Done Deal: Netflix To Develop Original TV Show, ‘House Of Cards’

After a few days of rumors, Netflix has made it official -- the company has purchased House of Cards, a new television series to be produced and directed by David Fincher. The company has committed to a minimum of 26 episodes; initial speculation about the price ran as high as $100 million but later reporting threw some cold water on that figure, with an executive close to the action telling the NYT the deal was likely to close for “significantly less.” Production on the show’s will begin until spring 2012, and it won't actually be made available to Netflix subscribers until late in that year. Netflix moving in to fund content directly is a fairly radical step, even though Sarandos played that down in an interview today with All Things Digital. Sarandos called the deal “traditional in its windowing, it’s just that Netflix owns the first window.”