China’s box office hit new heights in 2018, raking in about $9 billion, but it was also a year of drastic regulatory changes and a government tax crackdown that have spooked investors and put projects across the country on hold. — Variety
Category: media
Disney Posts $580 Million Loss For 2018
The loss is primarily because of the company’s investment in the Hulu streaming service. Disney has announced its own streaming service Disney+ which is supposed to launch later this year. Streaming is the future, but its an expensive one. – TechCrunch
Movies Are Global – And That’s Changing Hollywood
Twenty years ago Hollywood earned 30 percent of its revenue internationally. Now it’s 70 percent. And that means what Hollywood makes is more and more influenced by the international market. – BBC
Why Have Netflix’s Recent Movies Attracted Such Massive Audiences?
Netflix published the figures for some of their biggest recent releases – Sex Education, You and Bird Box. And those numbers were pretty impressive, with the two series on course to be watched by 40 million accounts by the end of the month. Bird Box, which features Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock as the lead, has already passed more than 80 million views. — BBC
Wonder Why Movies Get So Much Science Wrong?
Like, there are actual scientific rules that you can’t just break. So why not just ask some real, ya know, scientists? It turns out sometimes producers do, but it’s not exactly a glamorous job. – Wired
New Technology Coming Soon Will Fact Check Politicians In Real Time
Duke University researchers have developed the software. The new app for TV uses databases from Politifact and FactCheck.org to check statements made on live TV. – Washington Post (AP)
Netflix Spent $12 Billion On Video In 2018. It’s Only Going Up From There
After paying $15 billion for a “sustained ramp in its original content slate in ’19,” Netflix’s cash content spend growth will “moderate” in the years ahead, BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon said in a research note. He anticipates Netflix’s content spending will hit $17.8 billion in 2020. – Variety
New Film Shows Us An Actual Soviet Show Trial
In The Trial, Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa and his team use only rare, recently-discovered film (with sound) of a full 1930 show trial in Moscow. Masha Gessen explains just how fitting the term show trial is: “the judges, the prosecutor, the court clerks, and the defendants are all members of the cast. They are performing their assigned roles. The rest of the people in the hall — men and women of different ages, some dressed in military uniforms and some in civilian suits, but all wearing their best — are the audience, and their job is to believe everything they see.” — The New Yorker
Netflix Refuses To Remove Footage Of Quebec Rail Disaster From ‘Bird Box’ And ‘Travelers’
Video of the 2013 derailment and explosion of an oil-tanker train that killed 47 people in the town of Lac-Mégantic features in both Netflix original productions, and, despite heavy criticism, the company says that the footage will not be cut. (Company reps say they’ll be more sensitive in the future.) — CBC
UK Toughens Age Restriction Ratings On Movies
“It’s enough that a 12-year-old knows that a rape has taken place. They do not need to see it, no matter how discreetly it’s filmed.” – BBC