Lately, Netflix seems to be dominating the streaming rankings when it comes to true crime and thriller TV series, with their latest show, The Observercontinuing the trend.
Currently #1 on Netflix in the US to date, The Observer tells the true story of Nora and Dean Bannock, who move into their dream home in New Jersey. However, they are soon stalked by letters signed by a stalker named “The Watcher”.
Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the series is based on Reeves Wiedeman’s The Cut article “The Watcher” from 2018. The Observer marks the second article from The Cut that has been made into a Netflix show this year – the first being the series produced by Shonda Rhimes Invent Anna.
In its first five days of streaming on Netflix, The Observer would have seen 125 million hours of viewing. In comparison, Dahmer received 196.2 million viewing hours in its first five days.
Already, the show is proving to be a big win for Netflix, a streamer that struggled earlier this year when it comes to subscriber growth and retention, and proves that all the money Netflix would have paid for the rights of the story was worth it. .
In 2018, Netflix won a contentious bidding war for the rights to The Observer and, at the time, it was planned to be a movie. According to Deadline, Netflix apparently paid “seven figures” for the “rights package,” which included the original story from The Cut and “the rights of beleaguered owners who have been living this nightmare for four years.”
At the time, a number of notable film and television producers wanted to acquire the rights, and a horror producer reportedly offered to buy the 657 Boulevard house in hopes of using it as a set, according to The Cut.
Now, while the exact amount the Broadduses won is not public knowledge, a neighbor claims to have heard the family “pocketed almost $10 million”. But, in reality, the amount they received apparently didn’t even cover the losses they incurred on the now-famous house.
In 2019, nearly five years after the Broaddus family paid more than $1.35 million for the home, they put it back on the market and sold it for $959,000. The Cut estimates they lost $400,000, even before factoring in agent cuts, “$100,000 in property taxes”, utility bills and more.
Now, like other true crime TV show subjects, the Broaddus family originally had “little interest” in selling the rights to their story. However, after the release of Lifetime The Observer in 2016, without consulting the family and with many changes in the story, the family decided that getting involved this time around was the right choice.
By selling the rights to their story to Netflix, the Broadduses gained some control over the show’s creation, which is when they asked for two changes to be made when adapting it for television.
According to The Cut, the family’s first request was that the show — or, at the time, the movie — not use their real names, which is why Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale’s characters are called Nora and Dean Brannock, instead of Maria. and Derek Broaddus.
The next request also concerned the portrayal of their family on screen. They asked the producers to make sure the family on the show is as little like their real-life family as possible. In the series, Nora and Dean have two children, while in real life, the Broaddus family has three children.
Although these are apparently the family’s only concrete demands regarding The Observer is done, the show obviously exaggerates other details. However, the authors have included the true text of the letters the Broaddus family received.
Now, the next inevitable question is: Did the Broaddus watch The Observer? The answer is that they would “not intend to watch the series”, adding that the trailer was “pretty traumatic”.
You can read the original article from The Cut from 2018 here and the recent follow-up story here.
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