Roblox is getting closer to the worlds of film and TV. The gaming platform has teamed with Netflix and Lionsgate to make it easier for content owners and developers to join forces on Roblox games and experiences. Netflix is opening up Stranger Things and Squid Game while Lionsgate is adding Twilight, Saw, Divergent and Now You See Me to a new licensing program.
Specifically, Roblox has launched a License Manager that allows partners to work with eligible developers. The idea is to circumvent the lengthy process of developers and IP-owners finding one another and thrashing out a deal. Developers can work up Roblox games and experiences based on the IP in the system. IP owners can register, create and customize licenses.
Roblox’s Chief Product Officer, Manuel Bronstein, said “what used to be a months-long process, often limited to a select few, now allows all eligible creators and rights holders to form partnerships in just days or hours.”
Roblox had 97.8 million daily users in 1Q25 and Roblox content gets huge views on other platforms, notably YouTube and TikTok. Roblox creator revenue is expected to top $1B this year. At the Roblox Developers Conference last year it set a target of having 10% of all global gaming content revenue flow through its ecosystem.
That reach and scale has not been lost on Hollywood. The likes of Ben 10 and SpongeBob SquarePants have popular games on the platform, while Universal has launched an official How To Train Your Dragon game. For Warner Bros.’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice there was a ‘Beetlejuice: Escape the Afterlife’ experience with mini-games and a virtual box office where people could buy real-life movie tickets.
Studios and IP owners, however, remain protective of their content, and Roblox hopes the new License Manager gives them the security they need while giving Roblox developers, typically working in small teams, the chance to work with A-list properties.
“This is the perfect bridge between a platform like Roblox that’s used to moving at such a quick pace and brands that are trying to identify the appropriate partners,” Todd Lichten, Head of Entertainment Partnerships at Roblox, told Deadline.
It can be hard for IP owners to figure out where to start in the Roblox world, Lichten explained. “This new IP platform gives brands the ability to quickly scale the work that they’re doing on the platform by identifying many different potential developers. On the flip side, a lot of these devs may not have licensing teams, and it gives them the opportunity to actually work with IP that they love, but they may not have otherwise had access to.”
Netflix and Lionsgate are joined by manga and anime outfit Kodansha and Sega as the first four companies in the trial. In terms of IP, Sega is adding the Like A Dragon (a.k.a. Yakuza) game. Kodansha will be adding its Blue Lock and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime to the new Roblox catalog.
Movie Marketing & Beyond
Cameron Curtis, EVP of Digital Marketing at Warner Bros. has previously said ‘Beetlejuice: Escape the Afterlife’ has “set a new bar for what’s possible in movie marketing campaigns.”
Lichten picked up the thread: “We’ve shared the case study results for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in terms of either theater awareness or in terms of theater-going intent, and it was really significant. As the theatrical teams are able to spark success, that’s where I think franchise teams take note and then things start to move into another direction.”
That other direction is seeding content from the Roblox universe on other platforms. Lichten uses the example of kids series Gabby’s Dollhouse. “It’s using Roblox as a sandbox to create linear content. There’re entire YouTube channels dedicated to Gabby’s Roblox content and Roblox does a billion views a day between YouTube and TikTok.”
He added: “I think that’ll be the next phase, studios moving from marketing and to franchise and monetization opportunities, and then ultimately seeing Roblox as a means to develop new IP, starting here, and then sort of backing into the linear deliverables.”
