Netflix’s ‘House Of Cards’ Leak Was A Delight For The People Running The Show

When Netflix accidentally put the new season of House of Cards online two weeks before it’s announced premiere, many people lost their minds. Plenty of bloggers attempted to write about what they saw, Tweeted about possible spoilers, and put Netflix’s power to stop them to the test.

One person it didn’t upset was Beau Willimon, the showrunner behind the Netflix hit. If the leak did anything, it just encouraged him to keep up the good work. From The Hollywood Reporter:

“I thought it was great,” he told The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet for the Writers Guild Awards’ East Coast ceremony, where House of Cards was nominated for best drama series. “I was actually very amused by the whole thing and then delighted to see what a huge response we got from the fans. So many people are excited about what’s going to happen two weeks from now.”

But what about spoilers? Didn’t this early leak give away important plot details and shocking events? We all remember what happened in the premiere from last season. Most of us can’t look at subway platforms the same way. Didn’t the leak spoil any moments like that? Not really:

“No harm done,” he added. “We take great care, obviously, to keep as much of the story secret as possible and there a little bit of the story was let out but there are plenty of surprises ahead. Twenty minutes is not enough for people to have figured everything out.

“There’s plenty of speculation on the Web in terms of what people gathered from watching those first 20 minutes or people who scrubbed ahead to subsequent episodes. And all I will say is some of that speculation is right and some of it is wrong,” he told THR, laughing. “But I won’t tell you which is which.”

I’m personally not one who worries about spoilers, especially if the show is good enough to maintain a presence. If you’re tuning in for the shock of what happens, I sort of feel like you’re cheating yourself a bit. It’s not bad or wrong, but it feels like you’re missing things that will set a show apart.

I know some folks are crazy about spoilers, though, so THR questioning the leak is important. It’s nice to know that House of Cards hasn’t been ruined for folks who learned about the leak too late to tune in. I just hope we don’t learn it was all some big marketing ploy by Netflix, tying in to whatever hacker storyline they’ll be running with this season. That might kill it for me.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

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