Netflix invested  million in a series that never took off

Netflix invested $55 million in a series that never took off

The science fiction series Conquest it was a big gamble for Netflix. In 2018, the company won a dispute with rivals Amazon, HBO Max and Apple and spent more than $55 million, about R$270 million, on overproduction. But he saw all expectations go up in smoke due to the curious habits of creator and director Carl Erik Rinsch.

Shortly after signing the contract with Netflix, however, Carl Erik Rinsch’s behavior changed. He spent 46 million dollars, about R$225 million, on filming in Sao Paulo, Montevideo and Budapest. The recording was marked by a series of controversies. In Brazil, for example, a representative of the actors’ union visited the set after reporting mistreatment by extras.

But it doesn’t end here. After running out of money, Rinsch asked Netflix for another $11 million. With the amount, the director immediately invested 10.5 million dollars in the stock market. Among his bets was a company that claimed to be in the final stages of developing an antiviral drug for Covid-19. Result: Rinsch lost $6 million in just a few days.

In messages exchanged in the same period with Bentancor and Netflix executives, he demonstrated a deteriorated mental state: among his crazy theories, he claimed to be able to predict where lightning would strike, when volcanoes would erupt and in what ways the COVID-19. spread throughout the world.

With the rest of the money, the director then invested in the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. But this time he hit the jackpot, making a profit of $27 million. Then, he spent nearly a third of the money on luxury items, including a watch worth more than $350,000, six sports cars (five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari), as well as extravagant clothes and furniture.

That’s when Netflix ended its partnership with the director and said it might try to sell Conquest to other affected broadcasters or streaming platforms, provided they compensate for the loss. In response, Rinsch sued the company.

The director claims that the money spent was contractually his, that any items purchased with it would be incorporated as props into the film. Conquest, and that the platform still owes him $14 million of the expected money from the sale of the series. Netflix claims that the payment of this money was tied to meeting production goals and that Rinsch never delivered a single finished episode. The case is ongoing in the US court system, still in the arbitration stage.

The post Netflix invested $55 million in a series that never took off appeared first on Olhar Digital.

Source: Olhar Digital

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