By Lucas Shaw August 9, 2020 | Kilar made his first major move Friday, dismissing three of his chief deputies and restructuring the company to focus on the HBO Max streaming service. The 49-year-old CEO spoke with Bloomberg News over the weekend about competing with Netflix, the future of the movie business and his fight with Amazon. You just fired three of your top...
By Erik Guenwedel August 10, 2020 | Veteran Warner Bros. Home Entertainment executive Ron Sanders is among a group of key executives who are leaving the company in the wake of a management restructuring implemented by new WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. Sanders, president, Warner Bros. Worldwide Theatrical Distribution and president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, has been an integral part of the studio’s retail...
By Adam B. Vary August 6, 2020 | To earn back the budget on PVOD alone, “Mulan” would need to attract roughly 6.7 million rentals, or just over 11% of current Disney Plus subscribers. Factoring in another $50 million in total global marketing costs (a conservative estimate) bumps that magic number closer to 8.4 million rentals, or 13.8% of subscribers. Jeff Bock, a...
Above: Satisfaction scores peak at major PVOD releases, such as Trolls World Tour and Scoob! (pictured). [caption id="attachment_848" align="alignleft" width="176"] Mark Orne | Screen Engine/ASI[/caption] August 3, 2020 | As theaters closed in March at the start of widespread stay-at-home orders, and early in-home releases premiered, many digital movie buyers and renters gave early window releases a try. As visiting a theater became...
By Chaim Gartenberg July 28, 2020 | AMC Theaters and Universal have reached a new agreement that dramatically shortens the theatrical exclusivity window — the amount of time that films have to play in theaters before they’re allowed to be sold or rented in other places, like iTunes, Amazon, or AMC’s own On Demand service — down to just 17 days (ensuring that the films will...
Partnership aims to motivate kids to pursue careers in entertainment By Marcy Magiera July 27, 2020 | Public schools in Los Angeles will start the fall semester in less than a month with students resuming remote learning and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) continuing its quest to increase student engagement in online instruction. DEG Members Intel and ViacomCBS are partnering to...
[caption id="attachment_848" align="alignleft" width="176"] Mark Orne | Screen Engine/ASI[/caption] July 16, 2020 | In March, as theaters across the country closed in line with regional stay-at-home guidance, at Screen Engine/ASI we quickly pivoted to launch PostVOD, a service that captures audience demos and feedback for movies premiering on premium video-on-demand (PVOD) and early electronic sell-through (EEST). By May, at the start of...
By Todd Spangler July 7, 2020 | In September 2019, Steve Burke, then NBCUniversal chief executive, called Matt Strauss, with a question: Would he take the wheel of the Peacock project? Strauss would need to unleash the service across the U.S. on a dauntingly short timeline — in just 10 months, pegged to the Tokyo Olympics (more on that later). Peacock would face massive competitors and come to...
Showtime's 'Ray Donovan' will be on Peacock. By Todd Spangler July 1, 2020 | Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new streaming service that launched nationwide in two weeks, has struck an agreement with ViacomCBS to license Paramount movies and TV shows. Coming to Peacock — on a nonexclusive basis — are series including “Ray Donovan” (starring Liev Schreiber, pictured above), “The Affair,” “Undercover Boss,” “The Game,” “Everybody Hates Chris” and...
By William Earl June 2, 2020 | “Just Mercy,” the 2019 film about the work of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, has been made available for free rental on digital platforms during the month of June by Warner Bros. Pictures. Along with an announcement on film’s official Twitter account, Warner Bros. released a statement explaining the move. “We believe in the power of...