During the Television Critics Association (TCA) Summer 2018 Press Tour interesting news emerged for Amazon Prime Video. The streaming platform is trying to carve out its place within this thriving television content market, which is why it has started a real revolution in terms of content and beyond.
Among the most important innovations that emerged during the event which took place last Saturday 28 July, Amazon Prime Video proposes:
- The highly anticipated series The Romanoffs will debut in the original version on Friday 12 October on Amazon Prime Video in 200 countries, while the dubbed version will be available in early 2019. A new teaser (published at the head of the news) reveals an extraordinary cast for this series created, written, directed and produced by nine-time Emmy award-winning Matthew Weiner (Mad Men ). The Romanoffs is a contemporary anthology series set in various parts of the world and follows 8 different stories of people who believe they are descendants of the Russian royal family. The series was shot on three continents and in seven different countries in collaboration with local productions and creative talents in Europe, America and the Orient. Each story is set in a different location and with a different cast each time;
- The company announced the release of the horror event series THEM from executive producer Lena Waithe (The Chi, Dear White People), executive producer and author Little Marvin, and executive producers Roy Lee, Miri Yoon, and Michael Connelly with Vertigo Prime. The event series has already been confirmed for two seasons, the first of which is entitled THEM: Covenantche will be distributed exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries. THEM is produced with Sony Pictures Television.
- After a long process, painstaking research and a round trip in the Middle-earth, Amazon Studios can finally announce to fans, elves and the public that they have chosen the duo composed of JD Payne and Patrick McKay to develop the project of The Lord of The Rings. Authors JD Payne and Patrick McKay have been working together for over twenty years when they met in high school. Their most recent works include writing Star Trek 4 for Paramount and producer JJ Abrams, adapting Jungle Cruise for Disney and actors Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, and creating their original production, the dramaEscape with Academy Award-nominated producer Mike DeLuca.
- The drama series will also be produced The Expatriates, created by Nicole Kidman's Blossom Films. Based on Janice YK Lee's best-selling novel, and the screenplay by award-winning author Alice Bell (The Beautiful Lie), The Expatriates will be available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in 200 countries. Against the backdrop of Hong Kong's "Vertical City", The Expatriates is a drama series that explores the life of a tightly knit expat community. Friendships within the community are often temporary, but very intense; lives, deaths and marriages are public episodes and often the subject of gossip. The protagonists are the world-renowned American architect Margaret who lives with the fear that there is something wrong with her latest project, an ambitious skyscraper that is about to soar in the Hong Kong skyline. An unexpected event will subvert his life; Mercy, a Korean-American graduate with a questionable past in search of a new life who will soon find herself embroiled in an unforgivable scandal; Hilary, a British expat who craves a child despite her marriage is in the balance, who tries her hand at local customs and pretends to be someone else in an attempt to change her destiny; Tammy, an upper-class expat who finds herself at a dead end when her husband's other family shows up at her door; Barbara, whose decadent lifestyle hides a life of numbered days; Franny, an open and sociable Australian expat, faces an existential crisis and finally Olivia, an exponent of Chinese high society who experiences a humiliating loss of her status. A perfect world, made up of unusual alliances, truths and superstitions, a place where luck is created and lost, families separate and reunite and identities are built around the table with the aim of achieving an extraordinary life.
- Finally, the sci-fi series was also announced Upload created by Emmy-winning Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation, King of the Hill) and its producer-partners Howard Klein (The Office, Parks and Recreation, King of the Hill). Starring Andy Allo (Pitch Perfect 3) and Robbie Amell (The X-Files), the 10-episode half-hour series will be available exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. Upload is a sci-fi sitcom set in a recent future in which people who are close to death can be "loaded" into an afterlife of their choice. The events take place in 2033 and Nora, a secretly romantic Brooklyn-born girl, works as a client assistant in a luxurious virtual reality environment. When the beautiful and outgoing Nathan gets involved in a car accident, his girlfriend has him permanently charged into Nora's virtual world. Upload was written and created by Daniels who also serves as showrunner, executive producer and director of the pilot.
