Netflix has a comparative anomaly that few people noticed: Disney, Warner, Universal — the traditional studios — generate significant revenues from licensing and consumer products. Netflix, despite its massive franchises, remained far behind on this front for years.
Stranger Things, Money Heist, Squid Game, The Witcher — franchises with tens of millions of fans each. What Netflix does with that audience beyond streaming is, structurally, a multi-billion dollar question.
What “licensing” means for Netflix
Licensing in the broad sense covers everything sold with a franchise’s image: merchandise (clothing, toys, objects), cross-brand partnerships, physical experiences (theme parks, escape rooms), video games, live events.
Netflix developed Netflix Consumer Products to address this space. Early moves — Stranger Things pop-up stores, clothing collaborations with brands, mobile video games based on its franchises — show the direction.
The logic is sound: every dollar spent producing Netflix content creates value beyond streaming if the content generates passionate fans. Licensing is the way to capture that residual value.
The challenge: building a franchise culture
Disney spent decades building what it is: a franchise machine where every new character is designed from the start to generate products, parks, experiences. Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars — each IP is an economic universe.
Netflix produces content — lots of content — but with a different production model. The volume of production makes it difficult to treat every franchise with the depth that a Disney or Universal would give it.
Selection is therefore the first challenge: which franchises are worth deep licensing investment? Stranger Things was the obvious answer for years. Squid Game showed a capacity for global enthusiasm. Wednesday built a very large, very young audience. These are credible candidates.
Video games as a structural axis
Netflix integrated mobile games into its subscription — a decision that seemed anecdotal at first but is gaining in scope. Games based on its franchises, but also games independent of its series.
The logic isn’t to become a game publisher. It’s to extend engagement with franchises and create an additional retention factor on the subscription. If playing a Netflix game gets you to renew your subscription one more month, the game has done its job.
Longer-term, video games are also a storytelling medium where Netflix could develop stories outside the series/film format. That’s still an embryonic ambition, but coherent with the direction.
What this says about Netflix in 2026
Netflix is no longer a streaming platform trying to survive competition. It’s an entertainment studio trying to build durable cultural universes.
Licensing is one of the indicators of this transformation. When a platform starts thinking about the life of its franchises beyond the screen, it’s no longer thinking just about tomorrow’s audience — it’s thinking about cultural legacy.
That’s an ambitious posture. The question is whether Netflix has the editorial discipline to select, invest in, and protect the franchises that deserve that treatment. Volume is the permanent risk.