Anime and Video Games Will Drive Pop Culture, Says Sony Pictures Chief

Keith Le Goy, chairman of Sony Pictures Television, called anime and video games prime sources for a new generation of influential entertainment franchises. Speaking at Mipcom in Cannes, he noted that after two decades dominated by the Marvel and DC universes, these forms will fuel the next wave of pop-culture hits.

Le Goy emphasized that Sony is especially well-positioned for this shift: the company controls the PlayStation platform and the Crunchyroll streaming service, which it acquired from AT&T in 2021 and integrated with Funimation.

Sony Music has also long been investing heavily in purchasing music catalogs, bolstering the company’s brand holdings.

As an illustration of anime’s influence, Le Goy pointed to Demon Slayer, which became Crunchyroll’s biggest success and a global box-office phenomenon.

He also highlighted the changing streaming landscape: the industry is moving away from a strategy of “cannibalizing” content toward broad distribution and platform cooperation. He cited Breaking Bad as an example, where early seasons on Netflix helped amass a huge audience for later episodes on AMC. In his view, aggregation of content—rather than competition between services—is what matters today.

Source: iXBT.games