HBO Wins Bidding War for Javier Bardem's 'The Spread' — SkimNews
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- HBO landed 'The Spread' with a straight-to-series order after a bidding war in which Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount+ and Apple TV all made offers—some including writers rooms and a potential two-season pickup
- 'The Spread' is set in Miami, where a visionary billionaire (Bardem) aims to shift the center of economic gravity to 'Wall Street South,' a subtropical collision of hedge funds, staggering wealth and nightlife
- Paramount+ (Cindy Holland) and Prime Video (Peter Friedlander) were particularly aggressive bidders because both executives previously worked with writer Bill Dubuque on Netflix's Ozark
- Fifth Season defied industry convention by taking the project out in August during the TV selling season's vacation dead period, and it marked the studio's first big sale since naming Peter Traugott President of Television earlier this year
- Matthew Vaughn, director of the Kingsman franchise, is set to direct and executive produce alongside Brad Weston (Makeready) and Ian Stratford and Michael Bloom (Topic Studios), with HBO co-producing with Fifth Season
- Bill Dubuque and Sean Sansiveri—who moonlights as a writer while serving as general counsel for the NFL Players Association—wrote the series
- Javier Bardem, a four-time Oscar nominee and winner for No Country for Old Men, comes to the project off Apple TV's Cape Fear and Netflix's Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Why it matters: HBO rarely commits to a series greenlight based off a pitch, making this straight-to-series order a notable departure from the network's typical pilot-driven model. The bidding war—four major streamers competing with offers escalating to a potential two-season commitment—shows how Bardem's Oscar pedigree and Dubuque's Ozark track record drove the most aggressive pitch competition of the fall selling season.
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