Netflix’s first original series is about to come back for a third season. The company just released a trailer for Lilyhammer: Season 3.
Here’s the description:
Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano is back… and still cold as ice. Steven Van Zandt stars in an all-new season of the Netflix original series Lilyhammer.
The season will make its debut on November 21. The first two seasons combine for sixteen episodes, so if you have some catching up to do, it shouldn’t be too big of an ordeal.
Image via YouTube
Netflix announced on Monday that it has renewed Lilyhammer, its first original series, for a third season. This follows uncertainty expressed by star Steven Van Zandt last year.
Netflix didn’t give much more in the way of details about the third season, but did say that the new episodes will debut in 2014. The second season just became available in December, so we expect a similarly timed released for the next one.
“We are proud to bring back Lilyhammer for a third season,” said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. “Lilyhammer is the type of global show that Netflix members around the world have discovered and love and season three will see that world expand even more.”
The show was developed and produced by Rubicon TV AS, and is co-produced by Netflix for NRK/Netflix in association with Red Arrow International. It’s distributed by Red Arrow International. Van Zandt serves as one of the executive producers.
It’s unclear if Season 3 will continue with the eight-episode format of the previous two seasons.
Netflix said last year that it would double its investment in original content. Apparently that includes loyalty to the early titles that have put it on the map as a content producer.
Image via YouTube
Today marks a pretty special occasion in Netflix history. It’s the first time a second season of one of its original shows has become available for viewing.
Lilyhammer: Season 2 is now available to stream.
There are eight episodes. The titles are: Milwall Brick, Out of Africa, Fiddler’s Green, The Black Toe, The Island, Special Education, The Freezer and Ghosts.
It’s not only another season of a Netflix show. It represents the beginning of cycle 2 of Netflix’s big gamble on original content, which appears to be working out quite well for the company. The first year of Netflix originals has been a smashing success in terms of publicity, critical acclaim, fan engagement and award nominations, if nothing else.
House of Cards: Season 2 won’t be too far behind, hitting availability on Valentines’ Day. Throughout the year, we’ll get new seasons of Hemlock Grove, Orange is the New Black, Derek, Mako Mermaids, and new shows we haven’t seen yet. It’s still unclear when we’ll see more Arrested Development, though it does appear to be inevitable.
Image: Netflix (YouTube)
Earlier this month, Netflix released the official trailer for the upcoming second season of its first original series, Lilyhammer. The company also announced the release date as December 13th. Now would be a good time to get caught up with the first season if you haven’t already done so.
Netflix has now uploaded a new clip from Season 2:
The second season debuted on Norwegian channel NRK recently, and got pretty good reviews. The Hollywood Reporter said this of the plot:
A new plotline has the British mob trying to muscle in on Frank’s burgeoning crime operation, a twist that allows Lilyhammer the opportunity to pack season two with British guest stars, including Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones), Tony Pitts (Sherlock), Alan Ford (Snatch), Amy Beth Hayes (Doctor Who) and Amit Shah (The Infidel).
We know Frank (Steven Van Zandt) gets to deal with a baby throughout the season.
Image: Netflix
We’ve known that Lilyhammer’s sophomore season was coming to Netflix in December for a while, but now the company has set a concrete date: December 13th.
If you haven’t watched the first season yet, you have just over a month to do so (which should be pretty easy considering it’s only 8 episodes).
Here’s the trailer for Season 2:
The show recently debuted on Norwegian channel NRK, and got pretty good ratings with one in five Norwegians reportedly tuning in for the season premiere.
The Hollywood Reporter said this of the new season a couple weeks ago:
A new plotline has the British mob trying to muscle in on Frank’s burgeoning crime operation, a twist that allows Lilyhammer the opportunity to pack season two with British guest stars, including Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones), Tony Pitts (Sherlock), Alan Ford (Snatch), Amy Beth Hayes (Doctor Who) and Amit Shah (The Infidel).
The description that accompanies the trailer says:
Lilyhammer follows former gangster Frank “The Fixer” Tagliano (Steven Van Zandt) as he enters the federal witness protection program trading the mean streets of New York for the icy fjords of Norway, forging a new life among the locals of Lillehammer.
Season two continues with Frank living under the alias of Johnny Henriksen, a successful nightclub owner and father of two. As if life couldn’t get more complicated than balancing fatherhood with running a criminal operation, everything Frank cares for is threatened when his former mob associates find out he is still alive.
Lilyhammer was the first Netflix original series, and is the first to get a second season, though second seasons of House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, Orange is the New Black and Derek are all on the way.
Image: Netflix
We’ve known for quite some time that Netflix would release the second season of its first original series, Lilyhammer, sometime in 2013, but Netflix hasn’t talked a whole lot about it beyond that.
We now know, thanks to Netflix’s DVD page for the show, that it will be coming in December. We’ve yet to confirm an exact date.
The show has made its debut on Norwegian channel NRK, and apparently received pretty good ratings. The Hollywood Reporter says:
The show, which Netflix carries in the U.S., debuted to a 51.9 percent share of the 12-plus demographic in Norway, with one in five Norwegians tuning in.
…
A new plotline has the British mob trying to muscle in on Frank’s burgeoning crime operation, a twist that allows Lilyhammer the opportunity to pack season two with British guest stars, including Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones), Tony Pitts (Sherlock), Alan Ford (Snatch), Amy Beth Hayes (Doctor Who) and Amit Shah (The Infidel).
Here’s a look at what viewers can expect:
Image: Netflix
Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos spoke to at the RTS Cambridge Convention, where he revealed that the company plans to double its spending on original content in the coming years.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sarandos said that originals are currently at ten percent of the budget, and that they expect them to grow to twenty percent.
While Netflix launched its first original series, Lilyhammer, in 2012, 2013 has clearly been the year of Netflix. The company started off strong early in the year with the nine-time Emmy-nominated House of Cards, before quickly following with Hemlock Grove, Arrested Development and the much-talked about Orange is the New Black.
Since then, the company has quietly put out the kid/teen-targeted Mako Mermaids (which has new episodes debuting this weekend), and this week, it just launched the Ricky Gervais dramedy Derek.
The company has also been releasing a number of exclusive stand-up comedy performances from comedians like John Hodgman, Rob Schneider, Doug Stanhope, Mike Birbiglia and Kathleen Madigan. Netflix made headlines with news that it would be releasing other exclusives from Aziz Ansari and Russell Peters (which includes both a stand-up special and a “docu-series”). A special from comedian Marc Maron is also reportedly in the pipeline.
Other Netflix originals that are expected to debut in the coming year include Marco Polo, Narcos and Sense8, not to mention the stuff we’ll be seeing from the big DreamWorks animation deal Netflix announced back in June.
Second seasons of Lilyhammer, House of Cards, Hemlock Grove and Orange is the New Black are all on the way. An Arrested Development movie (which Netflix will likely be involved with) is in the works, probably along with another season eventually, and Ricky Gervais has already indicated he’ll do another season of Derek (it’s not yet clear if Netflix will be involved, but it seems very likely).
And that’s just the stuff we know about. It sounds like we’re going to be hearing about a lot more Netflix originals in the not too distant future. It will be interesting to see if this has a significant impact on the amount of non-original content it licenses. So far, it hasn’t been much of a problem.
Word is that all of this original content is making subscribers want to stick around, which should certainly please investors. The company’s stock hit a record high this week, by the way.
Netflix has released a new advertisement for its original programming, splicing together scenes from House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Hemlock Grove, Arrested Development, Derek and Lilyhammer.
The ad briefly teases the second season of Lilyhammer, which is due out this fall. No release date is given. It simply says, “Coming Soon.”
The video follows a similar one recently released by Netflix, which touts all of its originals’ Emmy nominations.
In a letter to investors in July, Netflix said Lilyhammer: Season 2 would debut sometime this year. A recent report indicated that it would be coming in the fall, and that a third season is still up in the air.
Image: Netflix (YouTube)
We know the second season of Lilyhammer, Netflix’s first original series, will be coming out, but things aren’t so clear for the show after that.
A Facebook community page about Lilyhammer points to an article from VG.no talking about uncertainty about the third season. It’s in Norwegian, but here’s a snippet from the Google-translated version:
Steven Van Zandt’s still not sure if “Lilly Hammer 3” will be created. If it happens, it’s Bruce Springsteen tour, which determines the recording days.
VG met Steven Van Zandt, lead actress and producer of “Lilyhammer” on Blue Canvas event in Oslo. Here he was to talk about season two of the hit TV series, which is to look at NRK later this fall. Speculation about what will be another season has gone on for long , but when VG ask him to still can not give any confirmation. – We’re still talking about it, it looks like it’s going to happen, but there are some complex negotiations that are now underway , says Van Zandt to VG. Do you think we’re going to see season three? – I hope it will happen, we should know soon, he said.
Obviously, the translation is not perfect, but I think we can get the general gist here.
Netflix has seemed pretty gung-ho about keeping its original shows going so far, with second seasons for House of Cards, Hemlock Grove and Orange is the New Black already moving forward, not to mention clear interest in keeping Arrested Development going.
Lilyhammer has been around longer than all of these, however, and frankly hasn’t generated the buzz that the others have. Also being the oldest of Netflix’s shows could make it first on the chopping block if and when Netflix decides to stop renewing some of its programs.
But…
Based on this roughly-translated bit of what Van Zandt had to say, it sounds like a third season may very well still be in the cards. Netflix will likely want to see how the second season plays first, though it did renew Orange is the New Black before it even debuted to audiences.
They managed to work around the Springsteen touring schedule to get the second season of Lilyhammer going. If you’re a fan of the show, I wouldn’t worry too much about it going away just yet.
We don’t have a concrete release date for Lilyhammer: Season 2 at this point, but Netflix said in a letter to investors last month that it would be coming out this year. Now, in this VG.no article, we appear to have that down to the fall.
We’ve reached out to Netflix for comment, and will update if we hear back.
Image: Netflix
Last month, we looked at some search data from Yahoo about Netflix’s original shows. Orange is the New Black was quickly generating more search buzz than even Netflix’s Emmy-nominated shows House of Cards and Arrested Development.
Now, Microsoft has shared some information with us about how Netflix’s shows have been comparing with one another in terms of search volume on Bing. Unsurprisingly, Orange is the New Black is being searched a lot more than the others over there as well.
Orange is the new Black has been the most searched Netflix show of the entire summer, followed by House of Cards, then Arrested Development, according to Bing. In fact, Orange is the New Black has been searched for more than all other Netflix shows combined.
The rank in search volume on Bing for Netflix shows has been like this:
1. Orange is the New Black
2. House of Cards
3. Arrested Development
4. Hemlock Grove
5. Lillyhammer
Orange is the New Black does have the advantage of being released more recently than the others, but the rest of the list doesn’t really indicate that recency of debut is playing much of a role, other than the fact that Lilyhammer is fifth. It was, of course, the earliest Netflix original. It’s unclear where Mako Mermaids factors into this. Out of the six, it is actually the newest, but hasn’t received nearly the publicity of the rest.
House of Cards has been out since the beginning of February, and it managed to take the number two spot. The fact that it is up for nine Emmys probably has something to do with it. Arrested Development and Hemlock Grove are also nominated in various categories.
Lilyhammer is the closest to having a second season available to watch. It’s due out sometime this year, while second seasons of OITNB, House of Cards and Hemlock Grove are all due out next year. Arrested Development is still up in the air, but it’s looking like a movie might be more likely than a fifth season.
“Laura Prepon was the most search for OITNB cast member, even ahead of series lead actress Taylor Schilling,” a Bing spokesperson says.
“Natasha Lyonne was searched for more than her American Pie co-star Jason Biggs,” he adds.
Both, of course, are in Orange is the New Black.
The top-searched OITNB cast members on Bing have been:
1. Laura Prepon
2. Taylor Schilling
3. Natasha Lyonne
4. Kate Mulgrew
5. Jason Biggs
“Kata Mara was searched more than any other House of Cards cast member, including Kevin Spacey,” the spokesperson notes.
The top-searched HoC cast members on Bing have been:
1. Kate Mara
2. Kevin Spacey
3. Robin Wright
4. Corey Stoll
5. Kristen Connolly
“Also, people like Kevin Spacey, Jason Biggs, Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Robin Wright, Kate Mulgrew, and Natasha Lyonne show up in Snapshot in Bing,” the spokesperson adds.
Bing recently started adding more info about celebrities in its autosuggest feature as well.
Netflix just released its Q2 earnings report along with a letter from CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells. More on the earnings (and a live interview with the two) here.
In a section of the letter talking about Netflix original content, the two said they’d be “delighted” to produce another season of Arrested Development if possible. The company has already ordered second seasons of the rest of its original shows (at least the ones that have already come out). They’ve been in talks to get Arrested Development Season 5 off the ground.
We’ve known that Lilyhammer Season 2 was in production, but now we know it will be out before the year’s end, as Reed and Wells indicated that it remains on the 2013 menu.
Later this month, we will premiere Mako Mermaids, a series aimed at teen audiences, while for the remainder of 2013 we will launch the Ricky Gervais series Derek and season two of Lilyhammer,followed by Turbo: F.A.S.T.(Fast Action Stunt Team), our first animated Original from DreamWorks Animation. We’re excited about our plans for 2014 and beyond as we premiere season two of House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and Orange is the New Black, and debut Sense 8, and multiple kids Originals from DreamWorks Animation.
While Lilyhammer was not nominated for any, Netflix shows have 14 Emmy nominations among them, which is pretty good for the company’s reputation for original programming. The Emmy-related buzz (not to mention the critical acclaim for the new Orange is the New Black) could just get more people to check out Lilyhammer as well, and for those new to it, they’ll have an added bonus of getting the second season fairly quickly.
Lilyhammer was Netflix’s first original series.
The Emmy nominations are out, and three Netflix original shows have earned fourteen nominations. This is a good sign for the future of high quality original online programming. We’re talking about the Emmys here, and Netflix is just getting started. Its latest show Orange is the new Black is already getting as much positive buzz and as many positive reviews (if not more) than House of Cards did before it. House of Cards has nine nominations on its own.
Suffice it to say that Netflix is getting off to a pretty good start with its original programming initiative, which largely just began early this year with the release of House of Cards. Prior to that, Netflix just had one original series with Lilyhammer, which hasn’t garnered the buzz that the rest of the shows have, but apparently has done well enough that Netflix decided to carry on with a second season, and the fact that the rest of the shows have generated so much buzz just might lead more people to check out Netflix’s first foray into original content.
Beyond Lilyhammer, House of Cards, Hemlock Grove and Orange is the New Black all have second seasons in the works, and word is that the company is in talks to get another season of Arrested Development off the ground. The show’s creator has seemed pretty interested, so if all of the puzzles pieces come together on that (particularly the cast members), it’s highly likely that the show will continue.
To make a long story short, people are interested in watching what Netflix has to offer, and when it comes to original series, it’s not like customers have to worry about titles going away before they get a chance to watch them like they do with other third-party content.
Emarketer has compiled some interesting data about Netflix subscribers and their television habits. They point to a June study from Cowen and Company, which found that about three-quarters of Netflix subscribers in the U.S. kept their cable, satellite or telecom pay TV subscriptions, but that another 20% said they got rid of theirs. It seems fairly likely that the trend will move toward cord cutting as Netflix along with its competitors like Amazon and Hulu get more original content and make deals to get other well established content.
“Cord-cutting is typically associated with those in the youngest age bracket, and the survey found this to hold somewhat true,” eMarketer says. “However, there was also a notable propensity to cut the cord among Netflix subscribers between 30 to 44 years old, with 41% having cut pay TV. Overall, this age group was more likely to subscribe to Netflix than 18- to 29-year-old respondents.”
Original shows give Netflix an important weapon against its competition, though its competitors are working on similar strategies, but the licensing of third-party movies and television content will remain a critical component. As popular as House of Cards is, for example, it’s nothing compared to the popularity of some cable TV shows.
The Wall Street Journal reports on a study by GFK, which found that House of Cards accounted for less than one percent of TV shows viewed by regular Netflix users during a week in April, compared to 3% for old episodes of AMC’s Breaking Bad and Mad Men (each). Star Trek (the combined catalog) accounted for 4%. Even still, other popular TV shows like The Office, Fringe, 30 Rock and Glee were also around the 1% mark, according to the report.
Obviously Netflix knows how crucial it is to have the content people want to watch, which is why it constantly makes new deals to get it. Already in July, it has announced deals with Fox, CBS and PBS, which will enable it to exclusively stream reruns of New Girl, Super Why!, and The Bletchley Circle, as well as stream (non-exclusively) a variety of other popular shows. Meanwhile, to make room for stuff like this, Netflix also regularly filters out the stuff that people don’t watch enough.
Netflix will report its quarterly earnings on Monday, so we’ll get an idea how things are doing on the business side of things. Either way, users and critics appear to be on board with Netflix’s strategy at large.
There’s been a lot of talk about Netflix’s various original shows lately. Earlier this year, Netflix debuted House of Cards to much buzz and critical acclaim. Then came Hemlock Grove. Though it didn’t get quite the critical acclaim of its predecessor, it has won the hearts of plenty of fans. Then about a week and a half ago, Netflix debuted the long-anticipated return of Arrested Development, which is billed as a Netflix original (or technically a “semi-original”).
Some might forget, however, that this whole Netflix original series thing kicked off with another show last year, called Lilyhammer. Others are probably wondering what’s going on with it.
So far, Netflix has been pretty quiet about the show’s return. “We have not announced a premiere date for Lilyhammer’s second season,” a spokesperson tells WebProNews. “The show is not filming any longer.”
Earlier reports indicated that a second season was indeed on the way. In fact, the official Bruce Springsteen website put out a statement in January indicating that Steven Van Zandt (Lilyhammer’s star) would have to miss some tour dates because of the show. The statement from January 16 said:
Since Stevie Van Zandt’s filming commitments to his highly successful television show Lilyhammer will keep him off stage for the upcoming Australian tour dates, Bruce Springsteen has invited Tom Morello to sit in temporarily on guitar. Following the Australian dates, Van Zandt will return to the tour in Oslo, Norway on April 29, 2013.
The band’s Australian dates ran from March 14th through March 31st.
A few days after that statement, Deadline indicated that Lilyhammer had added cast for season 2, and that the show was filming in Oslo and Lillehammer. Nancy Tartaglione wrote:
For its second outing, the fish-out-of-water dramedy has added Paul Kaye (Game Of Thrones), Erik Madsen (Da Vinci’s Demons), Amy Beth Hayes (Mr Selfridge) and Jakob Oftebro (from foreign-language film Oscar nominee Kon-Tiki)….Season 2 sees van Zandt’s mob fixer Frank Tagliano still in witness protection and juggling fatherhood with running his criminal operation. Added to the mix this season are a group of English soccer hooligans, a bank robbery that threatens to reveal Frank’s identity, and a bloodthirsty new female sheriff.
So while we don’t know exactly when the show will return, it’s obviously at least in the post-production stage, and we can probably expect an announcement in the not too distant future.
In its Q1 2012 earnings report, Netflix logged $870 million in revenue for the fiscal year, with a loss of only 8 cents per share, which exceeded analyst expectations – and this performance is primarily due to a rise in streaming subscriptions. At present, the worldwide number is roughly 26 million.
Coming out of its Qwikster snafu, Netflix has been focusing on streaming services, and added almost 3 million customers in the last year – 1.74 million in the U.S., and 1.21 million internationally. DVD-only subscriptions were again in decline, with a loss of 1.08 million, down to 10.09 million total. Still, 7 million of these customers also subscribe to Netflix streaming. Streaming will likely continue to completely overtake physical DVD media.
Netflix is also delving into producing original content, with the impending release of a new season of Arrested Development, as well as the mobster drama LilyHammer, which is presently available. Netflix has stated, “We are now treating it (original content) as a capability we should build, like international, to achieve our long-term ambitions. What is still uncertain is when or whether we will take it beyond five percent of our large content spend.” Or, the streaming service looks to better compete with HBO.
Netflix has called HBO a network “that is strategically motivated to impede our growth,” in a press release, and CEO Reed Hastings once said that Netflix will become just another cable provider – “It’s not in the short term, but it’s in the natural direction for us in the long term. Many (cable service providers) would like to have a competitor to HBO, and they would bid us off of HBO.” The company presently bills itself as the “world’s leading Internet TV network.”
I’ve yet to see LilyHammer, but I’m all for a network trying to come up with a show to compete with Kenny Powers.
Have you run out of TV shows to watch on Netflix? Fear not, because an all new show is premiering today – and it’s a Netflix exclusive.
Announced just a month ago, Lilyhammer is available to watch today. All eight episodes of the first season are being made available at once, meaning the impatient viewers among us can schedule a marathon session.
Lillyhammer sounds interesting enough. It stars Steven Van Zandt, who you might remember from his amazing role of Silvio from The Sopranos. You also might know him from his work with The Boss, as Van Zandt is the guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. Van Zandt stars as Frank Tagliano, a New York mobster that has to go into witness protection in Norway after testifying against a boss.
From the Netflix blog:
This show is different in many ways. First of all, this is surely the most ambitious original show to premiere online in history. The presence of an American star like Van Zandt and the production quality and the length of the episodes position “Lilyhammer” in the class of programing usually only found on premium pay television.
Van Zandt’s character understands Norwegian, but doesn’t speak it well, so the folks he encounters speak mostly in their native tongue with subtitles while Stevie speaks in English in the US and Canada. The episodes will be presented fully subtitled in local languages in Latin America. It is highly unusual for a single programmer to debut shows in multiple territories.
Apparently, the show is already a mega hit in Norway, as a whopping 1.2 million people watch every week (it’s been airing over there for 3 weeks). Since Norway only has about 5 million people, Lilyhammer is the most watched show in the country’s history. And even more important than that, it has The Boss’ approval. Springsteen went the the NY premiere and said he loved it.
Later this year, Netflix will roll out even more orignal content in the form of the Kevin Spacey & David Fincher project House of Cards.
Will you check it out? What do you think about Netflix’s strategy of making the entire first season available at once? Let us know in the comments.
