Netflix announced today that it has three new original shows slated for a late 2014 release. The content streamer sealed a multi-year deal with DreamWorks last summer, promising 300 hours of original content, with the first shows going live in early 2014. The very first of these started landing in instant queues in December: Turbo FAST, a spinoff of the DreamWorks Animations feature about racing snails that hit theaters last July.
Today’s announcement, in the form of a humorous press release, not only anticipates new Turbo episodes set for streaming release on April 4 (Turbo wasn’t released in its entirety for binging consumption), but also three new originals: Shrek spin-off Puss In Boots brings more of the Robin Hood-esque kitten to the screen, King Julien follows a lemur from the Madagascar franchise, and Veggie Tales in the House will let many of us wax nostalgic over the cute little faithful vegetables.
But this story isn’t quite what it seems. Its origin dates back to September 2011 — Netflix slyly nabbed the rights to these DreamWorks collaborations from rival HBO (which may become even more of a rival in the near future if the content provider follows through with its proposed contingency plan and “pivots” into a primarily digital/online delivery mode), marking the first time in history that a content provider has chosen a web streaming service over a premium television channel.
And for good reason — Netflix is on a hot streak with House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, and its increasingly robust catalog of original content, a new trend that’s quickly becoming standard operating procedure, Amazon being another recent example.
