Month: February 2021

Many industries have struggled to make do with the pandemic, but perhaps no moreso than movie theaters. Even those that have stayed open have had to deal with an almost no new product. In other words, Hollywood hasn’t been giving them new blockbusters to show the few showing up in the first place. (With exceptions.) But while some studios have opted to release their new films to streamers the same day they hit theaters — or, in the case of Disney’s Mulan and Soul, only on Disney+ — Paramount is remaining stubbornly pro-theatrical.

On Wednesday, the company unveiled more details about what’s coming to their forthcoming streamer Paramount+, which will be a merger of them and the already existing CBS All Access. They’re bringing back Frasier, they’re bringing back Inside Amy Schumer, they’re giving Avatar: The Last Airbender an extended universe. They’re even doing a Ray Donovan movie. They’ll also, as per Deadline, play home to two of their most anticipated films: Mission: Impossible 7 and A Quiet Place Part II. Or it will eventually: Both will hit theaters and then, after 45 days, drop on the streamer.

The movie is not surprising, especially considering one of them comes from Tom Cruise — one of the biggest cheerleaders for watching movies in movie theaters. But it should also flies in the face of Disney and Warner Bros., the latter who announced late last year that the entirety of their 2021 movie lineup would hit HBO Max the same day they were released to theaters. It should send a message to other studios — such as Sony, who’ve had a new Bond rearing to go since last spring — that theaters very well could make a comeback, at least once vaccines have helped the nation achieve herd immunity.

(Via Deadline)

In early February, it was reported that the long-threatened Frasier revival was inching ever closer to becoming a reality. Even better, it would count as its head writer one Joe Cristalli, who runs the much-liked Twitter parody account @FrasierContempo, which imagines what Kelsey Grammer’s beloved shrink and snoot would get into today. Well, sometimes nice things do happen: As per The Hollywood Reporter, that new season of Frasier is a go.

Grammer has spent years trying to get Frasier Crane back on the small screen. But he’s been picky, and his need to find a good reason for his return — especially without his dad, who was played by the late John Mahoney — has been one reason it’s taken this long. Mind you, it will still take some time: Grammer has a prior commitment in an ABC comedy that pairs him with Alec Baldwin. (There’s also that potential Money Plane sequel to consider.) Meanwhile, David Hyde Pierce has the HBO series Julia. Then they can start tossing salad and scrambled eggs.

Frasier first appeared in a 1984 episode of Cheers, where he was merely the bookworm boytoy of Shelley Long’s Diane Chambers — there only to make Ted Danson’s Sam Malone jealous. He kept coming back, though, and he was soon welcomed into the fold, despite his occasional need to read them Dickens or something else no one else but Diane would enjoy. He remains one of the longest consistent characters in television history, though the honor of longest goes to John Munch, the character Richard Belzer played on Homicide: Life on the Streets and Law and Order: SVU over 22 seasons. But between Cheers and Frasier, he was on TV for 20 years, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

(Via THR)

The stock saga that launched a handful of streaming deals doesn’t appear to be over just yet. GameStop may have already had its day on Capitol Hill, but the retail store’s stock saw another surge on Wednesday that had investors, and the Internet at large talking about another trip to the moon.

GameStop was the biggest of the retail stocks that were bet on heavily by a Reddit form that caused a massive spike in the stock’s price due to short sellers getting fleeced back in January. Much of that bump — especially with the other stocks that were shorted like AMC, Nokia and Blackberry — swiftly fell back to Earth. But that all changed on Wednesday, as GameStop’s stock price soared 100 percent in the matter of a few hours.

AMC’s stock price actually saw a bump up as well. And GME and AMC trended again on Twitter by Wednesday afternoon, with people either excited about the sudden surge or thrilled that they had hung on to their stock.

As CNN reported, it’s not entirely clear what caused the sudden rise in price this time, though many investors had said recently they were holding onto GameStop and other stocks in hopes a rise would occur again. And the rapid activity actually caused a halt of stock sales on GME at least once on Wednesday:

Shares were halted once around 3:40pm ET after climbing nearly 74%, and again just over 10 minutes later after gaining 104%. GameStop’s trading volume was roughly three times higher the five-day average for the stock, according to data provider Refinitiv.

Less than an hour after the closing bell, the stock was on the move again — gaining nearly 90% in after-hours trading.

There were a lot of celebratory memes as the sales were halted and the huge increases came on Wednesday.

There were, though, some that inevitably missed the ride on the rocket.

By Wednesday evening, the after-hours trading of GME continued to soar as well, so we might be in on a wild ride the rest of the week.

And as The Verge reported, WallStreetBets is thrilled the ride appears to be back on.

A year ago when Kobe Bryant died there were a number of suggestions for how the league could honor one of its all-time greats. They ultimately settled on naming the All-Star MVP award after him and used the new Elam Ending to be a race to 24 points in the final quarter as another tribute.

There were some who wanted the league to do more, including a push to change the NBA logo from the silhouette of Jerry West to a silhouette of Kobe. On Wednesday, Kyrie Irving, who was a close friend of Bryant’s and has been among the many in the NBA to pay tribute to Bryant on numerous occasions over the past year, revived that push with an Instagram post that garnered support from others around the league like Carmelo Anthony, saying “BLACK KINGS BUILT THE LEAGUE.”

It seems doubtful that the NBA is going to make the change, but if players continue to bring it up it’s possible that they’d consider it. The naming of the All-Star MVP award after Bryant was the league’s chief annual measure to ensure Kobe is honored each year, but his impact on this generation of stars makes it unsurprising that they’d want to see a bit more and an update to the league’s long-time logo.

In a showdown over the upcoming vote for the LGBTQ+ Equality Act, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez took the QAnon-obsessed and newly-elected Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to task over her attempts to obstruct the bill’s passage. Greene, who has been a lightning-rod for controversy ever since she arrived in Congress and immediately supported Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” efforts that led to the Capitol insurrection, has been a vocal opponent of the Equality Act on Twitter, where she proposed that the House adjourn under the pretense of giving members a moment to reflect on the bill.

“I just made a motion to adjourn in order to give every Member of Congress time to rethink destroying #WomensRights and #WomensSports and #ReligiousFreedom before voting for the #EqualityAct!” Greene tweeted.

AOC was having none of it and called out Greene’s ruse. “You could just vote ‘no’ instead of trying to get out of work early,” AOC tweeted. “And you should probably stop using those hashtags because women’s rights include trans women.” In a follow-up tweet, AOC made it clear that Greene’s efforts would fail. “We’re gonna pass the #EqualityAct today, protect our LGBTQ+ family and make the world a little bit better. Nothing is going to stop that.”

Greene’s ploy to adjourn the House isn’t her only assault on the Equality Act. The QAnon congresswoman is pushing admendments to the bill that would do significant damage to trans Americans. Via The Independent:

The proposed changes, which Ms Greene called “America First amendments,” echoing one of former president Trump’s slogans, would entirely replace the bill with one that prevents trans women and girls from participating in women’s sports, exempts churches and other non-profits from the anti-discrimination bill, and, even more broadly, allow people to sue the federal government “if their religious rights are violated.”

Greene says her “America First” amendments are necessary because she feels the Equality Act is an “attack on girls, churches, and believers.” Clearly, that is not the case, and now Greene’s efforts have her on AOC’s radar, which is never a good place to be. Just ask Ted Cruz.

(Via Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter)

Fortnite‘s latest event on the big screen in its Party Royale mode was apparently a big hit. According to the game’s maker, Epic, more than 8 million people tuned in to see its short film series, Short Nite, during the two-day event it held inside the game mode over the weekend.

https://twitter.com/FortniteGame/status/1364696698275119111

The selection of 13 short films played on an in-game screen that’s been used for a number of different tie-ins for the game in recent months as Fortnite expands its offerings well past the 100-player showdowns that first made it big. Epic called the turnout for Short Nite an “engagement record” for the highest-attended event in its Party Royale mode since it was introduced.

According to Epic, Short Nite is the latest example of the game bringing its users different kinds of digital experiences, which in the past have included concerts, the debut of movie trailers and minigames. Everything from Star Wars to a J Balvin concert has showed up in Fortnite in recent months.

“Fortnite is at its core a social game, and that helps transcend traditional ‘gaming’ DNA,” an Epic spokesperson told Uproxx. “Once we realized the social impact of Fortnite, we began to design massively participatory events, and have grown them over time and in different categories.”

Though big brand partnerships have become the norm for Epic and Fortnite, they’ve been no stranger to holding important conversations in the game’s different modes, and this seems to prove that even film festivals fit in with the game’s enormous user base as well.

A new Gallup poll found a significant increase in the number of Americans who identify as LGBT since the last time it conducted a similar poll in 2017.

The poll found that 5.6% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. That’s a large increase from the 2017 poll that had the number at 4.5%.

“More than half of LGBT adults (54.6%) identify as bisexual. About a quarter (24.5%) say they are gay, with 11.7% identifying as lesbian and 11.3% as transgender. An additional 3.3% volunteer another non-heterosexual preference or term to describe their sexual orientation, such as queer or same-gender-loving,” the poll says.

via Gallup

A big reason for the increase is the number of people in Generation Z who identify as LGBT. About one in six adult members of Generation Z (those aged 18 to 23 in 2020) consider themselves to be something other than exclusively heterosexual.

LGBT identification is lower in subsequent older generations, including 2% or less of Americans born before 1965 (aged 56 and older in 2020).

Percentage of Americans who identify as LGBT by generation:

Generation Z (born 1997-2002) 15.9

Millennials (born 1981-1996) 9.1

Generation X (born 1965-1980) 3.8

Baby boomers (born 1946-1964) 2.0

Traditionalists (born before 1946) 1.3

Seventy-two percent of Gen Zers who identify as LGBT say they are bisexual. This is a large increase over Millenials, of which about 50% of those who are LGBT identify as bisexual. In older generations, expressed bisexual preference is not significantly more common than expressed gay or lesbian preference.

Gallup editor Jeffrey Jones says these new poll numbers show that more Americans are feeling safe to express their LGBTQ+ identities.

“Younger people are growing up in an environment where being gay, lesbian, or bisexual is not as taboo as it was in the past,” Jones told NBC News. “So they may just feel more comfortable telling an interviewer in a telephone survey how they describe themselves. In the past, people would maybe be more reluctant.”

The increasing number of Americans who identify as LGBT shows the country is becoming a more tolerant place where people are freer to express their true selves.

It also shows that when children are raised in a more tolerant society, they grow up to be adults who are more likely to be themselves. The youngest members of Gen Z were entering their teenage years when gay marriage became legal.

Living in a world where LGBT people had greater freedoms and protections under the law has to have made a positive impact on their own journey of self-discovery and acceptance.

One wonders what the numbers would look like if older generations grew up in the same environment?

This new data from Gallup provides an even stronger reason for Congress to pass the Equality Act. With a growing number of people who identify as LGBT, the country needs stronger legislation to ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Equality Act would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to explicitly prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Democratic-controlled House is expected to vote on the bill this week and it has the support of President Biden.

“I urge Congress to swiftly pass this historic legislation,” Biden wrote in a statement. “Every person should be treated with dignity and respect, and this bill represents a critical step toward ensuring that America lives up to our foundational values of equality and freedom for all.”

An adaptation of the popular video game series Halo has been in the works since 2005. It was originally going to be a movie written by Alex Garland; a pre-Game of Thrones D.B. Weiss was involved at one point, as were Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro. But in 2013, Showtime announced that the Halo movie would now be a Halo show with Steven Spielberg attached as executive producer. It’s been in creative limbo ever since, including multiple showrunners and an episode count reduction. It’s also moved from premium cable to a streaming service, as ViacomCBS revealed on Wednesday that Halo will premiere on Paramount+, the soon-to-be former-CBS All Access.

Deadline reports that the Halo show “will take place in the universe that first came to be in 2001, dramatizing an epic 26th century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. The show will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.” The Wire and Orange Is the New Black actor Pablo Schreiber stars as Master Chief, the video game’s supersoldier hero.

Halo, which had filmed 55%-60% of its first season when the coronavirus pandemic shut down all production last March, had been floated for months as a possibility for Paramount+ at the ViacomCBS Content Council and in conversations between Nevins and ViacomCBS president and CEO Bob Bakish.

Halo has a lot working against it, but if the box office success of the cursed teeth movie has taught us anything, it’s that you should never count out a video game adaptation. Halo is expected to premiere next year, as is (hopefully) HBO’s The Last of Us series.

(Via Deadline)

Netflix is leaning hard into using its algorithm to solve the problem of not knowing what to watch. And now, that includes downloading stuff on your phone it thinks you’ll like. Earlier in the week, Netflix introduced a Downloads For You feature which allows its app to automatically download movies and shows onto your devices if it recommends them according to your viewing history.

Many of the features the streaming service tests out attempt to eliminate the paradox of choice. Namely, that thing that happens when you can’t figure out what to watch amid an endless-seeming list of options, and so you watch nothing. Things like a “watch a random episode” button have been tested in the past, and its “Play Something” option will automatically pick something from your My List queue if you’re stuck.

But Downloads For You takes it a bit further, allowing you to reserve a certain amount of space — Netflix used 1, 3, and 5GB as its examples — on a device for Netflix to fill with content you’ll enjoy according to its algorithm. The feature is currently working on Android devices, and according to the blog post Netflix is “testing” the feature on iOS devices soon. The function won’t turn on automatically, mind you, but it’s there if you need it.

As the AV Club points out, the concept isn’t without a catch: the automatic downloads are only based on what Netflix thinks you’ll like. So depending on how well-curated your profile is (and if you’re sharing it with someone, well, good luck) it could be a great tool or completely worthless. And the download limits can be changed to keep your precious phone storage available for homebound selfies or photos of your takeout meals or whatever you need that space for. But it’s certainly one way to keep the content flowing again once you finally travel to a place without consistent WiFi and a much bigger screen. Whenever that is.

[via AV Club]

The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke has unveiled the first image from the highly-anticipated Season 3, which is currently in production in Vancouver. And if you’re a big fan of Homelander, the photo features a golden statue of the psychotically narcissistic “superhero” (who is a not so subtle reference to all things MAGA) and it’s shot from a pretty provocative angle. Just see for yourself:

That’s a whole lot of super-crotch.

Of course, a golden statue highlighting his massive codpiece is quintessential Homelander, and maybe even Antony Starr, who recently revealed that he shares some egotistical traits with his The Boys character. “One of my favourite scenes of the show… ranting at a crowd like a megalomaniac creep…. I never felt so at home…” Starr wrote on Instagram while sharing a photo of Homelander reveling in the applause from an adoring audience. “Not sure how we will pull these crowd scenes off but I’ll bet our awesome team will come up with something.”

Despite the show’s raunchy antics, former president Barack Obama surprisingly revealed that he’s a big fan of The Boys, and he named it one of his Top 10 favorite things from 2020 for how the show’s creators “turn superhero conventions on their heads to lay bare issues of race, capitalism, and the distorting effects of corporate power and mass media.”

Obama’s love for the show caught Kripke and Starr off guard as both reacted on Twitter to the news. “Umm. You guys. HOLY. SHIT,” tweeted Kripke while Starr went a more self-deprecating route: “If The Boys is good enough for Obama… it’s good enough.”

(Via Eric Kripke on Twitter)