LOS ANGELES – The summer blockbusters are coming. And to see them, you don’t even need to get off your sofa.
The TV networks are pouring unprecedented amounts of money — and some very creative deal-making — into getting A-list movie writer-producers and actors onto your living-room flat screen during the hot months.
On NBC, John Malkovich is starring as the pirate Blackbeard in “Crossbones.” CBS is launching a sci-fi drama, “Extant,” starring Oscar winner Halle Berry and produced by Steven Spielberg. And director Guillermo del Toro is bringing his vampire tale “The Strain” to FX with a $9-million price tag for the pilot alone.
Summer used to be network television’s dead zone, stocked with repeats and cheap reality shows, and it was a place to bury canceled series.
That left an opening for the cable networks, which saw a chance to gain viewers without having to go up against the networks’ best new shows in the fall, using summer to launch hit programs such as “Mad Men.”
CBS fired back last summer with the Stephen King miniseries “Under the Dome,” which did so much better than expected that the network is bringing it back this year with fresh episodes. That success, combined with increasing competition from Netflix, Amazon and other upstart content providers, has upended traditional notions of what constitutes a TV “season.”
All the TV sizzle, however, carries significant risks. Networks are shelling out big money for these summer dramas, with Fox’s summertime reboot of “24” with Kiefer Sutherland topping $4 million per episode in total production costs, according to industry insiders. “Extant” costs nearly that much. That matches the tab for the most expensive shows during the regular season.
At the same time, the cable networks are ramping up their own offerings to stay competitive. In addition to FX’s marquee summer project, TNT is rolling out the apocalyptic epic “The Last Ship.” The show’s executive producer is Michael Bay, best known for directing big-budget summer films including the “Transformers” series.
“Our goal is to make watching TNT be like going to a great summer movie,” Michael Wright, the programming chief of TNT’s parent company, Turner Networks, told media buyers earlier this month in New York. “Grab a bucket of popcorn, kick back and let us take you on a thrilling ride.”
In an interview, Bay said he had wanted to get involved in TV for a long time but had been “slow and cautious” about making his move. “This particular idea was batted around quite a bit, and it was really cinematic,” he said of “The Last Ship.” “So I gave it my all.”
Cable networks have long realized, of course, that summer offers a perfect opportunity to chase new viewers. HBO, for example, moved its vampire drama “True Blood” from fall to summer starting with Season 2 back in 2009. Viewing more than doubled, according to Nielsen, and it became one of HBO’s top-performing shows. Its seventh and final season will air this summer.
Those kinds of opportunities existed for cable networks because for decades broadcasters mostly ignored the summer. With longer days and summer vacation competing for viewers’ attention, the networks scheduled mostly repeats between Memorial Day and late September, when the new season started. Over the last decade, they found success with relatively inexpensive reality fare, such as “America’s Got Talent,” “Big Brother” and “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Much of the credit for the about-face goes to a surprise hit from last year. “Under the Dome” was adapted from a Stephen King thriller about townsfolk trapped under a giant transparent bubble.
The show succeeded despite a number of traditional hindrances to attracting big audiences. In addition to the summer time slot, there were no high-profile stars, and it wasn’t a cop show or medical drama that viewers would instantly recognize.
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