Back in the old days, long before streaming, and even before home video as we know it today, networks aired movies. NBC had NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies, and both ABC and CBS had the Sunday Night Movie. Well, as the saying goes, everything old is new again, and as CBS finds itself facing a drop-off in programming due to coronavirus delays, they’re bringing back the Sunday Night Movie. Starting in May, CBS will be airing titles like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Titanic on Sunday nights.
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Everything is delayed, canceled, or on hold at the moment due to the coronavirus (COVID-19), which means that film festivals are having to make some tough choices. Cannes is postponed. SXSW was canceled, but they recently announced they would try to put together an online film festival with Amazon Prime Video. TIFF has yet to make a decision one way or another, but festival runners Joana Vicente and Cameron Bailey mentioned last week that they were considering a potential digital festival. Digital film festivals are a distinct possibility in several locations, but there’s one fest that has flat-out refused to go digital: the Venice Film Festival.
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In 1955, Oscar-winning actor Charles Laughton, who appeared in films like Witness for the Prosecution, Mutiny on the Bounty, and Spartacus, stepped behind the camera as a director for the first and only time. The result was The Night of the Hunter, a dark, moody thriller starring Robert Mitchum as a serial killer, and a movie that is beloved by cinephiles and has influenced generations of filmmakers and storytellers. It’s a stone-cold classic: not just one of the best films ever directed by an actor, but a movie that many (including the revered film magazine Cahiers du cinéma) consider to be one of the best films ever made, period.
So while it’s not exactly surprising to learn that Universal is developing a remake, the news does arrive with the same exhausted sense of, “But…why?” that always accompanies stories like this.
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We’ve documented the hardships of movie theaters as this pandemic has essentially put the entire industry on hold. Bailout programs have been put in place and organizations are collecting money to make sure theaters are able to turn the lights back on when everything returns to normal, but now a potential new revenue stream has presented itself as another way to help in the short term. It’s called ScreenPlus, and thanks to their partnership with a software company called VistaGroup, they’ve rolled out technology that will enable cinema exhibitors to launch their own personalized VOD platform and offer films directly to their customers for at-home streaming. Get the details below. Read More »
Universal is making some more changes to its release date calendar due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. While other studios are still hoping to release movies in late July despite the near future remaining unclear, the folks at Universal aren’t taking any chances – they’ve moved Nobody, their Bob Odenkirk action movie, until February of next year. Get the details on that below, and learn what’s happening with M. Night Shyamalan‘s new movie as well. Read More »
With kids quarantined inside with nothing to do but stream movies and shows for the foreseeable future, parents are naturally going to get stricter with what they can and can’t watch. But how many complaints do you think it took for Netflix to start rolling those stricter parental controls into its actual platform? We can’t know for sure, but it had to have been a fair few in a short amount of time, considering how fast Netflix is rolling out a new series of tools allowing parents to filter — and even remove — titles that their kids can see on the service.
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With movie theaters shut down for the time being, and so many movie release dates delayed, moviegoers are wondering if more and more titles will go directly to digital or streaming. Disney made this decision recently with one of their upcoming movies, Artemis Fowl, which is headed right to Disney+. Could that mean additional Disney theatrical titles will go straight there as well? According to Bob Iger, yes – but don’t expect that from huge tentpole movies like Black Widow or Mulan.
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Last December, Lucasfilm revealed that the first Star Wars-themed game show was in the works and that it would be arriving on Disney+ this year. It’s called Jedi Temple Challenge, and it’s hosted by former Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best. In a new interview, Best says that production has been completed on the first season of the show, and while we await a more specific release date, he explained what he feels is missing from Star Wars these days and how this show aims to restore those aspects to the franchise. Read More »
(Welcome to The Clock Tower, where we’ll break down the goings on of the The CW network’s Arrowverse. We’ll touch on things like themes, cultural impact, lead-ins to major events, ships, and more every week! Warning: this Clock Tower is filled with spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.)
It always feels like the Arrowverse goes on hiatus right when we need it most. That’s not a shot at the shows – in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Because of how they tackle current events, it’s always weird to go a week without them when the world’s falling apart. All the same, the world spins on. Thankfully, we have plenty of stuff to dive into while our heroes are away.
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Quibi, the new streaming service that’s devoted to short-form content (or “quick bites,” if you will) had its big launch yesterday. The result? Not great! The nascent streaming service is offering users a 90-day free trial, but even that didn’t seem to be enough of an incentive for people to give it a shot. As a result, only 300,000 users downloaded the app. That’s not exactly a terrible number, but…it’s not very good, either.
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