It’s not unusual to see Netflix make aggressive moves with its original programming. This week alone, Netflix picked up the fourth season of “Longmire” to debut in 2015 alongside “Daredevil,” “Sense8,” “Orange is the New Black” and more. But now Netflix is expanding its comedy reach with a canceled series that hasn’t even debuted yet!
Netflix and Universal Television have jointly announced that “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is migrating from NBC to Netflix with a two season deal that will run at least 26 episodes across 2015 and 2016. NBC picked up “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” as a midseason replacement series last spring, but the network apparently became jittery about it after most of its new fall comedies failed to attract an audience.
For Netflix, the appeal of this deal appears to be a desire to work with “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” co-creator Tina Fey (“30 Rock”) and her creative partner and co-creator, Robert Carlock. The premise of the series is that Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) leaves a doomsday cult after 15 years and tries to reinvent herself in New York City. Former “30 Rock” co-star Jane Krakowski will appear as Kimmy’s new boss while Tituss Burgess will play Kimmy’s new roommate.
In statement, Netflix’s Vice President of Original Content, Cindy Holland said “The very construct of ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ — its offbeat premise, hilarious and rich characters and serialized storytelling — make it a perfect Netflix comedy series. Tina and Robert’s unique comic voice and sensibility come through in this series and we could not be more excited to present ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ exclusively to Netflix members around the world.”
If Netflix is now hunting for programs before the major broadcast networks can dump them, expect Amazon and Hulu to eventually do so as well. The competition for original streaming content is only going to get more intense in the near future.
