Anais Gutierrez
Netflix is bringing David Letterman back to the screens, so the streaming service announced on Monday. Letterman, who retired in 2015, is pretty much the king of late shows with a career spanning over 20 years.
Letterman’s upcoming show comes as the latest move from the streaming service. They’ve recently brought iconic shows back as a way to keep expanding the service’s offer.
David Letterman A.K.A the king of the late show is back
Netflix announced on Monday, an upcoming David Letterman talk show set to premiere in 2018.
“Just meeting David Letterman was a thrill; imagine how exciting it is for me to announce that we will be working together,” said Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer of Netflix.
“David Letterman is a true television icon. I can’t wait to see him out in the wild, out from behind the desk and interviewing the people he finds most interesting. We’ll have to see if he keeps the beard.”
The first season of the yet untitled series will kick off with six one hour episodes.
According to Netflix, each episode will include a “long-form” interview with a “singular guest,” according to a release, and the comedian will step away from the studio for “in-the-field” segments as well.
“I feel excited and lucky to be working on this project for Netflix,” Letterman said in a statement.
“Here’s what I have learned if you retire to spend more time with your family, check with your family first. Thanks for watching, drive safely.”
He’s also producing the upcoming show.
Letterman retired from hosting ‘The Late Show’ in 2015 and has managed to stay relatively under the radar since then.
But one of Netflix’s go-to moves, at least when it comes to comedy, seems to be bringing A-listers back into the spotlight they once avoided.
Dave Chapelle’s recent stand-up specials for Netflix were his first in more than a decade, and this past winter, the company announced that it was working on a stand-up special from Ellen DeGeneres.
Jerry Seinfeld’s web series ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ is also leaving Crackle this year for Netflix.
No more time off
Letterman is the longest-serving host in the U.S. late night television. He hosted ‘Late Night with David Letterman’ on NBC from 1983, and then ‘The Late Show’ until 2015.
During his time on late-night, Letterman became known as the premiere interviewer in that space.
Since retiring from his long-running talk show, Letterman has reappeared sporadically in the media.
In 2016, he led a segment on climate change on the National Geographic’s docu series ‘Years of Living Dangerously.’ As a celebrity correspondent for the climate change-focused series, Letterman went to India to interview its Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In an interview with the New York Times, he confessed he yearned for the spotlight after the experience.
“I keep saying, jeez, I still think I can do something,” said Letterman. “I want that epiphany that others have had. It’s the same epiphany that I had about wanting to do a TV show when I was, like, 17.”
He’s also made headlines for his critical comments about President Donald Trump and late-night’s current approach to covering the President.
Letterman is the latest in a string of former talk show hosts to find his way back to television. Jay Leno’s NBC Web series ‘Jay Leno’s Garage’ delves into his love of cars and motorcycles.
HBO announced last month that it will premiere a new Jon Stewart stand-up special, after initially developing his animated shorts project, which was eventually canceled.
Growing bigger and bigger
For Netflix, Letterman’s upcoming show it’s the latest coup in its wide-ranging efforts to snatch the biggest names in film and television into its stable, and widening the offers for subscribers.
The streaming service has not only brought back household names of comedy by giving them their own stand-ups but has also experimented with talk shows before.
The second season of Netflix’s ‘Chelsea,’ hosted by Chelsea Handler, and the first of ‘Bill Nye Saves the World,’ helmed by the beloved Science Guy, both premiered in April and feature celebrity guests.
The move is being followed by another streaming service. Hulu announced in late March that it had picked up Silverman’s political comedy show ‘I Love You, America.’
But Netflix is taking seriously the race to widen the streaming service experience and offer. And this week started off with huge announcements.
On Monday, Netflix announced it made its first-ever acquisition of Millarworld, an independent comic book publisher which created recent Hollywood blockbusters ‘Kick-Ass’ and Kingsmen’.
In the past week, Netflix announced a slew of decisions of creating original series for China, India, Mexico, and Japan to attract international subscribers.
Netflix surpassed the 100 million subscriber mark in its latest quarter, and for the first time, the international subscriber base was larger than its U.S. counterpart.
Source: The Verge
