Diane Krueger and Kiernan Shipka star in a new series, which is the Hollywood satire in the workplace – “Fatal Attraction”. Rocco hopes this is the future.
Shark Swimming has the potential of a breakthrough streaming series. There are recognizable young stars in Kiernan Shipka and Finn Jones and a strong performance of Diane Krueger. Then there’s Donald Sutherland in what is perhaps his most repulsive role as a villain to date: a Hollywood patriarch who rescues from his literal deathbed some of the most astonishing moments of sexual exploitation on the show (and there are many).
Given the monthly pleasure of “You”, the palace intrigue of “House of Cards” and the ratio of pizza photos per episode, surpassed only by “Minx”, it would be like home for many streamers. But – a surprise! – When the first season of eight episodes of the show falls on Friday, it will be available exclusively on the Roku Channel, free for 60 million people who use the company’s boxes, sticks and smart TVs each month.
Rob Holmes, Roku’s vice president of programming, sat down with IndieWire at SXSW, where the first two episodes of the show premiered. He said original programming was vital to Roku’s efforts to remain a major force in the streaming economy as a content provider and as a portal for users who want to access Netflix and Disney +.
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“It’s not like anything we’ve done so far. It’s really well done, very shiny, but very suffocating, “Holmes said of the series, which is an adaptation of the 1994 film with a gender reassignment, starring Kevin Spacey and Frank Wally – if you cross it, say,” Fatal ” attraction ”. ”
“I think this is really, really a turning point for us,” he said. “We have this audience, we are one of the first five channel platforms in the world’s leading AVOD market. How do you enter this next phase of growth by giving users access to first-class content that they can’t get otherwise? ”
For Roku, free is key. It launched in 2007 as a plug-in and the first device to allow access to Netflix, but Roku entered the content game in 2017 with Roku Channel. The expansion in the originals came last year after the company bought Quibi’s library of more than 75 shows such as The Diaries of Andy Cohen, Kevin Hart’s action series Die Hart, Renault 911! Renaissance and The Most Dangerous Game. starring Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz. Later that year, Roku bought the company behind This Old House, aptly named This Old House Ventures; there is now a 42-season library on the show and the opportunity to broadcast spinophs.
Production of another Roku original film, Strange: Al Jankovic’s Strange Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe, began in February; the picture at first glance made people talk. An on-demand library of movies and television gives Roku users a base for entertainment, but Holmes said exclusive, lively content is another strategy to ensure regular use. He also hopes to attract new users.
“You have to have this mix, you need these things that stand out as the reason someone comes,” Holmes said. “Then they come and see everything else that’s there for them, for free.” That’s where Shark Swimming comes in.
Roku can use the traffic that a sexy show can bring: Shares in the publicly traded corporation are currently running at a quarter of the heights they reached last summer. And analysts at MoffettNathanson still believe Roku’s shares are overvalued: on Wednesday, the company reiterated its belief that Roku should be valued at $ 100, or almost $ 13 per share less than today.
Shark Swimming has enough stars, sex and enough IP recognition to withstand the brunt of trying to prove MoffettNathanson’s media analysts wrong. The satire on the abuse of Hollywood work culture was produced by Lionsgate and written by showrunner Kathleen Robertson, an actress perhaps best known for her role as Claire Arnold in Beverly Hills, 90210. Directed by Tucker Gates, his experience includes Netflix’s “House of Cards” and Apple’s “The Morning Show.” (Ironically, one of them is with Spacey; the other depends on the abuse of Hollywood’s work culture.)
Shipka is in the role of an intern who works in the office of the head of the studio Krueger. The couple is moving into a multi-layered nightmare of manipulation, familiar to anyone who has seen the headlines about Harvey Weinstein (or Spacey). One thing that sets Shark Swimming apart is its provocative depictions of the sexual exploits of its power-hungry characters and the portrayal of a sleek, still-living in Los Angeles. These elements meet in a scene where Krueger’s character stops at a homeless camp in his $ 90,000 Audi and invites a shirtless skateboarder to have fun in the back seat.
Roku executives would be happy if Swimming became the next social media sensation. The premiere of the red carpet in Austin, which marked Roku’s entry on the festival stage, was the first step. “It’s free, in front of the paid wall,” Holmes said. “This is something you usually need to subscribe to to gain access.”
In Holmes’ eyes, this is an atypical edition – but so is everything else about Roku entering the game with original content. The company’s balancing act to make its hardware essential for big players like Netflix and Disney, even when competing with them, is a thin stretch of walking rope. With the best-selling TV operating system in the United States for two years and devices starting at $ 25, Roku is one of the most popular and easy ways for people to access streaming content. Disney and Netflix pay a lot to get special Roku remote buttons. And when they want their latest movie or show to make a big splash, they’re throwing even more money to take over the home screen of millions of Roku devices – as Disney did for the premiere of Disney + at Turning Red in February. You can trust that Swimming will receive such treatment.
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