Cordkillers 333 - The Death of Free (Trials)
Fury Road sequel gets a cast, private theaters screenings, stream The Peanuts holiday specials on Apple TV, and the Monster Hunter film trailer. All this and more on Cordkillers!
CordKillers: 333 - The Death of Free (Trials)
Recorded: October 19 2020
Guest: None
Intro Video
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Primary Target
Adjust: Americans spend $20.78 a month on app subscriptions
- German mobile measurement company Adjust released a report on subscription services in the US. Adjust worked with Censuswide to survey 1,003 TV/streaming customers aged 16-60 in the US between September 23-29.
- Streaming video apps made up 30.7% of subscription-based app downloads followed by gaming and news. Consumers who use streaming entertainment services spent an average of $33.58 a month on them. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, and YouTube TV made up the top five favorite streaming services.
How to Watch
‘Tenet’ Spurs Private Watch Party Business Boom For Cinemark Theatres
AMC offers private theater rentals for as little as $99
AMC Entertainment Says Could Be “Largely Depleted” By Year End; Exploring Assets Sales, Joint Ventures
AMC Entertainment To Open A Dozen Cinemas In NY State; CEO Adam Aron “Increasingly Confident” NYC Is “Not Far Away”
-For more than a decade we've helped you watch what you want when you want and where you want. And lately a new way people want to watch is in a privately rented theater.
- Alamo Drafthouse started this trend. Cinemark is offering theater rentals for around 20 people for $99 for a catalog movie on up to $150 for a new wide release. And AMC just started offering the same starting at $99 up to $349. AMC's also charging $100 to rent a microphone, $250 a half hour to get early access to the theater and $250 if you ant to bring in outside food (like catering)
- Deadline's sources say Cinemark has sold more than 22K watch parties, largely boosted by the movie Tenet. It's making up about 1/3 of Cinemark's business.
- This past weekend, Cinemark’s Lincoln Square 22 in Seattle, WA, and Redwood 20 in the San Francisco ranked as the No. 2 and No. 10 highest grossing location for Tenet which took in $1.6M in its eighth weekend, passing $50M domestic.
- This is a result of the cash crunch at theaters. AMC said last Tuesday its cash will be gone by late this year or early next and it’s exploring potential sources of additional liquidity, including asset sales, joint ventures or minority investments.
- In better news AMC said its opening a doze theaters in New York State October 23 and claims reopening in New York City is "not far away"
What to Watch
Pixar released a trailer for Soul coming to Disney Plus December 25.
Apple TV Plus will get classic Peanuts holiday specials as part of a new streaming deal
- Apple TV Plus will add the Peanuts specials I bought last year to its catalog so I didn't need to buy them at all. That includes It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown- A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Each will have a time periods where they will be available free to non-subscribers. New specials celebrating Mother’s Day, Earth Day, New Year’s Eve, and back to school are not heir way and The Snoopy Show arrives February 5.
Mad Max Fury Road prequel announces cast
- George Miller has announced the cast for Furiosa, his forthcoming prequel movie to Mad Max: Fury Road. Anya Taylor-Joy whom you might know from Peaky Blinders or Split plays the young Furiosa. Chris Hemsworth is playing Dementus, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from Watchmen is playing Pretorian. Production is expected to begin late 2021 or early 2022. A sequel called The Wasteland is farther off.
Variety reports Coming to America 2 starring Eddie Murphy is being sold by Paramount to Amazon with an expected streaming premiere of December 18.
‘Monster Hunter’: Milla Jovovich Takes on Fearsome Beasts in New Trailer
- Monster Hunter, the movie based on the video game and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson released a trailer. Mila Jovovich plays Captain Artemis, a character created for the film. Coming to theaters in December.
‘Yellowstone’ Season 3 Streaming Date On Peacock Is Revealed
- Yellowstone which airs on the Paramount Network streams exclusively on Peacock and season 3 arrives November 22. Yellowstoen has the odd distinction of being the most watched cable TV show of 2020.
Star Trek; Discovery season 3 premiered on CBS All Access this week and has already been approved for a 4th season. Production begins November 2.
Netflix released a trailer for The Crown Season 4 which premieres November 15. Season 4 covers the period when Charles and Diana married.
There's a trailer out for His Dark Materials as well which returns to HBO November 16.
Eyes On
Brian: Class Action Park, South Park Pandemic Special
Tom: Star Trek: Discovery
On the Lookout: Emergency Call
Front Lines
Apple Launches ‘Apple Music TV,’ a 24-Hour Music Video Livestream
- Apple launched Apple Music TV in the US, a free live stream channel of curated music videos in the Apple Music app, Apple TV, and at apple.co/AppleMusicTV, though that just launches the Apple TV app. The channel will premiere new videos every Friday at 12pm ET, with Apple also saying the channel will feature "special curated music video blocks, and live shows and events as well as chart countdowns and guests.”
Netflix no longer offers free trials in the US
- Netflix has removed all free trial package options for new members. A post at Netflix’s Help Center reads: “Free trials are not available, but you can still sign up and take advantage of all Netflix has to offer. There are no contracts, no cancellation fees, and no commitments." Back in June, Disney+ stopped offering free trials for new subscribers before Hamilton was added to the service on July 4. Netflix has Aaron Sorkin’s Oscars hopeful The Trial of the Chicago 7, Season 4 of The Crown, and David Fincher’s Mank arriving over the next several weeks, which may have prompted the similar move.
YouTube debuts a clever solution to one of TV’s biggest UX problems
- YouTube TV is integrating NFL Fantasy Football into the app. To set it up you log into NFL.com and it will bring in your fantasy team and matchup. While watching an actual football game you can select a Fantasy tab to pull up your player's scores while the video window shrinks to the top corner of the screen. You can toggle between multiple accounts as well. Fantasy players in the game you're watching are shown at the top. That adjusts if you change channels to another game too. Google plans to bring more apps to its platform if they can be incorporated into content.
The Apple TV app is now available for some Sony TVs. The Apple TV app gives access to Apple TV+, Apple TV Channel add-ons and any TV and movies in your Apple library.
WarnerMedia to discontinue HBO and WB TV channels in India, and select other South Asia markets
- Warner Media announced it will discontinue its HBO and WB TV channels in India, Pakistan, Maldives, and Bangladesh on December 15th. In India, HBO has struggled for marketshare, ranking behind competitors like Times Internet’s Movies Now, Star Movies, and Sony Pix, despite offering the channel in the country for more than 20 years. Warner will still offer Cartoon Network and Pogo in India, and distribute CNN International as well. HBO content will continue to be available in India through a syndication deal with Disney’s Hotstar service.
Dispatches from the Front
1. The Paramount Decree ends allowing movie studios to own theaters.
2. Due to the pandemic, movie studios skip theaters and go straight to
streaming.
3. Theaters struggle with no new movies.
4. Movie studios see theaters struggling and start purposely moving more
movies to streaming.
5. Theater debt piles up forcing them into bankruptcy.
6. Movie studios swoop in and buy up theater chains.
7. Movie studios negotiate with themselves for new theater windows and
revenue splits.
Movie studios have it within their power to destroy theaters and blame
it on the pandemic.
- Ken
On this week's show Merrill was talking about John Favreau's show Chef, Back in the 2000's Favreau had a similar show on IFC called Dinner for 5. Each week he would have 5 guests that he had worked with in the past, for dinner at a nice restaurant that had a private Dining room. As they ate dinner they would talk about working on the movies or shows in the past. Because of the private setting you got to see how these celebrities were in real life, They would talk a lot of inside baseball about Hollywood and the making of films in general. You would also hear a good amount of humorous or interesting anecdotes from what happened on set ect. The episodes show up on Netflix from time to time. You can also find some of them on YouTube. You can also find each season on DVD. If you can find them they are well with a watch.
- Clifford