Category: media

Quibi Shuts Down After Six Months

“Quibi, the mobile-first streaming service to specialize in original shows with short five to 10-minute-long episodes, is shutting down its business operations and selling its assets little more than 6 months after launching. … It was an abrupt ending for a company founded by big names in entertainment and business worlds and seemed poised, at one point, to reinvent the streaming TV game.” – NPR

For The First Time Since 1965: No Charlie Brown And The Great Pumpkin On TV This Year

ABC has been the main home of Great Pumpkin and all the major Peanuts specials for the past 20 years, having snatched them away from their original home on CBS in 2000. But Great Pumpkin is not currently on ABC’s advance programming specials through early November, and while a network rep indicated that could change, it would be odd for ABC not to schedule the specials by now, unless there were contractual issues. – New York Magazine

California Lays Out Rules For When Disneyland Can Reopen (It’ll Be A While)

“All theme parks — which includes Disneyland in Anaheim and Universal Studios Hollywood — may resume operations in Tier 4, Yellow, which is much further down the road. At that point, the guest limit is 25% across the board and indoor dining establishments can only operate at 25% capacity. The announcement drew a swift, negative reaction from executives at Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood, Legoland and others.” – Deadline

Despite COVID, Japan Has Record-Breaking Weekend At Movie Box Office

“The movie, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, based on a smash-hit Japanese comic book, … outperformed all expectations, more than doubling the country’s record for the largest opening weekend, with over 3.4 million people shelling out nearly $44 million on tickets. In what may be a first for Japan, the movie had the biggest opening in the world last weekend — more than all other countries combined — despite having debuted only domestically.” – The New York Times

China Is Now Officially The World’s Most Lucrative Movie Market

“Movie ticket sales in China for 2020 climbed to $1.988 billion on Sunday, surpassing North America’s total of $1.937 billion. … Analysts have long predicted that the world’s most populous country would one day top the global charts. But the results still represent a historic sea change: North America has been the global box office’s center of gravity since the dawn of the motion picture business.” – The Hollywood Reporter

A Social Media Horror Story: “Our Social Dilemma”

In horror, “the narrative is driven by the question of whether the creature can be destroyed.” In The Social Dilemma, the creature is you and me, or at least the tech-addicted, algorithmically-modeled version of ourselves disclosed by big-tech behaviorism. So the film’s horrifying question is this: are you willing to destroy a part of yourself, that Twitter-refreshing creature within? – 3 Quarks Daily

Disney’s Pivot To Streaming Suggests Rough Times Ahead For Traditional Entertainment

Amongst its portfolio of businesses, Disney+ is the only clear winner, with the service gaining over 60.5 million members in just ten months since launch. The COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, crushed Disney’s cruise, theme park, cable TV, live sports, cinema and retail businesses, resulting in losses over US$4.7 billion in the financial quarter ended June 27. – The Conversation

Actors Unions Fight For Who Represents What

SAG-AFTRA, which has long claimed jurisdiction over the taping of live shows, offered Equity a limited waiver during the pandemic, but Equity rejected it, accusing SAG-AFTRA of “looking to use a pandemic to claim jurisdiction in Equity workplaces now and into the future in a way they haven’t had before,” and disrupting the relationship between employers and actors “that has existed for years, if not decades.” – Deadline

The Great British Baking Show Still Somehow Makes Us Feel Good About Humanity

After all of these seasons, a switch from the BBC, the loss of the great Mary Berry (not to mention presenters Mel and Sue), and a barrage of other baking shows, how does the Great British Baking Show still do it? “To watch The Great British Baking Show is to believe that the average guy and gal can do remarkable things, that good nature is compatible with excellence, that high achievement will be recognized, that honest feedback can lead to improvement, that there are things to life beyond work. It is to believe that spectacular creativity can actually be scrumptious.” – The Atlantic