Well in Cobra Kai's case it was just a matter of no one, literally no one, wanting to pay for YouTube Premium so never actually being exposed to the series. But yes, Cobra Kai is ultimately a very low budget utilization of existing IP opposed to, say, The Witcher.Very true. However, anecdotal and all of that, I feel like I see a fair bit of buzz for Virgin River. I've never even heard of Top Boy though.
Even with something like Cobra Kai it's weird- that show had already been out for two years and was very well thought of but it's release on Netflix essentially turned it into a brand new series. And while Cobra Kai ticks the boxes that so many others are going for (revitalizing an existing IP), it's far cheaper to make with decidedly less star power that a lot of other revivals.
I think that really gets into why Netflix seems to be moving away from the huge creative deals they were making a few years ago. They are going to get a far better ROI on a limited series from Scott Frank than they probably will from the entire Ryan Murphy deal even with Ratched's success.
The mega overall deals were, frankly, a mistake. I am sure they know that. They've produced virtually nothing of substance for Netflix.
Weren't most of those announced a long time ago? I feel like a lot of that stuff is from the era of the big money creative deals. With how 2020 is panning out I kind of wonder if they will pair back on some of these kind of deals moving forward.
Some were, some weren't. You will see more of these types of investments from Netflix in the future though. They are going to need them to stay competitive with Disney, WB, and Amazon as they start rolling out huge budget shows based on existing IP.