New Top Gear Show on Amazon News 2015: Amazon founder says new show with ex-Top Gear hosts will be 'very expensive'
Former "Top Gear" hosts have come together for Amazon's newest streaming video service, and according to the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, it was "very, very expensive" to get the hosts for the new service.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Bezos said Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May are "worth a lot and they know it."
The three will be hosting three series of a new motoring program produced by Amazon Prime, which is due for its premiere in 2016.
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The new program was provided to the three following their departure from BBC 2 earlier this year after Clarkson's contract was not renewed. Clarkson's ended contract was due to an alleged "unprovoked physical attack" on a Top Gear producer. His co-hosts did not hesitate to follow in his footsteps.
The new show is Bezos' latest project and he said he is "very excited" for its premiere. "We have a lot of things in the pipeline, which I think viewers in the UK and around the world are going to love. And I think Clarkson's new show is going to be one of those. I think we're in a golden age of television, so if you go back in time even just five years, you couldn't get A-list talent to do TV serials, or, if you could, it was a rare thing. But that's flipped completely," he said.
He also noted that serialized television is on the peak of "very high investment[s]," and these result to an increase in the "amount of time you have to tell a story."
The change in traditional format opens doors to many possibilities in storytelling, and when integrated with the production standards of that in movies, plus "A-list talent," it then results to what Besoz calls "amazing television."
The new program with a car theme has no title just yet, but it will be under the expertise of former Top Gear executive producer Andy William, who noted that Amazon "[will] give us the freedom to make the program we want."
