How Netflix plans to make One Piece the new goose

The meteoric rise of Stranger Things and Wednesday was a boon for Netflix executives, but also a lesson. Both of these series forced the platform to scramble to secure marketing and licensing deals after their launches. If the broadcaster’s next adventure series, One Piece, turns out to be as much of a phenomenon as early reports indicate, they’ll be ready this time.

Of all the movies and series presented during the Tudum event organized by Netflix on June 17, One Piece – the TV series adaptation of the hit manga – is the one that caused the most ink flows and all the rest. São Paulo event where AlloCiné was present. The lead actor of the series, Inaki Godoi, saw his Instagram followers increase from 28,000 to 450,000 before the series premiered on August 31st.

Monster attack plan

In anticipation of this madness, Netflix has pulled out all the stops. Netflix’s marketing and PR teams have been busy drumming up fan interest at 10 events around the world, including Los Angeles, Paris, Jakarta and Tokyo, ahead of the series’ launch.

A merchandising department is also ready, Zara’s clothing line “One Piece” will launch in September after the series begins. Even more merchandise will be available at stores such as Hot Topic (US department stores), Bandai and Hot Toys for action figures, Liverpool (the top department store chain in Mexico) and HMV (the UK equivalent of Fnac). United).

This type of preparation is unprecedented for a launch and first season, and it shows that Netflix believes in the success of One Piece. And that’s despite his latest attempt to adapt the popular Japanese IP into the action series, Cowboy Bebop, starring John Cho. After years in the making, this sci-fi western flopped and was canceled less than a month after its November 2021 release.

“What we’ve learned is that fans expect you to stay true to the source material.” says executive producer Marty Adelstein, whose Tomorrow Studios produced Cowboy Bebop for Netflix before One Piece .”When we read the comments, it was always “they didn’t make this character like this or that”… it really taught us a lot about what we need to do with this series.“.

The negative reactions to Cowboy Bebop were also a warning that an adaptation of the equally beloved One Piece series would face the same potential criticism. But with manga writer Eiichiro Oda and manga editor Shueisha producing the project, Tomorrow Studios and Netflix had the best team to keep the series true to its source material.

“Everyone’s goal was to make sure that when watching the series, you thought it was a live-action version of the manga, continuing Oda’s legacy.” says Becky Clements, president of Tomorrow Studios, which partnered with Oda and Shueisha in 2017 to acquire the rights to turn One Piece into a live-action series.People have the opportunity to see it in a different genre and still have the same reaction and feelings towards the narrative.“

Netflix ordered the series in January 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill. According to Peter Friedlander, Netflix’s head of scripted series in the United States and Canada, Netflix quickly put together a “Nakama” — a tight-knit team like Luffy and his Straw Hats featured in One Piece — staffed with American executives. from the Japanese and Korean Netflix dedicated adaptations.

“We have never done anything like this beforeFriedlander explains.The logistics that come with it—the late-night calls, the morning calls, the emails—it just changes the recipe for how you support the show, and I think that was a really special element, kind of the secret sauce, because we wanted to have different perspectives. Worship“.

One Piece co-showrunner Steven Maeda, who created the series with Matt Owens, explains that the series, which is filmed in Cape Town, South Africa and is Netflix’s biggest production in Africa, has benefited.A healthy, healthy, healthy budget” and Oda’s approval throughout the process.

Official confirmation of the author is clearly valuable, even essential, to guarantee the authenticity of the series – and therefore its success, which will only have a positive effect on commercial outlets and the overall marketing strategy.

One Piece is currently available on Netflix.