Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the now defunct streaming service Quibi was in advanced talks to sell its content catalog to Roku, which could give series like “Murder House Flip” and “50 States of Fright” new life and a new audience. Today, it was announced that the deal has gone through.
Quibi, a short-form mobile streaming platform meant for folks on the go, launched in April 2020 and presented series and films in chunks of no more than 10-minutes. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic made it so that fewer folks were on the go and the need for bite-sized content became obsolete. The streaming service never really gained the traction it expected and officially shut down on December 1, 2020.
Among Quibi’s vast library of short-form content was the true crime meets home makeover series “Murder House Flip” and Sam Raimi’s “50 States of Fright.”
“Murder House Flip” was a less conventional home renovation show where high-end renovation experts Mikel Welch and Joelle Uzyel renovated homes that were once the scenes of grizzly murders. The show’s goal was to help the current homeowners feel a bit more at ease with the horrors from the homes past.
“50 States of Fright” was a scripted horror anthology series that explored stories based on urban legends from around the U.S. During its run, the series featured urban legends from Michigan, Kansas, Oregon, Minnesota, Florida, Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, and Washington.
Both shows will now find new life and a new audience on The Roku Channel, which is now the exclusive home to more than 75 premium shows and documentaries that Quibi created in conjunction with Hollywood’s leading studios and production companies.
In addition to the full range of titles that had previously premiered on Quibi, more than a dozen new programs will make their exclusive debut on The Roku Channel. The Roku Channel is a free app offering movies and shows that Roku launched in 2017.
Quibi does not own any of the content on its service. According to Variety, after two years, content owners have the right to distribute the shows in a reassembled feature-length format on other platforms. So while The Roku Channel is the new exclusive home of Quibi content, there is a chance we could see some of these shows resurface in new formats on other streaming services in the future.
*This article was updated to reflect details around Roku’s completed acquisition of Quibi’s global content distribution rights.
