Meta Is Talking With Hollywood Studios About VR Content

Meta is making some serious outreach (and money offers) to Hollywood studios and major production companies to make content for the tech giant’s next-generation VR headset.

The Big Picture: Narrative VR content almost had a moment ten years ago, thanks to a handful of ambitious startups… but the tech ultimately wasn’t up to snuff yet. But after billions of dollars in R&D from the biggest companies in the device space, that moment seems close once again — mainstreaming a form of entertainment that seems like the biggest intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

Behind the Lens: Meta backed out of Hollywood in 2023 with the closure of the film-and-TV-focused Facebook Watch.

But it wants to repair that relationship with a push for VR content.

• According to WSJ, the company is in talks with companies like Disney and A24, offering millions of dollars for them to develop VR-native series or stand-alone immersive films.
• Companies would need to make the projects exclusively for Meta’s VR devices but could eventually retrofit them for traditional film and TV licensing.
• Speaking of licensing, Meta wants to do the same for studios’ past films and shows, so they can be reformatted for VR — a practice already occurring for other types of cutting-edge immersive mediums.
• Meta already has a leg up with attracting top talent to build a VR slate, recently inking a wide-ranging deal with James Cameron and partnering with Disney on a VR Star Wars experience.

The Future: The content push is to support Meta’s new VR headset that it plans to release next year, which is internally dubbed “Loma.” The headset is reportedly a large pair of eyeglasses connected to a puck users can put in their pockets.

The device is expected to be priced at $1,000, which is $300 more than Meta’s Quest headset (the most popular VR device on the market) — but far less expensive than Apple’s competing Vision Pro.

Prediction: With Apple having released an immersive film with Conclave-helmer Edward Berger and Google tapping The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman for an “immersive spatial film,” it’s possible that making VR content could be one of the biggest paydays in Hollywood.