The cable company I worked at from 2014-2016 only serviced specific areas in Alabama. They serviced the city of Birmingham (which is just under 70% African-American) and rural Alabama (which is mostly white). A different cable company serviced the suburbs (though they are the same company now).

Almost all of our merch was Starz-focused and revolved around Power. That's what people called in for. That's what they wanted us to pitch.

If anyone was obsessed with a franchise at that point in time, it was The Walking Dead. You didn't call in for that because you had it as part of your cable package. I cannot stress enough how big of a deal that was regionally. Everyone I knew was obsessed with it. It was absolutely a communal experience. This completely fell off over the past few years.

Well, most of our customers were African-American so not necessarily. However, if a lot of Starz's customer base is just there for Power, I don't think they're going to be interested in watching Party Down.

This was the case when I worked the cable company 6-8 years ago. Our customers didn't care about HBO (I have literally never met anyone in Alabama who watched GoT other than me) and liked Showtime occasionally, but Starz was very, very popular because of Power. We got tons and tons of Starz merch. I've still got a bunch of that crap in my car.

I think the spin-offs will be fine but I can't see them doing more than one season of the main show if it's going to cost that much money for that little content each time.

Yeah, that's what the VF article seemed to indicate. The rumor I heard a long time ago was that Madden wasn't the real male lead and it was actually a German actor. I have no idea who the other person was supposed to be.

I heard a rumor quite a while ago that Madden wasn't actually the real lead (no idea about Priyanka) and there was some sort of major twist related to that. Can you enlighten us on that one?

I think they were in production for at least thirteen months (if not more) which sounds extremely excessive.

IMO, they got lucky with Marvel.

Their subsequent projects have easily exposed their flaws.

Hence why I said streaming ratings. Point being, TROP was very popular, but not talked about widely online. It was also preferred by "older" viewers (adults 25-54) to HOTD.

They won't and they aren't going to get that money back. Other than the reports on how much money this was costing, I have rarely seen this project even acknowledged since it was greenlit back in 2019. It has rarely been acknowledged as a project to look out for in 2023 or acknowledged by Amazon. I heard about The Rings of Power and Daisy Jones for months and months.

I find it hard to believe that Amazon considers this a crown jewel at this point and their most promising program. They seem to be starting the PR from scratch.

The Butch Cassidy show is also a franchise headed by the Russo brothers. This is why I doubt they're tied long term to the main version of Citadel, because they seemingly want to already start a new one.

I don't think this show is a "dad" show, though. It's too internationally focused for that. I don't see the dad types taking to Madden for a variety of reasons.

Their main problem is that their audience tends to be older and likely more conservative. They will watch the crap out of something like The Rings of Power and Jack Ryan (The Rings of Power whopped House of the Dragon in streaming ratings every week but one) but they won't talk about it online.

The Boys is their only real water-cooler show, I think. I don't think this show will break the pattern.

Typo. It's actually (allegedly) 300 million dollars.

That doesn't sound cheap to me.

They're going to need very high ratings to justify the cost of this series. Supposedly the production costs were 160 million at a minimum.

I don't think it's going to be as popular as their other military thriller stuff like Jack Ryan and The Terminal List. No idea how the critics will see it.

There's been quite a few pieces about the behind the scenes troubles of this series. Business Insider claims the show may have spent nearly 300 million dollars for three hours of content. The Hollywood Reporter reported that several writers and producers quit because the Russos had two competing versions of the series and couldn't decide which one they preferred. It's a mess, and the final product likely is going to be...well, worthy of the kind of movies the Russo brothers make for Netflix.

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-studios-russo-brothers-citadel-spy-drama-costliest-shows-ever-2023-2

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/russo-bros-amazon-series-citadel-1235210256/

I don't think any actors from The Rings of Power have a chance in hell of being nominated.

This is the second thread lamenting why Perry wasn't able to become a bigger star in less than a week. Why are you guys trying so hard to dunk on a dead guy?

They weren't nominated for anything at the Director's Guild Awards, Producer's Guild Awards, Screen Actor's Guild Awards, or the Writer's Guild Awards....which seems to indicate that the industry is not too fond of the show. Being nominated for the Golden Globe Awards and Critic's Choice Awards could be seen as more of a reflection of media hype and "thanks for the ratings" more than anything else.

So it's a bit of a stretch to assume they are going to nominate multiple actors in every category, including ones who have not gotten any other nominations.

No way will House of the Dragon get all those additional nominations for people who haven't picked up anything yet, especially after all of the guilds rejected them.

They're supposed to directly insult their fans, costing them the very audience that makes them popular, just to make YOU feel better about it?

Seriously? You're asking them why they don't try harder to lose money?