Cordkillers 566: Hits, Drama, and Critterz
HBO is renaming its secondary channels while OpenAI helps make an AI-animated movie, Sophie Turner picks up dual pistols as Lara Croft, and YouTube proves football streams can pull in bigger crowds than Amazon.
This week on The FULL Experience: Bonanza (1415 - "The Hunter")
Next week: Yellowstone (101 - "Daybreak")
YouTube: https://youtu.be/kXl-vanhti4
Supply Run
HBO is rebranding its secondary cable channels while still streaming them in its app. HBO2 becomes HBO Hits, Signature becomes Drama, Zone becomes Movies, and Cinemax gets similar updates like MoreMAX becoming Cinemax Hits.
Search Party
OpenAI creative Chad Nelson is producing Critterz, an animated film made mostly with AI, aiming for Cannes 2026.
James Gunn announced Superman: Man of Tomorrow, hitting theaters July 9, 2027.
Amazon cast Sophie Turner as Lara Croft in its Tomb Raider Prime Video series, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge co-running the show. Filming starts Jan 19.
CNN will air Farm Aid live Sept. 20 with Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, and more.
Activision and Paramount are teaming up for a Call of Duty movie.
Peacock renewed The Paper for Season 2 before its Sept. 4 series premiere.
Trailer: Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man, the third Knives Out film, hits theaters Nov. 26, then Netflix Dec. 12.
YouTube drew 17.3M viewers for the Chiefs vs. Chargers NFL game in Brazil, beating Amazon’s usual 13.2M Thursday Night Football average.
Buried Treasure
Brian recommends: Alien Earth and Death Note
Tom recommends: MTV VMAs, which aired on CBS for the first time, drawing 42% more viewers than last year and beating Sunday Night Football.
Scanning the Horizon
Plex disclosed a data breach and urged users to reset passwords.
YouTube TV adds C-SPAN’s three channels this fall, with Hulu + Live TV also carrying them.
Sports piracy hub Streameast was shut down in an ACE-led sting in Egypt.
Newsmax sued Fox, alleging antitrust violations in right-leaning pay-TV news carriage.
Netflix’s Moments feature now lets users fully define and share their own clips.
Nielsen will take 2–3 days for final ratings now that streaming is included, with “overnights” labeled preliminary.
Warner Bros. Discovery sued Dish, claiming Sling TV “Passes” violate distribution deals.
Chatter
Rick from Orlando recommends A Date with the Future on Viki, a Chinese drama about firefighters and romance.
Anne shares why she still buys DVDs to avoid altered versions of films and losing access.
Mark Heil reports a streaming-location problem caused by Comcast IP changes, which locked him into NYC local stations.