It was one of Netflix’s most expensive flops - and now Battle Camp been axed after just one series.
The celebrity challenge show, with a strong whiff of I’m a Celebrity, dropped on the streaming service in April but got a poor reception from critics and viewers alike.
Filmed on location in , the series featured names including Tony Castellanos, Shubham Goel and Gabi Butler and others from the streamer’s various reality shows such as , and The Circle.
But I can reveal that quickly took the decision to shelve a second season due to the lacklustre response and the huge costs involved in making the ten-parter.
A TV insider said: “There were so many individuals taking part in the show, with 18 contestants in total.
The fact that they all charged a fee to take part and that it was filmed on location, made it unusually costly.
Plus the format - set in a camp which was purpose-built from scratch for the show - relied on multiple challenges, each costing big to set up. It was an expense Netflix would have been happy to shoulder, except it didn’t meet their expectations.
“The hope was that it would create the sense of there being a ‘Netflix reality universe’, but most people who watched it didn’t think the show was out of this world.”
Fingers burned
Netflix had already had their fingers burned in February when they screened , with and , plus a string of celebrities, each getting paid for their time trying to survive the Costa Rican jungle.
Like Battle Camp, the show cost millions to make but didn’t make an impact when it dropped earlier this year and it was axed in June.
Perhaps the streamer needs to come up with some original formats, rather than mash-ups of other shows.
It all just hit the fan
Looks like the new adaptation of Frankenstein has already got a big fan long before its aired on Netflix.
Small wonder looking at the opulent treatment that’s been given to Mary Shelley’s classic novel by the visionary director Guillermo Del Toro.
The drama, which drops this November sees hunky Jacob Elordi play the monster while Oscar Isaac is his creator Baron Frankenstein.
Mia Goth plays Elizabeth Lavenza, the baron’s beautiful fiancee.
Looking Goode for Dept Q return
Netflix hit Dept Q could be set for a second series, that’s if you believe a conspiracy theory cooked up by one of its stars.
Matthew Goode, who plays DCI Carl Morck in the British crime thriller based on the books by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, says he clocked creator Scott Frank edit out a key scene at the last minute which revealed much-needed information on his character’s past - which he thinks could be used in a future series.
The Crown actor thinks the chopped out speech gave viewers a much-needed explanation about the mysterious dad-of-one and he believes it was purposely saved for a later date.
He explains: “There was a speech in episode five which got taken out, I’m not going to say what [his last job was] in case Scott changes his mind or uses it for a second series, but it was perfect... he’s taken out some of the information and I love that because he remains a mystery - there’s ten books that could be done so hopefully we get to do at least a few of those.”
He’s not just a good on screen detective.
This City never sleeps
Filming for the second run of drama This City Is Ours gets under way next month.
I can reveal the hit BBC One series, following the lives of the notorious Phelan family, will be shot in Liverpool and Spain once again.
Its debut eight-episode run, which aired in March, attracted more than six million viewers and is the Beeb’s most-watched new drama this year.
Dubbed “the Scouse Sopranos”, due to its parallels with the hit Italian-American gangster drama, the series caused such a buzz one of its stars James Nelson-Joyce has been touted as a contender to be the next James Bond.
But another of its cast members with a 007 connection, GoldenEye’s Sean Bean, won’t be returning in the follow-up as.
The veteran actor’s character, Ronnie Phelan, was killed off in series one - the 25th on-screen death of the Sheffield actor’s career.
No wonder he’s always grumpy.
Claudia Doumit and Ellie De Lange are joining the cast of the second series of 3 Body Problem on Netflix.
The fantasy series was a huge hit for the streaming giant when it debuted last year and a sequel was quickly in the pipeline.
Claudia and Ellie will play the characters of Captain Van Rijn and Ayla, respectively.
The first season of the drama series spent 3 weeks at No.1 and 7 weeks on the Netflix Global Top 10, where it reached the top 10 in 93 countries.
Danny’s on hot streak
Danny Dyer’s nude scene in the new series of Mr Bigstuff gave an entire neighbourhood the willies.
That’s because filming for the Sky Max comedy took place during Halloween on a real-life suburban street and according to creator and co-star Ryan Sampson, the sight of the former EastEnders star sprinting down a road with nothing but a sock on his manhood didn’t go unnoticed.
Speaking on The MashyCast podcast, Ryan said: “I’d written this scene where Danny is running down a suburban street chasing someone so they said ‘when we actually came to do this you’re going to have to tell Danny that you’re really doing this’; it’s a real street, real people live there, it’s not like a Hollywood film with a budget where we can CGI it all, he actually has to run down with just a little sock, well a reasonable sized sock, on his bits and pieces.
“I was so nervous, we had just one take because we were losing the light at the end of the day and I was waiting at the end of the street and there’s a man going into his house and he goes ‘sorry babe, I’m going to have to go because there’s a man running down the street naked and I think it’s Mick from EastEnders’.
“It was just unreal and it was on Halloween, so there were [people out].”
And they say full moons are rare on Fright Night.
