Just hours after Netflix announced that it was canceling flagship drama House Of Cards after one more season, Variety has shared a report that the streaming service is now developing a House Of Cards spin-off series. This is all apparently in the “early stages” and Netflix hasn’t offered any official comment on the plans, but “multiple ideas” are currently being developed—suggesting that Netflix is taking the same approach to this as HBO is for its Game Of Thrones spin-offs.
So far, Variety only knows about one potential spin-off, an idea written by Eric Roth that will revolve around Michael Kelly’s endlessly loyal lackey Doug Stamper. Supposedly, though, two other ideas are also in the works, with at least one hopefully revolving around Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood or maybe Paul Sparks’ journalist/video game critic Thomas Yates.
This all comes in the wake of actor Anthony Rapp’s allegation that Kevin Spacey tried to sexually assault him when he was 14, an accusation that apparently played some role in Netflix’s decision to announce it was ending House Of Cards. Spacey apologized for the alleged incident and then came out as a gay man in the same statement, with tons of people criticizing him for apparently trying to downplay the allegations (or even for trying to equate being gay with sexually assaulting an underage boy).
Basically, it seems like Netflix is trying to keep the House Of Cards brand without having to stay in the Kevin Spacey business.