Woody Allen to write and direct TV series for Amazon
Woody Allen will make his first foray onto the small screen, writing and directing an online TV series for Amazon.com the latest coup by the cable and streaming companies in luring big names in film to television.
The internet retailer rolled out the news of Allen's series on Tuesday, two days after winning its first major awards at the Golden Globes following years of experimentation with developing original programming.
The deal with Allen, 79, who has said he doesn't use email or own a computer, puts the filmmaker at the heart of Amazon's strategy to use original content to woo consumers to its US$99-a-year Prime programme, a vehicle for online shopping that comes with free shipping. "The end game for Amazon is just getting more people to buy into Prime, and this is their way of doing it," said Paul Verna, who is a senior analyst at the market research company eMarketer.
"It's almost as if they use content to get people to buy into this programme that is about a lot more than video content."
Filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher and Guillermo del Toro have all made recent forays into television. Premium cable networks such as Time Warner's HBO and Amazon's online streaming rival Netflix have offered directors the chance and resources to tell longer-form stories over several episodes and hours.
"I think any programme developer or producer or director who has a series or script or anything, at this point they're looking at Amazon as on par with Netflix and really the whole rest of the ecosystem," Verna said.