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Streaming service wars news and trends
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523 posts in this topic

Finally Apple TV+ picks up a heavy hitter. They dropped 70 million for Greyhound which airs July 10. WW2 films are a big deal in my family so this will be a great Friday night popcorn fest at home. Apple also acquired (a while back) the third installment from Spielberg/Hanks to follow Band of Brothers and The Pacific. I get Apple TV+ free for a year for buying last years iphone but I wouldn’t have paid for it due to lack of content. 
 

 

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20 hours ago, Grails said:

HBO Max to air the extended version of Casino Royale. The US theatrical version had cut the violence down out of fears their PG-13 would be jeopardized. I’m very excited to watch Craig’s best Bond film again.

Wow!

 

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HBO Max is set to release a longer, more violent version of Casino Royale. This tidbit comes courtesy of Phil Noble Jr. and Movie-censorship.com’s report about the different theatrical cuts of the film. Apparently, the United States got a version of the film that excluded a torture scene and some extended fight sequences. There was some concern when the movie came out that the violence was too much to secure a PG-13 rating. In other territories, it was left unchanged. Now, HBO Max viewers will be getting a taste of that increased action. However, they shouldn’t be expecting a wildly different film by any means. In some respects, this is more of a move to differentiate the streaming platform’s options from a bevy of competitors.

 

Since a bit of a slow start, HBO Max has managed to make up some ground because of library its managed to build up. Warner Media has begun clearing up some of the common misconceptions that have sprung up around the naming of HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO Max. In an effort to streamline, the company is phasing out HBO Go to direct people toward their newest release. Fans were confused upon the outset, but HBO remains dedicated toward educating the users.

 

 

Warner media’s statement said a couple of weeks ago, “Now that HBO Max has launched and is widely distributed, we can implement some significant changes to our app offering in the U.S. As part of that plan, we will be sunsetting our HBO GO service in the U.S. We intend to remove the HBO GO app from primary platforms as of July 31, 2020.”

 

It adds, “Most customers who have traditionally used HBO GO to stream HBO programming are now able to do so via HBO Max, which offers access to all of HBO together with so much more. Additionally, the HBO NOW app and desktop experience will be rebranded to HBO. Existing HBO NOW subscribers will have access to HBO through the rebranded HBO app on platforms where it remains available and through play.hbo.com. HBO Max provides not only the robust offering of HBO but also a vast WarnerMedia library and acquired content and originals through a modern product.”

 

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Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero

Batman and Harley Quinn

Batman vs. Two-Face

The Batman vs. Dracula

Batman: Assault on Arkham

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Batman: Year One

Blade 2

Blade

Blade: Trinity

Fantastic Four (Extended Version) (HBO)

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights

Green Lantern: First Flight

Justice League vs. Teen Titans

Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths

Justice League: Doom

Justice League: Gods and Monsters

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox

Justice League: The New Frontier

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis

Justice League: War

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League

Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: The Flash

Lego DC Super Hero Girls: Super-Villain High

Lego Justice League: Cosmic Clash

Lego Justice League: Gotham City Breakout

Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay
Superman II

Superman III

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Superman Returns

Superman: Brainiac Attacks

Superman: The Movie

Superman: Unbound

Watchmen (movie)

 

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HBO Max had attracted about 3 million retail and 4.1 million overall subscribers after its first month, AT&T CEO John Stankey said Thursday, lauding his team for a "flawless launch" despite the novel coronavirus pandemic. 

 

The latter figure includes more than 1 million wholesale customers from AT&T packages that include HBO Max. 

 

The company's goal is to reach 50 million-55 million HBO Max customers in the U.S. by 2025, and management said on Thursday's second-quarter earnings conference call that it was on track to meet those subscriber, as well as activation and revenue goals.

 

HBO Max launched on May 27 with the full HBO catalog plus originals like Anna Kendrick starrer Love Life and a library of old movies and TV shows, including the Studio Ghibli collection and Friends. 

 

AT&T CFO John Stephens told a recent investor conference that AT&T has been "pleased" with the early trends at HBO Max, but wouldn't share early subscriber figures, signaling though that the firm would provide those when it reports its latest results.  

 

At $15 per month, the service is one of the more expensive streaming products on the market. But because it costs the same as HBO, many pre-existing subscribers to the premium cable network were grandfathered into HBO Max at no additional price.

 

Stankey said HBO Max had "world-class content" and was making good on its promise to reach a broader demographic than the traditional HBO service. "Customer engagement has exceeded our expectations," he said, citing 70 percent more viewing hours than HBO Now.

 

WarnerMedia content has been on top of the list, with all six HBO Max initial originals in the top 25 most popular content pieces, he said. With new originals driving subscriber additions, he noted that by August the streamer would have 21 new originals, which "will sustain our near-term sub acquisition effort." 

'Flawless' is a tough standard to proclaim for anyone. So interesting description.

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In a move surprising everyone except th0se of us who’ve been telling you it was coming for months, Disney announced today that their 2020 live action adaptation of Mulan will hit Disney+ on September 4th in a new category of content described as “premium service,” through which subscribers can view Mulan through the streaming site’s new VOD option. This will be simultaneous with limited international theatrical distribution.

 

Mulan opens in limited markets next month, specifically countries without Disney+ and where movie theaters are open for business. The studio will take advantage of cinematic release where it cannot go direct to consumers, while everywhere else Mulan will be available in-home to Disney+ subscribers for an additional fee.

 

To recap my own points, back in April I published an article explaining how streaming and VOD — specifically, a nuanced combination of the two — was the future of distribution for the majority of new content, including films and major branded franchises. I got a lot of pushback against my beliefs at the time, but I followed up with a few additional articles (about Netflix, about Tenet’s release, and about movie theaters) as events continued to reinforce all of the lessons pointing toward this inevitable future of entertainment distribution and consumption.

 

Now, another big neon sign is flashing to tell us we are approaching an all-in moment on the new distribution approach that’s become necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, but that was already the endgame for Disney+ and many other studios with their own streaming services. The question was the precise combination and utilization of options.

 

I personally favored the one that included initial $30 VOD release but only through the streaming subscriptions first — that way, you subscribe to the studio’s streaming service first, and then through that you can access a VOD option. It bundles subscription and early access to new blockbuster releases, ahead of a potential wider VOD release at a higher $50 price (for example) for non-subscribers, and then eventually a release on the regular Disney+ subscription platform for no extra charge besides the basic subscription fee.

 

As it turns out, so far Disney has kicked this off with the initial subscription-VOD bundle I’ve favored. I also think it’s worth considering adding another step in the distribution process, so that after the broader VOD release but before it hits regular streaming for no additional charge, it could enjoy a couple of weeks at a higher-tier monthly subscription rate for “early access” to new content, an idea suggested by Sean Gerber of Marvel Studio News and the MCU Fan Show.

 

The price-point of $29.99 is also right where most of us expected it to be, with $50 as a high-end alternative for a broader VOD distribution that eschewed subscribers-only access. But subscribers-only is exactly where the initial VOD offering needed to be — a point I’ve also made along with several other people, including Mr. Gerber.

 

Last month I wrote that the summer movie season was dead and that everybody needed to process that fact and move forward instead of trying to resist it. I realize that part of the reluctance to publicly admit summer season is dead and to officially move to VOD/streaming distribution for many (or most) of the big would-be-blockbuster studio releases is the fear it will spook investors on Wall Street and investors in film projects.

 

Pushing the release dates further into the future has been a strategy to both monitor the situation in case theatrical distribution somehow magically does pull a rabbit out of its hat, but also (and, I’d argue, primarily) to maintain appearances ahead of quarterly reports, at a time when studios are also selling enormous amounts of debt and trying to keep investors on board as the overall economy has many believing we are headed for a financial crash.

 

Now, Disney has taken the first big step. The next one will be after Mulan makes enormous amounts of money on VOD — which will happen, make no mistake about it — and Disney’s subscriber numbers jump, when Disney has confirmation of what they (and a lot of the rest of us) already know: it’s a viable distribution model, and Black Widow will generate another big flurry of new subscribers VOD revenue.

 

I think Disney will approach 100 million subscribers if both Mulan and Black Widow release before the end of 2020, and generate massive record-breaking VOD rentals. If the results are as impressive as I expect, then it will go a long way toward confirming and establishing this new distribution model going forward. I won’t repeat all of my prior points about theatrical also remaining part of the equation, albeit a smaller part, so I’ll refer you again to my earlier articles (linked above) about all of this.

 

Mulan seems like a perfect film to set this new standard, as it’s as close to a “guaranteed hit” in the global market as you’re likely to find this year, and if not only the studio but also subscribers are pleased with the approach, it will be easy to further popularize it with another “sure thing” hit like Black Widow.

 

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