Say hello to Netflix House - two permanent Netflix experience centres
Opening next year are two permanent Netflix experience centres. Each will span footprints of over 100,000 feet (that’s 30,480 metres for those of us using the more civilised unit of measurement) and will occupy former department stores.
It is wrong to think of them as theme parks - they’re actually quite different. The centres will feature branded shopping outlets, eateries, and experiential activities tied to Netflix’s big hits like Bridgerton, Stranger Things, and Squid Game. What? No Grace and Frankie?
You know what is curious… there’s no mention of viewing rooms at all. I appreciate Netflix is reticent to release its films into cinemas, but I could imagine a scenario where these experience centres could do limited screenings in a boutique theatre of the week’s latest release, with older library titles given session times throughout. It’s not exhibition - it’s the Netflix “experience.”
What is really unexpected about the two Netflix House destinations is their locations. One is in Dallas, the other is in King of Prussia. Not exactly the Los Angeles destination one would usually expect (or New York, San Francisco, or even Chicago).
Also, yes, King of Prussia is the actual name of an ac tual place. It is a city near Philadelphia (about 25km away) with a population of 22,028 (as of 2020). Crucially, it is home to the upscale King of Prussia Mall, which is the third-largest shopping mall in the United States.
The name King of Prussia originally came from a tavern built in the area in 1719 - the King of Prussia Inn.
Read more about Netflix House at Variety.
Read more about King of Prussia at the King of Prussia District website.
Read more about the King of Prussia Mall at its dedicated landing page on the Visit Philly site.
It was anti-union labour that did in the Jason TV show
Here’s your MUST READ article of the day.
One of the coolest projects being worked on in the past year or two was a TV series based on Friday The 13th. Why was it so cool? Hipster movie label A24 were behind it, having worked through the many rights issues involved with the property. And they hired Bryan Fuller to run the show.
Bryan Fuller is known by TV fans as the guy behind Hannibal, but he also has a lot of cred as the creator of the excellent Wonderfalls, the rather quite good Dead Like Me, the it-has-its-big-fans-but-even-I-found-it-too-twee Pushing Daisies. All shows that fall into the Brilliant, But Cancelled category of TV. He was also working on the show Heroes (often credited for the show when it was at its best) and cut his teeth as a writer on the 90s Star Trek shows.
But also, look at his credits and the long list of cancelled shows, promising pilots that never went to series, and shows that he exited during pre-production (notably American Gods and Star Trek: Discovery). Could this be the show that ended the Fuller curse? Heavens no.
The show, to be titled Crystal Lake, was cancelled. Today The Wrap has an extensive feature on how it all fell apart.
By Thanksgiving, both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes had been resolved, and by the beginning of 2024, “Crystal Lake” was back on track. Except there was one problem: Despite being the first studio to sign the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement, A24 refused to convert the writers who had worked on that initial development phase into actual, paid writers, according to several sources.
The writers had gone on strike in part over this practice of merely keeping a development room instead of converting that room into a paid writers’ room, and it was now verboten according to the WGA’s new deal with the studios. A24 assured Fuller and Gray that there would be a paid writers’ room but later backtracked, according to several “Crystal Lake” sources.
The lack of paid writers created an unfortunate logjam. Fuller couldn’t deliver polished scripts because the writers who wrote the initial versions needed to do another draft but were prohibited by guild guidelines, because they weren’t staffed writers. According to those with knowledge of the situation, the four writers are owed roughly $100,000 each for already completed work.
The writers room issues were just the beginning.
It is worth noting that A24 are still working on the show and are seeking new creatives to head it up. The Wrap article mentions Nick Antosca as a potential showrunner.
It’d be cool to see this go ahead, but so much of the shine has already been lost to it.
A “gender-swapped Golden Girls”
No, this isn’t an actual Golden Girls remake, but it has echoes that are being talked up in the announcement for the show.
Mid-Century Modern is a new multicam sitcom that has been picked up by Hulu. Written by Will & Grace’s David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, it is expected to star Matt Bomer, Nathan Lane, and Linda Lavin.
“The series follows three best friends — gay gentlemen of a certain age — who, after an unexpected death, decide to spend their golden years living together in Palm Springs where the wealthiest one lives with his mother and a naked Gen Z housekeeper. As a chosen family, they prove that no matter how hard things get, there’s always someone around to remind you it would be better if you got your neck done.”
Sorry Nathan Lane fans, but he won’t be playing the Gen Z naked housekeeper. That role is yet to be cast. Read more about the show at THR.
What caught my interest with this was that David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are behind this show. I never warmed to Will & Grace - I’m not a fan of the rhythms of their writing (which is actually pretty distinctive) and had more than my fill from their earlier show Boston Common.
That said, it is good to see people who know how to make a sitcom back doing what they do. There are so few sitcoms made anymore that the institutional craft of writing these shows seems to be lost. Back in the day an early career writer would learn how to make a sitcom working with experienced writers who had learned themselves from other experienced writers. How far back can a lineage go back now?
According to Jean Smart, her role in HBO’s Watchmen was originally offered to Sigourney Weaver. Read: THR
For the announced Christmas NFL game, Netflix is selling sponsorships consisting of a minimum of eight 30-second ad units, with each package coming in at more than $5 million. Read: Ad Week
Apple is reportedly putting aside an upgrade to the Vision Pro in favour of a cheaper headset, which makes sense. They are aiming to get both the cost and the weight of the headsets down, which always seemed like the natural trajectory for the product. I’m still mad keen to get my hands on a Vision Pro. Read: The Verge
Chris Rock, Terry Crews, and Tichina Arnold will all reprise their roles on the animated Everybody Hates Chris revival. Read: THR
House of The Dragon’s debut night audience was down from its first episode. Read: Deadline
Fremantle is expanding its distribution deal with Pluto TV. Themed channels based around shows including Baywatch, Supermarket Sweep, Family Feud Classic, Let’s Make a Deal, The Price is Right: Bob Barker, The Price is Right: Drew Carey, Alarm Fur Cobra, Project Runway, Prisoner, and Jamie Oliver will be available across 13 countries. Read: Advanced Television
Not only is Resident Alien somehow still going, with it’s fourth season renewal, it is moving from Syfy over to USA Network. Apparently this is because USA Network has “more reach” - isn’t that why the Sci-Fi Channel was renamed Syfy to begin with? Read: THR
Yes, I goofed yesterday calling the film REC a Japanese film, when it is in fact Spanish. I knew better. Thank you to the multiple readers who let me know this yesterday…
Lady In The Lake debuts on Apple TV+ 19 July.
When the disappearance of a young girl grips the city of Baltimore on Thanksgiving 1966, the lives of two women converge on a fatal collision course. Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) is a Jewish housewife seeking to shed a secret past and reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, and Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) is a mother navigating the political underbelly of Black Baltimore while struggling to provide for her family. Their disparate lives seem parallel at first, but when Maddie becomes fixated on Cleo's mystifying death, a chasm opens that puts everyone around them in danger. From visionary director Alma Har'el, "Lady in the Lake" emerges as a feverish noir thriller and an unexpected tale about the price women pay for their dreams.
Play as the titular Zelda in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom on Nintendo Switch later this year.
That’s the newsletter for today.
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