‘The Amazing Digital Circus’ Coming to Netflix Under New Licensing Deal

What’s on Netflix has learned exclusively that the psychological, dark comedy animated series is coming to YouTube Amazing Digital Circus will hit Netflix as part of a new licensing deal. On October 4, Netflix will add the previous two episodes and the recently announced third episode day and date alongside the YouTube premiere.

Created by Cooper Smith Goodwin (better known by his online alias Gooseworx) and the team at GLITCH, the series follows cartoon characters trapped in a crazy virtual world run by artificial intelligence and seemingly fueled by personal trauma. The first episode was first released in mid-October 2023, with a second episode serving as its sequel released recently in May 2024.

Voice cast Amazing Digital Circus The cast includes: Lizzie Freeman as Pomni, Alex Rochon as Caine, Michael Kovach as Jax, Amanda Hufford as Ragatha, Marissa Lenti as Gangle, Sean Chiplock as Spiker, Ashley Nichols as Zooble and Gooseworx as Bubble.

To say the series has generated a lot of interest since the pilot premiered is an understatement. The pilot has already amassed over 346 million views on YouTube, and the sequel has over 120 million. To put that in perspective (though it’s by no means a perfect comparison), Netflix’s best-selling film of all of 2023 and the first half of 2024 pulled in 180 million views, and that was a film starring Jennifer Lopez, Mother.

In addition to episodes 1-3, which will air starting October 4, Netflix will license all scheduled future episodes (4-9) on a date and time with their release on YouTube. Details on release dates or windows for future episodes have not been disclosed.

After the announcement, GLITCH posted on social media:

“BIG NEWS PEOPLE!!! – The Amazing Digital Circus will also be available on Netflix on October 4th, and episodes 1-3 will be available there and on YouTube!

To be clear: we still independently fund everything, we still have full control over the show, and episodes will ALWAYS appear on YouTube first.

I honestly think this is a HUGE step for independent animation and we couldn’t have done it without all of you.”

The trailer for the third episode was released yesterday. It promises that episode 3 will be the “funniest” episode of Digital Circus yet. The episode is expected to focus on the characters Zooble and Kingers.

For some die-hard YouTube fans, the news of this licensing deal may not come as a complete surprise. Fans recently spotted it in the “worth the wait” section, although it was only there for a few hours.

The news comes as Netflix continues to look to platforms like YouTube to reacquire fresh IP. Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw recently reported that Netflix was in talks with BuzzFeed to bring their flagship talk show series, Hotto the streaming service. In previous years, he used the Miranda Sings YouTube channel for two seasons Back off, hater! Of course, many children’s titles, such as CoComelon, have also appeared on Netflix.

Are you excited? Amazing Digital Circus coming to Netflix? Let us know in the comments.