Netflix will be debuting Chris Rock's latest stand-up special in their very first live event. Rock is an actor and comedian who has been working since the mid-1980s. One of his first big breaks was ing the cast of SNL between 1990 and 1993, but he went on to star in films including Head of State, Grown Ups, and the recent horror franchise sequel Spiral: From the Book of Saw.
This week, Netflix announced that Rock will become the first artist to ever perform live on their streaming service. This will be the comedian's second special to debut on the service since 2018's Chris Rock: Tamborine. So far, the title and further details of the new special remain unknown, but the live special is eyeing a premiere date of early 2023.
First Ads, Now Live Events - Netflix Is Becoming TV
Netflix is an entity that has been constantly shifting over time. After starting as solely a mail-in DVD service, the company began to pivot to producing their own original streaming material, which is what they are currently best known for. Although they seemed to be making a move to produce blockbuster films on par with big-budget theatrical offerings, including the star-studded Red Notice and the Russo Bros. action thriller The Gray Man (which is soon expanding into its own universe), recently Netflix has been shifting their priorities after facing their first quarter in a decade where they lost subscribers. Their attempt to right the ship included introducing a cheaper, ad-ed subscription tier that launched earlier this month.
The introduction of a live event is a huge expansion of the Netflix model that is drawing them ever closer to terrestrial television, a format they were instrumental in helping fall out of favor with general audiences. Part of the original appeal of Netflix was the bingeability of their series. Inspired by the way audiences were using their service to binge series that had already aired, they began to drop their original series - including their very first originals like House of Cards and Lilyhammer - one entire season at a time, in order to allow fans to binge the shows to their hearts' content. This is a format they have largely stuck with over the years, though they have premiered certain series like the romance reality show Love is Blind in a modified binge format, where a chunk of two to four episodes are released every week.
It will certainly be interesting to see if this move works for Netflix. The company is known for experimenting with alternative formats, not all of which pan out. For instance, they introduced in-the-moment choose your own adventure storytelling with projects like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend, though that format failed to take off for more than just a few one-off titles. Attempting to return audiences to appointment television may prove difficult after the company trained them to embrace watching shows whenever they have time as opposed to building their schedules around live airings.
Source: Netflix