Just a day after Amazon Video Prime announced that it would unroll some of its original content, already available in other territories worldwide, Netflix has hit back with its ambitious plans to solidify itself as the world’s favourite channel.
After already debuting Santa Clarita Diet and A Series of Unfortunate Events this year, a Netflix even held in New York yesterday offered a sneak peak into what’s to come over the next few months. It all amounts to more than 1,000 hours of new content across a wide variety of television genres, as Netflix looks to cultivate taste communities fond of a few hours of binging.
Here are the five big takeaways from yesterday’s event...
Back with the old
Release dates for some of Netflix’s most popular shows’ new seasons were announced, with Orange is the New Black set for an explosive return on June 7th. Love, starring Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust, was renewed for a third season, before its second one even starts to stream on March 10th, and The OA’s unanswered questions may get some answers as the show gets a second season.
In with the new
Release dates and teaser trailers dropped for a host of new original shows, including the Britt Robertson-starring Girlboss, streaming from April 21st. The show, based on the memoirs of eBay-retailer-turned-CEO Sophia Amoruso, promises to explore entrepreneurialism and flawed female characters.
Also coming on May 12th is Anne, a reworking of the classic Canadian children’s book series Anne of Green Gables, with Irish-Canadian actress Amybeth McNulty taking on the lead as the flighty redhead. Written by the Emmy-winning screenwriter of Breaking Bad, the series promises to bring Lucy Maud Montgomery’s literary heroine to a new global audience - and proves she's got a smack in her to rival Iron Fist.
Merch is the new black
According to Bloomberg, Netflix is looking to cash in on the lucrative merchandising side of the entertainment business, and will look to license its content for books, comics, gaming toys, collectables, soundtrack, and apparel. Having recently conducted a successful trial with the US retailer Hot Topic selling Stranger Things merchandise,
Netflix is reportedly looking to ape Disney’s model to “promote our titles so they become part of the zeitgeist for longer periods of time.”
Not afraid of a little controversy
Perhaps it’s unsurprising that in the 2017 media climate, the announcement of a Netflix show – based on a pre-existing feature film – has already seen calls for a boycott.
When the 34-second trailer for Dear White People, a social satire about African-American students on an Ivy League university campus debuted, the hashtag #NoNetflix started popping on Twitter, amid calls that the show is anti-white. Since being uploaded yesterday morning, the trailer has been given more than 81,000 thumbs down and just 4,000 up on YouTube, and attempts to start a protest movement of people cancelling their Netflix accounts have seen swift online retribution...
Life comes at you fast. pic.twitter.com/6qGM6b2u7p
— Scott Rising (@rising) February 8, 2017
Something for everyone
Across all genre of television, scripted and unscripted, Netflix is launching an attempted coup to provide all of the programming a family could want. From parents to kids, with plenty of stunt casting to merge the two (Julie Andrews’s show Julie’s Greenroom will feature guests stars like Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Ellie Kemper, Titus Burgess, Idina Menzel, while Bill Nye Saves the World will see the science presenter work with Karlie Kloss, Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Rachel Bloom, and Joel McHale).
Even fans of the 1980s computer game Castlevania are covered, with an animated series set to be written by British novelist Warren Ellis.
