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We know now that they didn’t really have that data at the time. They just heard Fincher was available and bought his idea unseen for a lot of money so no one el

We know now that they didn’t really have that data at the time. They just heard Fincher was available and bought his idea unseen for a lot of money so no one else could get to propose to him.

notahacker 6y ago
Netflix pinning a lot on winning a bidding war for Fincher sound suspiciously like investors placing massively outsized bets on the Dreamworks/Disney guy with the startup savvy CEO being the Next Big Thing in digital media...
- enjeyw 6y ago
  The difference is that the sample size for Fincher is a lot larger - 9 of his 10 films have grossed >100mil, so we have very good confidence on his hit rate. Startup Savvy CEOs have 2, maybe 3 successful companies under their belt, so it's harder to judge how much of their success is due to repeatable factors.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    Katzenberg revived Disney and cofounded Dreamworks so he's not exactly short of samples of his ability to produce hit movies. Also getting the scaleup eBay CEO to sort out the internet bit was a bonus...
- hardwaregeek 6y ago
  House of Cards was an adaptation of a widely acclaimed British TV show, directed by one of the best Hollywood directors, starring an A-list actor. Plus it probably didn't cost 1.8 billion.
  - npunt 6y ago
    Yep, entirely different risk profile. Netflix already had a brand, platform, and customers, and they already offered TV shows and weren't experimenting with a new format. The House of Cards risk was all in execution, not brand, concept, product, talent, etc.
  - jimmySixDOF 6y ago
    Actually they are all based on the book by Michael Dobbs (1989) who was the chief of staff for Margaret Thatcher for a few years. I heard him at a book show say he wrote it almost by accident as therapy on a vacation after getting squeezed out of politics.
thiagocesar 6y ago
And as soon as they got data involved, the plot quality decreased immensely. By season 3, most people had given up on the show already.

We know now that they didn’t really have that data at the time. They just heard Fincher was available and bought his idea unseen for a lot of money so no one else could get to propose to him.

notahacker 6y ago

Netflix pinning a lot on winning a bidding war for Fincher sound suspiciously like investors placing massively outsized bets on the Dreamworks/Disney guy with the startup savvy CEO being the Next Big Thing in digital media...

enjeyw 6y ago
The difference is that the sample size for Fincher is a lot larger - 9 of his 10 films have grossed >100mil, so we have very good confidence on his hit rate. Startup Savvy CEOs have 2, maybe 3 successful companies under their belt, so it's harder to judge how much of their success is due to repeatable factors.
- notahacker 6y ago
  Katzenberg revived Disney and cofounded Dreamworks so he's not exactly short of samples of his ability to produce hit movies. Also getting the scaleup eBay CEO to sort out the internet bit was a bonus...
hardwaregeek 6y ago
House of Cards was an adaptation of a widely acclaimed British TV show, directed by one of the best Hollywood directors, starring an A-list actor. Plus it probably didn't cost 1.8 billion.
- npunt 6y ago
  Yep, entirely different risk profile. Netflix already had a brand, platform, and customers, and they already offered TV shows and weren't experimenting with a new format. The House of Cards risk was all in execution, not brand, concept, product, talent, etc.
- jimmySixDOF 6y ago
  Actually they are all based on the book by Michael Dobbs (1989) who was the chief of staff for Margaret Thatcher for a few years. I heard him at a book show say he wrote it almost by accident as therapy on a vacation after getting squeezed out of politics.

thiagocesar 6y ago

And as soon as they got data involved, the plot quality decreased immensely. By season 3, most people had given up on the show already.