Streaming

Disney is one on a growing list of companies that have stopped advertising on X, formerly known as Twitter, following antisemitic posts from Elon Musk.

During his interview at the DealBook 2023 event, Bob Iger didn’t comment on whether Disney would ever go back to advertising on X, but he had this to say about the decision:

By him taking the position he took, we felt that the association with that position, and Elon Musk and X, was not a positive one for us.

Speaking during the NYT DealBook Summit 2023, he did not blame the actors' strike and lack of publicity for the film's performance. Nor did he blame the weird hatred of the film driven by sexism coming from a small and vocal cadre of Marvel fans upset over a film helmed by three women.

He did blame the sheer volume of content being created for making it more difficult to maintain quality and said, "The Marvels was shot during Covid, and there wasn't enough supervision on set" from executives.

But given that overreliance on executive creative control is one of the things that have driven the Marvel brand to its current nadir... that's certainly an interesting assessment.

Responding to a DealBook question about recent box office disappointments, Iger says, “we need to get more realistic” about what a hit looks like in the streaming age.

The Disney CEO also says it was a “definite mistake” to increase output for streaming and that an increase in quantity led to diluted quality.

Do you ever open the Netflix app and wonder why you’re seeing what you’re seeing? It turns out the story is both more and less complicated than you might think — and resistant to all my conspiracy theories about Netflix bullying you into watching stuff.

Also, if you haven’t been watching this season of Planet Earth, you’re missing out. And the stories behind the way the filmmakers capture incredible footage in awful conditions will only blow your mind more. Because this is The Vergecast, and care too much about drone cameras.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is talking at the DealBook event about the business decisions behind axing projects like Batgirl. He says once money is spent on production, making a choice not to release a project and spend even more is a “strategic decision.”

What content is going to help us win? The content that wasn’t, we made a strategic decision on. It was difficult and it was painful. But I think it was the right decision for the company and it was necessary.

I’m here in New York at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, an annual gathering of some of the most powerful people in the world.

Over the course of the day we’ll be hearing from people like Bob Iger, David Zaslav, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and FTC chair Lina Khan — and we’ll close out the day with an interview with Elon Musk. Check back in for news as the day goes on.

The $9.99 / month Instacart Plus subscription already offers unlimited free grocery deliveries and lower service fees, but now it’s bundling in Peacock’s Premium plan, too. The streamer’s Premium plan offers ad-supported access to a range of content on Peacock and typically costs $5.99 per month.

Amazon’s adaptation of The Boys only just got to college with its Gen V spin-off, but the streamer has already greenlit yet another expansion of the franchise — this time set in Mexico — courtesy of Blue Beetle’s Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, Diego Luna, and Gael García Bernal.

That’s Zack Snyder in Wired talking about the differences between theatrical and streaming movies — particularly when it comes to grabbing people right away — ahead of the release of Rebel Moon on Netflix.

On the streamer, though, you have to be careful with the opening of the movies because the barrier for entry is really easy. But also the barrier for leaving is very easy. The balance is a lot more difficult on a streamer than in a theater.

Earlier this month, Plex officially introduced its new Discover Together feature, which shares what you’ve been watching, discussing, or rating with friends on the service and vice versa.

As pointed out by 404 Media, some users were caught off guard by the “discover together” emails they found in their inbox, with one user saying: “I wonder how many people just had their week’s porn selections emailed to their Plex friends. I just got an email about a friend’s watching habits which he definitely didn’t want to share.”

How Agatha Harkness: Darkhold Diaries will address the events of WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is anyone’s guess.

But in a new WandaVision behind-the-scenes feature reel which also includes some new Darkhold Diaries production footage), Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness appears to be back to her old seld, and messing with the kind of magic that tends to get people roped into big crossover events.

Amazon’s free Fire TV Channels service is adding more sports content to its mix today: highlights from the NBA, Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 are now available, as well as Fox Sports’ 24/7 linear channel. and shows from the Locked On Podcast Network. The service already had content from Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, NBC Sports, and others.

Two things about this:

1. The great re-bundling of TV just keeps accelerating, and sports is really leading the way, and

2. Amazon announced this in a post on Medium, which... what?

The first of three new Doctor Who episodes is about to premiere at 6:30PM GMT (1:30PM ET, and if you’re not in the UK or Ireland, you’ll find the new episodes on Disney Plus now). And after fans watch “The Star Beast,” for the first time, there will be an official post-show podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts) to extend the experience.

The only odd thing about this is that Doctor Who didn’t have one before, and if you’re still wondering why every new show has a podcast, Hot Pod has tried to answer that very question.

When SAG-AFTRA finally reached a tentative agreement to bring the actors strike to an end earlier this month, the union’s insistence that its members might not be able to look over the deal before voting on it raised more than a few eyebrows.

It seemed odd that union leadership might try to get people on board with the contract without giving them a chance to read the whole thing. But now the union’s released the full document — on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving of all days.

This kind of video gets me in trouble at home because I will try to emulate it for fun. Just hours of recording noises and editing them, to the exclusion of all of the reasonable, responsible things I should do instead.

Anyway, here’s someone smacking, plucking, and scraping disparate household items to get the Netflix logo sound.

This is the second teaser for Netflix’s Gyeongseong Creature, following a release date announcement at Geeked Week earlier in the month. And while the show looks great, I am just itching to see what these creatures actually look like. I guess we’ll find out pretty soon: part one of the series starts streaming on December 22nd.

That’s according to The New York Times, which claims filmmaker Carl Erik Rinsch pocketed the millions of dollars Netflix transferred him for the production of a sci-fi series that we’ll probably never see:

Netflix wired Mr. Rinsch’s production company $11 million, bringing its total outlay to more than $55 million... Mr. Rinsch transferred $10.5 million of the $11 million to his personal brokerage account at Charles Schwab and, using options, placed risky bets on the stock market.

Rinsch and Netflix are “now locked in a confidential arbitration proceeding,” the NYT reports. He reportedly claims Netflix owes him “at least $14 million in damages.”

The Muppets Mayhem lasted just one season before Disney canceled it. Variety reported today that the show won’t get a second season on the platform.

The show followed Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem Band as they tried to record an album. Bummer for fans of the Muppet Show’s house band.

Amazon Prime Video plans to inject “shoppable” ads into the first-ever Black Friday NFL game.

According to the WSJ, the Friday afternoon game between the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins will feature “exclusive” online shopping deals advertised with on-screen QR codes throughout the action.

Yeah, ‘cos that's just the incentive I need to tune into a football game on my day off — more ads.

As our world’s become increasingly filled with artificial intelligence, robotic dogs armed with guns, and social media platforms run by fashy lunatics, it’s gotten harder to enjoy Black Mirror as mere speculative fiction. But even though the show doesn’t always feel as science-fictional as it used to, that’s not stopping Netflix from bringing it back for a seventh season.

A study by Reelgood found that between October 2022 and October 2023, the number of movies on Paramount Plus was reduced by 64 percent. The trimmer catalog is part of the company’s initiative to move toward profitability. In that same period, most other streamers built up their film catalogs, including Hulu, Peacock, and Disney Plus.

And I mean that literally: the Godzilla spinoff series Monarch: of Monsters is now streaming on Apple TV Plus. But it’s not the only big release of the week, with Nintendo’s remake of Super Mario RPG out on the Switch, and the subversive Scott Pilgrim Takes Off streaming on Netflix.

Elsewhere, the excellent action game Downwell is now on Apple Arcade, and Nintendo surprise-dropped some titles at this week’s indie event: organization RPG Backpack Hero and turn-based folktale Howl.

Last year, Bandai Namco announced it would turn a short story by Toriyama into an entire Sand Land franchise. The Sand Land movie has already been released in Japan, we saw a trailer for the game during Summer Game Fest, and next spring Sand Land: The Series will “build upon the movie’s original universe” with a new anime on Hulu.

Hulu’s Animayhem booth will highlight this show along with Undead Unluck, Tokyo Revengers, and Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War at the Anime NYC convention this weekend.

The entire eight-episode season will premiere on February 2nd, 2024, Amazon announced on Thursday. The show co-stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. Phoebe Waller-Bridge was originally set to co-star but left the show in 2021.

As troubled as Warner Bros. Discovery’s universe of live-action projects based on DC’s comics are, none of that drama seems to be impacting Max’s Harley Quinn which has been renewed for a fifth season.

“We must have handed out at least three thousand NDAs by now,” executive producers Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey said In a statement about keeping the renwal secret. “It was a big waste of paper.”