‘House of Cards’ Arrives as a Netflix Series

Underwood is speaking at a presidential inauguration, just outside the Capitol in Washington. As viewers observe the swearing-in he asks in a delicious Southern drawl, “Centuries from now, when people watch this footage, who will they see smiling just at the edge of the frame?” Then Underwood comes into frame again. He’s just a few rows away from the president. He gives the camera a casual wave.

Underwood, having been spurned in his bid to become secretary of state, is on a quest for power that’s just as suspenseful as anything on television. But his story will unspool not on TV but on Netflix, the streaming video service that is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in original programming. Its plan for showing “House of Cards,” an adaptation of a 1990 BBC mini-series set in Parliament, will itself be a departure from the usual broadcast approach. On Feb. 1 all 13 episodes will be available at once, an acknowledgment that many of its subscribers like to watch shows in marathon sessions.

Another 13 episodes are already in production. Odds are, then, that viewers are going to spend quite a while inside Underwood’s head as he tricks, coerces and sometimes intimidates his opponents. “He makes you complicit in an odd way,” said David Fincher, the acclaimed filmmaker who directed the first episode of the new series.

This is accomplished by having Mr. Spacey break the fourth wall, or address the audience directly. The original “House of Cards” did it too.

“I loved the idea of being intimately part of the thought process of this lead character, because he could take you aside and explain to you what he was doing and why he was doing it and where it was headed,” Mr. Fincher said.

He and the other producers won’t reveal exactly where their modern-day “Macbeth” ends up, though a shot at the presidency isn’t a bad guess. The characters introduced in the first two episodes include Representative Peter Russo, a pawn for Underwood, played by Corey Stoll (Hemingway in “Midnight in Paris”); Linda Vasquez, the president’s chief of staff, played by Sakina Jaffrey; and Underwood’s conniving wife, Claire, played by Robin Wright. “In politics there’s ambition, desire, lust, betrayal — all the same kinds of things we exhibit and experience in our own everyday lives,” said Beau Willimon, the show runner. Mr. Fincher, Mr. Willimon and many of the other players — all basically television novices — were brought together by Media Rights Capital, an independent studio that had optioned the rights to “House of Cards” thanks to an intern who recommended it to Mordecai Wiczyk, the studio’s co-founder.

Mr. Fincher was finishing “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” when he was introduced to the BBC mini-series by an agent. “David said, ‘I’d love to executive-produce this, and I’d like to bring Eric Roth with me,’ ” Mr. Wiczyk recalled. “Generally speaking, when you get that phone call, you just say yes. Which I did.”

Mr. Roth had written the screenplay for “Benjamin Button.” Next, Mr. Fincher said, they had to “find a writer who would do the due diligence to transplant parliamentary politics to Washington.” Enter Mr. Willimon, who had written the play “Farragut North” and turned it into the film “The Ides of March.” After watching the BBC mini-series, he said, “I saw tons of great opportunities to make it our own, to make it contemporary, to broaden its scope and deepen its story.” It’s a “reinvention,” he added, not a mere remake.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/arts/television/house-of-cards-arrives-as-a-netflix-series.html?partner=rss&emc=rss