While Netflix and Disney+ are ramping up their content creation for the New Year, Amazon Prime Video is also preparing to release a flurry of new programs in 2020. As one of the original giants in the realm of streaming platforms, Prime Video has been known for its practice of quality over quantity. However, in 2019, Prime spent nearly $50 million at the Sundance Film Festival, snatching up films to distribute on its platform exclusively.
2020 will see the release of 30 Amazon Original films, as well as at least a dozen series as Amazon attempts to maximize Prime Video's appeal. The service comes free with Amazon Prime, but less than 2% of new customers sign up for it by itself. Some series like Hunters about Nazi-hunters in '70s NYC, or Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer as narrated by Bundy's longtime girlfriend, have generated a buzz already. Others, like The Legend of Vox Machina, may be too esoteric to be on subscriber's radar. Here are the 5 Prime Originals we're most excited about, and 5 we're choosing to avoid.
LOOKING FORWARD TO: HUNTERS
From horror maestro and executive producer Jordan Peele comes Hunters, a gripping new Prime series about a group of misfit Nazi hunters operating out of New York City in 1977. Apparently hundreds of Nazi officials escaped Europe and reside in the Big Apple, orchestrating a Fourth Reich.
Starring Logan Lerman and Al Pacino, this series looks to be inventive, clever, and action-packed. It also looks to pack in the history, shedding some light on an uncomfortable reality for the many high ranking members of the Nazi party that escaped justice and got away with genocide.
NOT: MAKING THE CUT
It was recently announced that Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, known for their roles on Project Runway, were departing the reality television series where designers compete to win a cash prize to be part of another reality series where designers compete to win a bigger cash prize.
If it doesn't sound like there's any difference between the series, other than the zeros added to the winning contestant's check, rest assured there is. In this series, the designers already have brands, they're simply competing to get the cool $1 million dollars to make them go international.
LOOKING FORWARD TO: TED BUNDY: FALLING FOR A KILLER
While Netflix had a chilling documentary series that focused on recorded tapes of Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer who terrorized and brutally murdered dozens of young women in the '70s, Prime Video will be releasing a different take on the true-crime saga.
Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer will have a unique perspective, told from the point of view of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kendall, and her daughter Molly. It will focus on analyzing Bundy's hatred for women and the feminist culture war of the era through the eyes of the only women to escape his spree. It coincides with the updated release of Kendall's book, The Phantom Prince: My Life With Ted Bundy.
NOT: UPLOAD
In what sounded like an interesting take on what happens after we die, Upload is set in a future where humans can program their preferred afterlife. When Nathan (Robbie Amell) passes away early, he's greeted by Nora in his preferred version of the great beyond, a living person whose job it is to guide the recently deceased through their struggles of readjustment.
As Nathan begins to settle into his surroundings and the thought of being away from his loved ones, Nora struggles to balance her workload and make Nathan feel comfortable. We imagine there's some existential humor to be found in this quirky comedy series, but without more of a premise, we don't see it generating enough material past one season.
LOOKING FORWARD TO: THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA
Critical Role, the massively popular web show following a group of roleplayers who have been involved in the same tabletop storyline for years, has reached a deal with Amazon Prime to distribute their animated series. It was backed on Kickstarter and became the most funded TV project ever due to fan contribution.
The Legend of Vox Machina will include storylines from the group's roleplaying campaign spread out over two seasons (a total of 24 episodes), and is set to premiere sometime in late 2020. Amazon Prime also inked another deal with Critical Role to develop another additional series, details to be announced.
NOT: RADIOACTIVE
When we heard a biographical film about Marie Curie was coming down the pipeline, we were pretty excited. Amidst all the other historical geniuses we've seen get film adaptations, few were women. Benedict Cumberbatch made it into two movies, one playing Alan Turing and another playing Thomas Edison.
Amazon Prime has snapped up Radioactive, starring Rosamund Pike as Marie Curie, whose brilliant contributions to science in the 18th and 19th centuries still impact us today. However, like most biopics that insist on featuring the passing of decades, this film is long-winded and deprives Curie of her depth and complexity.
LOOKING FORWARD TO: INVINCIBLE
Robert Kirkman, the author behind The Walking Dead, is having another one of his comic book series adapted for streaming. Invincible will follow Mark Grayson, a normal teenager in every respect save for one; his father is Omni-Man, formerly the world's most powerful superhero.
After Mark turns 17, he notices he too is developing superpowers and begins training under his dad's vigilant tutelage. This series promises to have action, comedy, and drama and features an impressive array of voice actors. Steven Yeun will play Mark Grayson, J.K. Simmons will play Nolan Grayson/Omni-Man, and Sandra Oh will play Debbie Grayson. Mark Hamill and Seth Rogen are also expected to have roles.
NOT: OUR CHEMICAL HEARTS
Since Amazon Prime has 30 new films on the docket for 2020, there are bound to be a few misses. Chemical Hearts seems to fall into that category, given its maudlin premise. It's about a boy named Henry Page who, despite being a hopeless romantic, has never been in love.
Then into his first-period class walks Grace (Lili Reinhart), who isn't the ideal love interest for Henry, but he's drawn to her anyway. When they are assigned to edit the school paper, he gets to know her better and realizes that even though she's "broken" from a traumatic past, he has to find a way to "fix" her. The white knight complex throughout the film is enough to make us give this teen drama a hard pass.
LOOKING FORWARD TO: BLOW THE MAN DOWN
In what looks like an ode to the Coen Brothers, this sprightly black comedy is set among the eccentric inhabitants of a remote fishing village in Maine. Two grieving sisters, who have just buried their mother after nursing her through a year-long illness, must pick up the pieces of their lives while realizing their lives aren't what they seem.
The sisters (Sophie Lowe and Morgan Saylor) are each very different from one another, and their dysfunction just adds to the colorful cast of characters inhabiting Easter Cove. It combines the strange zaniness of colloquial movies like Fargo with the melancholic intrigue of familial mysteries like Dolores Claiborne.
NOT: NARCOS VS. ZOMBIES
In a curious mash-up of genres, Narcos vs. Zombies pits a drug kingpin and his son against flesh-eating hordes along the US/Mexico border. The pair believe hiding out in Paradiso, a drug rehabilitation facility on the US side will save them, but the zombies (former soldiers experimented on by the military) don't care about the division of countries.
Javier Szerman, head of Mexico originals for Amazon Prime, has stated a series on this scale, with this level of visual effects, hasn't been attempted in Latin America before. Unfortunately, it has all of the same tropes of other zombie series, from the Resident Evil to The Walking Dead, and viewers may be braindead from the undead by now.