If you’ve been wandering around the Internet and stumbled on fanart of a person in a jester outfit with a panicked expression, then you’ve already encountered the phenomenon that is The Amazing Digital Circus. A fully independent animated series, the show launched its pilot on YouTube about a year ago and racked up over 25 million views in just a month.
We previously saw this happen with Hazbin Hotel / Helluva Boss, an indie project which graduated into a bona fide million-dollar television series on Amazon Prime. The Amazing Digital Circus has already beaten the records set by Hazbin Hotel (which it shares some of its production crew with) so the question everyone’s been asking is, which streamer was going to pick it up? It seemed like a matter of when, not if.
This week we learned it’s Netflix, but it’s not quite the same deal as with Hazbin Hotel. In the latter case Amazon assumed the production and cost of the series in exchange for exclusivity and ownership. In this case, Netflix will not own The Amazing Digital Circus, nor will it be funding or even splitting the cost of production. This is a distribution deal only, with creator Gooseworx holding full rights. Given the state of the business lately, you really can’t blame TADC for hesitating to shake any hands.
“We’re still independently funding everything, we still get full control of the show, and episodes will continue to ALWAYS come out on YouTube first.” Gooseworx says. We’re not sure what they mean by “first” here as the newest episode is currently scheduled to hit YouTube and Netflix on the same day. Maybe the YouTube release will be a few hours ahead?
The Amazing Digital Circus centers around Pomni, a 25-year-old woman who put on a headset one day and found herself transported inside her computer, where she now suffers at the whims of a manic ringmaster along with four other prisoners. There are a lot of “mystery box” elements to it, but answers will come eventually. Gooseworx has a plan: there will only ever be ten episodes of the series.
The first two episodes were released last October and May, and will be joined by a brand-new third episode when the series launches on Netflix October 3…but you don’t really have to wait to start the show. It’s streamable on anything that picks up YouTube, including this very page.
Discuss this article on the Toonzone Forums!
