Earlier in the month, we brought you news that David Fincher and Kevin Spacey would be creating an American remake of the 1990 BBC mini series, House of Cards. The BBC series, itself, was based on a novel of the same name by Michael Dobbs, former Chief of Staff for the Conservative Party from 1986 to 1987.
The exact plot details of Fincher and Spacey’s remake of the series are not yet known, but it is known that it will be translated from the U.K. to America. The new adaptation has been written by the playwright Beau Willimon, whose play, The Ides Of March, is currently being filmed for the big screen, with George Clooney directing (his fourth feature) and starring alongside Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Deadline are now reporting that Netflix have picked the rights for this new remake from Fincher and Spacey, outbidding the likes of HBO and AMC. For those unfamiliar, Netflix are a very successful video-streaming and video rental company in North America, and currently have over 10 million subscribers. It seems that they are have become more and more interested in branching out from their beginnings, and this latest move to pick up House Of Cards marks their entrance into original programming.
In what must have been one of the main reasons to win Fincher and Spacey over, Netflix have agreed to commit themselves to 26 episodes from the start, without a pilot to test the reaction. The cost of such a commitment has been estimated at more than $100 million, which is certainly a big investment for the company. Given that their quarterly balance sheet at the end of last year put their total equity at $290 million, a commitment this large to House Of Cards could well be worth more than a third of that, which is a significant risk for any company to take.
Having said that, I think that the risk could certainly work well in their favour. Though David Fincher didn’t win the Academy Award this year for Best Director like I hoped he would, his cinematic oeuvre is yet to take a single misstep, and I can’t wait to see how he will handle his television directorial debut. Kevin Spacey is as ever a star of the highest calibre, and with both Fincher and Spacey executive producing, I am hoping – for all parties concerned – that the show will be a complete success.
I am very much intrigued by the fact that the BBC’s original series was in only four parts, and yet the Fincher and Spacey remake has already been promised a 26-episode run. It will be interesting to see how they make use of the extra time.
