60 billion after a disappointing first-quarter earnings name final month. The streamer misplaced roughly 200,000 subscribers within the first few months of 2022, its first decline in almost a decade. Various components led to the drop, together with competitors from rival platforms like Disney+ and Hulu, halting service to Russia and widespread password sharing.

Deadline reported that numerous tasks via Archwell Productions — the manufacturing firm owned by Markle and Prince Harry — are nonetheless within the works, together with a docuseries on the Invictus Games.