The streaming video service will premiere not one but two stand-up comedy specials featuring Chappelle on New Year’s Eve this year, according to an announcement. Along with the previously announced Equanimity special, Netflix will also debut Dave Chappelle: The Bird Revelation that same day.
Netflix announced the double bill of Chappelle comedy via a video teaser for the shows, which offered a preview of both specials.
Equanimity and The Bird Revelation are Chappelle’s third and fourth stand-up specials for Netflix this year, following Deep in the Heart of Texas: Dave Chappelle Live at Austin City Limits and The Age of Spin: Dave Chappelle Live at the Hollywood Palladium. The specials are part of a deal that initially had Chappelle release three stand-up shows exclusively to Netflix in 2017, only to have the fourth show announced this week. The comedian was reportedly paid a whopping $20 million per show for the exclusive rights to each special.
The deal apparently paid off for Netflix, as the company announced in April that Chappelle’s specials were the most-watched comedy specials in the streaming video service’s history. Netflix has made a significant push to expand its stand-up comedy offerings in recent years, and now exclusively hosts a wide range of shows from comedians such Sarah Silverman, Aziz Ansari, and other well-known figures in comedy.
Dave Chappelle: Equanimity was filmed at the historic Warner Theater in Washington D.C. and is described as “a stand-up event packed with scorching new material, self-reflection and tough love,” in which the comedian “hilariously revels in taking on culture and class, politics and the specter of getting old.”
The just-added special Dave Chappelle: The Bird Revelation was filmed at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles on November 20. That special is expected to address the first year of Donald Trump’s controversial, scandal-plagued U.S. presidency, as well as other timely subjects.
Dubbed the “comic genius of America” by Esquire in 2006, Chappelle received a Primetime Emmy Award in 2017 for his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. In 2009, Comedy Central ranked him 43rd on its list of the “100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time.”
