Producing : Jupiter's Failed Legacy by Martin Reese

Some items in the article I don't believe:

(1) "...When Jupiter was canceled, some observers presumed bad metrics were the cause. But a day after the cancellation, Nielsen showed Jupiter atop its streaming chart, generating 696 million minutes of view time in the week of May 3-9..."

Well if you are cognizant of the streaming world - you know the actual numbers are private and therefore subject to manipulation. Nielsen, who's always had reliability issues with it's stats, can't fix that and the streamers aren't about to help them. Least of all Netflix.

(2) "On June 2, however, Jupiter was no more, with the streamer informing the cast that they were being let go as the series garnered a less-than-stellar 38 percent critics’ score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes."

I believe they might have said this to the cast, but... no. No one with a brain cancels a show that is pulling big numbers just because "rotten tomatoes" (or anyone else) has given it any rating at all, good or bad. Aside from accepting support to rate things from time to time, Rotten Tomatoes is not a Netflix insider, and has no idea how actual audience is reacting. Those metrics are private to Netflix.

The real issue, I believe, is the huge over-budget which in the subscription-based streaming world makes it impossible to recover costs regardless of the numbers. This is a lesson that major studios, though they can see it on paper, haven't yet learned hard enough. Netflix, the wannabe outsider to the major studio club seems mindlessly emulating part of the big budget model, and that is partly because they keep bringing on executives who know nothing else and can't fathom the democratic economics of streaming. It's not going to get any easier and it's going to be longer and longer - maybe never - before Netflix sees a profit. 1That's my opinion.

Netflix didnt blink spending on The Queens Gambit; that show supposedly cost $20M to $25M per episode.

Mark Millar is a billionaire franchise brand; I predict a divorce between he and Netflix.

Dan MaxXx I'm shocked by the cost per episode of The Queen's Gambit. Don't understand why it would cost that much. At any rate it was critically acclaimed while Jupiter's Legacy wasn't. Shows like The Boys and Invincible got more great reviews. Queen's Gambit was a well-told story. Story matters more than budget. Which is why I said regardless of the budget the job of the showrunner is to bring the project in within the budget. How does adding more money make the story better?

Dan MaxXx Where did you see those budget numbers? Because that would be bizarre in the extreme: 7 episodes costing $140m-$175m and it pulled 68m viewers on Netflix, and by far the majority of which were already subscribers (ie,, there is little new money coming in the door due just to that show). In fact, I have searched high and low, including press releases, announcements, etc. and it seems Netflix has gone to great lengths to ensure budget has not been announced, speculated upon or even mentioned anywhere in it's own media or interviews, etc. Not that I believe many of the numbers coming out of Netflix anyway,,, (compare Game of Thrones season 8 maxed out at $10m/episode)

Martin Reese I dont know but Top people make a lot of salary money, and corp tv executives get bonuses. Jupiter Legacy, Game Of Thrones, Queens Gambit, and Lord of the Rings tv series have high expectations and cost big money, not all about VFX. Scorsese's new feature film for Apple is over $200M. (add another 30% in secret salaries).

@shadow, I trust my small circle of people who do big budget tv for a living. One of my VFX folks secretly wrapped on Loki tv series last year and this person made so much money, the family bought new Tesla cars.

For 7 episodes, that works out to $20 to $25 million each - that does sound pretty extreme to me also. I spent some time as a staff writer on a few Prime Time Big budget network shows a few (many) years ago. They had a dedicated sound stage in S Cal with A teams & remote B teams up in WA and we were constantly traveling up & down the Coast. I wasn't privy to the actual budgets but I'm pretty sure they weren't anywhere close to that - must be inflation. Actually the nail that finally shut that show down was the Unions demands for extreme wage increases. (That I do know.)

Dan MaxXx But that wasn't my question. Where do those numbers come?

Shadow, inside people. Believe or dont

...and at first glance, I thought this was about Jupiter Ascending. My bad. Good article. At first glance - I think the show didn't have time to grow legs and gain an audience. Thank you for sharing!

Loki, Dan MaxXx is $25 million per episode. That cost is not surprising. Its VFX heavy. Your friend making high dollars is not surprising. At 6 episodes that's a $150 million budget. It's Marvel/Disney. A big budget is part of their brand.

Dan M...'inside people?" I generally don't believe anything I hear and only about half of what I see. But that's just me.

Dan MaxXx Well I don't doubt you believe your people. But I have seen the series and I really, really don't. The production value just isn't there, and the asserted budget is not justified on a subscription service. Big budgets are trumpeted from the mountain tops because they are part of the marketing. Here, Netflix has (somehow successfully) done it's level best to ensure no one knows or mentions the budget, anywhere. Which gives me pause. Those numbers being private and unverifiable, the studios lie their faces off all the time about what they actually spent, and Netflix isn't shy about doing that either. So there is something weird about this that I would love to piece together.

VFX is still very labor intensive and profits (if any) are razor thin. When a big show hits crunch time, the teams easily hit 100+ hour weeks. Companies add more freelancers and gear and push hard to the end.

For a show like Loki, the VFX can be obvious. For a show like Queen's Gambit, the VFX has to be invisible, and as subtle as possible. Even harder with period pieces.

The VFX for Netflix shows HAVE to be done in 4K. Network shows don't have to do deliver higher than broadcast HD, and feature films usually are 2K.

With the digital nature of media, studios do use VFX to fix or change edit or story issues. VFX shot counts are usually more than originally intended.

Here is one of the VFX reel for Queen's Gambit:

https://vimeo.com/470787325

If Jupiter’s Legacy didn't meet expectations, its easier for Netflix to cancel now and retool. The article says they plan for it to be the shared universe for a new series.

Tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen says Netflix is similar to AOL. They aren't encumbered by box office grosses or TV ratings. They solely need to increase and maintain their subscriber base. As of early this year, they have 73 million subscribers in North America, and 203 million subscribers worldwide.