Following the huge success of his debut Netflix comedy special Natural Selection, which brought in 10+ million views in its first two weeks and reached the Global Top 10 in 42 countries, Netflix is expanding its business with Matt Rife, as sources tell Deadline the comic has signed a two-special deal with the streamer, as well as a development deal for a gym/workplace comedy series that he’ll write and star in.
Rife’s first new special, set to premiere later this year, will be Netflix’s first-ever full-length crowd work special.
It’s set to shoot at The Comedy Zone in Charlotte, NC and will be directed by Rife’s longtime friend Erik Griffin. Irony Point will produce, with Rife exec producing alongside his manager Christina Shams.
The most viewed stand-up comic on social media, with over 33 million followers and 2 billion views across all platforms, Rife last year was in the company of Taylor Swift as one of the only acts to break Ticketmaster due to demand for tickets to his “ProbleMATTic World Tour,” a record-breaking arena and theater world tour with Live Nation, for which he’s currently out on the road. The tour has included four sold-out shows at the Dolby Theater, six shows at Radio City Music Hall in February, and five sold-out shows at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena, as well as many other stops in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Seeing his career hit the stratosphere after taking off on TikTok, Rife sold around 600,000 tickets over the span of just 48 hours when his world tour was announced. His three three YouTube specials prior to Natural Selection, which he self-produced and distributed, have accumulated 43 million views to date.
Rife returns to Los Angeles on May 8th to headline The Hollywood Bowl for the Netflix Is a Joke Festival, in his first-ever appearance. While he’s previously guest starred on high-profile series like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, appeared on Wild ‘n Out and taken on roles in numerous indies, word of him taking his acting career to the next level with the series in development at Netflix was foreshadowed by comments he made to Deadline regarding his interest in onscreen work.
“I love acting just as much, if not more than standup. I just haven’t been doing it as long and I haven’t been able to get my foot in the door as well as I have been with stand-up,” he said. “But now that I have the freedom in success via stand-up, it opens up avenues in other areas that I am passionate about, like film and television, that I’m hoping I can make that transition over to, because it can only feed itself.”
