*By Conor White*
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner's new anthology series for Amazon, "The Romanoffs," is about far more than Russia's last royal family, according to one of its stars.
"As I said to Matthew when I was doing this, I have to bone up on the Romanoffs," actor Aaron Eckhart said in an interview on Cheddar.
"And he said, 'Well, not really, because it really has nothing to do with the Romanoffs.'"
The family consisted of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and five children. After Russia's February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne and was later executed with the rest of his house. Within the last 30 years, all the bodies have been discovered and identified through DNA testing. Despite that evidence, whispers remain that one of his children, most likely Anastasia, escaped the killings. (The tsar's youngest daughter inspired the popular animated film, "Anastasia," which was recently turned into a musical.)
The Amazon ($AMZN) series features a different cast in each of its eight episodes, which are all linked by some sort of connection to the famous family ー be it real or fabricated.
Eckhart said it's the relationships between the show's characters ー whether directly linked to the royals or not ー that makes the show special.
"The magical part of the show is that it has thematics, and it has through lines with the Romanoffs," the Golden Globe nominee said. "But it's all these different scenarios with different people all over the world."
The series is creator Weiner's return to television after his seven-season run with "Mad Men" ー the highly-acclaimed show garnered two Golden Globes for "Best Drama Series" and eight Primetime Emmy awards.
It was Eckhart's first time working with Weiner, and he said the experience was "educational, interesting," and "fascinating,"
"It's very surprising and striking and bold. It takes a real genius to figure this all out," Eckhart added.
In the age of binge-watching, Amazon has made the choice to release one episode per week after releasing the first two episodes simultaneously on Oct. 12.
Eckhart is a fan of the move and called it "more traditional." But he admitted he has binged his way through at least one classic series.
"I did binge-watch 'Friends'," he said.
"'Friends' is a very good show."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/meet-the-romanoffs).
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Former Take-Two CEO Kelly Sumner is looking for the next big game. But rather than investing hundreds of millions, his blockchain-based video game publisher Planet Digital Partners is targeting mid-level games often ignored by big publishers.
"Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Activision ($ATVI), etc., they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a game, expecting to be ... getting billions. And the kind of middle, where there's sort of really good, exciting games, isn't there," Sumner told Cheddar Friday.
Rapper Tip "T.I." Harris has already built a reputation as a musician, producer, and actor, but now he's looking to add tech investor to his credits with the launch of his new company, TechCypha. TechCypha is a "group of entertainers, entrepreneurs, executives that all want to pool our funds together for the purpose of providing technology to add culture," T.I. told Cheddar in an interview Friday.
Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's 10-year-old lifestyle and wellness brand, now counts stores in southern California, New York and London, where the Goop pop-up was recently given permanent brick-and-mortar status. Soon, an eponymous Netflix show will launch, joining a book imprint, podcast and website. But, as CCO Elise Loehnen told Cheddar, the content strategy is but one arm of the expanding business ー retail is the other.
New Age Beverages Corporation knew there was one thing missing from the cannabis-infused drink industry: Bob Marley. The company is getting ready to distribute three CBD-infused drinks bearing the name of the reggae legend. New Age Beverages CEO Brent Willis told Cheddar that combining Marley's likeness with a cannabis beverage was a natural fit.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Jan. 18, 2019.
LiveXLive is a platform that brings festivals and other live events to music enthusiasts who can't afford to attend in-person. "We set out to take the playbook from ESPN, to create the next generation MTV," founder Robert Ellin told Cheddar Thursday.
Shares of Netflix tumbled after the market close on Thursday after the streaming giant just missed analyst expectations on revenue, and forecast weaker than expected earnings and revenue for the current quarter.
Inflated housing prices and long commute times in tech hubs nationwide is "sapping the vitality" from cities, Microsoft President Brad Smith told Cheddar Thursday following the company's announcement it would invest $500 million to address affordable housing and homelessness in and around Seattle, Wash.
Marty McFly's self-lacing sneakers from "Back to the Future" are here at last. Kind of. Nike on Tuesday launched the Adapt BB, its first mass-market "smart" sneaker, that uses elastic mesh and a small internal motor with Bluetooth connectivity to allow the wearer to tighten and loosen the fit of the shoe via a smartphone app.
