Major distribution companies such as Fox Searchlight and Focus Features were competing for the rights to Cary Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation, but Netflix proved its ready to compete for cinematic legitimacy by paying $12 million for the feature and pledging an awards-qualifying run.

Beasts of No Nation cost a mere $6 million to make, but the streaming service was eager to obtain the rights for the film about a child soldier in Africa. Fukunaga acquired a strong fan base after directing the critically-acclaimed first season of HBO’s True Detective, and Netflix seemingly hopes his name will encourage viewers to join the service’s existing 57.4 million subscriber base. RBC Capital Markets’ media analyst Mark S. Mahaney believes the surprisingly high bid for Beasts was also a strategic move to remind competitors in the online-streaming business of the company’s $28.3 billion market cap.

“As Netflix gets bigger, it will be harder to economically outbid them for any title,” said Mahaney. “They have the largest indie audience. They have the largest arthouse audience. They have the largest teenage werewolf audience. That puts them at a real advantage.”

Rivals Amazon, HBO, Starz and Showtime spent only $4.5 billion in 2014 combined, but Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Tony Wible estimates that Netflix will spend $5 billion in programming next year since “they need to be all things to all people if they want to hit the subscriber numbers they’re talking about.” Supporting that estimation is the recently-announced partnership with Leonardo DiCaprio to produce a feature-length documentary and a docuseries on environmental issues, and the likely expensive supernatural thriller The Returned from Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse.

Rising content costs may force Netflix to raise its subscription price and lose some customers, but for now, the company’s stock has been soaring and its international subscriber base has continued to increase rapidly in recent months.