Amazon Snares ‘Animal Kingdom’ Season 1 Exclusive Streaming Rights

Season one of family crime drama “Animal Kingdom” will be available to binge-watch exclusively on Amazon Prime Video 30 days ahead of the second season’s premiere on TNT.

Starting Sunday, April 30, all 10 episodes of the freshman season of “Animal Kingdom” will be available on Prime Video. TNT will premiere season 2, comprising 13 episodes, on May 30 — and the Amazon pact, as with numerous similar subscription VOD deals, is structured to kindle interest in the show to drive TV viewership.

“Animal Kingdom” was one of cable’s top dramas last year, and Turner renewed the show last summer. From executive producer John Wells (“ER,” “The West Wing,” “Shameless”) and creator Jonathan Lisco (“Southland”), the series is based on the 2010 Australian movie of the same name. It’s produced by John Wells Prods. in association with Warner Horizon Television.

The series centers on teenager Joshua “J” Cody, played by Finn Cole (“Peaky Blinders”), who moves in with his freewheeling grandmother (Ellen Barkin) and uncles in their Southern California beach town after his mother dies of a heroin overdose.

For what it’s worth, former NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal — co-host of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” — said at Variety‘s Entertain Summit at the 2017 CES that “Animal Kingdom” was his favorite show on the network. Variety‘s Maureen Ryan wrote in her review that the show “wants to jolt the viewer with bursts of intense energy, but in the end, it feels like a relic from cable TV’s semi-recent past.”

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