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And Finally Business News Digital Media
Netflix’s Spotify drama goes into production
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 15 June 2021
Production has begun on a new Netflix drama series all about Spotify, based on the book ‘Spotify Untold’. The six part programme will tell the story – somewhat fictionalised – of how the streaming service came into being. Which might not sound that interesting, but they made a film about Facebook, didn’t they?
The show will star Edvin Endre as Spotify founder and boss man Daniel Ek, with Christian Hillborg as co-founder Martin Lorentzon. Ulf Stenberg will play former MD of Universal Music Sweden, Per Sundin; Gizem Erdogan will play former Spotify General Counsel, Petra Hansson; and Joel Lützow will play the streaming service’s first employee and former CTO Andreas Ehn.
There’s one person involved in both the Facebook and the Spotify stories of course, that being Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who – after his stint at Facebook – became an investor in and board member at Spotify as the company started to gain momentum. Surely if Parker appears in the series at any point they’ve got to cast Justin Timberlake in the role?
Anyway, more facts. Directed by Per-Olav Sørensen and written by Christian Spurrier, the Spotify drama is being made for Netflix by Yellow Bird UK, which acquired the telly rights to ‘Spotify Untold’ in 2019.
The book tells the story of Spotify’s inception and its battles to get the company’s original licences from record labels. It also claims that for a period Daniel Ek believed that then Apple CEO Steve Jobs was making prank calls to him, breathing heavily down the phoneline before hanging up.
The writers of the book – Swedish journalists Sven Carlsson and Jonas Leijonhufvud – admitted that they were unable to absolutely confirm that this happened, but I think it’s probably worth focussing a whole episode of the TV show on it anyway.
As yet untitled, the series is set to premiere on Netflix next year. Not sure when Spotify will get round to making an audio drama retelling the story of Netflix.
