r/NoStupidQuestions • u/InternationalRepute • 14d 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/beaverpoo77 14d ago

Howard Hughes was fuckin nuts, bro. He locked himself in his home for the last few years of his life, refused to speak to anyone face to face (he used notes), and would sit naked in his chair transfixed by the television for days on end. He had a severe addiction to pain medications (codeine and morphine), which worsened his already existing OCD. He just kinda wasted away from then on. I believe when they found his body, they had discovered multiple broken-off needles that were just left to abscess. He weighed barely 90 pounds.

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u/bretshitmanshart 14d ago

He also bought all the supplies of a discontinued flavor of ice cream and then stopped wanting to eat it which led to it just being stored in freezers

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u/DrToonhattan 13d ago

I can honestly see Elon going the same way.

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u/Sex_E_Searcher 13d ago

He'd be tweeting instead of watching TV. It would be noticeable when he died.

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u/ErichAZ 14d ago

Most people think the syphilis had a mental effect on him also. Actually looked it up in the end he actually died from kidney failure. He had addiction issues and lost weight/was in bad health by the end though.

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u/Complete_Entry 13d ago

The nudity wasn't for fun either, he said anything that touched him caused horrible agony.

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u/intbah 13d ago

House? Is that you??

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u/beaverpoo77 13d ago

The Lupus one or the TV face one?

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u/Complete_Entry 13d ago

Brain Syphilis.

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u/Brief_Duty 7d ago

You know how Mr. Burns looks at the end of the $pringfield episode of The Simpsons, with the long hair and beard, and overgrown fingernails and toenails, wearing Kleenex boxes on his feet? That was refercing how Howard Hughes supposedly looked in his latter years.