Netflix has tapped the original story of one of the music industry’s biggest startup successes for a forthcoming untitled original series. The series will tell a “fictionalized account” of Spotify’s co-founders, including the service’s chief Daniel Ek.
The six-part series — which is already listed on Netflix, though with limited information — will pull from authors Jonas Leijonhufvud and Sven Carlsson, which documents the rise of Spotify under Ek and his business partner Martin Lorentzon, according to Variety. The book is said to have drawn from “over seventy interviews, along with previously untapped sources” for a “David vs Goliath story about how strong convictions, unrelenting willpower, and big dreams can help small players take on the titans of tech.”
Variety reports that the show has cast Swedish actors Edvin Endre in the role of Ek and Christian Hillborg as a fictionalized Lorentzon character. It’s unclear whether a Steve Jobs-like figure will appear in the film, though it’s certainly possible. Spotify Untold does cover the seemingly never-ending battle between Spotify and Apple, and Jobs does feature in the book’s narrative about Apple’s push-back against Spotify’s launch in the US. As the authors themselves hold that their Jobs intel was central to the book’s narrative, it would be a shame to leave that thread out of the show.
Netflix declined to confirm to The Verge whether a Jobs character would appear in the series. But speaking about the book in 2019, Carlsson told Variety that “we both felt a rush of adrenaline when we unraveled the details about the conflict between Apple and Spotify. After several months of research, we could finally account for how Jobs actively worked to oppose Spotify’s establishment in the U.S., and what he may have been thinking. It gave the story an edge.”
Plus, nothing spells drama like one tech titan producing a “fictionalized” series about the messy origin story of another. Show us fake Jobs, already, Netflix!
The show will arrive on Netflix in 2022.
