Quibi’s (significant) loss is the profit of Roku.
Eleven weeks after Quibi announced that it appears to be ending an eight-month experiment in the stream of ‘quick bites’ of TV and movie shows, Roku snatched up the short-lived service’s library of more than 75 shows.
Roku will launch the Quibi shows somewhere this year, with the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Some of the learned content is what Quibi called ‘Movies in Chapters’, including Most dangerous game with Liam Hemsworth in the lead roles, Reverse starring Will Forte and Kaitlyn Olson, and If the street lights go on with Chosen Jacobs in the lead role. There were also regular TV series (such as the Kiefer Sutherland-led) The refugee reloads) and a host of unwritten programs (including Chrissy’s court with “reviewer” Chrissy Teigen).
As for the “Movies in Chapters”, in which feature films are distributed eight or so minutes a day, Quibi has given producers the right to recompile the episodes into films for distribution on other platforms.
But perhaps the strikingly interesting point here is that Roku will be claiming some series that never even debuted on Quibi. This includes according to our sister site Variety Spielberg’s After Dark, a horror series that would only be available to watch when it’s dark outside; Peter Farrelly’s The Now, about a suicidal person who must “learn to live life for today, in the now”; and Slugfest, a documentary series by the Russian brothers of the MCU that will describe the growth of comics as an American art form.
Not included in the Roku agreement, are the latest “Daily Essentials” programs that never went as planned due to the pandemic due to Quibi.