MOVIE NEWS – Netflix’s massive bidding war for the rights to The Watcher in 2018 seems to have paid off, but before the series was finished, the real family asked for a few things to be changed.
The Watcher (see our review here) is currently #1 on Netflix in the US. It tells the true story of Nora and Dean Bannock, who move into their dream New Jersey home. Soon, however, they begin to be harassed with letters signed “The Watcher”.
The series, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, is based on Reeves Wiedeman’s 2018 cut-cut “The Watcher”.
The Watcher is the second The Cut article to be turned into a Netflix series this year – the first was Inventing Anna, produced by Shonda Rhimes.
The Watcher was reportedly viewed 125 million hours on Netflix in its first five days. The series is already proving a big win for Netflix, which struggled to grow and retain subscribers earlier this year. It seems worth the money Netflix reportedly paid for the rights to the story.
In 2018, Netflix won a contentious bidding war for the rights to The Watcher, and at the time, it was thought to be made into a movie. At the time, several big-name film and TV producers were keen to acquire the rights. According to Cut, one horror producer reportedly offered to buy the house at 657 Boulevard in the hope of using it as a set.
Although the amount the Broaddus were seeking is not public, one neighbour claims to have heard that the family “pocketed close to $10 million”.
In reality, however, the amount they received didn’t even cover the losses they suffered on the now-famous house.
In 2019, nearly five years after the Broaddus family paid more than $1.35 million for the house, it was put back on the market. It was then sold for just $959,000. The Cut estimates that they lost $400,000 before the agent’s share, “$100,000 in property taxes,” and utility and other bills were factored in.
Now, like other subjects of actual crime TV shows, the Broaddus family originally had “little interest” in selling the rights to their story. However, after Lifetime released The Watcher in 2016 without consulting the family and with many changes to the story, the family decided that this time, participation was the right decision.
By selling the rights to their story to Netflix, the Broadduses gained some control over the making of the series, and at that time, they requested two changes to the TV adaptation of the series.
According to the Cut, the family’s first request was that the production not use their real name. That’s why Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale’s characters are Nora and Dean Brannock instead of Maria and Derek Broaddus.
The following request was also for their family to be portrayed on screen. The producers were asked to make the family on the show as similar as possible to theirs in real life. In the series, Nora and Dean have two children, whereas the Broaddus family has three children in real life.
These seem to be the only specific requests the family has made. But The Watcher clearly exaggerates the other details. However, the writers also used real text from letters that the Broaddus family received.
The next inevitable question is: Did the Broadduses watch the show? The answer is that they are reportedly “not planning to watch the series”, adding that the trailer was “quite traumatising”.
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