The first six episodes of the first season of the musical drama TV series “The Get Down” had already been aired on Netflix in August. The remaining six episodes of the 12-episode Season 1 shall reportedly be streamed on the streaming service early next year.
Although there have already been talks about the second season of “The Get Down” being in jeopardy because of the huge cost of producing the show, Netflix, later on, confirmed that it is paying big money for the TV series but it does not intend to cancel it for its sophomore season.
During Netflix’s quarterly earnings call on November 7, company chief content officer Ted Sarandos confirmed that “The Get Down” is indeed an expensive piece of television.
He explained however that it is primarily because the TV series is very large scale and cinematic. He also revealed that their new season of content, including “The Get Down,” was traveling globally as they really had projected it, notes Deadline.
Sarandos admits that “The Get Down” may be an issue of expense versus viewership to some but they have found the show to be attractive on a global scale.
He explained that Netflix is still seeing how the show is going to unfold for the remainder of its first season.
The chief content officer of Netflix added that they are very excited about how the show has been performing, particularly in a quarter where they had four shows that turned out to be kind of big event programs for Netflix.
An expensive proposition from the start
Even before Netflix decided to dip its hands into producing “The Get Down,” the streaming service knew that it would be an expensive proposition.
The series from Academy Award-winning husband-wife team of Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, Pulitzer-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, hip-hop historian Nelson George and iconic rappers MC Nas and Grandmaster Flash was expected to cost around $11 million per episode for 12 episodes, which all-in would have totaled about $120M.
But as it turned out, Netflix is paying more like $16M per episode because inclusive in the total is worldwide rights to the IP, and factored into that are the premiums that Netflix paid to acquire those rights exclusively.
Other costs include start-up, visual effects, music rights and production design. Of the $16 million, around $11 million was the final production expenses per episode, $3 million to $4 million over the initial budget following a string of filming shutdowns, staffing changes, and script rewrites.
In the small screen, when a TV drama is produced for $6M or higher an episode, it is considered expensive.
So adding all the costs on “The Get Down,” including the worldwide rights and premiums, it brings the total for the 12-episode Season 1 closer to the $190M-plus range.
Breaking the bank
Ted Sarandos confirmed that Netflix does not plan to scrimp on “The Get Down” for its second season so it intends to really break the bank for the show and other future projects, reports Movie News Guide.
Apparently, the streaming giant wants to go all out henceforth not only with the second season of “The Get Down” but also its other produced shows.
Thus, many are saying that while Season 1 of “The Get Down” has yet to complete pending the airing of its six remaining episodes, Netflix appeared to have promised that its Season 2 would be much better.
The first six episodes of the 12-episode “The Get Down” Season 1 premiered on August 12. According to Symphony Advanced Media, “The Get Down” in the first 31 days of release garnered 3.2 million total viewers among American adults in 18-49 years old demographics, with an average audience rating in the demo of 2.33.
But the buzz for “Get Down” quickly died down, falling 40% in the second week and 21% and 30%, respectively, over the next two weeks, to 7.46 million demand expressions for the week of September 4 to 10, according to Parrot Analytics.