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How ‘Shogun’ Helped FX Find Its Footing as a Streaming Empire


The Japanese-language 'Shogun' may have seemed like a risky bet for FX, but the Emmy-winning series has brought Disney into the global streaming age.

Following that thread, Landgraf fretted about the prospect that humans will gradually lose interest in the stuff that is his absolute jam: dense, novelistic, narrative storytelling as delivered via movies and TV series — like a lavish sword-and-kimono costume drama set among warring factions in 16th-century Japan. Led by the critical and commercial success of “Shōgun,” FX packed a wallop this year with a busy slate of originals including “The Bear,” “What We Do in the Shadows,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Reservation Dogs” and the latest iterations of “American Horror Story,” “Fargo” and “Feud.” One indisputable result of the quickening pace of innovation is the increasing amount of global economic activity that revolves around engaging consumers in some form of media — whether a TV show or a TikTok feed or a live virtual concert staged within a Fortnite video game.

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