Released near the end of lockdown however still reaped the benefits of the increased viewership - filmed before lockdown so not delayed or disrupted - Netflix gained 5mil subs in first 3 months of 2021
Basic advert subscription - £4.99
Basic no ads - £10.99
premium - £17.99
Lupin was watched in 76million households in the first month - most watched non English series on Netflix at the time and was top 3 in America and top 1 in France and many other European countries as well as other French speaking countries.
As of June 2023 recorded 99.5 mil COMPLETED viewings of Lupin season 1.
Arsene Lupin - 1905 story about the gentleman thief - Sherlock Holmes with Robin Hood - Written by Maurice Leblanc - would only steal from the rich and would use his intellect as opposed to brawn or weapons.
In 2021 - Netflix invested 6bn dollars into original content - amazon and apple tv only invested 2-3 bn
- important as it keeps interest into THEIR platform - keeping interest more important than gaining once a big company -
David Hesmondhalgh - cultural industries
Media producers follow capitalist patterns - increasing concentration and integration (less companies but bigger) - called conglomerates - vertical integration to reduce risk - also used in real businesses - risk is high in cultural industries - industries use repetition to reduce the risk - same stars, genre, sequels, narratives, etc - explains why big company franchises do better commercially than indie films -
examples in Lupin - the heist concept - flashbacks - typical sidekick (smaller, intellegent, glasses - Watson-esque) - nonchalant whistling when 'misbehaving' (mocking/admitting guilt) - fancy suit under a disguise
I believe Hesmondhalgh theory applies most to Stranger Things as its entirely built up from references and nods to other media forms as opposed to Lupin that does have standalone elements