Squid Game: The Challenge appears to have launched with a splash in the UK.
08.11.2023 - 18:23 / variety.com
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Nebula, which launched in 2019, describes itself as a creator-focused, creator-built, creator-first premium streaming service — akin to a Netflix or Hulu, but with the ethos of Patreon. The four-year-old indie streaming service, which is backed by creator-owned management company Standard and a minority stake held by Curiosity Stream, costs $5 a month or $50 a year and currently totals 650,000 subscribers and passed 100,000 daily active users in October.
The platform is home to the popular “Amazing Race”-style online competition series, “Jet Lag: The Game,” which has half a million subscribers on YouTube, as well as the theater-in-the-round Shakespearian trans-coming-out story of “The Prince,” and “Night of the Coconut,” the debut film from Patrick Willems. Unlike other streamers, Nebula sees YouTube as a partner, not a competitor, with episodes of Nebula series usually seeing a week-long exclusive window on Nebula before creators post them to YouTube and use them to in turn promote Nebula, according to Standard CEO Dave Wiskus.
“It’s easy to think that what we’re building is a YouTube competitor,” Wiskus told Variety on this week’s “Strictly Business” podcast. “And if you imagine it as a YouTube competitor, it’s easy to think that anything we do from any creator we work with the goal should be for it to be exclusively on Nebula.
What we’re really building is a Netflix competitor and the path we’re going to have to take to get there, YouTube is our biggest partner. YouTube is our closest ally.
Squid Game: The Challenge appears to have launched with a splash in the UK.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer The film adaptation of Alice Clayton’s rom-com novel “Wallbanger,” set up at Tosca Musk’s romance-focused streamer Passionflix, has rounded out its cast with “Love Island” star Roselyn Sánchez, “And Just Like That” actor Cathy Ang and four more supporting cast members. Based on Clayton’s 2012 New York Times best-selling book, “Wallbanger” is an irresistible tale of exasperation at first sight, according to the film’s official synopsis.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Former head of drama development at Disney’s 20th Television Michelle Mendelovitz has been named head of Mattel Television Studios. In her new role, Mendelovitz will oversee the development, production, and distribution of Mattel’s slate of episodic content on broadcast and streaming globally.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav‘s name graced many a picket sign during the Writers Guild of America’s 148-day strike, with everything from his exec comp to content-cutting choices called out in writers’ anti-Hollywood studios jokes. Now that the work stoppage is over, the writers might consider reexamining their opinion of Zaslav, who concedes the WGA was “right about almost everything.” In a profile published by Wednesday by The New York Times Magazine, Zaslav said he does not regret the concessions that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) made to finally close that tentative deal with the writers union Sept.
Charter Communications CEO Chris Winfrey recently encountered a TV ad that conjured memories of his company’s carriage battle with Disney last September. This commercial message, however, came from a different legacy media company pushing into subscription streaming.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney+ topped 150 million streaming subscriptions by the end of its fiscal fourth quarter of the year, up from 146.7 million in the previous quarter. On Wednesday, Disney reported Core Disney+ subscriptions are at 112.6 million subs, as of the quarter ended Sept. 30, and the India-based Disney+ Hotstar is at 37.6 million.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “The Boys” Season 4 will pick up where “Gen V” Season 1 left off, just ahead of an in-universe presidential election. And from the looks of the first promo images released by Amazon for the new episodes of “The Boys,” the Vought supes led by Homelander (Antony Starr) are going to have a good Election Day, and Billy Bucher (Karl Urban) and The Boys are going to be left crushed by defeat.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav opened the company’s quarterly earnings presentation with remarks on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, remaining “hopeful” that the work stoppage will end “soon” following the Hollywood studios’ move to adjust AI language in its “last, best and final offer” to the actors union. “We are hopeful we will reach a resolution to the SAG-AFTRA strike soon,” Zaslav said during WBD’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Rita Wilson and more stars performed as a tribute to U.S. veterans and their families at the New York Comedy Festival and Bob Woodruff Foundation’s Stand Up for Heroes event Monday. Held at David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the night included performances from musicians and comics, including Stewart, Springsteen, Wilson, Josh Groban, John Mellencamp, Tracy Morgan, The War and Treaty, Jimmy Carr, Ronny Chieng and Shane Gillis.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Episode 8 of “Gen V,” the Season 1 finale (“Guardians of Godolkin”), now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video. Marie (Jaz Sinclair) survived her first semester at supe college Godolkin University — barely — but it doesn’t look like she’s going into a second one any time soon. As the Season 1 finale of “The Boys” spinoff “Gen V” concludes, Marie and her friends stuck inside some kind of hospital room with no doors and no clue how they got there. For now, “Gen V” co-showrunner Michele Fazekas is mum on what comes next.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “House of the Dragon” Season 2 will premiere next summer on HBO, network chief Casey Bloys announced during a press event Thursday. At the media presentation, the first trailer for the second season screened exclusively for members of the media, who are not allowed to report details about the contents of the footage. Bloys previously told Variety that HBO was targeting a Summer 2024 premiere for the second season.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer HBO and Max CEO and chairman Casey Bloys apologized to TV critics Thursday for using fake Twitter accounts to respond to negative reviews on HBO series, following a Wednesday report that revealed Bloys’ past behavior. “For those of you who know me, you know that I am a programming executive very, very passionate about the shows that we decide to do. And the people who do them and the people who work on them,” Bloys said Thursday morning at the start of a presentation at HBO’s New York headquarters, an event to promote HBO and Max’s upcoming slate of programming, which has been planned since Oct.
Don’t go into Netflix‘s adaptation of All The Light We Cannot See expecting it to be a direct translation of Anthony Doerr’s bestselling novel.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney Dreamlight Valley held its first-ever showcase presentation Wednesday ahead of the Gameloft game’s move out of its year-long “early access” phase into a global launch, unveiling plans for the life-simulation through late 2024 in two roadmaps: one for paid expansion content and one for free upgrades included with the cost of the base game. The streamed event came on the heels of last week’s reveal that Disney had scrapped plans to make the game free-to-play once it left its beta testing and instead set pricing tiers and an additional cost for the game’s first expansion, “A Rift in Time.” A number of updates about the future of Disney Dreamlight Valley were given, including the game’s upcoming launch on Apple’s subscription gaming platform Apple Arcade.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer “Bobby’s Triple Threat” has been renewed for a third season at Food Network. Hosted by Bobby Flay and featuring his three culinary “titans” — Tiffany Derry, Michael Voltaggio and Brooke Williamson — the show sees the trio go up against a new guest chef and mystery judge each episode, with each titan being responsible for one of three courses in the successive cooking competition with a $25,000 weekly prize. “Bobby’s Triple Threat” Season 2 debuted Aug.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer A “Fourth Wing” TV show based on Rebecca Yarros’ best-selling fantasy book series is in the works at Amazon MGM Studios. Amazon and Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society, which has an overall deal with the studio, have acquired the rights to not only “Fourth Wing,” but its follow-up “Iron Flame,” which will be released Nov.
Lil Yachty has shared his belief that Twitch streamers are currently making “more money” than “90 per cent of rappers.”Recently, the Atlanta rapper appeared as a guest on the streetwear store CoolKicks’ ‘Shopping For Sneakers’ web series. At the end of the vlog, he and the host discussed famous Twitch streamers Kai Cenat and Adin Ross – who are both friends of Yachty’s.“Shouts out the whole AMP [Cenat’s creator group], shouts out fuckin’ Adin Ross,” he said. “The young guys, the young bros, they goin’ crazy.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Disney Dreamlight Valley will leave its year-long “early access” phase Dec. 5.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Retail-focused sister streamers QVC+ and HSN+ are marking their second year of original holiday programming with a new TV movie starring Ashlee Simpson. Titled “The Recipe Files,” the holiday baking mystery — filled with cameos from QVC hosts and plenty of plugs for tie-in products and partner brands — is directed by Lindsay Hartley (“Passions,” “Days of Our Lives”) and will launch on QVC+ Nov.
The 14th and final episode of the Korean dating reality show, Love After Divorce: US Edition just aired on Netflix a few days ago. At the end of the season, we saw couples, Jimi and Heejin, Benita and Jerome, and Ricky and Harim, make their big decisions whether to stay together or not.