I’d like to share something important about Candie TV that I don’t think I’ve shared before, and it has to do with the TV part of it: why are we focusing only on television shows for the time being?
I get asked often if we will do movies too. Hell, I receive unsolicited pitches in my inbox all the time for movies, despite the fact that we have no plans to do them.
Often, I’ll even get the advice that we’re screwing ourselves over by not doing movies too.
Why? Is it because I hate movies? Yes.
Just kidding. I love movies. I write about them all the time, including my articles where I break down what’s great about every film on the AFI Top 100 List (shameless plug). Naturally, movies and television have a lot in common, which is why they appear in conjunction on almost every other streaming service.
So this feels like I’m sharing something personal for some reason, even though it’s the whole reason for Candie’s content decision, but I do want to share the four main reasons that we’re only making and distributing series.
Deeper Concentration
I want to create something amazing and game-changing, and as similar as TV and movies can be, narrowing the focus gives more room to do so.
Most streaming services don’t have an identity, as there’s only a marginal difference between what’s on Netflix and Prime. Some do have an identity, but with a narrower scope, like Shudder, which focuses on horror.
There are plenty of streaming services that carry independent movies, but none that cater exclusively to independent television.
The closest might be something like Dropout, and while I’d be thrilled to be mentioned in the same breath as them, they’re putting on different types of shows than we do.
By limiting ourselves to one medium, we can be as diverse as possible within it. We’re carrying only TV shows, and we have one more specification: they must be imaginative shows doing something brand new. But that’s the only qualification. Beyond that, the show could be funny, scary, heartwarming, artistic, or weird (and I’m sure many will be weird).
Sometimes you’ve got to say the limit is the sky so the sky can be the limit.
Creators and Artists
A huge goal of mine with Candie TV is to bring forth talented artists, writers, and filmmakers.
Often, creators approach us with feature films. And while this can lead to amazing careers (Tarantino bouncing off Reservoir Dogs, Kevin Smith bouncing off Clerks), movies are a one-and-done kind of thing.
Unless you’re doing a Marvel franchise—but there are only so many of those.
TV series, on the other hand, go on for as long as they’re popular.
And the goal is for the creators and showrunners to connect with their fanbases here. We want them to be able to grow with us—and then maybe grow without us.
If popularity allows, these shows could be sold to the bigger streamers—Netflix, Amazon, Shudder.
If their pilot and first few episodes smash, this is not the end of their journey but the start.
Community
And for the fans, they can watch their shows become bigger and have an opportunity to help make that happen.
Game of Thrones didn’t have dragons in its first episode. But fortunately for them, the fanbase—and thus the budget—became larger by the time Daenerys needed to hatch them.
Fans can have a connection to these shows with Candie TV. And it can be an intimate one.
We have a motto of “big ideas, small budget,” and these early episodes all come with the understanding that these are ambitious ideas, but we’re going to have to get scrappy. As time goes on, I hope the budgets fully catch up to the vision. The special part about shows is they can grow in scope.
Candie’s unique features—like our voting options, user levels, and ability to connect deeply with the show’s creators—keep this in mind. Movies like Napoleon Dynamite or The Big Lebowski might have passionate fanbases, but having a series allows that relationship to keep growing indefinitely.
Pushing the Artform
TV used to get no respect.
And while this was true for a long time, after David Chase’s The Sopranos proved it was an artform deserving to be taken seriously, everything changed.
The last reason might be the most important: television isn’t a lower form of movies—it’s an artform of its own. Much like a novel, it can take you deeper into a world and tell a layered, ongoing story.
We’ve been in the platinum age of television, and we can take it to whatever’s more valuable than platinum.
Diamond age? Obsidian age? Truffle age? Or how about the candy age?
Whatever age it is, we’re looking to create entertainment, but we’re also looking to create art.
They call television the boob tube, but how can boobs be bad? And we’re the kind of boobs it’s okay to have in a museum because it’s artistic.
So yeah, movies are great, but television is a different medium, a different artform, and it’s what I intend Candie to specialize in.
I appreciate everyone who asks, and everyone who sends me unsolicited screenplays (which I definitely, absolutely, lovingly delete), but I hope you’ll join me, as a creator or as a viewer, in this journey to make shows that make people say, “Oh yeah! That’s why they stuck with television.”