With submissions in five Emmy categories, indie streamer Dropout is playing to win with its hit comedy panel game show Game Changer. Among the gongs it’s gunning for are outstanding game show and host for Sam Reich, who believes their success is partially fueled by the fact that they’re based in Los Angeles — and that won’t be changing.
“I can’t imagine a version of the show, or Dropout, that isn’t in L.A.,” he enthuses of the Eastside studio space where they film many of their shows, including fellow Emmy contender Very Important People. (Game Changer, he notes, is filmed at various studios throughout Los Angeles — “It all depends on what chaos the season calls for!”)
“We live here. It’s a community project, and it’s nothing without its community of talent,” Reich adds. “If we were to move to Canada or Austin, it would be a different group of people.”
However, Reich, who is also the streamer’s CEO, wishes he could say that the city has been “at all helpful” in terms of tax breaks, lamenting, “They have not offered us a dime.”
Game Changer is exactly what its name suggests: It’s a game show where the game changes every episode. Not only that, but when the game starts, the players — an assortment of stand-up comedians and improv actors selected by casting producer Jazzy Collins (The Bachelorette, The Traitors) — have no idea what the rules are and have to figure them out as they chase a win. The show has already run for seven seasons. Its eighth premiered May 18, and the ninth is underway, much earlier than usual.
“We opened up a satellite version of the writers room in February,” Reich reveals. “We won’t be shooting until October or November, but I already have the short list of 15 ideas from which we’ll choose 10.”
Once filmed, each episode goes through a six-month postproduction process. As each season rolls around, things get more complex.
“We now have episodes that have 20-plus cameras,” he says. “Sam Geer is my lead editor and also the director of the show. We have editors working with and under Sam on their own episodes, and episodes that are bouncing back and forth between editors as people become available or unavailable. Then there’s me.”
Reich says he gives “around 200 notes” per episode and does “five or six” reviews of each, adding, “It’s a hugely labor-intensive part of the process.”
The contestants on Game Changer are a mix of improv actors and comedians.
Courtesy of Dropout
For those who have paid attention to the evolution of Game Changer since its 2019 debut, it’s easy to see that there is a confidence to it now; however, despite having a bigger budget these days, it never betrays its roots. Reich describes Dropout’s shows as “criminally expensive by podcasting standards and criminally cheap by television standards.
“There is a rough-around-the-edges-ness to Dropout’s content that I’m reluctant to lose. It’s a big part of our authenticity,” Reich muses. “With Game Changer, you occasionally see offstage, and we incorporate crew into the show, referring to camera people by their first names and stuff like that.” He can’t imagine a world where Game Changer doesn’t remain “a fourth wall-breaking show.”
The uninitiated might be surprised that Game Changer has amassed a fiercely loyal, very active online fan base. The show’s Instagram has 1.3 million followers, and more than 15 million subscribe to Dropout’s YouTube channel, where it posts eight- to 12-minute snippets of Game Changer episodes. Dropout itself has more than 1 million subscribers who pay a monthly or yearly fee to watch full episodes of Game Changer and other series. That figure is one that Reich never anticipated when he created the show.
“The No. 1 streamed show in the world right now, which is The Pitt, has a ravenous online fandom, and you’d expect that,” he says. “We’re online, and that’s where our audience lives. What is surprising is that Game Changer, a game show, would develop this kind of a following, because you don’t see Wheel of Fortune or The Price Is Right having this.”
Between Game Changer and Very Important People, Dropout has submitted in a total of 11 Emmy categories this year. Is now the time for the industry to take the silliness seriously? And what would that recognition mean for the future?
“We could be 10 times bigger than we are today and still be 10 times smaller than the biggest fish, so the ceiling is still incredibly far away,” Reich notes. “In terms of the rest of the industry opening up to us, an Emmy nod would be an incredible token of validation and would bring an audience that is probably skeptical about us. They might take a chance on us. There’s certainly a trickle of talent who are waking up to Dropout as something they’d like to participate in.”
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
