Netflix, Inc. is an American over-the-top content platform and production company headquartered in Los Gatos, California. Netflix was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California. The company's primary business is a subscription-based streaming service offering online streaming from a library of films and television series, including those produced in-house. As of October 2020, Netflix had over 195 million paid subscriptions worldwide, including 73 million in the United States. It is available worldwide except in the following: mainland China (due to local restrictions), Syria, North Korea, and Crimea (due to US sanctions). It was reported in 2020 that Netflix's operating income is $1.2 billion. The company has offices in France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, the Netherlands, India, Japan, and South Korea. Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), producing and distributing content from countries all over the globe. Netflix's initial business model included DVD sales and rental by mail, but Hastings abandoned the sales about a year after the company's founding to focus on the initial DVD rental business. Netflix expanded its business in 2007 with the introduction of streaming media while retaining the DVD and Blu-ray rental business. The company expanded internationally in 2010 with streaming available in Canada, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. Netflix entered the content-production industry in 2013, debuting its first series House of Cards. Since 2012, Netflix has taken more of an active role as producer and distributor for both film and television series, and to that end, offers a variety of "Netflix Original" content through its online library. By January 2016, Netflix services operated in more than 190 countries. Netflix released an estimated 126 original series and films in 2016, more than any other network or cable channel. Their efforts to produce new content, secure the rights for additional content, and diversify through 190 countries have resulted in the company racking up billions in debt: $21.9 billion as of September 2017, up from $16.8 billion from the previous year. $6.5 billion of this is long-term debt, with the remainder in long-term obligations. In October 2018, Netflix announced it would raise another $2 billion in debt to help fund new content. On July 10, 2020, Netflix became the largest entertainment/media company by market capitalization.
Richard Mayhew has spent three years in London living a safe, predictable life defined by a dull job and a controlling fiancée, Jessica. But one rainy night, everything changes when he encounters Door, a wounded young woman who emerges from a mysterious door in a wall while being hunted by two terrifying assassins, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. Richard chooses to help her rather than attend his important dinner, costing him his engagement—and, by morning, his entire identity. No one remembers him, his home and job are gone, and only the forgotten inhabitants of a hidden world beneath London can see him. Determined to find Door and reclaim his life, Richard descends into London Below, a vast, dangerous realm of forgotten people, ancient courts, magical markets, monsters, and impossible places. Reunited with Door and joined by the enigmatic Marquis de Carabas and legendary warrior Hunter, Richard follows clues left by Door’s murdered family toward the mysterious angel Islington, who promises answers about their deaths. Their journey takes them through the Floating Market, Earl’s Court, the British Museum, the Black Friars’ deadly trials, and the labyrinthine depths beneath London, where Richard must confront the Beast of London and discover the courage he never knew he possessed. But as Door uncovers the truth, she learns that Islington orchestrated her family’s murder and manipulated her into retrieving a magical key so it can open a gateway to Heaven and seize power over the angels who banished it. With Richard captured and Door seemingly trapped, she outwits Islington by using a counterfeit key, sending the angel, Croup, and Vandemar into an unknown realm. Door then restores Richard’s passage to London Above, but he soon realizes that his old life no longer feels like home. When he finally despairs of ever returning to London Below, the resurrected Marquis appears with one final door—and Richard steps willingly into the world that changed him forever.
