After nearly two years of anticipation, Simon Cowell’s newest series, Simon Cowell: The Next Act has officially hit streaming. The six-part docuseries, which each step of the process of creating the next big boy band. This show does not hold back on the stress, anxieties, and rigors of the process.
*** This Article Features Spoilers for Netflix’s Simon Cowell: The Next Act. ***
Simon Cowell Creates Boy Band December 10 in New Netflix Series
America’s Got Talent judge Simon Cowell is officially back to what he’s doing best, finding the best talent there is. His brand new docuseries kicks off with the mogul admitting he misses the early days of his career. Although he now spends tons of time behind the Got Talent desk, he yearned to sign new artists and create new groups.
With KPop groups taking over the music scene, Cowell saw an opportunity to create a 2020’s boy band (similar to One Direction). The process began first with creating a simple call to action to get boys signed up for the experience. After noticing that formatting of billboards didn’t work with Gen Z, Cowell’s team decided to do a social media initiative, which ultimately worked.
Every individual who signed up was then invited to participate at in-person auditions. By episode two, Cowell revealed that he already had an idea of who his group would be. The 16 boys that continued on in the competition were Aron (15), Cruz (18), Danny (15), Evan (17), Flip (19), Hendrik (18), Jake E-B (16), Jake G (17), Joe (18), John (16), Josh (15), Leon (16), Max (15), Nicolas (15), Sam (18), and Sean (17).
Once the group was decided upon, there was a brief pause in filming, due to Liam Payne’s death. Grief lead Cowell to rethinking the whole initiative, leading to a conversation with the participants’ parents. Once each family felt comfortable, participants were flown out to Miami, Florida, where they took part in a week long bootcamp. Training began with harmonies, and ultimately ended in Cowell eliminating Aron, Evan, Leon, and Joe. He explained that these singers would’ve been better as solo artists.
From there, Cowell brought them to the studio, to see what their voices would sound like on track. Later, he did chemistry check to see which of the boys had already formed friendships. Then, Cowell decided to not eliminate anyone, because all of their voices sounded great, and everyone was getting along.
The Series Ends With Group Getting a Deal With Universal Music Group UK
Eventually, Cowell secured the first members of the group, Cruz, Danny, and Josh. The three members were decided upon due to their abilities, as well as their personalities. The others who continued on were Sean, John, Sam, Hendrick, and Nicolas. The other four singers were eliminated.
The next test was the photography test. Cowell ensured that the three main members of the group were in the middle, switching out the boys for each photo, to see who would look good in the group. At this point, he had already decided there would be five or six total group members.
During the photography round, Cowell eliminated Sam, just because he didn’t look correct with other group members. Everyone else looked so good together that Cowell literally got the photos blown up, yet he still couldn’t make a decision.
Before finally making his final decision, the remaining boys went to the studio again and then attended dinner at Cowell’s personal residence. In the end, Cowell decided to expand the group to seven members, since they all seemed to work, and sound, so well together. From there, Cowell brought the group to two different music deal meetings.
The series ended with the final group, Cruz, Danny, Hendrick, John, Josh, Nicolas, and Sean, deciding to name the band, December 10. The name is in honor of the show’s Netflix release. December 10 has officially been signed by Universal Music Group.
