Hulu is set to lose all 180 episodes of the Emmy-Award winning Seinfeld in 2021 after Netflix swooped in with a lucrative deal. It’s true that quality legacy programming, or re-runs, contributes to user engagement and helps to avoid churn, or the rate at which customers cancel their subscriptions in a given period. But it is exclusive originals that drive subscription growth. On that front, Hulu continues to make moves.
The over-the-top platform is developing a one-hour Hardy Boys series based on the beloved source material created by Edward Stratemeyer, Observer has exclusively learned. The show will be a young adult and teen-oriented drama co-executive produced by Joan Lambur and Steve Cochrane. Jason Stone is set to direct. Hulu did not immediately respond to Observer’s request for comment.
Specific plot details for the series are unknown at this time.
The original iteration of the characters, Frank and Joe Hardy, debuted in 1927 as teenage crime-solvers handling cases that stumped the adults in their lives. Since then, the characters have been reimagined several times while remaining successful staples of pop culture. Their books sell more than one million copies annually, per the New York Times, and the characters have appeared in five different television series as well as video games and merchandise. Their most recent small screen appearance came in the short-lived 1995 series The Hardy Boys.
The young adult and teen genre is an increasingly popular target demographic thanks to the success of hit series such as The CW’s Riverdale and Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The CW is actually set to debut a Nancy Drew TV series in October. The character was also created by Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to the Hardy Boys.
Disney, which assumed full control of Hulu in May and recently shook up its executive hierarchy, will add some muscle to the streaming platform. Leading basic cable network FX, which Disney acquired as part of the Fox deal, will be a significant building block for Hulu. Much of Fox’s other, less family-friendly content will also be rerouted to the streamer. The infusion of resources and content will help Hulu grow its 28 million subscriber base moving forward.
Hardy Boys is expected to begin production in the near future.
