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The Expanse #3: Abaddon's Post - [spoilers for book only up to latest tv show episode]


SpaceChampion

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10 hours ago, Corvinus said:

I feel your pain. At least the story is still out there in the books, which will be finished some day.

I haven’t started them yet but I will.

Despite what some people say (outside of the forum) I LOVE all of the characters and the actors playing them and am really sad after season 3 I probably won’t see those characters in new situations again 

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It sounds like there is a rights/contract issue now with Amazon and Netflix: Amazon can stream show in the US after transmission and Netflix can do it in the rest of the world, but to actually pay to make the thing Amazon would want worldwide distribution and Netflix would want US/Canadian distribution. They'd also naturally want the first 3 seasons exclusively on their platform, which involves buying out the other party.

Weirdly, a couple of days ago it looked like B99 would struggle to get renewed and The Expanse would be a relatively straightforward pick-up but it's ended up being the other way around. The relative slowness of the online petition is also a sign that simply not enough people are clued in about the show (the petition to commission Wayward Sisters, a show that technically doesn't even exist, has more than twice the number of votes than a critically-acclaimed show that's been on for 3 seasons already).

18 hours ago, Ran said:

Think I found Franck's remark. 

 

I find the defensiveness of this post to be quite silly. If the deal was poor, Alcon should not have signed it and if that means the show wasn't made, it means it shouldn't have been made (the number of people refusing to watch a show until it is finished and finished well is also growing, and notable). It also fails to address the fact that whilst an exclusivity cause for the United States makes sense, a worldwide exclusivity clause is utterly illogical. It just alienates your international fans and tempts them into torrenting the show.

People don't have any excuse for this. The GoT deal back in 2011 for worldwide distribution should be the baseline model for TV going forwards: get an international deal from the off, arrange for same-day or next-day international broadcast and get the show on as many TVs as possible worldwide. Remember Fox saying that The X-Files reboot got 75 million viewers on day one because they simulcast it in dozens of countries? I understand it was more difficult for Alcon, but they could have made other, more logical choices.

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

It sounds like there is a rights/contract issue now with Amazon and Netflix: Amazon can stream show in the US after transmission and Netflix can do it in the rest of the world, but to actually pay to make the thing Amazon would want worldwide distribution and Netflix would want US/Canadian distribution. They'd also naturally want the first 3 seasons exclusively on their platform, which involves buying out the other party.

Weirdly, a couple of days ago it looked like B99 would struggle to get renewed and The Expanse would be a relatively straightforward pick-up but it's ended up being the other way around. The relative slowness of the online petition is also a sign that simply not enough people are clued in about the show (the petition to commission Wayward Sisters, a show that technically doesn't even exist, has more than twice the number of votes than a critically-acclaimed show that's been on for 3 seasons already).

I find the defensiveness of this post to be quite silly. If the deal was poor, Alcon should not have signed it and if that means the show wasn't made, it means it shouldn't have been made (the number of people refusing to watch a show until it is finished and finished well is also growing, and notable). It also fails to address the fact that whilst an exclusivity cause for the United States makes sense, a worldwide exclusivity clause is utterly illogical. It just alienates your international fans and tempts them into torrenting the show.

People don't have any excuse for this. The GoT deal back in 2011 for worldwide distribution should be the baseline model for TV going forwards: get an international deal from the off, arrange for same-day or next-day international broadcast and get the show on as many TVs as possible worldwide. Remember Fox saying that The X-Files reboot got 75 million viewers on day one because they simulcast it in dozens of countries? I understand it was more difficult for Alcon, but they could have made other, more logical choices.

It’s not looking hopeful at all then is it :( I wasn’t feeling that hopeful for it actually - I hope I’m wrong 

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10 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

  As far as I understand it's just the U.S. market that needs distribution. 

There's more to it than just distribution. There's also a monetary shortfall that needs to be addressed. The money networks and streaming services pay is literally what makes up the budget for the show. It's not only Syfy's distribution they don't have now, it's also their money. Moving forward with the show now would simply be financially impossible.

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

I find the defensiveness of this post to be quite silly.

If you followed Ty on twitter it would make sense. For some reason, everyone who has an issue with being unable to watch the show takes it up with him on twitter, even though it's entirely outside of his control. It's like yelling at the cashier at a fast food place when they raise the prices. Dealing with idiots all day is exhausting (my wife works in a call center, so I can relate, usually takes her awhile to decompress after work).

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16 minutes ago, matt b said:

If you followed Ty on twitter it would make sense. For some reason, everyone who has an issue with being unable to watch the show takes it up with him on twitter, even though it's entirely outside of his control. It's like yelling at the cashier at a fast food place when they raise the prices. Dealing with idiots all day is exhausting (my wife works in a call center, so I can relate, usually takes her awhile to decompress after work).

That's part of the problem, IMO. Ty and others treating disappointed non-American fans like ungrateful, undeserving idiots for the crime of being desperate to watch the show he spends all day bragging about on Twitter.

Without all those book fans outside of the US, he would never have had a TV show in the first place.

 

 

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14 minutes ago, matt b said:

There's more to it than just distribution. There's also a monetary shortfall that needs to be addressed. The money networks and streaming services pay is literally what makes up the budget for the show. It's not only Syfy's distribution they don't have now, it's also their money. Moving forward with the show now would simply be financially impossible.

Alcon receives money from different sources. SyFy and SPACE are two of those sources, Amazon and Netflix are others, and the DVD and Blu-Ray sales are another. Those revenue streams combined make up the budget of the show plus a reasonable profit (since Alcon are not a charity). SyFy's contribution to that chunk is significant and may be the largest, so that source disappearing is hugely problematic and may be insurmountable, but it also means they have an opportunity to overcome that by getting someone other than SyFy to pick up the project.

The problem will be how willing someone else would be to pick up the show. The ideal solution would be another American network slotting into SyFy's place, but that also seems extremely unlikely. HBO like to own their properties and Showtime are very conservative. Starz might be tempted but they'll also be looking for more control over the entire process. AMC are way too tight to spend that kind of money (they won't even give The Walking Dead the budget hike it's urgently needed for at least six years now).

Amazon or Netflix taking over directly is plausible, but it also requires them to buy out the other party so they can release the show worldwide, which is quite a big expense on top of funding the show itself.

Quote

 

If you followed Ty on twitter it would make sense. For some reason, everyone who has an issue with being unable to watch the show takes it up with him on twitter, even though it's entirely outside of his control. It's like yelling at the cashier at a fast food place when they raise the prices. Dealing with idiots all day is exhausting (my wife works in a call center, so I can relate, usually takes her awhile to decompress after work).

 

It was in his and Daniel's control. This deal was self-evidently weak and they should not have sold the rights if this Frankenstein's mess of a deal was what was on the table. Certainly one of the first things I would be doing is quizzing closely an interested production company on their distribution channels and how soon the show will be airing in overseas markets (The Expanse was picked up and bought by a UK SF publisher, and it has a worldwide fanbase beyond just the USA). If the answers are unsatisfactory, they should be willing to walk away, as GRRM did with every offer for ASoIaF before HBO came a'calling with an offer that was serious.

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1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

That's part of the problem, IMO. Ty and others treating disappointed fans like ungrateful, undeserving idiots for the crime of being desperate to watch the show he spends all day bragging about on Twitter.

 

In my experience, Ty and Dan and the producers and actors involved in the show have been very gracious and pleasant in the overwhelming majority of fan interactions I've seen. I honestly can't blame someone for getting a little salty answering the same question again and again.

 

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

It was in his and Daniel's control. This deal was self-evidently weak and they should not have sold the rights if this Frankenstein's mess of a deal was what was on the table.

Was it? My understanding is that the adaptation rights had already been well sold by them once Alcon was making the various deals with Syfy, Netflix, Amazon, etc. I'm baffled as to why anyone would think they'd have a voice in the negotiations at that point in the process. If the adaptation rights were being sold directly to a network sure, but certainly not in this case.

Blame Alcon. Blame Syfy. Don't blame Ty and Dan, unless you want your anger to be misplaced. 

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1 hour ago, matt b said:

Was it? My understanding is that the adaptation rights had already been well sold by them once Alcon was making the various deals with Syfy, Netflix, Amazon, etc. I'm baffled as to why anyone would think they'd have a voice in the negotiations at that point in the process. If the adaptation rights were being sold directly to a network sure, but certainly not in this case.

Blame Alcon. Blame Syfy. Don't blame Ty and Dan, unless you want your anger to be misplaced. 

My understanding regarding how these things work is that would-be producers option a property with an agreement that they'll develop a pitch. A larger entity then decides if it wants to buy the pitch.

In the case of the Expanse, it looks like Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby were the ones who became interested in developing a show from it, which then had to be pitched to studios to see who'd actually fund going further. Alcon Television Group, per Deadline, provided the backing that allowed it to be able to be developed into something sellable to a network.

So, where does fault lie? I don't know for sure, but I suspect it is probably fair to focus the ire on the businesses rather than the creators.

I notice in the Deadline piece that The Expanse was the first time ATG got a series to order. Deadline's timeline has them announcing the order from SyFy in April 2014, but Alcon only sold global rights to Legendary in September 2014, and as I noted earlier, it took them until  _October 2016_ for international distribution to be sorted out outside of NZ and Canada. That's kind of crazy, and I can only think that some combination of Alcon and Legendary fumbled it very badly. Perhaps it was unforeseeable that this would happen at the time, and Franck, Abraham, Fergus, and Ostby all believed international sales would follow in short order from the series order. Certainly, it eelsl ike the situation is very unusual, that they were simply incapable of getting any deals worked out (other than the two limited markets of Canada and NZ) for two years.

In any case, it didn't work out. Could have happened because Alcon flailed about for a couple of months not doing anything before handing it off to Legendary, who then proceeded to flail about for two years achieving almost nothing. Could have happened because Legendary got greedy and tried to demand too much for first run international. Could have happened because interest in the show was simply extremely soft among networks and broadcasters.

 

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26 minutes ago, Triskele said:

There's a person named Hawk Ostby?  

His actual name is Haakon Nygaard-Østby (he's half Norwegian, half Indian), but anglicized it to Hawk Ostby.

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According to the subreddit, James Murray (Property Master, whatever that is) has said that "Netflix is out" and that their only hope is Amazon. He also said "The sets are coming down starting Monday with some assets being sold off to Star Trek Discovery or just scrapped."

I don't know anything about the TV business but it seems to me that this is over.

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1 minute ago, Hello World said:

According to the subreddit, James Murray (Property Master, whatever that is) has said that "Netflix is out" and that their only hope is Amazon. He also said "The sets are coming down starting Monday with some assets being sold off to Star Trek Discovery or just scrapped."

I don't know anything about the TV business but it seems to me that this is over.

This sounds incredibly hasty, to the point that, yes, it sounds like Alcon has given up any hope of finding another venue.

Real shame.

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1 hour ago, Hello World said:

According to the subreddit, James Murray (Property Master, whatever that is) has said that "Netflix is out" and that their only hope is Amazon. He also said "The sets are coming down starting Monday with some assets being sold off to Star Trek Discovery or just scrapped."

I don't know anything about the TV business but it seems to me that this is over.

Yeah...when the sets start coming down, it's over.

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2 hours ago, Hello World said:

According to the subreddit, James Murray (Property Master, whatever that is) has said that "Netflix is out" and that their only hope is Amazon. He also said "The sets are coming down starting Monday with some assets being sold off to Star Trek Discovery or just scrapped."

I don't know anything about the TV business but it seems to me that this is over.

I’m genuinely heart broken over this (I know how silly and dramatic that sounds) but I haven’t had a reaction to a tv show ending like this since penny dreadful and even that felt different because most of the story had been told 

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I started wondering what the situation was with Nightflyers, but that one is in the right track -- Netflix has first run international rights from the get go.

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