Hello Sunshine (B): Creating a New Market in Hollywood

Acclaimed actress Reese Witherspoon had fame, influence, and an Oscar, but Hollywood wasn’t developing the stories she wanted to tell. Tired of shallow roles and persistent age bias, she decided to create her own solution. This two-part mini-case explores how Witherspoon responded to Hollywood’s structural constraints by creating a new approach to developing female-driven stories, which opened up a new market space for complex, multidimensional female-led films not bounded by their characters’ age. Part A examines the industry limitations Witherspoon faced and the strategic choices that led her to found Hello Sunshine. Part B shows how the company built a business model with a self-reinforcing ecosystem connecting story discovery, audience insight, and on-screen adaptation in a new way, allowing it to acquire female-led stories with proven audience resonance while avoiding bidding wars for film rights. Together, the two parts illustrate core concepts of blue ocean strategy, including how strategy can shape structure, the use of cross-industry insights to identify new opportunities, and how Blue Ocean Strategy’s structured approach de-risks the process of creating new market space. It also raises the question of whether Hello Sunshine should consider selling a stake in the company to secure the financial resources necessary to move beyond being a midsize independent studio, and what the right time to make such a move might be. Industry consolidation, financial pressures, labor strikes, and emerging AI technologies come into play.

• How strategy can shape structure
Traditional strategy thinking assumes that industry conditions are given and that firms must accept and adapt to existing boundaries. For blue ocean strategists, industry conditions are shaped by the assumptions and strategic choices of market players. When these assumptions are questioned, new space for action can emerge and industry boundaries can be reconstructed. In this view, strategy shapes structure. This case invites participants to analyse how Reese Witherspoon adopted a blue ocean strategist’s mindset by refusing to accept prevailing industry assumptions.
• Looking across alternative perspectives to unlock new opportunities
Rather than remaining trapped within conventional industry assumptions, organizations can look across alternative perspectives to reconstruct market boundaries and unlock new opportunities for value creation.
• How Hello Sunshine created a self-reinforcing ecosystem and reduced strategic risk
Learn how Hello Sunshine created a self-reinforcing ecosystem that achieved differentiation and lower costs by linking story discovery, early audience engagement and screen adaptation. While producing content in Hollywood is structurally high risk, the case shows how Hello Sunshine reduced risk by grounding decision-making in observable facts and actionable insights. Participants discover how structured strategic processes can reduce uncertainty before committing significant resources.
• Weighing the pros and cons of selling a stake and timing the move
This case invites participants to analyse the potential benefits and drawbacks of selling a stake to support scaling, while considering implications for autonomy, creative direction and long-term strategic control. It highlights how timing matters, as external forces such as industry consolidation, financial pressures, labor disruptions and emerging technologies like AI reshape the risks and rewards of partnering versus remaining independent.