It’s time to take a look back at some of the biggest Netflix stories of the past week and diving into what we’ve been reading over the past week. Here’s a recap of the biggest Netflix headlines from the past week.
Before we dig into the news, if you’re looking for what’s new, Netflix US got 85 new releases over the past 7 days and you can also find a recap of Netflix UK, Netflix Canada, and Netflix Australia via their respective categories.
Monday, March 29th
- Peter Berg along with his production company Film 44 signed a first-look deal with Netflix.
- Amy Poehler who has produced two titles for Netflix (Moxie and Wine Country) is returning for an animated comedy called Steps. Here’s what you can expect: “In a spin on the classic Cinderella story, two stepsisters are overlooked for marriage by the Prince and embark on an epic journey, realizing that their own perfect fairytales might be different from what they originally thought.”
- Netflix mistakenly added the Lucifer season 5b release date a little too early for May 28th and then later announced it officially.
Tuesday, March 30th
Wednesday, March 31st
- Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw posted about Universal currently mulling over the decision coming up for their first window rights and where it’ll head next. HBO currently has the first window rights for the live-action content whereas Netflix gets animated features.
- The biggest news item this week is the fact that Netflix is getting two sequels to Knives Out with both Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig returning. Perhaps the bigger story was the eye-watering amount spent on it. It’s believed $450 million was the price tag for both movies. This sparked plenty of debate as to whether it’s worth the money. Cue a great analogy from EntStrategyGuy.
In both cases–Knicks and Netlfix–the assets are valuable. Amare was good. Knives Out was good.
Were they worth max contracts? See, that's where the rubber hits the road.
— The Entertainment Strategy Guy (@EntStrategyGuy) April 2, 2021
- Netflix performed well on the Nielsen top 10 this week which reported viewing figures between March 1st and March 7th with Ginny & Georgia continuing its domination from the week previous (likely spurred on by a Tweet from Taylor Swift). Criminal Minds won the acquired top spot but Prime Video beat Netflix with Coming 2 America scoring 1,413 million minutes. Netflix came second with Bigfoot Family with 363 million minutes watched.
Friday, April 2nd
- Bridgerton season 2 is soon to start production and will not see the return of Regé-Jean Page who, in many people’s eyes, made the series what it was. As Variety revealed, he was only signed on for a single-season arc and has opted not to return despite his character featuring in most of the subsequent books.
- The Witcher had a lot of news this week (Redanian Intelligence will be filling you in on all that in due course) including the fact season 2 wrapped filming. This is significant as it was one of the most publicized series that was disrupted due to COVID-19.
Sunday, April 4th
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom continues its award dominance scooping one of the major prizes from the MUAHS Guild Awards
- Netflix Anime hosted a two-hour special looking at their upcoming anime slate. It wasn’t very announcement heavy with most of the focus covering the stories of each of the already announced shows.
What we’ve been reading / Odds and ends
Rumor of the Week
Giant Freaking Robot reported that Netflix is working on a Bioshock series. We’ve heard this being in development (or possibly being bought in) previously too. We heard different names tossed around as to who would helm the project (The Duffer Brothers being one of them). Netflix is investing big in video-game IP so time will tell if it’s true.
