The latest projects from Hollywood icons Martin Scorsese and Jerry Seinfeld will find homes on Amazon Video and Netflix.
Today, Amazon announced its acquisition of Grateful Dead docuseries “Long Strange Trip” from Director Amir Bar-Lev and Executive Producer Scorsese.
The four-hour, six-part docuseries about the Grateful Dead’s long, unusual music career and singularly devoted fan base will premiere at this week’s Sundance Film Festival with several members of the band in attendance.
“Long Strange Trip” will debut on Amazon Prime Video May 26.
Netflix, meanwhile, just won Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” from Sony’s streaming service Crackle. Twenty-four new episodes of the actor’s talk show will premiere on Netflix later this year. The streaming giant will also be home to the show’s 59-episode archive.
Netflix announced a “multi-faceted production deal” with Seinfeld in a press release Wednesday. As part of the deal, Seinfeld will also do two new stand-up specials exclusively for Netflix and star in other content for the streaming giant. “Seinfeld,” the iconic “show about nothing” is still only available to stream on Hulu.
“When I first started thinking about Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, the entire Netflix business model consisted of mailing out DVDs in envelopes,” said Seinfeld in the press release. “I love that we are now joining together, both at very different points. I am also very excited to be working with Ted Sarandos at Netflix, a guy and a place that not only have the same enthusiasm for the art of stand-up comedy as I do, but the most amazing technology platform to deliver it in a way that has never existed before. I am really quite charged up to be moving there.”
Hollywood’s biggest names are increasingly drawn to streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Video, and HBO as the new frontier in entertainment. Today’s announcements — Netflix’s win over Sony, in particular — signal a broader shift in video content from traditional studios to streaming services, which are more flexible to viewers changing demands.
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