Hollywood Popular Artists

Feb 1st 2013, 21:00

By Ade Mangum

The political drama "House of Cards," a remake of a British miniseries, makes its big premiere today. What network is it on? Well, it's not really on television. In the vein of pop classic "Video Killed the Radio Star," executive producer David Fincher and actor Kevin Spacey are attempting to, in a sense, "kill" the television medium.

"House of Cards" has cut out the middle man and partnered with the top internet video streaming company, Netflix. We got that, but what day will each new episode be released? Umm, today. Netflix has decided to put all of its "Cards" on the table at once. They are releasing the 13 episode series simultaneous, giving the viewer the option of watching it on their own schedule.

At the red carpet premiere for the series, actress Kristen Connolly says that the format is "reflective of the way people watch TV now."

The series stars veteran actor Kevin Spacey as Congressman Francis Underwood, a character that he describes as the "majority whip in our fictional Congress." Robin Wright co-stars as Spacey's perilous wife, and Kate Mara rounds out the cast as Zoe Barnes, a savvy young reporter at the Washington Herald.

Not only does the revolutionary series have great star power, "House of Cards" teams up directors like Fincher, Joel Schumacher ("Phantom of the Opera"), and James Foley ("Glengarry Glen Ross") with writers like Beau Willimon ("The Ides of March") and Kate Barnow ("True Blood").

With work on season two already underway, actor Corey Stoll commended Netflix for having "26 episodes bought from day one. Even though it's episodic, you know that you're telling a story from beginning to end, and that takes out a lot of the unnecessary stress of we need to keep the eyeballs on at all moments. We're telling a story. We're going to tell it at our pace. We're going to tell the story the best way we know how, and that's very hard to do when you're worried about ratings constantly."

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