Sky ramps up film and TV plans to compete with streaming giants

Robert De Niro's The Comeback Trail is among the films that will be available

Sky UK is ramping up the number of original and exclusive films and TV shows it offers in an attempt to compete with streaming giants.

The company said Sky Cinema will host 30 new original films in 2021 - up from two last year. That will increase to one new film per week by 2022, it said.

Overall, it said there will be 50% more original films and TV shows this year.

The move comes amid increasing competition with services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and Disney+.

In 2020, Sky offered 80 original films and TV shows, two of which were films. This year, the company will release 125 in total, of which 30 will be movies.

The company's definition of "originals" includes Sky creations, co-productions and films and series bought from the US and elsewhere that it will have exclusively.

"The primary aim is to add value to Sky Cinema subscriptions," Sky UK's managing director of content, Zai Bennett, told The Guardian. "We have direct relationships with customers into their homes… it's a powerful thing."

Sir Kenneth Branagh will play Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a new five-part Sky series

Forthcoming films will include A Boy Called Christmas, an origin story of Father Christmas adapted from Matt Haig's best-selling novel, and a Danny Boyle-backed biopic about the Britpop record label Creation Records.

On Sunday, it was announced that Sir Kenneth Branagh will play Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a new Sky TV series about the UK's response to the Covid-19 crisis. The five-part drama will be directed and written by Michael Winterbottom.

Sky has previously said its spending on original content will more than double to £1bn by 2024. The new investment in original films is on top of that.

The popularity of streaming is at an all-time high, due in part to the lockdowns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. British viewers spent 40% of their waking hours watching TV during the height of the pandemic.

The number of UK subscribers to streaming services in the UK reached 32 million last year, led by Netflix with 12.8 million. Sky had around 8.4 million UK subscribers in the second half of 2020.