Last month, Amazon debuted five new original pilots that were up for green lights. They asked viewers to vote on the shows and leave feedback, to quantify and qualify which of the lot deserved to be seen by a larger audience, and end up on Amazon Prime Instant.
Today, Amazon Studios officially confirmed they’ve picked up four of the five pilots: Jill Soloway’s Transparent, The X-Files creator Chris Carter’s alien invasion series The After, the cop drama Bosch, and Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman’s classical-music dramedy Mozart in the Jungle. Sports comedy The Rebels has been put on hold for the moment. Amazon also renewed Garry Trudeau’s political comedy Alpha House for a second season, and picked up two kids’ shows. This second round of pilots were allegedly watched by twice as many customers as last year’s.
We reviewed all the pilot epsiodes last month, and favored Soloway’s Transparent above the rest. In an interview with Indiewire, Soloway, who worked on The United States of Tara and Six Feet Under, explained how Amazon’s pilot process is revolutionary, in that it minimizes the Hollywood hierarchy traditionally needed to approve a pilot, and lets the viewer voice their opinion as well. You can still watch all the pilots as part of a free 30-day trial.
This announcement comes days after a rumor that Amazon is planning to debut a free streaming service. The company quickly denied that rumor, but announced a Wednesday press conference about an “update” to its video service, which might be for their new Internet streaming device. No word yet as to whether the device might be delivered via drone.
Screengrab via amazonstudios/YouTube