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Amazon's got eight more TV show pilots for your perusal
Rather than letting shadowy commissioners decide on what TV shows to make in secret, Amazon lets everyone get involved. As it's done so several times before, the company will debut a number of pilots and ask members of the public to vote on what gets turned into a series. This time 'round, there are two one hour dramas, both of which will be available in 4K and HDR, as well as six kids series for you to weigh in upon.
Amazon will make a 'The Man in the High Castle' series
Philip K. Dick's imagination has been juicing TV series and movies since the early '60s, most famously inspiring Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. It should come as little surprise, therefore, to see that Amazon's pilot for Dick's The Man in the High Castle was the company's most watched pilot ever. As a consequence, the company will now commission a full series for its Netflix-esque Prime Instant Video. Of course, we just have to hope that the show is a little better than the last time someone adapted the author's work for TV -- 1999's deeply forgettable Total Recall 2070.
Amazon is working on seven new pilot shows for next year
With the new year just around the corner, Amazon wants to get its customers excited by revealing fresh content for yet another Pilot Season. Today, the online retailer announced that it has seven shows due to debut in 2015, which will be made available to Instant Video subscribers in the US, UK and Germany "early" next year. The lineup is a collection of four 60-minute shows (Cocked, Mad Dogs, The Man in the High Castle and Point of Honor), plus three shorter, half-hour-long productions (Down Dog, Salem Rogers and The New Yorker Presents). There's something for everyone, it seems, ranging from categories such as drama, comedy and documentary. If you're interested, you can learn more about each one right here.
Amazon green lights 'Hand of God' and 'Red Oaks' for full series
After earning positive reviews during Amazon's Pilot Season, Hand of God and Red Oaks will become full series. If you'll recall, the online retailer offered the masses the opportunity to watch a smattering of pilot episodes and offer feedback on which ones should be given an entire season on Prime Instant Video. Hand of God stars Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy) as a corrupt judge who believes God is sending him messages through his son (being kept alive by a ventilator), offering clues in his quest for vigilante justice. With executive producer Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven) on the roster, Red Oaks chronicles a teenage assistant tennis pro and his last summer before college in 1985. The pair joins Alpha House, Betas, Transparent and others on the Amazon Originals roster.
Amazon Prime snags 'Archer' and five more Fox series, launches 10 free pilots
The content arms race between streaming-video providers Netflix, Amazon and Hulu (and YouTube/Google Play and Crackle and Redbox and... you get the picture) shows no signs of slowing down, and here's Amazon's latest assault. The Prime Instant Video service is pushing new, exclusive, original content at the same time it gains access to popular TV shows from a new deal with Fox. The latter arrangement brings FX series The Americans as a streaming exclusive to Amazon (Engadget HD favorite Justified became an exclusive last year), plus archived episodes of The League, Louie, How I Met Your Mother, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Archer on a non-exclusive basis next month. The Americans returns for season two on February 26th, and we're sure the network is hoping viewers will binge on the well-reviewed series in time to start watching then. Of course, Netflix has shown that exclusive original content is key to growth, and Amazon is repeating its "pilot season" judged by the public to pick new shows. Last time around, the process resulted in Alpha House and Betas, and now 10 hopefuls -- split among five "prime-time" adult options and five kids shows -- are streaming for free. Among them are two hour-long dramas with The After, a show from X-Files creator Chris Carter, and Bosch, a murder-mystery based on the popular detective novels by Michael Connelly that's co-written by The Wire's Eric Overmyer. There are previews after the break, but the full pilots are streaming on the web or devices with Amazon Instant Video/Lovefilm apps. Amazon's old-school pilot strategy is in sharp contrast to Netflix's "find some of the best talent and throw money at them" approach, so if there's a House of Cards or Orange is the New Black in the bunch, there's only one way to find out.
