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After building a House of Cards, Netflix is planning to make sense. The streaming service has announced Sense8, a new sci-fi series from the creators of The Matrix and Babylon 5.
The new series, to be financed by Netflix and exclusively screened online, is the brainchild of Andy and Lana Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. There’ll be 10 episodes and it’ll be streamed online in 2014.
The Wachowskis and Straczynski have long been interested in the themes that will inform Sense8: “Several years ago, we had a late night conversation about the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us, and out of that paradox Sense8 was born.”
The Wachowskis — formerly known as the Wachowski Brothers, until Larry became Lana — are the creative minds behind The Matrix films and Cloud Atlas. Straczynski is the BAFTA-nominated writer behind Babylon 5, the Clint Eastwood-directed Changeling, a lengthy run on The Amazing Spider-Man, and DC Comics including Superman: Earth One and Before Watchmen.
Sense8 follows the success of House of Cards, a Netflix-funded political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and based on the classic BBC serial of the same name. Other Netflix productions include Eli Roth’s Hemlock Grove and the new series of Arrested Development, which is available in May.
Rival online services are racing to get in on the action when it comes to all-important exclusive content. Amazon’s LoveFilm service will be the first place to watch the pilot for a TV show based on zom-com film Zombieland, with more self-produced shows also on the cards. And even BBC iPlayer is getting involved, with six exclusive short films and an online debut for Peter Kay’s first BBC sitcom Car Share.
Sense8 hits Netflix next year. Will you be watching? Tell me your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.
