From the outside, Netflix‘s renewal strategy seems like the world’s most exhausting game of craps, given the little rhyme or reason to what gets renewed and what gets cast off to the ether. And, as if their haphazard approach to deciding what lives and dies wasn’t bad enough, it only gets that much more dizzying when the mind games come into play; be it in the form of a dubious teaser that may or may not spell the future for a Japanese sci-fi hit, or only softly killing a crime thriller series by renewing it with a $2 million budget cut.
As for what’s going on in the land of viewership charts, Band of Brothers‘ kindred spirit and fellow Netflix newcomer is doing exactly what was expected of it, and a prolific Hollywood fantasy trainwreck has slotted in for the token bad-movie-with-good-numbers position.
Alice in Borderland might be getting renewed if these marketing detectives are to be believed
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Schrödinger’s Netflix series is when a show can be thought of as both renewed and canceled and the same time, often on account of dubious information surrounding the show’s actual fate. But, rather than help us grasp a paradox of quantum superposition, all Schrödinger’s Netflix series really does is succeed in irritating us that Netflix won’t give us a straight answer.
Then again, you can’t fault the streamer for its whimsy, and that’s exactly the route it’s taken for discussing the future of Alice in Borderland without really discussing the future of it; after a mysterious Netflix ad began popping up in Tokyo, it didn’t take long for the denizens of the internet to decode what seemed to be confirmation of a third season. An actual confirmation from the big red N itself, though, would still be preferable.
The Law According to Lidia Poët will be back again, but it’ll have to lean on pure grit
The Law According to Lidia Poët, an Italian-language Netflix original based on the eponymous, real-life legal maverick, was one of the streamer’s quieter hits this year, with high-flying viewership numbers in 70 different countries and some healthy critical sentiment to boot.
The crime drama will be back for round two in 2024. but it will have to do so with $2 million fewer dollars to its budget’s name. It’s better than getting canned entirely, perhaps, but is an enormous budget slash really any way to treat your dark horse of a moneymaker?
Be it HBO, Netflix, awards season, or the viewership charts, Band of Brothers and The Pacific stick together
The weekend victory lap may have belonged to Band of Brothers (and as one of the greatest television shows in history, why wouldn’t it?), but The Pacific wasn’t about to let its spiritual predecessor have all the fun, with the war drama miniseries having set sail for its own piece of the viewership pie.
The show, which centers on the trials faced by the 1st Marine Division during the Second World War, has slotted in at eighth place on the United States’ Top 10 television charts while occupying the 11th overall spot in the worldwide rankings. It’s more business as usual for the Emmy-winning miniseries, of course, but it’s business worth shouting out nevertheless.
Snow White and the Huntsman may have been a homewrecker, but now it’s a minor pocket-liner, too
You all know the drill by now; an IP gets earmarked for some big names in Hollywood and more than a bit of CGI, it makes a mark at the box office while earning a fair share of eyerolls from critics, and no one ever really talks about it again.
That was the case with Snow White and the Huntsman, whose greatest claims to fame were enabling the affair that director Rupert Sanders had with Kristen Stewart – which led to a divorce for the former and a breakup with Robert Pattinson for the latter – and somehow birthing one of the single most unnecessary sequels in history. Needless to say, it’s probably looking for something else to be remembered by at this point, and luckily, it can safely write in today’s Top 10 status in a variety of Southeast Asian markets, as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Sri Lanka, on its résumé.