American DVD rental company Netflix has reportedly invested $US100 million in its first piece of original content, in a sign the business has aspirations beyond just DVD and digital distribution.
As reported by Deadline Hollywood, the company has outbid cable networks HBO and AMC for the rights to produce an adaptation of the 1990 miniseries House of Cards.
The Wall Street Journal has also reported the company is in talks with rights holders.
The report claims the company has ordered two seasons’ worth of content.
The move shows that Netflix is attempting to challenge the cable networks outright for the creation and distribution of new content – analysts point out it is sure to gain a huge number of subscribers once the content becomes available.
Various reports over the past year or so have said cable networks are becoming discontent with Netflix as subscribers opt to cancel their pay-TV subscriptions in favour of sites such as itself and Hulu.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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