Cordkillers 397 - Foreverphilia (w/ Merrill Barr)
A new social network for buying and selling films? A millenial explains the new G4TV. ViacomCBS becomes Paramount and FX details the end of Atlanta. All that and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Merrill Barr ( https://twitter.com/merrillbarr ).
This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Peacemaker (Season 1), The Righteous Gemstones (208), Raised By Wolves (204)
Next week: The Righteous Gemstones (209), Raised By Wolves (205), Miami Vice (220, "Payback")
CordKillers: 397 - Foreverphilia
Recorded: February 21 2022
Guest: Merrill Barr
Intro Video
Netflix's upcoming film Hustle
Primary Target
NFT Film Platform Cineverse Promises to Boost Indie Film
Cineverse
- Cinemarket is a film sales platform that uses a blockchain to manage film sales rights like royalty payments and distribution. It's a rather unsexy blockchain company because it doesn't sell collectibles, which isn't generally headline-grabbing outside of its industry. So they would like you to hold their beer. Cinemarket is launching Cineverse. The idea is to let said filmmakers sell films to the public as NFTs. Hold your laughter please. This may be a smart move. The idea is that you get the advantage of a decentralized secure contract. So when you buy a movie from Cineverse, it will be yours. Because it's on a decentralized blockchain nobody can take your access away. You can also resell it or give it as a gift. Ahh but what if the company goes away and the Blockchain goes offline. Cinemarket CEO Adrian Lugol says that within two years he hopes that they won't own Cineverse and that it will be run by an independent foundation run by the community. He told Variety, “To have a proper decentralized platform, you cannot have Netflix or Google controlling it.”
- Why would Cinemarket do this? Because it will make its money on the licensing deals we talked about earlier. In fact, with a functioning NFT blockchain, resales of movies can still deliver royalties to the filmmakers, instantly, and that benefits Cinemarket's main business, helping filmmakers manage all those royalty rights.
- Also data on how films are selling and where can be useful for filmmakers as well in marketing campaigns.
- Cineverse had a soft launch Wednesday in Berlin and will launch for real during Cannes on May 21.
How to Watch
To Tom, G4 means the network Comcast bought so it could merge it into TechTV and get its wider distribution thus ending TechTV. To Merrill, G4 is that cool gaming network from when he was a kid that's now back. In the fine tradition of ignoring Generation X and having Millennials explain things, we asked Merrill Barr to explain what's going on with G4's return and why it's a lot different than just bringing back an old TV network.
Comcast Spectacor
- G4 is not owned by NBC Universal, but instead by Comcast Spectator. Spectator owns the Philadelphia Flyers, manages arenas and more pertinent to G4, owns the Philadelphia Fusion Overwatch league team
What to Watch
Goodbye Viacom and CBS: ViacomCBS Changes Corporate Name to Paramount
Paramount+ Adding Showtime Programming In Enlarged Service Costing $12 A Month; Individual Apps To Remain Available
Paramount Plus, Showtime Top 56 Million Subscribers Combined at End of 2021
‘Star Trek’ Cast, Including Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, Returning for Fourth Film
Paramount Has ‘Star Trek’ Film Poised For Late 2022 Production Start; Talks To Begin With Chris Pine
'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Hints at Spock Romance
‘Halo’ Renewed For Season 2 By Paramount+
Paramount Sets ‘A Quiet Place 3’ to Debut in 2025, Another ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Sequel in 2023
Paramount confirms 'Sonic 3' movie and Knuckles spinoff TV series
Paramount+ To Become ‘South Park’s Global Streaming Home In 2025, ‘Beavis and Butt-Head’ Revival Moves From Comedy Central To Streamer
- ViacomCBS has changed its name to Paramount. And Paramount has made lots of content announcements.
- You'll soon be able to add Showtime to Paramount+ trio a few extra dollars. $12 a month for the base price or $15 a month to get the Paramount Plus side without ads. This bundle has been available through Apple TV+ for awhile. The combined services had 56 million subscribers as of the end of 2021.
- A new Star Trek movie starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto et. Al will be coming out with WandaVision's Matt Shakman as the director. Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires are working on the screenplay. JJ Abrams, who is producing, says they plan to start shooting by the end of the year.
- Paramount also showed critics a teaser of Strange New Worlds, the series set prior to the original Star Trek with Anson Mount playing Captain Christopher Pike, the Captain of the Enterprise prior to Kirk. Among the things in the non-public teaser was Spock leaning in to kiss someone.
- The Halo series premieres on paramount+ March 24th and has already been approved for a second season. It will switch show runners for the second season from Steve Kane to David Wiener.
- A Quiet Place 3 will arrive in theaters in 2025 and should not be confused with a separate A Quiet Place movie in the works before that which won't focus on Emily Blunt's character. Also this Sonic the Hedgehog movie has been approved along with a TV series about Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba.
- Paramount Plus has found its library content star. It will just have to wait until 2025 to get it. South Park will end its deal with Warner that year and return to Paramount Plus as an exclusive. And the Beavis and Butthead revival series will go to Paramount Plus, not Comedy Central as previously announced.
- Should Paramount be chasing this dream or would it be smarter to be like Sony and just sell content to the survivors of the streaming wars?
‘Atlanta’ to End With Season 4 at FX, to Premiere This Fall
Donald Glover on Why ‘Atlanta’ Will End With Season 4: ‘Death Is Natural’
FX Entertainment Chief On ‘Atlanta’ Ending, Potential Spinoffs For Donald Glover’s Comedy & Pamela Adlon’s ‘Better Things’
- Atlanta season 3 is coming to FX (and therefore the next day on Hulu) on March 24th, and Season 4 is coming this autumn. Season 4 will be the last. Executive Producer and star of the show, Donald Glover wanted to end after season 2 but found that 4 seasons ended up being the right amount. Glover said, “I feel like when the conditions are right for something, they happen, and when the conditions aren’t right, they don’t happen. I don’t feel any longevity. Because then things start to get weird. The story was always supposed to be what it was. And the story, it really was us. Everybody in that writers’ room, everybody on set. It really was what we were going through and what we talked about. … I think it ends perfectly.” FX Entertainment President Eric Schrier told Deadline "...he had a finite ending and wanted a closure to the show, so we were very supportive of that as we have been with shows that have come to their fruition.”
Eyes On
Merrill: Bel-Air
Brian: Severance
Tom: TwentyFive TwentyOne
On the Lookout: Nerd of The Rings
Front Lines
Roku Misses Q4 Revenue Expectations and Profit Drops, Stock Slumps
In a strategic shift, Roku plans to make its own TV sets
- Roku said its Q4 revenue rose 33% while net income was down 65% on the year. Basically it brought in more money but its costs went up. For Q1, Roku ended 2021 with 60.1 million active accounts, up 17%. If you're making the comparison, that's more than all the cable companies in the US combined. Ad revenue grew 49% and Ad impressions grew 67%. But hardware sales fell 9%, in part due to supply chain issues. Meanwhile Insider's sources say Roku might sell TVs under its own brand name. Roku sells its own boxes and dongles but is usually just the OS on a TV that's sold under another brand name.
AMC Networks Stock Plunges Despite Stellar Q4 Report, Streaming Progress
- AMC Networks reported 9 million streaming subscribers at the end of 2021, beating expectations. AMC says it is on track to reach a combined 20-25 million across AMC+, Acorn TV and Shudder. AMC expects to derive most of its revenue from digital by 2025.
Super Bowl Is Over, Now It's Time to See Where NFL Sunday Ticket Will Land
- 2022 is the last year that DirecTV has exclusivity to offer NFL Sunday Ticket, the service that lets you watch all the out-of-market NFL games. The NFL does not appear to want to make it an exclusive in the next contract. The question is what that ends up looking like. DirecTV Chief Content Officer Rob Thun says DirecTV would like to continue to offer it but not as an exclusive. Disney's Bob Chapek says they are bidding on it, obviously as an add-on for ESPN+. Amazon and Apple are also thought to be interested.
DirecTV Stream Rolls Out Nearly 250 PBS Channels Nationwide
- Streaming replacements for cable like YouTube TV usually have the major local broadcasters but not usually all of them. Independent channels can be difficult to come to terms with and PBS has been outlier as a result.
- DirecTV Stream now offers almost 250 PBS stations. YouTube TV is the only other streamer to offer PBS and it has 110 affiliates.
‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ Trailer: Mystery & The Movies Come To The Estate
‘Peaky Blinders’ Sets February Premiere for Final Season
‘Barry’ Season 3 to Premiere in April on HBO; First Looks at ‘Time Traveler’s Wife,’ ‘The Staircase’
‘Peacemaker’ Renewed for Season 2 on HBO Max
Disney Plus goes full Space Jam 2 with a new Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie
‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Renewed for Fifth and Final Season at Amazon
Apple To Re-Release Best Picture Nominee ‘CODA’ Next Weekend With Free Theatrical Screenings
Dispatches from the Front
Hi Tom (and fellow Cordkillers). On this show & and It's a Thing, you've mentioned being able to watch screeners of shows/movies because of Eileen's job. I'm curious how you're given these screeners.. back in the day, I'm sure they'd have shipped you a VHS tape or DVD, but how does it work these days?
(I'm guessing it's a login to a private website, which needs you to link a PC to a TV to watch it on the big screen.. or are there special codes/apps for the TV to help with viewing these things).
All the best,
- Matt
Series? TV show? The word Tom was searching for is webisodes. It's Amazon's Lord of the Rings webisodes. A webisode is one of a series of episodes that have been made to be distributed over the internet. Sometimes webisodes are designed to expand on an existing property as a fun extra for the fans.
- Simon
With your discussions on binge-watching a show I have found a strange example in Beatles get back documentary. I find that I can only watch about 20 min at a time. Not because I do not like it but because I do not want to miss a thing that is going on or said. Watching about 20 min I hit my limit for intense focus.
- Francis
Watching the latest episode Tom points out at the end of the segment on MoviePass how "CineClub has launched gets virtually no attention" when discussing the value behind that MoviePass branding. I honestly don't know if he just pulled some random similar sounding name out of nowhere as a hypothetical off-brand alternative to MoviePass or if he was genuinely taking a dig at the "Cineplex CineClub" program that launched up here in Canada last summer that is basically a $9.99/mo subscription service offered by Cineplex Cinemas. You basically just get a credit each month that you're subscribed that you can exchange for a movie ticket, credits don't expire and you can buy extra tickets at "CineClub" pricing along with a few other perks.
- John
Links
patreon.com/cordkillers
doghousesystems.com/v/rogue
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