The creators of the television series Game of Thrones, David Benioff and Daniel Brett Weiss, decided to leave HBO to work with the Netflix online service. It is reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

“We have been successfully cooperating with HBO for more than ten years and are grateful to all the employees of the company for always feeling at home there. Netflix creates something amazing and previously unprecedented, and it is a great honor for us to be invited to join the team, ”the publication quotes the words of Benioff and Weiss.

Under the terms of the agreement, Benioff and Weiss will develop new film projects for the company. According to the publication, in addition to Netflix, Disney and Amazon participated in the “race” for screenwriters - Benioff and Weiss negotiated with both platforms, and Amazon remained in the lead until July. According to sources in The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix’s multi-year screenwriting contract is $ 200 million.

Some foreign media outlets suggested that Disney was about to put filmmakers on the new FX cable channel, and Amazon allegedly offered Benioff and Weiss work on The Lord of the Rings. However, both screenwriters are already collaborating with Disney: they are currently working on a script for the Star Wars trilogy produced by Lucasfilm.

  • David Benioff and Daniel B. Weiss
  • Reuters
  • © Caitlin Ochs

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the creators of Game of Thrones were counting on an offer that would surpass the April deal between Amazon and the writers of Wild West World Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan (filmmakers signed a $ 150 million contract with the service).

“We are pleased to welcome such storytelling masters as David Benioff and Dan Weiss to Netflix. They are a true creative force and, with their epic stories, delight viewers around the world. We’re eager to find out what their imagination will bring to our subscribers, ”Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s content director, quotes the publication.

The collaboration of Benioff and Weiss began on the set of the series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," but real recognition came to the duet after the release of Game of Thrones. Benioff and Weiss were included in the list of Hollywood's most influential show runners in 2018 according to the version of The Hollywood Reporter.

Streaming War

Netflix was founded in 1997. Initially, she was engaged in DVD movie rental, delivering disc orders by mail. In the 2010s, Netflix was re-qualified as a streaming service, relegating the rental to the background, and soon the company's management offered users the opportunity to watch video based on the platform on different types of devices.

For a long time Netflix bought licenses for broadcasting TV shows and films, and in 2011 began to develop its own projects. The first big hit of the service was the multi-part political drama "House of Cards" with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright in the lead roles. Among other popular series of the service are “Very Strange Things”, “Sex Education”, “Love, Death and Robots”, “Black Mirror” and “Orange - The Hit of the Season”.

However, on the Netflix account there are also unsuccessful projects like the series “The Last Kings”, which the service acquired the rights to broadcast from Nutopia. They criticize the company for unfair competition. Resonant in this context was the statement by director Steven Spielberg that Netflix is ​​unfairly competing with distributors by not showing their films in movie theaters (it was about the Netflix film Roma, which claimed several Oscar statuettes).

With the release of Netflix on world markets, projects in French, Japanese, German and Italian have appeared in the file cabinet of the platform. The rapid rise and popularity of Netflix on the market naturally took the bread from platforms such as Hulu and Amazon.

While HBO and Netflix were on different planes, nevertheless, Benioff and Weiss’s deal with the streaming service looks like a challenge to the television giant. However, HBO retains its position: in the spring of 2020, HBO Max service (a merger of HBO and Cinemax) will open for users, to which Friends have already migrated from Netflix.

  • Shot from the series “Sex Education”
  • © kinopoisk.ru

Meanwhile, Netflix is ​​competing with HBO this year for the prestigious Emmy Television Award nominations. Now the channel is much ahead of the streaming service: 137 HBO projects versus 117 from Netflix.

As for the new television shows, in the coming year HBO is preparing to present the continuation of two successful series: the prequel to Game of Thrones and the sequel to Young Papa. The television channel will also adapt the comic books “Keepers” and the film “The Time Traveler’s Wife”.

Among the most anticipated projects from Netflix is ​​the planned adaptation of the series of books and video games “The Witcher” with Henry Cavill in the title role scheduled for the end of 2019. In addition, the company announced the series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is known that at the moment there is a production of the horror “10 hours after midnight,” however, the date of the premiere has not been disclosed.