Picture Credit: Amazon Prime Video
That’s a licensing shocker. The Amazon Prime Video Original series Hunters, which ran for two seasons in the early 2020s, has just touched down on Netflix in the US, the UK, and most other international regions.
It’s not every day we see a flagship original series from a rival streamer make its way over to Netflix, but that has been shifting over the past few years as the likes of Paramount, Disney, AMC and even HBO turn back on the licensing taps either again or, in the case of some, for the first time ever.
Created by David Weil and executive produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out, Nope), Hunters first premiered on Prime Video in February 2020 and ran for two seasons, with that second season confirmed in advance to be its last.
The series is set in 1977 New York City, following a ragtag team of vigilantes who discover that hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials are living among us and conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the United States. The eclectic team of Hunters sets out on a bloody quest to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans.
Hunters picked up predominantly positive reviews throughout its two-season run, although it’s clear the second season landed much better than the first.
The series boasts an impressive ensemble cast, headlined by screen legend Al Pacino in one of his rare television roles.
- Al Pacino as Meyer Offerman, the wealthy leader of the Hunters.
- Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson, Bullet Train) as Jonah Heidelbaum, a young math whiz recruited into the fold.
- Jerrika Hinton (Grey’s Anatomy) as Millie Morris, an FBI agent on the trail of the Fourth Reich.
- Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) as Lonny Flash, a master of disguise.
- Carol Kane (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) as Mindy Markowitz.
The show won’t be on Netflix forever; the license is only for a single year, we’re told. The series remains available on Prime Video, in addition to Netflix.
This is a shock addition to Netflix, as we’ve already made evident. While we’ve seen some Prime Video series join Netflix fairly recently this situation is different.
Sneaky Pete was added to Netflix in the US and other regions earlier this year (although Sony Pictures Television owns it), and Absentia joined Netflix globally more recently, hitting the top 10s and becoming a success, even going as far as dominating the top 10s for the past few weeks. Once again in that instance, the underlying rights were also owned by Sony Pictures Television, and it’s not uncommon after an exclusive window on the streamer that commissioned it that the studio then licenses elsewhere.
That’s not the case with Hunters, which wasn’t produced by an outside studio like Sony. The series was made by Monkeypaw Productions and Halcyon Studios, with Amazon Studios commissioning it and reportedly controlling global distribution from the outset. In other words, Amazon itself has always held the downstream rights, making its decision to license the series to Netflix a far more unusual move than the typical post-window deals we’ve seen with Sony-produced Prime Video titles.
This addition comes as part of a wave of MGM movies hitting Netflix in the United States. It began last week with the licensing of titles like Bones & All and Dog. In December, we’ll see movies like House of Gucci and The Hustle added. That extends internationally, too, with many territories picking up the series Fargo, which had streamed on Netflix previously for a stint.
Are you watching Hunters on Netflix? Let us know what you think in the comments.
