Lucha Underground fans were elated when news came out last week that the first two seasons of the show would be available on Netflix beginning on February 15. As it turns out, that news is only half-true.
The Executive Producer of Lucha Underground, Eric Van Wagenen, recently appeared on the Masks, Mats & Mayhem podcast (which you can watch in its entirety at the bottom of this post), and cleared up the rumors and the reported Netflix debut date.
The long and short of it is yes, the company has a deal in place with Netflix to stream the first two seasons. But they are still in the process of delivering all the materials for those first two seasons, which then has to go through quality control, troubleshooting, captioning, and other steps. Wagenen anticipates all of the materials will be delivered by Feb. 15, but he doesn’t anticipate that will be the debut date of the show on the platform.
“People want to think they know things that they don’t necessarily know. And I want to tell you that if it doesn’t come from the El Rey Network, or the El Rey Network’s social media sites, or directly from Dorian Roldan or myself, or maybe Chris DeJoseph, that it’s not that reliable. It’s usually secondhand. It’s somebody heard something from somebody.
“So the long and short of it is, we’ll be on Netflix soon. The date has not been announced, because I don’t know that it’s been officially [set] by Netflix.
“So February 15th, yeah I’m sure that all of our materials will be delivered by then, but whether they’ll be able to get it [ready to air by then] — and I think they roll out new shows every two weeks or something like that. And because we weren’t on that [last two-week] announcement, I don’t expect us to [debut on] February 15th. I don’t want anyone to look at [us not being on Netflix on that date] as being, ‘Oh, we’ve been taken for a ride again.’ That’s not the case.”
So there it is, directly from the horse producer’s mouth. The show WILL be on Netflix, but we’re still standing by for the official, OFFICIAL announcement from Netflix and/or El Rey as to the exact date we’ll be able to binge-watch … All Night Long. One thing’s for sure: Lucha Underground being on Netflix is a truly unique opportunity … for you to share it with your friends.
