UPDATE: Walking Dead is now streaming!!!! GET IT HERE!!!!
Netflix is in a world of hurt, but this move will show whether they are more like Rick Grimes and his survivors or the multitudinous zombie fodder. Starting today (not yet showing up on my Roku Box, but if you click here it shows streaming availability is “coming soon”–we’ll keep you updated) you should be able to watch everyone’s favorite zombie series, and just in time for both the beginning of the second season (please don’t suck) and Halloween. This will be the beginning of a more permanent deal with AMC, The Sundance Channel, and a few other cable netlets to stream AMC networks’ content, all of which is a win for us, the viewers.
This comes on the heels of Netflix’s incredibly popular (at least in my house and among my friends) streaming of AMC’s Mad Men and Breaking Bad, so Walking Dead makes a logical next step. It also comes on the heels of month after month of self-inflicted wounds, resulting stock slides, emailed apologies paired with other dubious business decisions, and further stock slides for Netflix.
In fact, this could help stop their bleeding, as the question on everyone’s mind has to be “Is there a future in Netflix’s business model?” They key is to continue to offer new and quality content to increase your subscriber base. Unfortunately, you probably need to leverage your stock price to be able to make big deals with the likes of AMC, HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc. Betting on The Walking Dead to help? In these priceless words of wisdom from Robocop:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85cL1HisrNc
I’d buy that for a dollar!
So, thank you Netflix. And thank you for also offering some AMAZING genre films to make my Halloween extra spooky. Currently in my instant queue: Nosferatu (the original and possibly creepiest vampire movie ever), John Carpenter’s The Thing, Dead Snow, The Crazies, Trick r Treat, The Excorcist, Let Me In/Let the Right One In, all of the old MGM Monster movies, including Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, a bunch of vintage Vincent Price and Hitchcock, and on the lighter side: Hellboy, My Name is Bruce, Weird Science, Arsenic and Old Lace (the funniest movie about mass murder ever), Murder by Death, and Alec Baldwin as The Shadow. . . . wait, that wasn’t intended to be a comedy?
What I’m saying is this– you know how Netflix has all of those deals where you can get a trial month? October should be that month for you, if for nothing else than Walking Dead.
Anyway, I’m going to continue to pound away at a few more episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which just came to streaming Oct 1, and eagerly await the arrival of The Walking Dead to my instant queue.
Thanks Netflix. “>Thatflix