Today, Crackle held its first upfront since losing its flagship series, Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, which is moving to Netflix after nine seasons on the Sony-owned ad-supported streaming service. From the stage of Sony Square NYC, Crackle made a series of programming announcements, including the greenlight of new scripted original drama The Oath, (working title), executive produced by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (Power) and his G-Unit Film & Television. The series explores a different kind of subculture – gangs made up of those sworn to protect and defend.
Crackle also has renewed recently launched drama series Snatch, based loosely on the Guy Ritchie movie, for a second season, and Emmy-nominated animated comedy SuperMansion for a third, along with ordering two new specials. The digital platform also has set a September premiere date for Season 2 of its tech drama StartUp, releasing a first-look teaser and photo, and greenlighted techno-thriller movie In The Cloud from Tim Kring and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones as well as weekly highlight series This Week On hosted by YouTube star Ian Hecox.
At the upfront, Crackle also announced three projects in development.
Written and created by former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy Joe Halpin (Hawaii Five-0), the 10-episode The Oath centers on a gang that started out with the right intentions but its members are forced to turn on each other after being picked off by the FBI. “This is the kind of unexpected storytelling that our viewers have come to expect and we look forward to breaking new ground with this new original drama,” said Eric Berger, Crackle’s GM and EVP Digital at Sony Pictures Television Networks.
The Oath is executive produced by Jackson and his G-Unit Film & Television Inc., Todd Hoffman and Dennis Kim of Storied Media Group, and Halpin who will also be showrunner.
In addition to The Oath, Crackle closed a deal with the rapper-actor-producer to develop an hour-long original RPM (working title) written by Leo Sardarian. A high-octane drama set in the working-class streets of Boston’s most corrupt neighborhoods, it follows a used-car salesman who starts moonlighting as a getaway driver for a Boston crime syndicate after financial ruin threatens his family. RPM is produced by Adam Riback, Nick Phillips and Kelly Wagner.
Snatch, meanwhile, will return for a second season in 2018. In addition, the service shared plans to release an exclusive virtual reality bonus experience on PlayStation VR this summer.
“Rupert, Luke and the rest of the cast have created memorable characters who truly resonated with our viewers, and we look forward to following their adventures in Season 2 of Snatch, ” said Berger.
According to Crackle, Snatch is its most-streamed scripted original to date. It centers on a group of twentysomething, up-and-coming hustlers who stumble upon a truck load of stolen gold bullion and are suddenly thrust into the high-stakes world of organized crime.
During the VR experience, the hustlers attempt to break into the safe of Sonny Castillo (Ed Westwick) and can choose to keep cracking the safe or leave the hideout before the cops and Castillo’s goons arrive on the scene.
Snatch stars Rupert Grint and the ensemble cast features Luke Pasqualino, Lucien Laviscount, Dougray Scott, Phoebe Dynevor and Juliet Aubrey. The series is executive produced by Alex De Rakoff, who also serves as writer and showrunner.
StartUp‘s second season will debut on September 28. Currently in production in Puerto Rico, the series explores what happens when a brilliant, yet controversial tech idea gets incubated on the wrong side of the tracks by three strangers who don’t necessarily fit the mold of “tech entrepreneurs.”
Crackle unveiled a first-look clip featuring new cast addition Ron Perlman who portrays Wes Chandler, a multi-millionaire businessman with a level-headed grit. He also will serve as a producer on the series, which has added Addison Timlin (Californication) who will play Perlman’s daughter Mara.
Returning in Season 2 are series’ stars Adam Brody (also a producer), Martin Freeman, Edi Gathegi and Otmara Marrero.
StartUp is produced by Critical Content and Hollywood Gang Productions. Tom Forman, Andrew Marcus, Ray Ricord, Gianni Nunnari, Shannon Gaulding and Anne Clements serve as executive producers. The series is created and written by Ben Ketai who also serves as executive producer and director.
SuperMansion, the Emmy-nominated, stop motion-animated comedy series from Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, will return for a third season in 2018 and will go into production on two all-new specials, debuting this fall and early next year.
“SuperMansion has delivered for Crackle on every metric,” noted Berger. “Critics love it, fans pine for it and the list of talent who want to appear in this series just goes on and on.”
The series follows the adventures of Titanium Rex (voiced by Bryan Cranston) as he struggles to live with and fight alongside the Millennial-aged, often lackadaisical members of The League of Freedom. Season 2 voice-over stars included Cranston, Keegan-Michael Key, Chris Pine, Jillian Bell, Yvette Nicole Brown, Heidi Gardner, Tucker Gilmore and Zeb Wells.
SuperMansion is created by Matthew Senreich and Zeb Wells who also act as executive producers under their production company Stoopid Buddy Stoodios alongside Seth Green, John Harvatine IV and Eric Towner. Cranston and James Degus also serve as executive producers under their production banner Moon Shot Entertainment.
Crackle announced today that it will begin production on In The Cloud, a feature film from Tim Kring (Heroes) and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (Insidious: Chapter Three). The film explores a tech company shrouded in secrecy as it develops software capable of uploading a person’s consciousness and memories to a virtual space regardless of location, time, and state of life—essentially, in the cloud. This allows them to interact with a realistic AI avatar of that individual, even if they are no longer alive. As Cloud Inc.’s public launch date looms, we discover many people with questionable interests in the company and its technology – all of whom have secret agendas – many of which threaten to end the company and the lives of all involved – never mind changing the course of humanity.
The techno-thriller is written by Vanya Asher and produced by Kavanaugh-Jones’ Automatik and Kring’s Imperative Entertainment.
Crackle also revealed plans to launch a new vertical on the free, ad-supported streaming service called CRACKLE SPOTLIGHT. It will be a home to a new weekly series, This Week On hosted by Ian Hecox. Best known to audiences as part of the comedic duo SMOSH, Hecox and his partner Anthony Padilla began posting videos to YouTube over 12 years ago and to date, their channel has over six billion views and 22 million subscribers making it the 7th most subscribed channel on YouTube. This Week On will debut in May.
Here are Crackle’s three original scripted series in development announced at today’s upfront:
ACCIDENT PARK
When an unambitious but lovable hometown zero, Vern, uses the settlement from a personal injury lawsuit to buy the notoriously dangerous local theme park where he was injured, he realizes that he needs help to keep his new business afloat. The comedy begins when the park’s new owner, Vern, enlists the extremely reluctant help of Grant, his best friend from high school who has moved back in with his mom after a spectacular professional flame out on Wall Street. The series is written by Pete Marquis and Jamie T. McCellan and produced by Zach Levi’s Middle Man Productions and Erik Olsen’s Apocalyptic Media.
TRIBES
This one-hour original drama series takes us 20 years into the future when a nano-virus has ravaged the West Coast of the United States. Shut off from the rest world, the inhabitants inside this quarantined zone have reverted back to tribal culture. Until one tribe comes across an ‘elder’ – the first human they have seen over the age of 30 since the outbreak – this man may hold the clues to the cure of this deadly virus – a cure that can set them all free – but some tribes don’t want their world to change. The series is adapted from the popular 2010 graphic novel by Michael Geszel and Peter Spinetta for IDW Publishing and SoulCraft Comics. The series is written by Alex Tse (Watchmen), who will also serve as an executive producer along with Joel Silver’s Silver Pictures (The Matrix, Die Hard, Veronica Mars).
THE ROW:
This one-hour scripted drama, centers around a select group of death row inmates who are about to be given a choice about what they want to do with the rest of their lives – continue their miserable existences on death row or be sent on an experimental mission with a 1% chance of survival. The 1% survival rate has never sounded so good to the inmates who are only too eager to take their chances in space because all of them think that they can find their way out.
The series is created and written by Michael Polish (The Astronaut Farmer) who will also direct and executive produce alongside Kate Bosworth under their production banner, Make Pictures.
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