Even though Netflix was on the edge of glory at the time, co-founder Reed Hastings doubted how well his partner Ted Sarandos could deal his hand for series “House of Cards.”
Hastings recalled to Variety how Sarandos was determined to rival HBO with prestige TV, and start producing original series beginning with auteur David Fincher‘s “House of Cards.” The series, which debuted in 2013 on Netflix, was in the midst of a bidding war due to the high profile talent attached: Fincher was producing and directing the first two episodes, with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright leading the remake of the BBC miniseries. To land the show as a tentpole series, Sarandos had to swing big — something that Hastings was hesitant to agree with.
Sarandos told Fincher that Netflix would commit to spending $100 million on the series and greenlight it for two seasons before a pilot had even been shot. Fincher also would have full creative control of the show, with Netflix refraining from giving any notes.
“I wasn’t comfortable with it,” Hastings said of the risky bet. “It seemed perilously aggressive to me — just on the edge of reckless. We’d been working together for a decade, so I’d come to trust Ted’s instincts. But they were definitely not my instincts.”
Hastings added that Sarandos was looking to propel Netflix into original content and that an esteemed director like Fincher would legitimize the move into producing.
“Ted really kept us focused on HBO as the target,” Hastings said. “He wanted us to see ourselves as a content network rather than an Amazon-like retailer. Later, he came to regret that slightly, because he said it should have been HBO and CBS, because we didn’t want it to be just elite programming, we wanted it to be mainstream as well.”
As for the draw of “House of Cards” specifically, Sarandos said, “It had sex and revenge — everything you want from television. We had to have it.”
Of course, that deal with Fincher led to years of other Netflix collaborations, including series “Mindhunter” and films “The Killer” and “Mank.” There also was a planned “House of Cards” spinoff that was not made amid actor Spacey’s allegations and subsequent firing. “House of Cards” concluded in 2018.
