Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson is teaming up with Amazon MGM Studios to create a full-fledged reality TV show of his own: Beast games. The game show competition will pit “more than 1,000” contestants against each other for a chance to win a $5 million cash prize, according to a press release. Beast games doesn’t have a release date yet, but will debut worldwide exclusively for Amazon’s Prime Video service.
Donaldson will host and serve as executive producer of the show. We don’t have many other details about the competition, but a release stated that it would be based on his YouTube show.
“My goal is to create the biggest show possible and prove that YouTubers and creators can succeed on other platforms,” Donaldson said in a press release. “Amazon gave me the creative control I need to make it happen. I hope I can make the YouTube community proud.”
Donaldson has built a huge YouTube audience by sharing over-the-top stunt content. At the time of publication, his YouTube channel has over 245 million subscribers. True to the nature of its previous content, this show seems to be more of a companion piece than a few previous projects. The show will be “the biggest reality competition series ever” with the “biggest prize in the history of television and streaming,” according to a description of the show.
The announcement is the next twist in a series of events that seemingly began with Netflix’s viral hit, Squid games. After the show’s release in 2021, Donaldson published a video that turned the fictional Battle Royale scenario into a real-life reality series. The video, titled “$456,000 real life squid game!”, later became his most viewed video ever. At the time of writing this article, it has been viewed well over half a billion times. About two years later, Netflix created its own reality show, inspired by Squid games, but released it with little fanfare.
Donaldson was not involved in the creation of the Netflix reality show, but he was involved in a post on X he said he “probably could have helped them a lot with it.” Time will tell if he can actually live up to that statement Beast games.