If they’re giving away prizes for digital ambition, save a statue for Crackle, the Sony digital network--how easily that phrase has entered the lexicon-- that on Friday announced its upcoming plans as part of the now-concluding weeklong NewFronts event in New York.
Crackle’s content plans include eight projects. Three of those are existing programs, two are full-length movies, two are new scripted series and one is a music/reality series.
The most publicized of the returning programs, no doubt, is “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” starring Jerry Seinfeld in the biggest vehicle-led program since “Knight Rider.” Seinfeld will talk and laugh and drive with guest passengers including David Letterman, Sarah Silverman, Chris Rock and Don Rickles among his 24 trips that start showing up on Crackle this summer..
Crackle’s first feature-length digital movie will be with a martial arts/ BlackOps/ kick-ass “Extraction” starring Danny Glover and a sequel to “Joe Dirt” starring David Spade reprising his role from the original. Both seem to be aimed at a crowd that is mainly male and middle-brow, and “Joe Dirt: The Sequel” also seems destined for the Obscure Distinction Record Book: Crackle claims it will be the first made-for-digital movie that is a sequel to a theatrical release.
So there you go!
Crackle also returns with a second season of “Chosen,” though just six half hours of that suspense series starting February 2014, and a second season of “The Bannen Way,” the comedy/dramedy about a con-man with a police chief dad and Mafia uncle and a yearning to leave the shady side and become an upstanding citizen.
New is “Cleaners,” about two beautiful, sexy contract killers (a dime a dozen in digital too, just like on regular old TV) starring Emmanuelle Chriqui, Emily Osment, Missi Pyle, Gina Gershon and David Arquette, set to debut in November. The new “Strand Street,” a half hour drama about a LAPD detective working undercover as the member of a surfer gang, might make some headlines because it’s the series Crackle promises to release all at once like “House of Cards.”
The remaining show on the slate is “Play it Forward,” the working title for six to eight half hour documentary-styled programs in which, it’s promised, “superstar” music artists will participate in “spontaneous street performances” to support music education in public schools.
“Filmmakers capture the unannounced, guerrilla style performances—and the amassing crowds—from strategically positioned cameras, hidden from view. The crowd—and the audience at home—get an intimate and unprecedented experience of a world renowned artist stepping off the stage onto the streets,” says Crackle and I quote from the press release because, well, I’ll like to see if it goes down like that. Superstars are so un-spontaneous anymore. It’s produced by Robert Downey Jr., among others.
pj@mediapost.com