Netflix is gearing up for a big second half of 2024.
Co-CEO Ted Sarandos teased a host of marquee series set to debut in the last six months of the year on the streamer’s first quarter earnings call Wednesday. Sarandos was asked about going into this year’s upfront market for advertisers and promised that buyers will see a long list of anticipated titles at Netflix’s presentation.
Among the returning series set to premiere in the second half of the year are second seasons of Squid Game — the streamer’s biggest series of all time — and The Night Agent, the final season of Cobra Kai, and new seasons for Outer Banks, Emily in Paris and Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology, whose second season will focus on Lyle and Erik Menendez. Among the new series set for the back half of the year are Peter Berg’s western American Primeval, limited series Senna — about legendary Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna — and an adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s novel The Perfect Couple, starring Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber.
Specific dates for all those shows won’t be announced for a while, but Sarandos’ comments slightly narrows the release window for all of them from “sometime in 2024.”
The packed slate comes about in part as a result of production delays from last year’s dual labor strikes, which shut down production for several months in the summer and fall. Production has ramped back up since then, leading to what may become a glut of programming in the latter months of the year.
Sarandos also acknowledged that “the floodgates have opened a little more” when it comes to Netflix licensing shows from other media giants, a la last year’s streaming champion Suits and several HBO shows that have popped since being added to Netflix. But he doesn’t see the company becoming overly aggressive with licensed programming: “We’ve always been disciplined in the way we invest in content,” he said, and that the company will focus on licensing series “that we think will drive the business. … The budget is the budget.”
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