Random Thoughts

Twenty-five years (…and a few months) after the launch of its iconic DVDs-by-mail business, Netflix shipped out its final little red sleeve on Friday.

The first DVD mailed out by Netflix back in April 1998 was Beetlejuice; the last one to go out was a copy of True Grit, the 2010 Western directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Netflix’s DVD business was a robust one through 2006. And I’m sure scores of you remember it well. In 2007, Netflix began offering “video on demand” via the Internet — aka streaming. And the rest, as they say, is buffering history.

“Today, after 25 years, we ship our last DVD,” Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos shared on Friday via Instagram, along with photos of the DVD assembly line and such. “It was a huge honor to join the incredible DVD team in Fremont this week to thank them for being a part something that changed people’s lives.

“Those iconic red envelopes were so loved that we shipped more than 5 billion of them to cities and towns, big and small that otherwise would have had no access to the variety of films and television shows we made available,” Sarandos added. “Thank you to all of our members and DVD employees for 25 history making years!”

In response to Sarandos’ IG, Mindy Kaling quipped, “Nooooo! I once shot a scene on The Office where my character is authoritatively explaining the Netflix DVD mail in system to Ryan. Now it’s a cultural artifact!!! I’m old!”

Fellow TV vet John Stamos, meanwhile, let slip that he still has a handful of discs left to return.. or not. (Netflix told any such “squatters” back in August, “Please enjoy them for as long as you like! If you do choose to return the disc, we will continue to accept returns until October 27.”)

“I still have three I haven’t returned yet,” Stamos commented. “Vegas Vacation, Snakes on a Plane and Never Too Young to Die starring a young John Stamos and Gene Simons [sic].”

WyldeMan wrote:[center]Netflix has several upcoming projects that I'm actually interested in seeing, this is a new feeling...

WyldeMan wrote:

I hope Joey is doin okay...

joey con carne wrote:Holla hollaaaaa I'm okay! Thankfully, where I am now just had a bunch of rain but no leaking. My madre and brudda's house were also spared from any flooding. Some places here in NY got f'd up really bad (as you guys have seen in that video).

When it was raining here it legit looked like someone turned on a huge faucet outside at times. It was pretty nuts.

Did any of you guys know there's a new iCarly show on Paramount Plus now? Watched a few episodes this weekend. Never seen a show with zero conflict before.

Lionsgate just dropped a trailer for John Woo’s Silent Night. Written by Robert Archer Lynn, the film stars Joel Kinnaman with Catalina Sandino Moreno and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi.

This violent revenge tale follows a tormented father (Kinnaman) who witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang’s crossfire on Christmas Eve. While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, he makes vengeance his life’s mission and embarks on a punishing training regimen in order to avenge his son’s death. With virtually no dialogue throughout the entire film, Silent Night showcases Kinnaman’s acting encased in this family drama.

Woo helmed a number of Hong Kong actioners, including classics starring Chow Yun-Fat, before coming to Hollywood to direct such thrillers as Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2. Silent Night is his first U.S. directing turn since 2003’s Paycheck.

Producers include Woo, Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Christian Mercuri, and Lori Tilkin. Will Flynn, Mike Gabrawy, Joe Gatta, Ruzanna Kegeyan, Tony Mark, and Roman Viaris-de-Lesegno serve as executive producers.

Lionsgate has slated Silent Night to open in theaters on December 1 — just in time for the holidays.  

Rusty wrote:That looks good. Loved John Woo flicks back in the day, and Kinnaman rarely disappoints.

joey con carne wrote:That looks great. I like Joel Kinnaman. Wasnt he in another movie where his character’s son dies?


edit: looked up the film on IMDb and holy shit it is directed by Juan Woo! I thought he was just involved somehow but this is a nice surprise.

Taylor Swift‘s “Eras Tour” concert film is breaking records before it even hits theaters.

With a week until the movie graces the big screen, it has surpassed $100 million worldwide in advance ticket sales, according to its official distributor AMC Theatres. These revenues encompass all showtimes, locations and circuits playing “Eras Tour” across the globe, not just AMC locations.

Swift’s concert film, which captures her record-breaking stadium tour, opens in theaters on Oct. 13 — to coincide with the pop star’s lucky number — and will screen in 8,500 cinemas across 100 countries.

With this momentum, it’s poised to land one of the biggest debuts of the year. Industry experts believe “Eras Tour” could surpass $100 million in just North America (the current figure for advance ticket sales includes the international box office) during opening weekend, which would be unprecedented business for a concert film. Only five films in 2023 — “Barbie” ($162 million), “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($146 million), “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” ($120 million), “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ($118 million) and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” ($106 million) — have generated at least $100 million in their domestic debuts.

Swift’s “Eras Tour” has been shattering expectations since tickets first went on sale. It set a single-day ticket sales record for AMC Theatres with $26 million in North America, besting the all-time benchmark previously held by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($16.9 million). Advance ticket sales are particularly strong in premium large-screen formats like Imax and Dolby Cinema, according to AMC.

“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” will play at least four showtimes per day on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at every AMC theater location in the United States. The cinema chain promises it will “continue to take steps to reach agreements with additional cinema operators throughout the world to play this spectacular Taylor Swift tour-de-force.”

WyldeMan wrote:Holy fuck....

The Taliban have announced that they have asked Iran, Iraq and Jordan to grant them passage to Israel. They have stated that their intent is to "conquer Jerusalem”. 


The loudspeakers from Mosques all across Jerusalem are right now calling on Muslims to rise up and wage a "Holy War" against Israel.

joey con carne wrote:Just found out The Asylum released a movie called “Megaladon: The Frenzy over the summer. This one stars Eric Roberts. Looks awful. Gotta watch it. Trailer below:

UltimateMarvel wrote:I like some of Taylor Swift's songs. Wasn't planning on watching Eras Tour but I just might because everybody can't stop talking about Taylor Swift. So much that it's becoming annoying. Aliens from space are talking about her. lolage a "Holy War" against Israel.

UltimateMarvel wrote:I have been offline the whole day, craziest shit I've read today to say the least.

joey con carne wrote:Just found out The Asylum released a movie called “Megaladon: The Frenzy over the summer. This one stars Eric Roberts. Looks awful. Gotta watch it. Trailer below:

joey con carne wrote:These movies give me comfort. : )

Weird, I know. But I really do enjoy The Asylum movies. I have their channel on Pluto streaming all day while I work.

Rusty wrote:Yeah that looks terrible. Hope I can find a way to watch it. Mainly for the redhead.

WyldeMan wrote:Swifty is a mother fuckin business monster. She's got an expensive sold out world tour that she also filmed costing her probably only the camera rentals and then sold that concert to AMC instead of going through the studios and she will keep the lion's share of the profits meanwhile she's already passed $100 million in PRE-SALES. And that's not even getting into all of her other revenue streams like her actual music career, not just the movies about them. Like I've said before, regardless of how we feel about her  music which I still know very little about, you can't knock her hustle cause she's a god damned money monster and she's still in her early 30s.  

WyldeMan wrote:It makes me sad to see just how very far Eric Roberts career has fallen but I'm also happy that he's still booking work. Over the past month I watched Gypsy King, Coca-Cola Kid, Best of the Best and The Pope of Greenwich Village and it was a nice reminder that Roberts once had a very solid career through the 80's.

WyldeMan wrote:Joey is a Movie Masochist, the more suffering he endures by watching these wretched movies the more pleasure he experiences.

Rusty wrote:Yeah that looks terrible. Hope I can find a way to watch it. Mainly for the redhead.

joey con carne wrote:I don't know what's wrong with me. I need help.

joey con carne wrote:Have you guys read about the situation with her recording masters? If you haven't read about it or know what I'm talking about, I'll try to sum it up in as easy as possible. I will likely leave out some details but the gist is below.

joey con carne wrote:I always thought Ron Perlman had a lot of IMDb credits. Just checked now and he has 271 as of this post. Eric Roberts? 678. His IMDb shows he has 44 credits in 2022 alone. Yes, I counted. That seems like a lot and just incredible.

joey con carne wrote:

joey con carne wrote:I don't know what's wrong with me. I need help.

Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this illness.

A vast majority of Writers Guild of America members voted to ratify a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers Monday, bringing an official end to the WGA’s 146-day-long strike.

“We are pleased to announce that 99% of WGA members have voted in favor of ratifying the 2023 MBA,” the WGA said in a statement. “Of the 8,525 valid votes cast there were 8,435 ‘yes’ votes and 90 ‘no’ votes (1%). The term of the agreement is from September 25, 2023 through May 1, 2026.”

In a note to members, the WGA thanked its still-striking “SAG-AFTRA siblings who have supported writers every step of the way,” adding, “We call upon the AMPTP to negotiate a deal that addresses the needs of performers.”

On Sept. 24, the WGA posted a message to its membership signaling that it had “reached a tentative agreement” on a new Minimum Basic Agreement, “which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language.” The news came as a welcome, if cautious, bit of hope to the guild’s writers, who had walked picket lines for months.

“We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language,” the WGA posted in a message to its members at the time.

“We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional,” the statement later continued, “with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”

The WGA, which represents Hollywood movie and TV writers, went on strike in May. Among the writers’ demands: better residuals from streaming shows, minimum staff sizes to prevent the use of “mini rooms” and protections from the use of AI.

The actors’ guild SAG-AFTRA also chose to strike in July, citing many of the same demands as the WGA. That strike is ongoing.

The dual strikes have brought the TV world to a virtual standstill, with no shows being written or filmed and the networks’ fall TV lineups being decimated as a result.

Rusty wrote:Not surprising the Writers deal got finalised first. Being that writers are more inline with creators, it makes sense they had an easier time of negotiating better money for created content.

I think the SAG will have a harder time because a significant amount of actors seem a little out of touch with reality. I know actors like to think of themselves as artists (creatives), but they truly are hired independent contractors. They come in, they get paid to do a job that someone else tells them how to do, in costumes someone else creates and makes, and then they leave. The smart ones, or at least the ones with good agents, know that if they truly do contribute to the work, or their likeness is what's being sold/promoted, they negotiate more money by insisting on a producers credit.

Rusty wrote:New South Park. Oct 27.

AMC unveiled a fresh sneak peek Thursday of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, the latest Dead spinoff that features Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira reprising their roles as Rick and Michonne.

At today’s New York Comic-Con, the network revealed that a few famous faces will also show up in the new series that premieres in February. Pollyanna McIntosh will return as Jadis from The Walking Dead; Lost‘s Terry O’Quinn will play Beale, and Matt Jeffries will show up at Matt. They join the previously announced Lesley-Ann Brandt as Pearl.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live presents an epic love story of two characters changed by a changed world. Rick and Michonne are thrown into another world, built on a war against the dead…and ultimately, a war against the living. Can they find each other and who they were in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before? Are they enemies? Lovers? Victims? Victors?  Without each other, are they even alive — or will they find that they, too, are the Walking Dead?

Scott M. Gimple, who is Chief Content Officer of The Walking Dead Universe, serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside Lincoln, Gurira, Denise Huth and Brian Bockrath.

• Interstellar
  Batman Begins
  The Dark Knight
  The Dark Knight Rises
  

• Pulp Fiction
  Inglourious Basterds
  

• Gladiator
  Robin Hood
  

• 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi
  

• The Outsiders
  

Rusty wrote:Five days and not a single post? Damn. Hope everyone is doing OK.

As for me?

Streaming has become such an unreliable source for content lately with content either being removed, or jumping services. Now that I officially have a 4K TV and a PS5, it's time to get back into physical media.

Some Ridley/Russ collab's:

• Gladiator
  Robin Hood
  

WyldeMan wrote:

Well I'm still alive but I can't speak for the others. 

I haven't been online too much the last two weeks other than working on my family's genealogy. I first started it back in 2000 when I was 15 years old and every few years I like to check back in and see what Ancestry.com and their many amazing sites like newspapers.com and fold3.com have added and it's been keeping me busy with all the latest findings. Have you ever tracked your family genealogy? I discovered many impressive and historical figures from both sides of my family that nobody on either side had ever known about over the course of my 23 years of research. I was able to chart exactly when all of my ancestors first crossed the water and when they all first came to America in the late 1600's and early 1700's. Wild times and incredible stories really bring these long dead ancestors to life.

Anyways, not to derail your question any further than I already have, I just watched Ridley Scott's Robin Hood on Netflix yesterday. I was pretty impressed with it and wondered why I hadn't seen it in more than once in decade. Too bad they didn't continue the story though, it was a solid beginning to a franchise that never was. 

I've also been considering a jump back into physical media because among the reasons you stated, I'm also really tired of all the editing being done to content over PC Babies constant bitching. I can't find a lot of movies that I love and I'm still pissed the fuck off over the censoring of Community and the total inability to watch one of my all-time favorite episodes from the series. I'll never get over why they feel the right to remove something like it doesn't exist because it offended someone. All they gotta do is not fucking watch what offends them or you know they could just grow the fuck up.

Rusty wrote:That sounds interesting. My brother went all in on our genealogy some years back as well, but I'm not sure how far he got. It didn't interest me at first but the older I get the more interest I'm having in history in general, so I wonder if any of them actually did some cool shit, because I know I haven't

Rusty wrote:Yeah the censorship is moronic. They did it with an episode of The Office as well when Michael Scott does blackface so they just pulled episode. Stupid thing is, in the episode they specifically tackle why it's a problem and why it's wrong to do it. But no ... cancel, cancel, cancel.

It's funny you also mention Robin Hood. Another issue I have with streamers is in most cases - at least here in Oz - they almost always have the standard version of a film. Rarely ever do they have the Extended/Director's cut. In Ridley Scott's case, every film he's released a Director's Cut for is better by a mile. Especially the bigger films - Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, Robin Hood. I understand they are long films and you need to keep peoples attention in a theatre, but for home viewing, give me the lot.

UltimateMarvel wrote:Please accept this as proof of life. Hope everyone is doing alright. I haven't seen Tyger here in a while. I've just been busy with attending family events and also working on my home theater. I've been doing some heavy research on what speakers to get and decided on a pair of these and this center speaker, both happen to be on sale right now. Thought about waiting until Black Friday but I don't think they'll go any lower than this, still a great deal. Everybody is raving about these and I can't wait to hear them out. Going to save the subwoofer for last purchase and planning to get the newly announced PS5 Slim on Black Friday, hopefully they have a Spider-Man 2 bundle.

WyldeMan wrote:Nice to see how your home theater is progressing, when do you think you'll likely finish?

WyldeMan wrote:I Hadn't heard about the PS5 Slim being announced but I haven't looked into any PS news in well over six months.

joey con carne wrote:Just got back from Colorado. Colorado Springs really seems like a nice place to be. Friend got me in touch with her real estate agent and her MLS database. Time to start looking.

Disney has agreed to take full control of Hulu in a deal with Comcast, which has owned a third of the streamer ever since Disney’s acquisition of the 21st Century Fox entertainment assets.

“The acquisition of Comcast’s stake in Hulu at fair market value will further Disney’s streaming objectives,” the Bob Iger-led company said in a statement Wednesday.

A securities filing confirmed that NBCUniversal triggered the purchase earlier in the day.

“We look forward to the appraisal process and the determination of Hulu’s fair market value which we expect will reflect the extraordinary value of the business,” Comcast said in a statement.

Wall Street has over the past year repeatedly discussed Hulu’s future due to its shared ownership and put and call options. Starting in November, Comcast has had a put option to require Disney to take over its stake, while Disney has had the right to tell Comcast to sell it its stake. As per an agreement between the two companies, Hulu was set to get a fair market value assessment from independent experts, but the guaranteed minimum Hulu valuation of $27.5 billion means that Disney knew it had to cough up at least $9 billion.

In the filing Wednesday, Disney said that it expects to pay $8.61 billion by Dec. 1 (meeting the floor valuation), though it will go through the appraisal process to make the final determination of Hulu’s value, and how much (if any) the company will need to pay beyond the $8.61 billion number.

“While the timing of the appraisal process is uncertain, we anticipate it should be completed during the 2024 calendar year,” Disney said.

Disney CEO Iger has signaled that he wants to refocus the company on its beloved content brands from Pixar and Marvel to Lucasfilm, including family and kids fare. Asked on CNBC in February 2023 what that meant for Hulu, he said: “Everything is on the table right now, so I am not going to speculate whether we are a buyer or a seller of it. But I obviously have suggested that I’m concerned about undifferentiated general entertainment [content], particularly in the competitive landscape that we are operating in.”

MoffettNathanson analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson tried to read between the lines, writing in a report back then: “Disney CEO Bob Iger was notably noncommittal about Disney buying. And he was notably evasive about Disney selling. Comcast has been characteristically silent. Let the speculation begin.” But he and most other analysts have since seen Comcast as the natural seller of its Hulu stake.

Roberts said at an annual Goldman Sachs event earlier this fall that triggering the option was very likely.

In July, Moffett and Nathanson forecast Hulu would add roughly 2.0 million subscribers a year “to reach 55.2 million subscribers by 2026,” including 49.7 million SVOD users, the rest Live TV+SVOD customers. “We expect Hulu to reach $14.1 billion in revenues in fiscal year 2026.”