• by Alex Weprin , December 4, 2017

Streaming giant Netflix will resume production on “House of Cards,” the drama series that kickstarted its original programming strategy, early next year. 

Netflix’s head of content Ted Sarandos said at the UBS Global Media and Telecommunications Conference in New York Monday that the show’s sixth season would resume production without its star Kevin Spacey in early 2018. The-eight episode season will be the show’s last.

Production had been on hiatus since last month after Spacey was accused of inappropriate conduct by people that worked on the show, as well as others in Hollywood.

Sarandos also said the company expects to have 50% of its inventory be original content by the end of 2019.

To help get to that point, Netflix is planning as many as four feature films per year, and currently has 60 children shows in development. Netflix is also developing regional original content, such as anime in Japan. The service will have 30 international originals in 2018.

“We’ve been careful to not become a one-brand network. The way to do that is having a lot of variety, and executing in multiple genres at a high level,” Sarandos said.

The update is notable because Netflix will soon find itself in a much more crowded marketplace. Disney is planning a direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019, while a number of streaming bundles and other DTC offerings continue to proliferate.

Netflix, which does not have advertising, is by far the biggest company in streaming video, with Amazon and Hulu also counting a significant number of subscribers. 

The final season of “House of Cards” also marks in some respects the end of the first phase of Netflix’s strategic shift. Before that show, Netflix was about acquiring second-run movies and TV shows from others; afterward, it was all about building a massive library of original and exclusive content.