For years, the conventional wisdom for creators looking to break onto international streaming platforms was simple: smooth out the rough edges. Strip away the niche regional references, standardise the dialogue and make the setting look like an ambiguous, clinical “everywhere”.
But the landscape of global entertainment has undergone a massive tectonic shift. Modern audiences are suffering from an acute case of cultural fatigue, tired of slick, generic, formulaic blockbusters that feel as though they were generated by an algorithm. The major platforms are starting to realise that the truest passport to international success is, paradoxically, a hyper-local identity.
South African director Meg Rickards (Tess, Atlantis, Snake) has spent her career operating on this exact creative frontline. In a recent interview on SPL!NG, Rickards discussed why Hollywood formulas fail in a local context, how the major streaming networks evaluate international content, and why capturing the unique “smell” of a location is the only way to make a story truly universal.
The Trap of Copying Hollywood
When working with limited funding, independent filmmakers often look to massive American studio productions as the gold standard for success. However, Rickards argues that trying to match the visual and structural language of multi-million-dollar blockbusters on a fraction of the budget is a strategic trap that strips a script of its core value.
“I think copying Hollywood is a big mistake because we will always have smaller budgets, so it always ends up looking like poor cousins. On the other hand, there are certain elements which are just international film language – if you deviate too far from that, it becomes very niche and very kind of ghettoised in a way. So, it’s somewhere in a healthy balance.”
This balancing act requires a deep commitment to maintaining an individual, authorial voice while respecting the structural milestones that keep an audience engaged. For Rickards, the worst outcome is a script that trades its regional texture for a bland, universal accessibility.
“I’ve read so many scripts where it’s just so void of texture… this could be anywhere. In movie land, it’s not in a real place. It’s in kind of some kind of other world that’s just a generic movie city or movie landscape. It’s horrible. It just lacks… it’s bland, it feels a bit alien, too clinical, and too cold. I have a horror for that. So, I deliberately try and bring in as much local texture as possible. It’s quite conscious.”
The Netflix Mandate: Hyper-Local Dominance First
The logic of global streaming data supports this approach. While an independent film might historically have targeted international film festivals as its primary pathway out of South Africa, modern platforms evaluate content through a rigid demographic framework. A project cannot travel globally unless it completely conquers its home territory first.
“I believe that with Netflix, for example, it’s all about hyper-local. It’s all about getting hyper-local audiences; it’s very demographically and language/linguistically based. And they will not – if you were to make a film or series, for example, Squid Game, which has been extremely successful all over… had that not been a success in Korea, they wouldn’t have seen that as completely successful. For something to be successful in the streamers’ eyes, it first has to meet, win over the local audience first.”
This operational metric changes the entire objective of development. Instead of tailoring a narrative to appeal to a hypothetical viewer in Los Angeles or London, the writer’s goal must be to completely satisfy the cultural nuances of the community where the story takes place.
“I agree… I think that you run the risk, if it doesn’t have enough texture or localisation, you run the risk of creating something that’s kind of meaningless in a way. Generic and fluffy.”
Framing Universal Themes Through the Local
The secret to cross-border resonance lies in understanding that human emotion is universal, but human experience is profoundly specific. When Rickards adapted Tracy Farren’s book Whiplash into the feature film Tess, with Tracy as screenwriter, she rooted the production in real, localised research, utilising found locations and realistic code-switching language. The result was a film that resonated deeply across Eastern Europe and international festivals.
“It was rooting it in real people’s experiences, even though the story is fictionalised… I don’t think a film can be successful internationally if it’s not rooted in the local. It doesn’t do well because it doesn’t have the right smell about it.
Tess did really well… I think people identified with it because the themes were international. The themes of shame and abuse and violence towards women and children are not limited to South Africa at all. But the story, the specific story and the character and the place, were very local. And they could feel that. So, it’s maybe using, looking at themes which are more international, and very human stories that people can relate to, but rooting them in the local, framing them through the local.”
Ultimately, the commercial pressure of the streaming era introduces a constant tension between artistic individuality and the clinical science of the algorithm. Modern platforms are heavily optimised, tracking exactly when a viewer switches off, demanding specific plot points at precise timestamps.
But as Rickards points out, the survival of cinema relies on keeping that machinery hidden from the viewer. “The magic of it is that you don’t want them to ever be thinking, ‘This is a business thing,’ or, ‘This is a product.’ Because then it loses its magic.”