The “streaming wars” are now in full swing, but so far the competition has produced a rising tide lifting all boats — the adoption of subscription-video services has soared across the board during the time of the coronavirus. The question now is whether that will mostly stick, or if there’s a wave of SVOD cancelations
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Three Long Island-based ticket brokers agreed to pay around $3.7 million to settle alleged violations of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission announced on Friday. According to the announcements, these are the first enforcement actions that the department and the FTC have brought under the BOTS
The Sundance Film Festival announced 22 jurors that will bestow this year’s awards at the digital ceremony taking place Feb. 2. The judges include actor Cynthia Erivo, Chilean actor Daniela Vega and sibling designer-filmmakers Kate and Laura Mulleavy. The awards, which recognize standout artistic and cinematic prowess, are decided on by six section juries. As
Fashion was not meant to be the focus during this week’s inauguration, but the swearing in of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris became a runway anyway. We witnessed independent designers on the main stage, a show of unity through the color purple, Dior Air Jordans, and mittens becoming the accessory of the
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “The Sister,” streaming now on Hulu. Although the title of Neil Cross’ new four-part series is “The Sister,” the story actually follows a man named Nathan (Russell Tovey). The audience first meets him when he is completely traumatized and distraught, ready to take his
Tom Brokaw, the anchor who rose from an early stint at a station in Sioux City, Iowa to anchor three of the nation’s best-known TV-news programs – “Today,” “NBC Nightly News” and, for a short time, “Meet the Press,” is set to step down formally from NBC News, where he has worked since 1966. Brokaw’s
Halfway through the first episode of “Fate: The Winx Saga,” I realized exactly why it felt so familiar. The new Netflix series follows Bloom (Abigail Cowen), a bright-eyed, redheaded American fairy with a mysterious past who enrolls at Alfea, a legendary fairy school in an undisclosed magical location (though everyone else’s British accents provide a
Fans of big NBC sports franchises like the NHL and Premier League will have to follow them to a new home. NBCUniversal will shutter its NBCSN sports network, and move some of its top sports properties to the USA network in a maneuver executives believe will boost the economics of the general-entertainment cable outlet at
“Saturday Night Live” is set to return with its first episode of the new year on Jan. 30, with John Krasinski as host and Machine Gun Kelly as the musical guest. NBC also announced the hosts and musical guests for the Feb. 6 and Feb. 13 episodes of the late-night sketch comedy series. Feb. 6
As screenwriters of the Lifetime original movies “Salt-N-Pepa” and “Wendy Williams: The Movie,” Abdul Williams and Leigh Davenport, respectively, were each proposed an exciting challenge by Lifetime: They had to condense the rich and aspirant lives of cultural trailblazers to fit neatly into the television movie format. “Salt-N-Pepa” follows a 20-year journey for the titular
Apple has said it wants to bulk up revenue from services — including Apple TV Plus, which is just over one year old. But new research suggests that the tech giant’s entry into the so-called “streaming wars” is at a distinct disadvantage compared with rivals. In the fourth quarter, the majority of Apple TV Plus
Frank Abney says the idea for his animated short feature and Oscar hopeful “Canvas” was born out of a need to make a film that was personal. Six years ago, the animator, whose credits include Pixar titles “Soul,” “Coco,” “Toy Story 4” and “Incredibles 2,” felt he was nevertheless experiencing a rough patch creatively. “I
When an individual is cast against type, the results are always interesting. Armando Iannucci has made a reputation as a writer and director of cutting-edge contemporary comedies, from BBC’s “I’m Alan Partridge” to HBO’s “Veep,” and including his Oscar-nominated work as a writer of 2010’s “In the Loop.” So he may seem an unlikely match
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact Hollywood, Disney has delayed another round of movies. On Friday, numerous titles, all from the company’s 20th Century Studios and Searchlight banner, were shifted out of the first half of the year. Among those films are “The King’s Man,” which moved from March 12 to Aug. 20, while animated
A sport as quickfire as indoor volleyball deserves a nimbler workout than it gets in “Leap,” Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s lavish but curiously low-boil based-in-truth sports movie. Telling the decades-spanning tale of the Chinese Women’s Volleyball team and its star-player-turned-head-coach, Lang Ping, it’s essentially a rise-and-fall-and-rise-again story. But in presenting a sanitized vision of Chinese patriotism
With the Sundance Film Festival less than a week away (and available to anyone in the U.S. willing to buy tickets to a COVID-safe 2021 virtual edition), late January sees more streaming options than virtually any week since the pandemic began. That doesn’t necessarily mean big movies for home viewers, but at least it offers
When composer Emile Mosseri and director Lee Isaac Chung began talking about the music for “Minari,” Chung’s reminiscence about his Korean family’s struggle to succeed at farming in Arkansas, they decided what the score shouldn’t be: overtly Korean or American in style. “No twangy guitars or harmonicas,” says Mosseri of the A24 film, which had
Brie Larson is set to star in and executive produce the drama series “Lessons in Chemistry,” which has landed a straight-to-series order at Apple in a competitive situation, Variety has learned exclusively. The series is based on the upcoming debut novel from author, science editor, and copywriter Bonnie Garmus. Set in the early 1960s, “Lessons in
Edward Burns was only 12-years-old in 1980, so he doesn’t consider that decade to be one he experienced to the fullest at the time. Having some distance from the politics or harder events of the time period, though, makes him look back on it fondly as a simpler time, “the way you look back at
Among other things, John Lurie is a reality-television pioneer. A musician who founded jazz group the Lounge Lizards and who moonlighted as an actor in films such as Jim Jarmusch’s “Down By Law,” Lurie’s a polymath. His first television series, “Fishing With John,” premiered on Bravo in 1991 and riffed on the fishing shows found
Ben Halpern, a longtime United Artists and Universal film and TV publicist, died on Saturday. He was 99. Born in 1921 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Halpern was the fourth and youngest child of Jewish immigrants from Tarnopol, central Europe. As a small child, he enjoyed exploring the city on his own, collecting
In “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” Sacha Baron Cohen set aside his bag of improv tricks to portray “Flower Power” activist Abbie Hoffman. The drama, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, unravels almost like a play, following the real-life story of the seven defendants charged with federal offenses for supposedly inciting protests at the
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched Episode 3 of “WandaVision,” streaming now on Disney Plus. Teyonah Parris’s resume on both screen and stage is extensive, but that doesn’t mean the actor wasn’t a little trepidatious about taking on her most iconic role to date, suiting up as Monica Rambeau in Marvel’s
Horror geniuses are joining forces again on “Eli Roth’s History of Horror” to take viewers on a chilling exploration deep into the genre’s eerie past and present. After reaching nearly six million viewers in Nielsen’s Live+3 ratings across Season 2’s six-episode star-studded stretch, AMC announced that the series is being renewed for Season 3, bringing
Baseball legend Hank Aaron, the Black power hitter who faced discrimination and death threats in 1974 as he toppled Babe Ruth’s record for all-time home runs, has died, according to CBS affiliate WSB-TV Atlanta. He was 86. The Atlanta Braves veteran died Friday at his home, Aaron’s daughter told WSB. Aaron’s records in Major League
The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted production on U.K. broadcaster ITV’s long-running popular soaps “Coronation Street” and “Emmerdale.” “‘Coronation Street’ will pause filming from next Monday, Jan. 25, for two weeks to undertake some rewriting of stories and scripts as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic,” an ITV spokesperson told Variety. “We will also be taking
The late Sam Cooke would be 90 years old today. Cooke’s relevance and artistry has never been clearer, thanks to Regina King’s new film, “One Night in Miami,” which brings the Kemp Powers play of the same name to the big screen. The movie imagines the personal sparks, bonds, and struggles of four key Black
Agnes Chu, the former Disney Plus SVP of content who’s five months into her new gig as president of Condé Nast Entertainment, has recruited former Mouse House colleague Jennifer Jones and promoted several CNE execs to senior roles. Jones joins Condé Nast Entertainment as head of global business affairs and operations, after almost three years
Seven months after K-pop fans famously took over the #WhiteLivesMatter hashtag on social media in an effort to drown out racist online chatter, there’s been no shortage of other events that seemed ripe for such a move: the presidential debates, the election, the white riot at the Capitol, and any of countless actions and inactions
Breaking News Ex-MMA fighter Ralph Gracie — a member of the legendary Gracie jiu-jitsu family — is expected to be sentenced to 6 months in jail Friday for smashing another fighter in the face at a 2018 event. 49-year-old Gracie — son of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu grandmaster Robson Gracie — landed a cheap shot elbow strike