Andy Jassy says Prime Video stands to make ‘tens of billions of dollars’

It’s been four years since Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion. But after the resounding success of this year’s blockbuster film Hail Mary Project, Hollywood has become a lucrative business for the e-commerce giant.

Prime Video, Amazon’s streaming service, “has become a significant business with revenue in the tens of billions of dollars and is now profitable in its own right,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Thursday’s quarterly earnings conference call. Jassy previously told investors in May that Prime Video was profitable, but being on track to generate tens of billions is a new detail.

Amazon said its movie studio, Amazon MGM Studios, has brought in more than $1.2 billion in global box office sales so far this year, helped by hits like Hail Mary Project And Truth. The Hail Mary Project grossed an estimated $684 million worldwide, according to The Numbers. Starring Ryan Gosling and based on the novel by Andy Weir, the film hit theaters in March and became Amazon MGM Studios’ highest-grossing release, according to entertainment reports. (He also had at least one notable failure this year: Melanie.)

Jassy also cited a number of television shows as hits, including Carrie, The summer I became pretty, The boys, Off campus, To fallAnd Reach. Season 4 of Reach attracted 66 million viewers worldwide in its first 28 days, according to the company, with more to come. Season 5 is currently being filmed and the series has been picked up for a sixth season. (And if you don’t follow Alan Ritchson, star of Reaching, on Threads, you’re missing an actor who turned a friendly but witty response into an art form.)

Sport has also been an important driver. Prime Video streams NASCAR football, the Masters and the UEFA Champions League, but Thursday Night Football appears to be its biggest hit this year. The first six games of this season averaged 17.7 million viewers, up 16% from last year, according to Nielsen figures shared by Amazon. The streaming service also attracted more than 2 million viewers for its second season of NBA on Prime, Nielsen said.