House of Cards was an adaptation of a widely acclaimed British TV show, directed by one of the best Hollywood directors, starring an A-list actor. Plus it probably didn't cost 1.8 billion.

Yep, entirely different risk profile. Netflix already had a brand, platform, and customers, and they already offered TV shows and weren't experimenting with a new format. The House of Cards risk was all in execution, not brand, concept, product, talent, etc.

Actually they are all based on the book by Michael Dobbs (1989) who was the chief of staff for Margaret Thatcher for a few years. I heard him at a book show say he wrote it almost by accident as therapy on a vacation after getting squeezed out of politics.

The difference is that the sample size for Fincher is a lot larger - 9 of his 10 films have grossed >100mil, so we have very good confidence on his hit rate.

Startup Savvy CEOs have 2, maybe 3 successful companies under their belt, so it's harder to judge how much of their success is due to repeatable factors.

Katzenberg revived Disney and cofounded Dreamworks so he's not exactly short of samples of his ability to produce hit movies. Also getting the scaleup eBay CEO to sort out the internet bit was a bonus...