You know who is the ultimate Breaking Bad fan? Jeffrey Katzenberg. CEO of DreamWorks. Jeff was going purpose a nifty little deal to Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan for 3 more episodes of the iconic series. $25 million per episode he was offering, which he revealed recently at Cannes, and it was not just to get more awesomeness that is Breaking Bad, he had an idea.
I had this crazy idea. I was nuts for the show. I had no idea where this season was going. The last series cost about $3.5 million an episode. So they would make more profit from these three shows than they made from five years of the entire series. I said (to them), ‘I’m going to create the greatest pay-per-view television event for scripted programming anybody’s ever done.
There is more to this idea he had. He wanted these 3 episodes to run 90 minutes long, and they would be broken up into 6 minute segments that would be aired online, and charge viewers 50 cents per episode, and 99 cents for those episodes plus extra content.
I share the story with you only to tell you that I have the courage of my convictions in this. I just think that there is a whole new platform for (short form) entertainment … and the higher the quality of the stuff that fills it, the higher
people will be paid for the work that they are doing there.
Of course, this was 6 weeks ago before anyone new the outcome of the Breaking Bad story, so after that perfect ending of our favorite anti-hero dying with a slight smile on his face in the meth lab, this idea will of course be thrown out. Would have been interesting though, if this deal went through. There are so many Breaking Bad fans out there that would be more than happy to pay 50 cents for more Heisenberg, Pinkman fun. And it would’ve made a ton of money for everyone as well. This just comes to show you the demand fans have, and the willingness to pay for the rich content they want. Let me know what you guys think about this.
Source: Variety