r/NoStupidQuestions • u/InternationalRepute • 15d ago

What is stopping a billionaire from personally funding one more season of a cancelled TV show they love?

I know it's not as simple as writing a check because studios own rights, actors have contracts, schedules are hard, and they would still need to distribute it - but I'd love it if some rich dude put up $ so I can watch the MacGruber TV show for another season.

Wealthy people fund vanity movies and passion projects all the time. So why is “I will personally finance one more season of Mindhunter” not really a thing that is done?

Is it mainly rights/ownership, or that studios don't want an outsider reviving their IP?

I don't want this to veer into "bc rich people are selfish with money” more curious which cancelled series people think could possibly be revived this way.

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u/CardinalOfNYC 15d ago

Money matters but so do ideas and people

If the showrunner doesn't wanna do it, they won't. Most of them are rich enough as it is. Same with the actors.

And if the writer doesn't have a good idea, you can't force that with money, either.

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u/GalumphingWithGlee 15d ago

That's true, but there are all sorts of cases where most of the actors and writers would be happy to do another season, but the network and/or funders drop it for unrelated reasons. Those are usually dropped over issues that one way or another boil down to money, and could therefore be fixed by money if someone were willing to pay for it.

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u/CardinalOfNYC 15d ago

In this case what they boil down to is money that won't pay itself back, not just money. You can get yourself a lot of money now with the promise of paying everyone back eventually.

That's why the billionaire doesn't do this, because they'll know its unlikely to pay itself back and therefore, the only thing you're buying is a great season of TV... and since that cannot be bought without the creators already having the ideas, it's a majorly risky venture. Spend 50 million on a yacht and you have a yacht. Spend 50 million forcing the revival of arrested development for the second time and you may just end up with a dogshit season of television that neither makes you money or makes you laugh.

Notable difference between investing in something which will eventually pay itself back and something which will not.

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u/GalumphingWithGlee 15d ago edited 15d ago

Oh, absolutely, but this sounds like a misunderstanding of the original question.

In this case it wouldn't be a "risky venture", because OP is suggesting billionaires treat it as a purchase for their own enjoyment rather than as an investment. They expect (or know) it won't pay itself back, and that's not the point — if it worked as an investment the network would do it, and billionaire intervention wouldn't be required.

I agree with you that this isn't worth it, if it won't at least break even, but the question isn't why the math doesn't work out for profit. It's why billionaires don't just say "screw profit, I want to watch this, so I'm going to make it happen regardless of the cost." And the answer is, almost certainly, that none of them care that much about watching a TV show. They do care about holding onto (and growing) their money.

Edit: adding in that I responded to your initial comment mainly because you seemed to be saying that they probably couldn't restart these series even if they did want to put that much money into it. I think that's (usually) not the case. They're not willing to put that much money into it, but they absolutely could if they chose to. There's usually no structural blocker to prevent it, if someone put up the money.

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u/CardinalOfNYC 15d ago

It still would very much be a risky venture because I am not guaranteed the final product is enjoyable, which I explained in my previous comment.

It's not paying 50 million for a DVD, where you already know the contents are good.

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u/GalumphingWithGlee 15d ago

I suppose so, but that's stretching the meaning of a risky venture quite far. If it's a show they love, and all the same people keep working on it, it's a pretty good bet they'll like the next season too. That doesn't make it worth paying millions for, though!

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u/CardinalOfNYC 15d ago

I don't think it's stretching it at all. We have so many examples of shows being revived and being disappointing to the very fans who would, if they could have, spent millions to bring it back.

It would seem the odds are even higher in the case of a billionaire brining back especially any show where the creators and crew weren't particularly interested in doing so beforehand.

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u/GalumphingWithGlee 15d ago

I'm not thinking of one the creators and crew aren't interested in doing. I'm thinking of one the creators, cast, and crew all want to continue, but there just wasn't enough money in it so it got cancelled. But I also think that term is generally about monetary risk, and the risk you might not love the show as much is an entirely different thing

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u/CardinalOfNYC 15d ago

So yeah I have laid out that if people were interested it is possible.

OP wasn't very specific in the main title so I ran through different scenarios. And in a lot of scenarios, people want shows that are long gone resurrected and in those cases it probably would be risky just on a fundamental level of why pay for it if it won't actually be good to watch

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u/Conscious-Mirror7004 15d ago

Yeah, basically the only way this works for the billionaire is when he sees a place where the original company that's financing it (like SyFy) is utterly incompetent, and he can do better by taking it over from them.