It's an interesting Fast Five this week. One streamer goes out of its way to launch a word-of-mouth hit just as another cancels one of its most anticipated shows. In other news, audiences will be able to deduce a character’s motives by the phone they carry, and NBC ensures that Dick Wolf stays in the family.
LIZZIE MCGUIRE SUFFERS FROM THE DANGERS OF CREATIVE DIFFERENCES
When Disney+ announced its slate of exclusive shows, one in particular managed to excite an entire generation of fans who grew up with Hillary Duff. The new Lizzie McGuire series was planned to follow the titular character into adulthood with its creator and star returning. Unfortunately, the people over at Disney+ seem to have changed their minds about the creative approach for an adult Lizzie—and put the show on hold. The streamer has already moved shows based on High Fidelity and Love, Simon over to Hulu for being too adult, and now it seems like the Lizzie McGuire show might suffer a worse fate. Showrunner Terri Minsky was fired earlier this year over “creative differences”, which is a polite way of saying she was making the show she pitched them. Rumors are running wild that Disney is aging down its content to appeal more to children—with the exception of Marvel and Star Wars, who will continue to be allowed to do whatever they want—and that the streamer wanted the new show to be in line with the tone of the original, which is not the vision Duff signed on for. Which is understandable, creatively she wants to grow with the character and not retread the same space she covered when she was younger. And while Disney was on board when they greenlit the show, something has clearly changed, and it doesn't seem like there's going to be a consensus on which direction is the right one.
WANT TO KNOW IF A CHARACTER IS EVIL? JUST LOOK AT THEIR PHONE
Knives Out writer-director Rian Johnson recently sat down for the insightful Vanity Fair piece “Notes on a Scene”, where creators share insights into how they created pivotal scenes from their work—and boy did he drop a major spoiler. Not just for Knives Out, but for all murder mysteries to come. So, skip ahead if you don’t want the future of cinema ruined for you. It turns out Apple allows filmmakers to use their iPhones in movies on one major condition: the phone cannot be used by a villain. Now that you have this knowledge, you can seem like a genius to your family when you figure out who the murderer is on every episode of Law & Order. Johnson’s anecdote shines a light on the many unseen complications that writers and directors have to go through during the creative process. Do you need the iPhone so badly that you're willing to spoil the movie by having only one character use a Windows Phone? Or do you try to find a creative way around it by having each character use a different type of phone, so nothing seems suspicious? Or do you hope a well-known writer-director doesn’t spill the beans on a major magazine’s video series and ruin it for all other directors out there?
One of television’s most prominent creators has made one of television’s biggest deals: Dick Wolf, creator of the Law & Order and Chicago franchises, signed a five-year overall deal with Universal Television worth a reported nine figures. The deal also includes three-year renewals for all three Chicago shows and Law & Order: SVU. It also comes hot on the heels of Peacock purchasing streaming rights to Dick Wolf’s catalog, which hopefully includes forgotten classics like Mann & Machine, where a future cop has to team up with a sexy robot to solve crimes, and H.E.L.P, where John Mahoney, David Caruso, and Wesley Snipes team up to save lives in Harlem until they’re canceled after six episodes. There was a period of time where it looked like Wolf’s star was fading as the Law & Order shows began to wrap up, but then along came the Chicago franchise on NBC and the FBI franchise on CBS. This deal comes as Netflix snaps up major creators, making it very clear that NBCUniversal is still in the game and wants to keep Dick Wolf in the family for a long time.
PAY CABLE CHANNELS GO BROAD TO MAINTAIN AUDIENCES
A long, long time ago, or just one year ago, HBO and Showtime were brands kept at arm’s length by their corporate parents so they could produce premium, award-winning content. The output on these channels wasn’t large, but it didn’t need to be. Shows like Game of Thrones and Homeland could bring in subscribers while also winning Emmy® Awards. Now, we’re in a new era of television and these networks have new owners that want to leverage the brands as much as possible. AT&T is using the HBO name for its new streaming service, HBO Max, while increasing the network’s original output from one to two days a week. ViacomCBS is taking a different approach with Showtime, attempting to broaden the network’s appeal by adding shows like VH1’s RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars to the slate. While each network’s future is up in the air, don’t be surprised if their stand-alone apps go away and they’re each combined into their parent company’s mega-streamers.
NETFLIX’S HALF-BINGE GAMBLE MAKE LOVE IS BLIND ITS TOP SHOW
Netflix is revamping its Trending and Popular sections by replacing them with a daily Top 10 list to let people know exactly what the most popular programs on Netflix are on a day-to-day basis. This is happening just as Netflix dropped the finale for its reality show, Love Is Blind, which is notable for two things: 1. The fact that it debuted episodes in weekly chunks opposed to all at once, and 2. That woman who let her dog drink wine straight from her glass in the middle of a conversation with her fiancé. Netflix watched its shows fall to the bottom of the cultural zeitgeist as viewers find themselves unable to discuss them with their friends, because everybody’s on a different episode. Love Is Blind is Netflix’s attempt to get people buzzing again and keep its shows relevant for a longer period of time by switching its release strategy around. The show released two batches of episodes each Thursday to satisfy binge-viewers, before launching an hour-long finale episode on the final Thursday. Based on the first Top 10 list, it looks like the strategy paid off. Love Is Blind is the top Netflix program in the United States.