Cordkillers 374 - Too-Dumb (w/ Merrill Barr)
Movies Anywhere takes on AI, is Hulu in a content crunch, and the new Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer dropped. All that and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Merrill Barr ( https://twitter.com/merrillbarr ).
This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Ted Lasso (206), What If...? (103), Star Trek: Lower Decks (203)
Next time on September 13th: Ted Lasso (207-208), Star Trek: Lower Decks (204-205), Rick and Morty (109-110)
CordKillers: 374 - Too-Dumb
Recorded: August 30 2021
Guest: Merrill Barr
Intro Video
The Starling
Primary Target
Movies Anywhere is using AI to create lists of the movies you own
moviesanywhere.com/my-lists
- I think people forget Movies Anywhere exists because it takes work to keep it connected to your various store accounts. But as a reminder, Movies Anywhere can hook into all major digital movie store outlets, Amazon, Vudu, Apple, Google etc. and when you buy a movie on one service it will make it available on all the others you've connected as well as in your Movies Anywhere Account. Almost all the big studios participate.
- Perhaps as a way to encourage people to use Movies Anywhere's actual sites and apps to manage their movie watching, the site has introduced an algorithm to organize your movies by type. The categories are created by humans. There are about 2,000 of them.
- The algorithm can look for commonalities in your collection. It also tries to avoid having the same movies show up in all the lists. It also takes into account what movies you actually watch to gauge what kinds of movies you're interested in.
- You can also modify lists and create your own. For instance the algorithm might put all the Star Wars movies in a list for you, but you can reorder them to the machete order, if you want.
- In my account for instance it arranged franchise together, like Jurassic Park, Marvel and Harry Potter but also created lists called "antiheroes," "saving the World" and "Rivalries."
How to Watch
Hulu: Looming Content Crisis Puts Pressure on Need for Original Hits
- What is Hulu?
- Most people probably would answer, the streaming service where I can watch major TV network shows the day after they air. A few more people might say that it's also the place with Handmaid's Tale and Fargo and such.
- That second one needs to become the more important and more prominent one.
- Because starting in 2022, NBC Universal can decide to cancel most of its content licensing agreements with Hulu and make stuff exclusive to Peacock. ViacomCBS is likely to do the same for Paramount Plus and Fox for Tubi.
- Hulu without content from CBS, Fox and NBC would be a much less compelling service. It's grown to 42.8 million subscribers but that's still behind its cousin Disney Plus as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime. And Peacock, HBO Max and Paramount Plus are right behind it.
- Disney is working on that with its "FX on Hulu" branding to showcase high quality originals, but spending on originals is still far behind the top three.
- Interestingly Hulu was profitable for the first time last quarter and Disney's CFO Christine McCarthy said “Hulu has exceeded our expectations.” However Variety points out it's still constrained by only being available in the US.
- Can Hulu survive?
What to Watch
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Trailer Shatters ‘Avengers: Endgame’s’ 24-Hour Viewership Record
- The Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer was released last week with the reveal of one of the characters from the old Spider-man movies showing up, indicating potential multiverse crossovers. The trailer has also set a record for the most viewed trailer in its first 24 hours, passing Endgame 289 million to reach 355.5 million. No Way Home is scheduled to premiere in theaters December 17th.
Paramount Unveils First Look at ‘Mission: Impossible 7,’ 13 Minutes of ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
- At Cinemacon Paramount showed off the first 13 minutes of Top Gun: Maverick as well as releasing a new trailer. That movie hits theaters November 19th. They also showed a feature on Mission Impossible's stunt in which Tom Cruise jumps a motorcycle off a cliff in Norway.
‘Matrix 4′ Trailer & Title Unveiled During Warner Bros’ CinemaCon Reel
- Warner Brothers showed CinemaCon attendees a trailer for the fourth movie in the Matrix franchise which will be called The Matrix: Resurrections. The movie is set to come out December 22.
Netflix Picks Up ‘Manifest’ for Fourth and Final Season
- The show Manifest has been granted a 4th season by Netflix. The show first appeared open NBC in September 2018 and ran for three seasons. It was canceled after the last episode aired June 10th. It then became a huge hit on Netflix, or at least was streamed a lot by its supporters. The last season will be 20 episodes, longer than earlier seasons. No air date yet.
Cobra Kai' Renewed for Season 5 at Netflix Ahead of Season 4 Premiere in December|
The eight 'Harry Potter' Movies will head back to HBO Max from Peacock starting September 1st
‘You’ returns for season 3 on netflix October 15th
The next Downton Abbey movie will be caleld Downton Abbey: A New era and arrive in theaters March 18, 2022.
Sony surprised CinemaCon attendees with a screening of Ghostbusters: AfterLife, directed by Ivan Reitman's son Jason Reitman.
‘The Problem With Jon Stewart’ arrives on Apple TV+ September 30, a trailer is out now.
You can stream Cruella at no additional charge on Disney Plus starting on August 27th
Leverage: Redemption will release the last 8 episodes of its latest season on IMDBTV October 8th.
Eyes On
Merrill: Leverage: Redemption
Brian: Hacks
Tom: Hacks
On the Lookout: The Year Earth Changed
Front Lines
‘Sports On Tubi’ Streaming Hub To Feature 10 Live Channels, 700 On-Demand Hours
- Fox is launching "Sports on Tubi" in the US. It will include 10 live streaming channels and 700 hours of on-demand programming across the NFL, MLB, NASCAR, Big Ten, Concacaf soccer, the ACC and the Pac-12 Conference. Sports on Tubi will launch on the Tubi app on Fire TV, Roku and Android first with others to follow. It will be free and ad-supoprted like all other Tubi content.
Netflix starts testing Stranger Things games in its Android app
- Netflix launched the first items of its new mobile game service. Android users in Poland can download and play Stranger Things 1984 and Stranger Things 3 as part of their Netflix membership. Anyone can download the app but you'll use your Netflix credentials to log in and play the game.
Netflix’s ‘Tudum’ fan event will bring trailers, interviews, and announcements for its originals on September 25th
- Netflix will host a fan event called "Tudum" on September 25th. The three hour live stream will include trailers, panels with stars of Netflix shows. Prior to the main stream Netflix will host three pre-show events. One around Korean dramas, one for Indian movies and for anime. The pre-shows start at 8 AM Eastern September 25th and the main stream at noon.
‘The Suicide Squad’ Most Watched DC Film On HBO Max In Samba TV Households, But Trails ‘Mortal Kombat’
- SambaTV, which measures viewership on 3 million US households with Smart TVs, announced some metrics for Warner Movies watched on HBO Max in the first 17 days after release. Mortal Kombat leads the way with 5.5 million. Godzilla vs. Kong in second with 5.1 million and Suicide Squad third with 4.7 million views. Wonder Woman: 1984 has 3. 9 million, Zack Snyder's Justice League 3.2 million.
HBO Max and YouTube are now on Spectrum TV
- Charter has added HBO Max and YouTube to its digital cable guide. Because of the way it works apps have channel numbers on Spectrum hardware. So HBO Max will be channel 2004 and YouTube channel 2003. Like Netflix before it, when you choose those channels it launches the app on your digital set top box.
‘Ted Lasso,’ ‘The Crown,’ ‘The Mandalorian,’ ‘Cruel Summer,’ ‘New Amsterdam’ Among HCA TV Awards Winners
The first ever Hollywood Critics Association TV awards, separated streaming, broadcast and cable shows. Ted Lasso was named best streaming comedy. The Mandalorian won best streaming drama and WandaVision got best limited series.
Dispatches from the Front
Hello gang!
I was just purchasing tickets to see Shang-Chi for Thursday night (not one showing was full and all of them still had "desirable" seats left) and after purchasing the tickets I started getting offers for other things! Before I could access my tickets I got offered no less than 3 different services I had to actively decline before moving forward. 12 meals from Hello fresh, 30 days of free Hulu, 14 days of free SiriusXM, and then an option to donate to help women in Afghanistan. These were literal steps I had to take to get to my tickets.
I've used the same theatre and same app for tickets for years now and I've never had to do this before. Is this the way theatres are now trying to cover costs by doing ad deals? It makes total sense but it was definitely surprising to see.
Thanks for all your work,
- Ander
I was listening to the discussion on Cordkillers on 08/23 and turning to your local TV station when there's a tornado. I recently experienced my first tornado warning in my home in a new state, and in an apartment complex. As it turned out, my "safe space" here is an interior bathroom that's far from any of my TVs, but well covered by wifi. And so I wound up doing what you guys viewed as a futuristic solution, and pulling up the app on my phone from the local TV station, and watching their broadcast on my phone. Any other option was off limits to me from the room where we had to huddle during the storm, so this scenario isn't as far off as you think!
- Tim
Hi,
I am one of your bosses from the beginning. I have never felt the need to email you and express my disappointment as much as I do now. I was listening to episode 373 and I feel you missed the boat on a easy setup. When reporting on Comcast's new streaming service from Sky, Tom quickly ran through the more common peacock and plus title jokes for the new name. How on earth did you miss the setup on the rise of our Doom. The better name for a internet based service from Sky would be non other than "SkyNet" 💥
As always keep up the great work.
OG Boss
- Bryn
Hey guys,
A word of warning for others - I canceled my SlingTV account in July the day before it was to renew. I do this every so often when they offer a special - subscribe, set reminder, cancel. The next day I was billed again.Okay, maybe I cut it to close - I'll allow it.
Then I was billed again in August. Thankfully I kept the cancel confirmation email because I had to chat with their support, forward the email, and only got one month of credit. Keep an eye on your cancellations, even though this was my first time having an issue.
My other thought is about all the services we have available.
Since the 'rona has kicked off I went through a spate of watching a load of entertainment to now only watching the 'splash' or tentpole productions. I've had Netflix and Hulu, basically uninterrupted, for a decade or so and also subscribe to Paramount+ and Prime Video (because it's there with Prime). I have access to HBO and Disney+. Now, apparently T-Mobile will be giving me Apple+ or whatever it's called.
Do people really maintain so many services every month? I'm pretty sure I could dump Prime and Hulu without pain. Netflix is included (base version) in TMO, and now Apple+. The others are shared with me so there is no cost.
Forgot about Family YouTube Music - that stays for music but mostly no ads on YouTube.
Thanks for reading. Keep up the great work.
- Dan
Links
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