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Tag: Turbo FAST

  • Netflix Announces 3 New DreamWorks Originals

    Netflix and DreamWorks Animation just announced three new original series to debut on Netflix later this year: King Jullen, Puss In Boots and Veggie Tales in the House.

    King Jullen is the lemur from the Madagascar films, and is getting his own series. Puss In Boots, made famous by the Shrek films, and then his own movie, is as well. Veggie Tales in the House is described as “new recipes for faith-based values as Bob and Larry venture off the counter top”.

    “We could not be having more fun as we create this content for Netflix,” said Margie Cohn, Head of Television at DreamWorks Animation. “Each show is so diverse and the platform gives us so many opportunities to play with our characters in new and surprising ways. Our goal is to keep the audience always wondering what we’ll come up with next.”

    “I am pretty sure this is the first time the word ‘beloved’ has been applied to a cat, a lemur, vegetables and snails in the same sentence, but DreamWorks Animation has an incredible knack for creating characters that kids around the world adore,” said Netflix VP of Original Content Cindy Holland.

    The snails Holland refers to would be from Turbo FAST, the first original series from this partnership with DreamWorks, which debuted in December. The companies also just announced that new episodes will be available on April 4th.

    In a letter to shareholders in January, Netflix said, “Though just launched, Turbo FAST is on track to become one of the most popular kids series ever on Netflix.”

    The announcement does not indicate whether the new shows will change up the traditional 3D animation style of the previous incarnations of these characters as it did with Turbo FAST, which moved to a 2D look.

    Netflix first partnered with DreamWorks in 2011 to make its content available in 2013. In 2013, it made a new deal to get original content from the animation studio in what was Netflix’s biggest ever push for original content.

    Image via YouTube

  • Netflix Defends Content Release Strategy

    Since Netflix has been offering its customers original shows, it has been offering them full seasons at a time, catering to the well-known binge-watching phenomenon.

    Netflix’s competitors have often criticized this approach, and when the company changed the strategy up a little bit late last year with the launch of Turbo FAST, some questioned whether the company was straying from a strategy that maybe wasn’t the best idea to begin with.

    According to Netflix, those people would be wrong. They’ve already since clarified that they would continue to launch entire seasons of shows at a time. The second season of Lilyhammer was recently released, and the full second season of House of Cards will launch next month. Turbo FAST, however, was released with six episodes at first, with more to come within a few months.

    Some of Netflix critics have suggested that releasing a full season at once detracts from the social media buzz that can be maintained by releasing an episode per week. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos was asked about this in a Google Hangout about the company’s Q4 performance.

    He responded, “We’re very thrilled with the strategy today, and one of the things that I think dispels some of the concern or mythology about what happens to social media when you drop all the shows at once…check out the Google Trends for House of Cards and The Americans, which both debuted on the same day, and look at the pattern, and what you see is week over week over week, there is more chatter about House of Cards than there is about The Americans week over week over week.”

    “And the same thing is true about The Bridge and Orange is the New Black,” he added. “They debuted on the same day. So I think that mythology should be pretty well dispelled by now, and the consumers really love it because they can really decide, ‘Hey, I’m gonna watch the whole show this weekend, I’m gonna watch one a week,’ or however they want to do it, so it’s really something the viewers love, and that’s why we love it.”

    “And as far as Turbo‘s concerned, Turbo is not a serialized program at all, and kids don’t watch the same way that you and I do, and particularly the way that you and I watch serialized programming,” Sarandos continued. “So giving them five episodes enabled us to accelerate the availability to drop the episodes in the holiday period when kids are home watching a lot of shows, and it was a tremendous success. They watched all five. They watched them over and over again. They watched just the way kids watch cartoons.”

    It’s true. They really do watch them over and over again.

    “So we’re really thrilled with the strategy, and I anticipate that we’ll continue to play and tweak with it, but a departure from it with radically different kinds of programming doesn’t signal a change in the strategy,” Sarandos said.

    Netflix talked up the success of Turbo FAST in a letter to shareholders, saying it had “been very popular with kids around the world, performing especially strong throughout Latin America.” While it only launched about a month ago, Netflix says it’s already on track to become one of the most popular kids series ever on Netflix.

    That’s saying something. Keep in mind they used to have Nickelodeon content.

    More kids shows from Dreamworks Animation are on the way to Netflix this year.

    Image via YouTube

  • Netflix’s ‘Turbo FAST’ Gets A Trailer, Release Date

    Back in February, Netflix announced a partnership with DreamWorks Animation that would see the release of the original kids series Turbo FAST in this month. The show is based on the character from the movie Turbo.

    Netflix has now released a trailer for the series, and revealed that the first five episodes will debut on Christmas Eve. More episodes will be released in the coming months.

    The description is as follows:

    The first-ever Netflix original series for kids, DreamWorks’ Turbo FAST is a high-octane ensemble comedy that amps everything up to the extreme as Turbo and his adrenaline-fueled crew go on daring new adventures, race on the coolest tracks, and take on the craziest challengers. No matter how wild things get, these snails always have each other’s backs.

    Stunt Team members — Turbo, Whiplash, Burn, Smoove Move, White Shadow, Skidmark and Chet — already have legions of fans from their appearance in the DreamWorks Animation’s feature film Turbo, which opened in theaters around the globe earlier this year and has already grossed more than $280 million. The all new television show digs deeper into the crazy personalities of the snail crew and features 2D design to create a stylized look reflective of the Stunt Team’s fast-paced, souped-up world. Reid Scott from Veep lends his voice to the show’s title character, and comedian Ken Jeong reprises his role from the feature film as the fan-favorite manicurist turned home shopping icon Kim Ly.

    Netflix dubs the show its first original series for kids (Mako Mermaids doesn’t count, apparently).

    DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg had this to say: “We’ve long said that Netflix is revolutionizing the television industry and now we are thrilled to officially be a part of it. They have been fantastic partners whose vision has given our characters an amazing platform to be enjoyed by families around the world.”

    “We are excited to be working with the gifted storytellers at DreamWorks Animation to deliver Turbo FAST, our first original kids series, to families around the world this holiday season,” added Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. With new episodes on their way in the coming months, kids will have something to look forward to all year.”

    Back in the summer, Netflix and DreamWorks expanded their relationship in Netflix’s biggest deal for original content to date. It includes over 300 hours of new, original content, and will see shows based on characters from Shrek, Madagascar, and How to Train Your Dragon.

    Turbo Fast will be available at 12:01 PST on December 24th in all Netflix territories. In the meantime, you can check out the show’s page.

    Image: Netflix (YouTube)