In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Netflix announced its intentions to spend $7 billion to $8 billion on original content for 2018.

"Our investment in Netflix originals is over a quarter of our total P&L [profit and loss] content budget in 2017 and will continue to grow," the company said in its call report. "With $17 billion in content commitments over the next several years and a growing library of owned content ($2.5 billion net book value at the end of the quarter), we remain quite comfortable with our ability to please our members around the world. We’ll spend $7-8 billion on content (on a P&L basis) in 2018."

The $8 billion figure represents a potentially significant increase over Netflix's current spending. The New York Times puts estimates of Netflix's 2017 content spending at $6 billion, so the company may spend as much as ~33 percent more on originals next year. By comparison, Hulu reportedly committed $2.5 billion to original programming this year, and Amazon hit $4.5 billion (Amazon has already pledged more for 2018 but did not cite specific figures when speaking to Variety last month). Apple made a splash recently with a "mere" $1 billion commitment to original content in 2018.

The move speaks to internal confidence at Netflix despite the increasingly crowded streaming video space. This fall, familiar foes like Hulu have been able to snag popular series like Futurama from Netflix. High-profile creators like Disney revealed intentions to create their own services (which will pull lucrative entities like Star Wars and Marvel films from Netflix), and traditional networks like CBS got into this space as well with the high-profile Star Trek: Discovery.

But Netflix still has plenty to hang its proverbial hat on. 2017 represents a big original film push for the company, and creators like Martin Scorsese and stars like Will Smith are already on board for future projects. On the series front, Netflix attracted David Fincher to another series with the recently released Mindhunter, and TV creative royalty Shonda Rhimes announced a partnership with the streaming service this August . Netflix's now famous hands-off, full confidence approach in creatives has made the company competitive to work with virtually anyone in Hollywood. And adding continued seasons for established hits like Stranger Things and The Crown only further justifies the projections (and recent price increase ) for Netflix. ( GQ notes Netflix expects to produce 80 original movies, which spread out would be roughly three every two weeks, as part of this new commitment.)

These strategies seem to have been successful so far. Netflix's quarterly report notes the company earned 20 wins out of 92 nominations at the 2017 Primetime Emmys (second only to HBO). And the service added 5.3 million subscribers in Q3 with a revenue of nearly $3 billion, a 30-percent increase from the same period last year, the NYT notes. So for a company still relatively in its content infancy—streaming came around 10 years ago, House of Cards kicked off Netflix's modern content initiatives less than five years ago—Netflix execs seem justified in the confidence.