One month after Amazon’s popular comedy-drama Transparent won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, the studio is making efforts to find its next big hit. Amazon announced Wednesday that they have ordered full seasons of five original series, Frank Spotnitz’s The Man In The High Castle, Shawn Ryan’s hour-long dark comedy Mad Dogs, docu-series The New Yorker Presents, and kids shows Just Add Magic and The Stinky & Dirty Show.
The five series, all of which were part of Amazon’s first pilot season of 2015, will reportedly premiere exclusively for Prime Instant members in the U.S., UK and Germany either later this year or early next year. Will Graham and Lindsey Stoddart’s Salem Rogers remains in contention with an order for a second script, but Samuel Baum and Sam Shaw’s Cocked, Carlton Cuse and Randall Wallace’s Point Of Honor, Robin Schiff’s Down Dog and children’s pilots Buddy: Tech Detective, Sara Saves It, Table 58 and Niko and the Sward of Light officially didn’t make the cut.
The Man In The High Castle is based on Philip K. Dick’s novel of the same name, which features an alternative history in which Nazi Germany and Japan were the victors of World War II. David Semel directed and executive produced the well-received pilot with X-Files alum Spotnitz. Mad Dogs is an hour-long dark comedy/drama based on the UK original, and follows the reunion of a group of underachieving forty-something friends played by Steve Zahn, Billy Zane, Romany Malco, Michael Imperioli and Ben Chaplin. It marks the 10th pilot directed by Charles McDougall to go to series, and the sixth in a row to do so. Half-hour series The New Yorker Presents is Amazon’s first docu-series, and its pilot featured a short film starring Alan Cumming and Brett Gelman, a documentary by Jonathan Demme, and an interview with performance artist Marina Abramović.
Amazon is also making sure that kids have something to look forward to next year; Just Add Magic will bring enjoyment to 6-11 year olds, while preschoolers can tune in to The Stinky & Dirty Show. Magic is based on Cindy Callaghan’s young adult book, and will center on a girl and her friends after they stumble upon a mysterious cookbook that contains magical recipes. The Stinky & Dirty Show is based on the I Stink! book series by Kate and Jim McMullan, and follows the adventures of Stinky the garbage truck and Dirty the backhoe loader.
The studio also picked up freshman comedy Mozart in the Jungle for a second season, making it join Transparent as Amazon’s second series in a row to earn a Season Two.
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