The Next Big Hit In America Probably Isn’t American

For the past decade, global entertainment has been chasing scale. Big streamers. Massive budgets. Content engineered by a spreadsheet. Everything English-first, glossy, and so carefully sanded down that it lost all texture.

Yeah, sure, that strategy gave us a few global smashes. But somewhere along the way, everything started to feel beige. Safe. Algorithmic. Like someone asked ChatGPT to write "a show for everyone" and forgot to hit the creativity button.

This year at MIPCOM, though, there's a noticeable vibe shift. It's less about flattening stories for "international appeal" and more about leaning hard into cultural specificity and emotional punch. And if you've been paying attention to what's actually trending on U.S. platforms, you know this isn't some quirky Euro experiment - it's exactly where American audiences are heading.

Germany and Spain Brought a Different Playbook

Two announcements out of Cannes made this trend loud and clear:

ARD Plus (Germany) is done with bland, “international-neutral” content. Their new strategy? Premium, emotionally resonant stories that wear their cultural identity proudly, but are told with the kind of clarity that connects anywhere.

Secuoya Studios (Spain) received the MIP SDG Award (in partnership with the UN) for its sustainable production and culturally grounded content. They’ve been quietly expanding their global reach by doing something radical: telling real stories from where they actually are. Shocking, I know.

This isn’t some arthouse throwback for three people in Berlin and a cat in Brooklyn. It’s a calculated pivot in a post-streaming-bubble world. While others chase bloated, forgettable blockbusters, these studios are focusing on what actually hits: emotion and truth.

American Viewers Already Proved This Works

Here’s the thing: U.S. audiences have already fallen hard for this kind of storytelling.

The biggest global streaming hits of the last five years weren’t beige, focus-grouped Franken-shows. They were unapologetically local and emotionally laser-focused:

Squid Game (Korea ), Money Heist (Spain), Dark (Germany), Extraordinary Attorney Woo (Korea), or Lupin (France)

These series didn’t go out of their way to be “global.” They showed up as themselves, with subtitles and all, and U.S. audiences said “yes, please” and binged entire seasons over the weekend.

The Streaming Economy Has Flipped

Here’s the less romantic reason this trend is blowing up: money. Budgets are shrinking. Streamers are suddenly realizing that maybe, just maybe, they can’t afford to throw $200 million at mid-tier shows no one remembers a month later.

This is where emotional specificity turns into a business strategy. Authentic stories travel better than generic ones, and they do it at a fraction of the cost. For U.S. platforms, picking up or co-producing these kinds of series isn’t charity - it’s a smart financial move.

Gen Z Grew Up Global

And let’s not forget who’s watching. Gen Z doesn’t blink at subtitles. They grew up on anime, K-dramas, TikTok creators from five continents, and random Norwegian thrillers the algorithm threw at them at 2 a.m.

A Spanish family saga or a Korean legal drama doesn’t feel “foreign” to them. It feels like part of their media ecosystem. Emotional truth matters more than language.

Goodbye Generic

Between ARD Plus’s emotion-first approach and Secuoya’s culturally grounded strategy, MIPCOM 2025 is sending a clear message: the future of global hits isn’t about sanding the edges off stories until they’re flavorless. It’s about telling them honestly, locally, and with emotional guts, and trusting audiences everywhere to connect.

The next big American streaming obsession probably won’t be American. It’ll be emotional, specific, maybe subtitled, and absolutely unmissable. Say goodbye to generic, and hello to the good stuff.