Lulu Wang ‘very angry’ about Prime Video including ads in ‘Expats’
By Carl Samson
January 25, 2024
“Expats” director Lulu Wang is not happy with the inclusion of commercials in her upcoming series.
Driving the news: In a move seen as a shake-up to the streaming industry, Amazon will start running “limited advertisements” on Prime Video on Jan. 29. Users can choose not to watch them by paying $3 a month, and analysts say those who do so could account for a third of the platform’s subscribers.
What she’s saying: Wang, the filmmaker behind 2019’s “The Farewell,” has expressed disdain over the news. She did not know about it while working on her new series, “Expats,” which will drop on Prime Video tomorrow.
“I’m very angry about that. If I had known, I would’ve created in a different way because it’s not a show that has cliff-hangers or commercial breaks to make sure people come back,” Wang told The Hollywood Reporter.
About “Expats”: Based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s 2016 novel “The Expatriates,” Wang’s “Expats” follows three American women — Nicole Kidman, Sarayu Blue and Ji-young Yoo — living in Hong Kong whose families are brought together by tragedy. The six-episode drama tackles grief, purpose, privilege, culpability and geographic displacement, among other themes.
Watch out: Wang told THR she does not know where the ads will be, saying they are “still in the middle of dealing with it.” Interestingly, the situation could mirror a scene from one of the show’s episodes.
“What’s funny is that in episode five, there actually is a commercial break in the news [on the show], and it’s a bit of an absurd moment because of what’s happening in the news and then the commercial that comes right after or in the middle of it,” Wang shared. “We’re in the middle of a really dramatic scene and then you see some Gatorade or beauty commercial.”
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