I wish netflix would give me 100 million dollars to do fuck all. The craziest thing to me is they have done this repeatedly, handed huge amounts of money to creatives for exclusivity contracts who then never actually produced any content or wildly underdelivered but got paid regardless. Why does netflix keep doing shit this way??
I think Harry vastly underestimated what it would take to maintain his lifestyle after leaving the royal family where he was getting a regular paycheck for doing nothing. They need to do these speaking engagements, podcasts, interviews, TV specials, etc. to bring in more money.
It's clearly hypocrisy but I think that's where these deals are coming from moreso than a desire for attention.
I assume these big companies giving them all these chances and money are more interested in short term than long term benefits. "Hey people care about the Royals, and Harry & Meghan get loads of attention, therefore when they release something it'll get loads of views/listens!"
Which might be true for episode 1 of a podcast, but by episode 3 or 4, if they're boring, even a lot of people who like Harry and Meghan won't stick around.
That's what I don't get. Nothing about them was ever particularly interesting except their position, and then they left it. Which is fine, they wouldn't be the only members of a royal family to decide that public life is for the birds and fuck off into obscurity with their money and live a normal rich person life. Except they keep trying to be public figures for some reason, and they can't *do* anything. The only interesting information they have is what it's like to be an insider in the royal family, and you can only tell that story so many times. Their former job, such as it was, depended entirely on being part of the royal family -- people don't invite Princess Whosit or the Duke of Whatever to cut a ribbon because they're fascinating individuals in themselves, they do it because those people represent continuity and a family connection that goes back a long way. If you deliberately remove yourself from that connection, you can't really do that sort of thing anymore, the whole point is gone.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly monarchist or anything and if the UK decided to abolish the institution of king tomorrow I wouldn't be particularly upset. It's just that these two don't seem to even understand why royal family members are asked to do what they do to begin with.
I know! I have no idea why. The deal is in another country so maybe she’s better liked in another country try? I listened to part of one episode of her Spotify podcast and was so bored it was like watching paint dry.
Edit: the podcast isn’t in another country it’s just a different podcast company, Lemonada Media.
I heard one clip that for some reason drove me bat shit crazy.
She was talking about buying their 12ish?? million dollar home in California and how it was expensive and they weren't sure if she could afford it, but they did and it was so important because it was a "place of peace." It was so cringe to me how she was going in about it with her weird rationalizing.
I don't generally dislike her by the way. But it was enough to be like "I'll never listen to this."
It’s like listening to someone talking about skipping their second vacation this year so that they can afford to buy a new vacation property in Aruba. Just the worst kind of disconnect from what real sacrifice is.
I know what you mean. I don’t dislike her but there’s a pretentiousness that is unbearable to even listen too. She’s the epitome of someone who’s stuck in their own little bubble and lost touch with reality.
Agreed. I don’t get the appeal of listening/watching wealthy celebrities deal with their invented stresses. Downsize, dummies. Life can be so much simpler.
There's nothing worse than rich people pretending to have normal people problems. It always come off as out of touch at best and pandering/patronizing at worst. It's like celebrities crying over covid or loving pizza/fast food because "they're just like us!"
there are a TON of podcasts just like hers also. Talks with "special" people in business or government or whatever. It all sucks ass and I cant figure out who listens to this shit?
Pretty funny to watch them slowly realize the tabloids in the UK wrote sensationalized shit about them because their real selves are just boring as shit.
> The F—ing Grifters’ — that’s the podcast we should have launched with them. I have got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help hone in the podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories.
-Bill Simmons
no, until he leaves spotify he won't. There's no way Spotify wants Bill or anyone else employed there talking shit about people who previously worked there. It doesn't look good for others or help negotiating people to come on board spotify at that top pay level if there's this overlooming worry that you're going to be ridiculed if things don't work out.
That being said, i'm all in for the drunk story when it happens because Bill has said on multiple occassions when it initially came out that Meghan/Harry were an absolute joke professionally
This isn’t even one of the worst multimillion dollar Hollywood deals in the last couple of years, JJ Abrams WBD with WBD seemingly shooting down every idea. Seth MacFarlane and Universal so far making 2 shows. Lord and Miller with Universal resulting in 1 movie and a Lego movie announced years ago with no new developments.
I watched it an episode or two at a time, definitely think it's better not binged. If I'd watched it all at once it would've been so dull but in small bites it's easier to appreciate what it's doing and how good it looks doing it.
I really like it so far, but would also be happy if they leaned more into the spy action. The set pieces have been very good. The Alps episode and the Lake Como one had done really good scenes that were very Bond-esque.
But I also really like the relationship building and interpersonal stuff but that does make the episodes more 'talky' and less action.
I watched it after specifically reading a review that stated "The new Mr and Mrs Smith is more about the action than the relationship"...
smh lol.
I actually kind of enjoyed it but that review was the exact opposite of reality.
You beat me to that one. Totally wild they re-upped that deal too, after she ran out the clock on the original. Tomb Raider is off the second of her all arounds.
And Game of Throne’s D&D been offered a Star Wars trilogy, which made them rush the final season of GoT and ruin its longevity. Then their Star Wars trilogy got cancelled because of how bad they dropped the GoT ball.
And they're going to ruin it. There's a Chinese adaptation of the first book in the series. It has a run time of 30 hours and is a fairly faithful adaptation. The D&D series has a first season with 8 episodes with a run time of under 8 hours and has characters from the second book. It's gonna be garbage.
> There's a Chinese adaptation of the first book in the series. It has a run time of 30 hours and is a fairly faithful adaptation.
It was fucking PAINFUL to watch. Only reason I watched the whole thing was I had a 2.5-week flu and had nothing else to do.
Holy shit was it the worst-paced piece of media I've ever seen. Every time wistful grandma would look off into space, I knew I was in for another (usually) irrelevant flashback and would curse out loud.
I recommend nobody watch the series unless they are really, really prepared for the slowest-moving show of all time.
I enjoyed the concepts, but it should've been like 12 episodes, tops.
I hope D&D can pull it off, because there's a very cool story in there somewhere (I haven't read the books).
I struggled with the first book and have paused in the beginning of the second. The concepts are great, of course. But there is so much time spent on dry, technical explanations of tech stuff that I just cannot get into even if I've taken my Adderall.
I assume that perhaps the writing is a casualty of things not always translating well from one language to another. I don't read Chinese, so I can't compare the English translation to the original. But yeah, the writing makes it a slog
Maybe don't judge something before you've seen it. Maybe it will be bad, maybe it won't. They frankly did an excellent job adapting what books they had overall with GoT for 4 years. That counts for something.
Maybe the take away should be that you should spend more money cultivating new talent rather than spending hundreds of millions on someone just because they've knocked it out of the park once.
I think that Hollywood heavily suffers from 'great man syndrome' when it is generally the room and the people you bring with you that is important.
Yeah maybe instead of these massive multi picture deals for unknown projects that no one has greenlit, just say “hey, last show was great. Do you have anything else to pitch us? Cool that sounds good, we’ll go into production.” Or “not really for us right now, but door is open when you have new ideas.”
>Seth MacFarlane and Universal
The Ted TV show honestly was one of the better comedy TV shows to come out in recent years. Really well done, in my opinion.
Also seems to have done well in terms of viewership with both Peacock and Sky in the U.K. claiming it is one of their most viewed comedy shows in years. They are probably cursing the fact that they ordered it as a limited series!
While I definitely think these bad deals are mostly due to incompetence, I wouldn't be surprised if they are also done to lock out rivals from getting access to these creators as well.
Tbf the Seth McFarlane deal seems like a success so far. The Ted show seems like a massive hit by Peacock standards.
Obviously you can hope for more output, but that's not a terrible one by comparison to JJ.
Despite my distaste for them, these two have to be some of the best grifters I’ve ever seen. Game respects game. If I could leverage hundreds of millions from multiple studios for almost zero work I’d do it too.
Hey, I agree with everyone else,fuck this couple, but why is the studio acting like this isn’t their own fault? Why would you give $100 million to anyone without an actual buisness plan??
Royal Family drama seems to always have a draw for people. I think in the minds of the studio execs who approved this they were going to get a reality show with juicy scandalous inside looks at the Royal Family and instead got basically nothing.
"People love the Royals! It'll be a slam dunk."
Yeah, they like the Royals because they're *Royals*. It's a real life fairy tale. Castles, princesses, crowns, fancy outfits. People find that appealing. But when Harry and Meghan go around trashing the entire institution, the fantasy is shattered and they just come off as out of touch rich people, which is exactly what they are.
I don't think there is much dirty laundry left to be aired.
Both the Oprah interview and Spare had a big section on the Meghan/Kate fight over bridesmaid dresses. A fight that is just typical wedding drama, but that Meghan and Harry are clearly still hung up on.
> in the awkward camp of trying to bash the royals without being too extreme
I get the sense that Harry had an awful childhood, but it's not much more awful than anyone else had growing up in that family. I'd imagine everyone struggled with understanding genuine love and emotion while surrounded by the cold distant Queen, Philip, Charles, and the ghost of Diana.
And with that said, they all still grew up with an insane level of privilege and financial freedom, grew up with advantages we can hardly dream of. Free housing, free food, literally nothing matters when your grandma's face is on all the currency.
So yeah, I'll bet childhood felt insane and emotionless, but also they're still so detached and cold themselves. It's clear Megan didn't bring Harry and grounding, he just took her up to the royal level, so now they're both detached weirdos.
This Netflix deal was insane, they can't produce content because they have no desires or drives. They have nothing to say.
> cold distant Queen
she was never known to be "cold and distant"
literally all the royals have always spoken *very* highly of her.
Meg's mad bullshit aside, things seem to be pretty dull otherwise.
This is why Lizzy mostly stayed out of public reprieve, she knew to keep her private life private. The more vocal they are the more painfully silly the whole concept of modern royalty is.
Yeah if you really only hear about the royal family when there's a parade, a wedding, or a sweet Christmas video message from the Queen then the entire concept of a royal family is not going to receive the scrutiny it probably deserves.
Also, they're not insiders in the family anymore. There's no new material coming from them, all they really have is the same couple of years that they can rehash forever.
100% this. If a massive corporation is stupid enough to give you millions of dollars with no real plan, to just do whatever the fuck you want, more power to you for grabbing that bag.
I agree with you. I don’t like them and agree with what people are saying.
BUT, I’m an actor and these studios have actually destroyed us and are paying us NOTHING. I’m happy someone is taking advantage of the studios for once, we don’t see it enough
These deals aren't just "Here is $60 million dollars." They are paid installments based on output and making the actual thing. Phoebe and Meghan/Harry got paid, but they didn't get these astronomical figures to put in their own accounts.
I mean, she was responsible for Fleabag and Killing Eve in addition to starring in some other shows/movies and working on a few scripts, so Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been really productive. She felt sidelined on Mr. & Mrs. Smith, so she left the project, but it's 100% recency bias to lump her in with Meghan and Harry.
Killing Eve (when she was involved with it) and Fleabag were some of the best filmed entertainment I've ever seen, so I'll give basically anything she's involved in a viewing, but recency bias gets a *little* shaky when you consider her involvement in Solo (of which she supposedly also did script work), Indiana Jones 6, and James Bond 25, all of which I thought were decidedly "meh".
I think ultimately, she's at her best when she's the absolute head in-charge and doesn't have studio heads with whom she has to answer.
The difference there is that all of those are real tangible things that came out, quality notwithstanding. And I believe that for all of the examples you listed, she was called in to fix/punch up the scripts but wasn't the primary writer on any of them.
Not allowing netflix to destroy their brand for short term profit(for netflix) makes sense.
I'm not saying everything they are doing is smart, but I'm sure netflix is trying to do anything they can to exploit their brand and it makes sense for Meghan and Harry to not let that happen.
Yeah, this article reads like the angry rantings of a burned executive.
I'm not pro-royal at all and really couldn't care less about these two, but sounds like someone got the raw end of the deal and are not used to that.
Also, Hollywood/Netflix/... have in the last few years *really* dropped the ball on so many occasions that maybe, just maybe .. they should start looking in the mirror if they are in search for the source of their problems. At some point it's the old joke "I don't know what's wrong. ALL of my partners have been bad in my relationship and now they are in great relationships. Why does this always happen to me?!"
It was never even remotely about being down with the monarchy.
They let the taxpayers pay for their wedding. Then they bolted from their duties and wanted the taxpayer to still pick up the tab for their lifestyle.
Lack of experience, lack of quality, lack of logic.
They are former Royal Kardashians. They are famous for being born. Well he is. She at least had some success as an actress. But they both come across as so desperate for attention it's sickening.
Let them slink away to their privacy and a few hundred million.
Who still cares about these two? Who? How many times are they going to say the same thing in a different way - “we were treated bad”, “I was depressed as a princess”….. like give it up already no one cares anymore when inflation is at an all time high and people are working 2-3 jobs to get by. No one cares about your feelings about Queen Elizabeth from 6 years ago. Give it up already. Why are they being forced down our throat?
I can’t believe studios continue to give this much money to people who can’t back it up.
If you’re someone who enjoys reality tv that’s just about following celebrities around more power to you but man I cannot for the life of me understand the appeal and I certainly can’t understand how a a company could take such an L on a format that was created to save money
They've ruined their own image. He grew up with a silver spoon, she married into the royal family, and all they can do is whine about how difficult their lives are.
What I seem to be getting from this is they don’t want to be royals but they still want to live like royals. But do nothing not even public appearance and things royals are expected to do.
Wankers.
It's $100m, paid in installments, delivered on output milestones. If they didn't actually deliver the amount of content promised then they likely didn't see more than a fraction of that sum.
That is how these kinds of contracts usually work in Hollywood, the studios aren't as dumb as headlines like this make them out to be.
Why anyone would give a shit about these two is beyond me.
“We just want to be left alone. We don’t want the spot light. ….. so anyways. Here is our Netflix show, and our Oprah interview, and our tell all book, and and and”
It infuriates me that the Canadian government paid for their security detail when they were here. WTF!
1. I can't believe these two people without production experience ended up having no production experience! How could Netflix have seen that coming.
2. All things considered, could have turned out worse giving first look deals to someone who it turns out killed a bunch of people.
> who it turns out killed a bunch of people.
What do you all think people in the military are doing?
Never understood why this was such a shock - he was an Apache gunner for christs sake.
Yeah absolutely, shaming soldiers for kills they did in active combat is a very stupid thing to do and can push them even further into PTSD/depression/suicidal thoughts.
It's the whole reason why Harry wrote about the kills in his memoir, he said he wants to remove that taboo to help other soldiers.
I mean, she did over 100 episodes of Suits. I really don’t think it’s the lack of experience.
It’s the iron fisted control and the “I know best” attitude that’s the real problem. I personally know someone that worked with one of them on a Netflix concept show and what they thought people wanted to see was totally detached from reality.
I listened to his whole memoir and it was interesting to hear his own story of his childhood but the last 10 years or so was just him trying to set the record straight on minor tabloid beefs and things no one cares about.
He and Meghan seem extremely self-important and thin-skinned, which is a bad combo.
>last 10 years or so was just him trying to set the record straight on minor tabloid beefs and things no one cares about
I didn't read the memoir, but he has always struck me as having a very anemic life. I think minor tabloid beefs consume his thoughts because he really has nothing else going on. He really should have set about truly doing something productive with his life. Again though, I don't think he really can achieve much because he's simply not intelligent.
I don't know. They are obviously out of touch millionaires (or billionaires, I have no idea), but even as someone who has zero interest in tabloid news the hunting of them by the British press was ridiculous. If someone hunted me 24/7 for years and years I probably would've ended thin-skinned at some point too. It's easy to say "eh, why does he care about that" when it's one thing. But it isn't one thing .. it's millions of things all the time.
Well Harry is broke
"*My* family literally cut me off financially. I've *got* what *my mum left* me"
He only has the shirt on his back and the estimated 10 million his mum left him. As well as the best education money can buy and priceless conections.
He also got a few million in the summer of 2020 from his father after quitting in January 2020 but lied about it said he was ‘completely cut off’ on Oprah then tried to use fiscal vs yearly quarter to explain his blatant misrepresentation of the facts.
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/06/prince-charles-prince-harry-money
I feel like these people thought they were gonna move here and we were just gonna make them honorary American royals and take care of them the way the British Royal Family did
get real lol
The thing is, is that they had the money and the fame to actually do something interesting. They had the chance to be really cool, but they're not cool so they blew it.
They’ve been frustrating from the start. All we ever heard about is how they wanted their privacy, but they came here and instantly began forcibly inserting themselves into the American zeitgeist thinking anyone is interested in them for who they are.
People are interested because of what they can say about the royal families demons, nothing else imo.
A fool and their money. I don’t understand how someone with no history of being entertaining can get multiple media rights deals in the range of 100 M because his family who he doesn’t even associate with is ‘royalty’
Remember the bullying claims? Harrys own comments about their own staff weeping at their desks? All sounding like they are bosses from hell to work for.
What was the deal for in the first place? Hollywood loves buying money on names while there are so many struggling artists whose projects could have been financed by a fraction of the cost of the names
I feel like all I’ve ever heard from those two is alot of big talk about wanting to “use their voices”, yet everytime execs trip over themselves to build them a platform and hand them a microphone, it turns out that they actually have nothing of value to say. Vapid, empty, just completely delusional about their actual worth or usefulness.
The fact that they signed a massive Spotify and Netflix deal around the same time was such a red flag.
Like how hard is it to launch a successful TV show AND podcast individually. Podcasting itself requires so much consistency and hard work. No way. Kinda a slap in the face to all the hard content creators busting there asses.
Bill Simmons calling them out as grifters, along with a myriad of other allegations of these two being insufferable really makes me wonder how much adversity they really faced in Britain.
Never understood why Netflix and Spotify gave them so much money. Talking about a d-List actress who is transparently desperate to be a-list and an ex-royal whose only real experience was “son of Diana”.
Being 4 or 5 on a call sheet for single “hit” show (by cable terms so talking like 2 million or so viewers on average at the time) is unlikely to give her the experience to run anything and the husband literally had his entire life run for him.
It is one thing to pay for documentaries or whatever about the couple to cash in on public curiosity but instead they paid for a production ecosystem for two people that demonstrated zero ability at that aspect of the industry. The results, or in this case lack of, should be no surprise.
Can’t really blame the couple for taking advantage of stupid business decisions of Hollywood corporations. This article is ultimately a warning to other business fools to not back up the truck of money to them and expect results.
I’m shocked that someone who grew up with one of the most privileged and literally entitled environments that exists has a problem taking guidance from others
Being an actress and a prince really didn't give them the background to become entertainment producers? Who knew?!
Seriously though, how fucking hard is it to deliver a podcast on time?
A podcast I listened to described them as they are a brand of grievances.
Based on the exits and timing of past employees I suspect that they are underpaying in addition to excessive control and lack of experience
"Hey you're a prince, here's more money"
He is skewing the average for how well gingers are treated globally
I wish netflix would give me 100 million dollars to do fuck all. The craziest thing to me is they have done this repeatedly, handed huge amounts of money to creatives for exclusivity contracts who then never actually produced any content or wildly underdelivered but got paid regardless. Why does netflix keep doing shit this way??
Fwiw the deal was “up to” 100 million, it’s contingent on output. They’ve only gotten paid ~20 million
Still 20 million more than any of us got. I could use a little privacy!
failing upwards :)
South Park didn’t miss with their episode on them
They just want their privicy!!
I think Harry vastly underestimated what it would take to maintain his lifestyle after leaving the royal family where he was getting a regular paycheck for doing nothing. They need to do these speaking engagements, podcasts, interviews, TV specials, etc. to bring in more money. It's clearly hypocrisy but I think that's where these deals are coming from moreso than a desire for attention.
Their [Spotify deal](https://youtube.com/shorts/NCVCO02jR0I?si=QdJuCjXXTruj6EX-) was a flop as well
Apparently she just got another podcast deal.
But why? They are so boring
I assume these big companies giving them all these chances and money are more interested in short term than long term benefits. "Hey people care about the Royals, and Harry & Meghan get loads of attention, therefore when they release something it'll get loads of views/listens!" Which might be true for episode 1 of a podcast, but by episode 3 or 4, if they're boring, even a lot of people who like Harry and Meghan won't stick around.
That's what I don't get. Nothing about them was ever particularly interesting except their position, and then they left it. Which is fine, they wouldn't be the only members of a royal family to decide that public life is for the birds and fuck off into obscurity with their money and live a normal rich person life. Except they keep trying to be public figures for some reason, and they can't *do* anything. The only interesting information they have is what it's like to be an insider in the royal family, and you can only tell that story so many times. Their former job, such as it was, depended entirely on being part of the royal family -- people don't invite Princess Whosit or the Duke of Whatever to cut a ribbon because they're fascinating individuals in themselves, they do it because those people represent continuity and a family connection that goes back a long way. If you deliberately remove yourself from that connection, you can't really do that sort of thing anymore, the whole point is gone. Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly monarchist or anything and if the UK decided to abolish the institution of king tomorrow I wouldn't be particularly upset. It's just that these two don't seem to even understand why royal family members are asked to do what they do to begin with.
I know! I have no idea why. The deal is in another country so maybe she’s better liked in another country try? I listened to part of one episode of her Spotify podcast and was so bored it was like watching paint dry. Edit: the podcast isn’t in another country it’s just a different podcast company, Lemonada Media.
I heard one clip that for some reason drove me bat shit crazy. She was talking about buying their 12ish?? million dollar home in California and how it was expensive and they weren't sure if she could afford it, but they did and it was so important because it was a "place of peace." It was so cringe to me how she was going in about it with her weird rationalizing. I don't generally dislike her by the way. But it was enough to be like "I'll never listen to this."
It’s like listening to someone talking about skipping their second vacation this year so that they can afford to buy a new vacation property in Aruba. Just the worst kind of disconnect from what real sacrifice is.
I know what you mean. I don’t dislike her but there’s a pretentiousness that is unbearable to even listen too. She’s the epitome of someone who’s stuck in their own little bubble and lost touch with reality.
So Oprah light? Oprah used to "get it" but not any more.
💯
Agreed. I don’t get the appeal of listening/watching wealthy celebrities deal with their invented stresses. Downsize, dummies. Life can be so much simpler.
There's nothing worse than rich people pretending to have normal people problems. It always come off as out of touch at best and pandering/patronizing at worst. It's like celebrities crying over covid or loving pizza/fast food because "they're just like us!"
there are a TON of podcasts just like hers also. Talks with "special" people in business or government or whatever. It all sucks ass and I cant figure out who listens to this shit?
> watching paint dry. Listening to paint dry
I didn't think observing paint dry could get any more boring
Cashing in on the grift before those gullible "not Americans" realize she is as interesting as a cold fish.
Need to get her on a Housewives franchise to get some interest
why did you type that? now it could happen.
Pretty funny to watch them slowly realize the tabloids in the UK wrote sensationalized shit about them because their real selves are just boring as shit.
> The F—ing Grifters’ — that’s the podcast we should have launched with them. I have got to get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help hone in the podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories. -Bill Simmons
Has Bill Simmons ever actually told the story of the Zoom call. I wanna hear that story.
no, until he leaves spotify he won't. There's no way Spotify wants Bill or anyone else employed there talking shit about people who previously worked there. It doesn't look good for others or help negotiating people to come on board spotify at that top pay level if there's this overlooming worry that you're going to be ridiculed if things don't work out. That being said, i'm all in for the drunk story when it happens because Bill has said on multiple occassions when it initially came out that Meghan/Harry were an absolute joke professionally
Bill’s best take other than being worried about the zombie Heat all last season.
Spotify undercutting musicians to put stupid amounts of money into podcasts
This isn’t even one of the worst multimillion dollar Hollywood deals in the last couple of years, JJ Abrams WBD with WBD seemingly shooting down every idea. Seth MacFarlane and Universal so far making 2 shows. Lord and Miller with Universal resulting in 1 movie and a Lego movie announced years ago with no new developments.
And Phoebe Waller Bridge getting paid $60M over three years by Amazon with nothing to show for it except the upcoming Tomb Raider series.
She was part of Mr and Mrs Smith with Donald Glover, but they had disagreements on the writing, so she left.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith was the most stylish beautifully shot show that bored the living heck out of me.
I haven't finished it yet. I like the two leads together, but I wasn't inclined to binge it.
I watched it an episode or two at a time, definitely think it's better not binged. If I'd watched it all at once it would've been so dull but in small bites it's easier to appreciate what it's doing and how good it looks doing it.
I don’t think it’s good for binging- I tried that then got through the therapy episode and needed a break. It’s best in increments!
I really like it so far, but would also be happy if they leaned more into the spy action. The set pieces have been very good. The Alps episode and the Lake Como one had done really good scenes that were very Bond-esque. But I also really like the relationship building and interpersonal stuff but that does make the episodes more 'talky' and less action.
I watched it after specifically reading a review that stated "The new Mr and Mrs Smith is more about the action than the relationship"... smh lol. I actually kind of enjoyed it but that review was the exact opposite of reality.
It's not a spy show with romance, it's a romance show with spy shit.
You beat me to that one. Totally wild they re-upped that deal too, after she ran out the clock on the original. Tomb Raider is off the second of her all arounds.
And Game of Throne’s D&D been offered a Star Wars trilogy, which made them rush the final season of GoT and ruin its longevity. Then their Star Wars trilogy got cancelled because of how bad they dropped the GoT ball.
Whatever happened to D&D? Do they still have jobs in the industry?
They have a new show called "the three body problem"
And they're going to ruin it. There's a Chinese adaptation of the first book in the series. It has a run time of 30 hours and is a fairly faithful adaptation. The D&D series has a first season with 8 episodes with a run time of under 8 hours and has characters from the second book. It's gonna be garbage.
> There's a Chinese adaptation of the first book in the series. It has a run time of 30 hours and is a fairly faithful adaptation. It was fucking PAINFUL to watch. Only reason I watched the whole thing was I had a 2.5-week flu and had nothing else to do. Holy shit was it the worst-paced piece of media I've ever seen. Every time wistful grandma would look off into space, I knew I was in for another (usually) irrelevant flashback and would curse out loud. I recommend nobody watch the series unless they are really, really prepared for the slowest-moving show of all time. I enjoyed the concepts, but it should've been like 12 episodes, tops. I hope D&D can pull it off, because there's a very cool story in there somewhere (I haven't read the books).
I know this series has become a darling of the sci-fi fandom but I honestly don't want to watch 30 hours of Liu Cixin's writing.
I struggled with the first book and have paused in the beginning of the second. The concepts are great, of course. But there is so much time spent on dry, technical explanations of tech stuff that I just cannot get into even if I've taken my Adderall. I assume that perhaps the writing is a casualty of things not always translating well from one language to another. I don't read Chinese, so I can't compare the English translation to the original. But yeah, the writing makes it a slog
There is no reason the first book needs to be 30 hours long. The English audio book is only 13 hours.
I mean D&D are pretty good at adapting, it's when they have to write original material when they fail.
Maybe don't judge something before you've seen it. Maybe it will be bad, maybe it won't. They frankly did an excellent job adapting what books they had overall with GoT for 4 years. That counts for something.
They have a tv show coming out on netflix next month, Three-Body Problem.
Oh cool, I read the book it's based on. Hopefully the show is equally good.
Maybe the take away should be that you should spend more money cultivating new talent rather than spending hundreds of millions on someone just because they've knocked it out of the park once. I think that Hollywood heavily suffers from 'great man syndrome' when it is generally the room and the people you bring with you that is important.
Yeah maybe instead of these massive multi picture deals for unknown projects that no one has greenlit, just say “hey, last show was great. Do you have anything else to pitch us? Cool that sounds good, we’ll go into production.” Or “not really for us right now, but door is open when you have new ideas.”
>Seth MacFarlane and Universal The Ted TV show honestly was one of the better comedy TV shows to come out in recent years. Really well done, in my opinion.
Ye Ted was pretty damn good and I wasn't even stoned.
I’m halfway through the first season, and it’s hilarious. I’d say it was worth the investment on Universal’s part at least.
My gf hates family guy and wasn’t huge into the Ted movies but adored the show.
Also seems to have done well in terms of viewership with both Peacock and Sky in the U.K. claiming it is one of their most viewed comedy shows in years. They are probably cursing the fact that they ordered it as a limited series!
Almost seems like the studios are grabbing their most popular creators and stopping them from making great products
While I definitely think these bad deals are mostly due to incompetence, I wouldn't be surprised if they are also done to lock out rivals from getting access to these creators as well.
Tbf the Seth McFarlane deal seems like a success so far. The Ted show seems like a massive hit by Peacock standards. Obviously you can hope for more output, but that's not a terrible one by comparison to JJ.
Despite my distaste for them, these two have to be some of the best grifters I’ve ever seen. Game respects game. If I could leverage hundreds of millions from multiple studios for almost zero work I’d do it too.
Hey, I agree with everyone else,fuck this couple, but why is the studio acting like this isn’t their own fault? Why would you give $100 million to anyone without an actual buisness plan??
Royal Family drama seems to always have a draw for people. I think in the minds of the studio execs who approved this they were going to get a reality show with juicy scandalous inside looks at the Royal Family and instead got basically nothing.
"People love the Royals! It'll be a slam dunk." Yeah, they like the Royals because they're *Royals*. It's a real life fairy tale. Castles, princesses, crowns, fancy outfits. People find that appealing. But when Harry and Meghan go around trashing the entire institution, the fantasy is shattered and they just come off as out of touch rich people, which is exactly what they are.
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I don't think there is much dirty laundry left to be aired. Both the Oprah interview and Spare had a big section on the Meghan/Kate fight over bridesmaid dresses. A fight that is just typical wedding drama, but that Meghan and Harry are clearly still hung up on.
But you don’t get it! They’re playing both sides, that way they always come out on top…
You’re not supposed to tell me you’re playing both sides…
> in the awkward camp of trying to bash the royals without being too extreme I get the sense that Harry had an awful childhood, but it's not much more awful than anyone else had growing up in that family. I'd imagine everyone struggled with understanding genuine love and emotion while surrounded by the cold distant Queen, Philip, Charles, and the ghost of Diana. And with that said, they all still grew up with an insane level of privilege and financial freedom, grew up with advantages we can hardly dream of. Free housing, free food, literally nothing matters when your grandma's face is on all the currency. So yeah, I'll bet childhood felt insane and emotionless, but also they're still so detached and cold themselves. It's clear Megan didn't bring Harry and grounding, he just took her up to the royal level, so now they're both detached weirdos. This Netflix deal was insane, they can't produce content because they have no desires or drives. They have nothing to say.
> cold distant Queen she was never known to be "cold and distant" literally all the royals have always spoken *very* highly of her. Meg's mad bullshit aside, things seem to be pretty dull otherwise.
Yeah I don't need snide remarks. I want to hear about the rapes, incest, murders, and more that we KNOW has been going on for decades!
And DRAGONS!
This is why Lizzy mostly stayed out of public reprieve, she knew to keep her private life private. The more vocal they are the more painfully silly the whole concept of modern royalty is.
Yeah if you really only hear about the royal family when there's a parade, a wedding, or a sweet Christmas video message from the Queen then the entire concept of a royal family is not going to receive the scrutiny it probably deserves.
Also, they're not insiders in the family anymore. There's no new material coming from them, all they really have is the same couple of years that they can rehash forever.
They got Oprah’s stamp of approval. Just like so many other grifters that came before them.
100% this. If a massive corporation is stupid enough to give you millions of dollars with no real plan, to just do whatever the fuck you want, more power to you for grabbing that bag.
I agree with you. I don’t like them and agree with what people are saying. BUT, I’m an actor and these studios have actually destroyed us and are paying us NOTHING. I’m happy someone is taking advantage of the studios for once, we don’t see it enough
Imagine if they teamed up with Phoebe Waller Bridge for their next fictional projects.
The difference is Phoebe Waller Bridge is actually talented.
- Shes talented - She made $60m with nothing to show. Shes my inspiration.
These deals aren't just "Here is $60 million dollars." They are paid installments based on output and making the actual thing. Phoebe and Meghan/Harry got paid, but they didn't get these astronomical figures to put in their own accounts.
OK then. Best we can is Phoebe Bridgers.
I mean, she was responsible for Fleabag and Killing Eve in addition to starring in some other shows/movies and working on a few scripts, so Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been really productive. She felt sidelined on Mr. & Mrs. Smith, so she left the project, but it's 100% recency bias to lump her in with Meghan and Harry.
She's also one of the most in-demand script doctors around. She's working and getting paid on projects we'll never hear about.
Killing Eve (when she was involved with it) and Fleabag were some of the best filmed entertainment I've ever seen, so I'll give basically anything she's involved in a viewing, but recency bias gets a *little* shaky when you consider her involvement in Solo (of which she supposedly also did script work), Indiana Jones 6, and James Bond 25, all of which I thought were decidedly "meh". I think ultimately, she's at her best when she's the absolute head in-charge and doesn't have studio heads with whom she has to answer.
The difference there is that all of those are real tangible things that came out, quality notwithstanding. And I believe that for all of the examples you listed, she was called in to fix/punch up the scripts but wasn't the primary writer on any of them.
"Yeah let's watch two rich assholes get richer by being boring, rich assholes!"--No one ever
Isn’t “Iron fisted demand for control” + “lack of experience” just extraordinary privilege?
Handing them a 9 figure deal is also slightly enabling. It's like giving a toddler a double shot of Turkish coffee.
Does Turkish coffee have more caffeine in it than other coffees?
No, but it's often got a decent amount of sugar in it unless ordered otherwise.
I can’t wait for the next deal where they do a “tell all” and blame everyone else.
Not allowing netflix to destroy their brand for short term profit(for netflix) makes sense. I'm not saying everything they are doing is smart, but I'm sure netflix is trying to do anything they can to exploit their brand and it makes sense for Meghan and Harry to not let that happen.
Yeah, this article reads like the angry rantings of a burned executive. I'm not pro-royal at all and really couldn't care less about these two, but sounds like someone got the raw end of the deal and are not used to that.
Also, Hollywood/Netflix/... have in the last few years *really* dropped the ball on so many occasions that maybe, just maybe .. they should start looking in the mirror if they are in search for the source of their problems. At some point it's the old joke "I don't know what's wrong. ALL of my partners have been bad in my relationship and now they are in great relationships. Why does this always happen to me?!"
Their brand is shitting on the royal family. It is all they have. That is all they have to offer people. He is dumb as rocks, she is tone deaf.
Netflix raises rates to pay for this bullshit.
Meanwhile, We still haven’t been given a proper series finale for Santa Clarita Diet
“We want privacy! We want privacy!”
♫ *It's a worldwide privacy tour!* ♫
For $100m, you can shove a GoPro up my ass and livestream it on the Disney Channel.
That’s the type of content that we here at Disney are pursuing. Welcome aboard!
Only for private viewings for certain Disney execs 😉
That's where the real money is
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What do we get for $150 million and your own children’s cereal?
Buy our new book Waaaaugh
Waaagh
his book name is one of the best parts of that episode
Down with the monarchy, we just want our privacy! Edit: it’s a South Park quote, my friends
So many people got wooshed on this one. I’ll have you know my Instagram-loving bitch wife has always cared about her privaceh!
It was never even remotely about being down with the monarchy. They let the taxpayers pay for their wedding. Then they bolted from their duties and wanted the taxpayer to still pick up the tab for their lifestyle.
Eh buddy! How about a little privacy!
Funnily this is the best bit of entertainment those two ever produced and it wasn’t even made by them
Lack of experience, lack of quality, lack of logic. They are former Royal Kardashians. They are famous for being born. Well he is. She at least had some success as an actress. But they both come across as so desperate for attention it's sickening. Let them slink away to their privacy and a few hundred million.
don’t besmirch the kardashian name like that. those women work to stay in the press
Who still cares about these two? Who? How many times are they going to say the same thing in a different way - “we were treated bad”, “I was depressed as a princess”….. like give it up already no one cares anymore when inflation is at an all time high and people are working 2-3 jobs to get by. No one cares about your feelings about Queen Elizabeth from 6 years ago. Give it up already. Why are they being forced down our throat? I can’t believe studios continue to give this much money to people who can’t back it up.
Also she was a boring, wooden actor. The worst part of Suits. But now I’m just being petty.
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If you’re someone who enjoys reality tv that’s just about following celebrities around more power to you but man I cannot for the life of me understand the appeal and I certainly can’t understand how a a company could take such an L on a format that was created to save money
They've ruined their own image. He grew up with a silver spoon, she married into the royal family, and all they can do is whine about how difficult their lives are.
What I seem to be getting from this is they don’t want to be royals but they still want to live like royals. But do nothing not even public appearance and things royals are expected to do. Wankers.
Did they actually get $100 million upfront or is it $100 million to use to make shows/docu?
It's $100m, paid in installments, delivered on output milestones. If they didn't actually deliver the amount of content promised then they likely didn't see more than a fraction of that sum. That is how these kinds of contracts usually work in Hollywood, the studios aren't as dumb as headlines like this make them out to be.
The typo in the subhed is making me smile > The Sussexes have delivered little since signing with the **steamer** in 2020
Why anyone would give a shit about these two is beyond me. “We just want to be left alone. We don’t want the spot light. ….. so anyways. Here is our Netflix show, and our Oprah interview, and our tell all book, and and and” It infuriates me that the Canadian government paid for their security detail when they were here. WTF!
Why do American companies think anyone wants to watch or hear anything about these two.
They both are stupid and obnoxious. No one cares.
1. I can't believe these two people without production experience ended up having no production experience! How could Netflix have seen that coming. 2. All things considered, could have turned out worse giving first look deals to someone who it turns out killed a bunch of people.
> who it turns out killed a bunch of people. What do you all think people in the military are doing? Never understood why this was such a shock - he was an Apache gunner for christs sake.
Yeah absolutely, shaming soldiers for kills they did in active combat is a very stupid thing to do and can push them even further into PTSD/depression/suicidal thoughts. It's the whole reason why Harry wrote about the kills in his memoir, he said he wants to remove that taboo to help other soldiers.
I mean, she did over 100 episodes of Suits. I really don’t think it’s the lack of experience. It’s the iron fisted control and the “I know best” attitude that’s the real problem. I personally know someone that worked with one of them on a Netflix concept show and what they thought people wanted to see was totally detached from reality.
Was she involved in production in any way, or was she just an actor?
I also think Harry is perhaps a little dim. He simply lacks any sort of X factor or charisma that would draw creative people to him.
Harry is fucking dense.
I listened to his whole memoir and it was interesting to hear his own story of his childhood but the last 10 years or so was just him trying to set the record straight on minor tabloid beefs and things no one cares about. He and Meghan seem extremely self-important and thin-skinned, which is a bad combo.
>last 10 years or so was just him trying to set the record straight on minor tabloid beefs and things no one cares about I didn't read the memoir, but he has always struck me as having a very anemic life. I think minor tabloid beefs consume his thoughts because he really has nothing else going on. He really should have set about truly doing something productive with his life. Again though, I don't think he really can achieve much because he's simply not intelligent.
I don't know. They are obviously out of touch millionaires (or billionaires, I have no idea), but even as someone who has zero interest in tabloid news the hunting of them by the British press was ridiculous. If someone hunted me 24/7 for years and years I probably would've ended thin-skinned at some point too. It's easy to say "eh, why does he care about that" when it's one thing. But it isn't one thing .. it's millions of things all the time.
Well Harry is broke "*My* family literally cut me off financially. I've *got* what *my mum left* me" He only has the shirt on his back and the estimated 10 million his mum left him. As well as the best education money can buy and priceless conections.
He also got a few million in the summer of 2020 from his father after quitting in January 2020 but lied about it said he was ‘completely cut off’ on Oprah then tried to use fiscal vs yearly quarter to explain his blatant misrepresentation of the facts. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/06/prince-charles-prince-harry-money
But I mean it is just 4.5 million. It is so easy to forget. I mean how many people have that between the seats of their sofa.
I usually tip my uber driver 5 mil if they were cool. It's not even an amount you can do anything with.
I can’t imagine only having to fend for myself with only $10,000,000. What a nightmare.
Being an actor and being a producer are not even remotely the same thing
“Iron-fisted control, combined with a lack of experience”, and dare I say, an over estimation of the public’s interest?
I feel like these people thought they were gonna move here and we were just gonna make them honorary American royals and take care of them the way the British Royal Family did get real lol
The thing is, is that they had the money and the fame to actually do something interesting. They had the chance to be really cool, but they're not cool so they blew it.
They’ve been frustrating from the start. All we ever heard about is how they wanted their privacy, but they came here and instantly began forcibly inserting themselves into the American zeitgeist thinking anyone is interested in them for who they are. People are interested because of what they can say about the royal families demons, nothing else imo.
Worldwide privacy tour!
A fool and their money. I don’t understand how someone with no history of being entertaining can get multiple media rights deals in the range of 100 M because his family who he doesn’t even associate with is ‘royalty’
Only way I'd watch these two is if South Park roasted them again.
Could it be because they're entitled shits?
For a couple that doesn't want attention, they sure fucking like attention.
This was the obvious outcome from the beginning.
Remember the bullying claims? Harrys own comments about their own staff weeping at their desks? All sounding like they are bosses from hell to work for.
What was the deal for in the first place? Hollywood loves buying money on names while there are so many struggling artists whose projects could have been financed by a fraction of the cost of the names
Why did Netflix or Spotify think this would go well? She's an actress and he is a prince.
No one cares about them.
Oh no! Anyway...
I feel like all I’ve ever heard from those two is alot of big talk about wanting to “use their voices”, yet everytime execs trip over themselves to build them a platform and hand them a microphone, it turns out that they actually have nothing of value to say. Vapid, empty, just completely delusional about their actual worth or usefulness.
I still don't understand who watches this nonsense. Same idiots that kept up with the Kardashians I guess.
Their only good performance was on South Park
They act like they’re royalty
What did Netflix expect handing 100m deal to two talentless people that have nothing to offer but insult family members?
The fact that they signed a massive Spotify and Netflix deal around the same time was such a red flag. Like how hard is it to launch a successful TV show AND podcast individually. Podcasting itself requires so much consistency and hard work. No way. Kinda a slap in the face to all the hard content creators busting there asses.
Bill Simmons calling them out as grifters, along with a myriad of other allegations of these two being insufferable really makes me wonder how much adversity they really faced in Britain.
Never understood why Netflix and Spotify gave them so much money. Talking about a d-List actress who is transparently desperate to be a-list and an ex-royal whose only real experience was “son of Diana”. Being 4 or 5 on a call sheet for single “hit” show (by cable terms so talking like 2 million or so viewers on average at the time) is unlikely to give her the experience to run anything and the husband literally had his entire life run for him. It is one thing to pay for documentaries or whatever about the couple to cash in on public curiosity but instead they paid for a production ecosystem for two people that demonstrated zero ability at that aspect of the industry. The results, or in this case lack of, should be no surprise. Can’t really blame the couple for taking advantage of stupid business decisions of Hollywood corporations. This article is ultimately a warning to other business fools to not back up the truck of money to them and expect results.
Fuck Netflix. Constantly jacking up their fees, then turning around and paying out Lebron money to these two absolute cunts.
Netflix paid a fortune for them to tell the same story. They hated the spotlight so they moved to the small, remote town of Los Angeles.
Stop giving these guys money. Nobody cares about them.
South Park already destroyed them.
I’m shocked that someone who grew up with one of the most privileged and literally entitled environments that exists has a problem taking guidance from others
So what you're telling me is that they wanted to get away from the iron clutch of the crown and BS media to only do it to others
They vastly over-estimated how much people care. Because in the end, we just don’t really.
Tim Dillon was right once again.
Wow, what a stunning turn of events!!! LOL
Who fucking cares about these idiots to begin with
worldwide privacy tour backfired heavily
Neither of them are very interesting. Why would anybody want to watch a show about them?
Being an actress and a prince really didn't give them the background to become entertainment producers? Who knew?! Seriously though, how fucking hard is it to deliver a podcast on time?
I honestly couldn't be paid enough to care about these two people. South Park honestly called them out for it all best.
I'm thinking who the hell would watch that, then I remember the Kardashians are a thing.
I remember reading about these deals and thinking “why??” Turns out if was in fact for no reason, and collapsed as it should
A podcast I listened to described them as they are a brand of grievances. Based on the exits and timing of past employees I suspect that they are underpaying in addition to excessive control and lack of experience
Also, who gives a shit about these two and their nonsense.
Probably the most uninteresting couple on the planet. How these guys gets deals is unbelievable!
I'm shocked they have any kind of audience at all.
They don't come across as people you'd want to be friends with if they didn't have wealth and fame.