Netflix and Mark Millar have announced their latest comic book project: “Space Bandits,” a female-led sci-fi story. Millar described “Space Bandits” as “a female ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ set in space with a massive and exciting cast of characters.” Artist Matteo Scalera will illustrate the comic-book translation of the original Netflix property and
Tech
April 15, 2019 12:27PM PT Former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning is coming back to Disney’s ESPN+, hitting the road to revisit seminal moments in NFL history in 30-episode documentary series “Peyton’s Places.” In the series, the two-time Super Bowl champ with the Indianapolis Colts interviews former NFL players, coaches and other key figures about football
Updated. Facing a backlash over overzealous copyright enforcement, Starz issued an apology on Monday for inadvertently taking down tweets to articles about TV show piracy. The TV network said in a statement that it recently incurred a security breach, which prompted the company to hire a third party for copyright enforcement. “The techniques and technologies
Alex Piper is joining the YouTube Originals team as head of unscripted, North and South America, leaving Fox Broadcasting after five years. Piper takes over the job at YouTube from Ben Relles, who moved into a new role as YouTube’s head of innovation, overseeing interactive programming. Both Piper and Relles report to Susanne Daniels, global
YouTube has pared back its slate of scripted originals, but it’s putting its shoulder into promoting its most popular drama: “Cobra Kai,” the continuation of the “Karate Kid” saga starring Ralph Macchio and William Zabka. YouTube inked a “Cobra Kai” co-marketing partnership with Enterprise, timed for the April 24 premiere of season 2. It’s the
Vimeo is acquiring Magisto, a video-creation service, aiming to bulk up its video tool set and expand its customer base. Magisto, founded in 2009, claims to have over 100 million users. The company had raised $22.5 million from investors including Qualcomm Ventures, SanDisk Ventures, and Horizons Ventures, according to Crunchbase. Terms of the deal weren’t
April 15, 2019 6:09AM PT The European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, has approved a long-gestating major reform to copyright law, which had already been passed by the European Parliament last month. The overhaul contains two controversial provisions that will make online platforms liable for illegal uploading of copyright-protected content on their sites, as
Production has begun in China on a Mandarin-language version of Australian TV series “Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries.” It is the first Australian television series to have been re-versioned in China. The original series, based on Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher mystery novels, was created by Every Cloud Productions. The Shanghai 99 Visual Company acquired the Chinese format
April 14, 2019 7:00PM PT Following its recent zombie hit “Kingdom,” global streaming giant Netflix will next week launch its latest Korean original series, coming-of-age romance drama “My First First Love”. Loosely based on a web series by Jung Hyun-jung and Kim Ran, “My First” recounts the ups and downs of a group of friends
Global streaming giant Netflix has added 10 Indian original films ]to its slate. The are in a variety of genres and hail from a galaxy of A-list talent. After the success of 2018’s “Lust Stories,” Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap, reunite for the self-explanatory “Ghost Stories,” being produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s
April 13, 2019 9:30AM PT Tens of thousands of Oculus Touch controllers have been accidentally released with hidden “Easter Eggs” mocking privacy concerns in various phrases printed on an internal component of some devices, Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell revealed in a tweet. Phrases including “This Space For Rent” and “The Masons Were Here” were meant
K-pop superstars BTS, the most popular boy band in world, have smashed YouTube’s record for the most views accrued in the first 24 hours of release with their single “Boy With Luv,” featuring American pop star Halsey. As of 5 a.m. ET Saturday, “Boy With Luv” had racked up just over 78 million views, according
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is leaving Facebook’s board of directors, the social media giant announced Friday afternoon. Hastings, who had been on Facebook’s board since 2011, will not run for re-election at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, which is scheduled for May 30. Former White House chief of staff Erskine B. Bowles will also be
Sorry, HQties: Scott Rogowsky has left the HQ Trivia app and isn’t coming back. For over a year and a half, Rogowsky was the regular host of HQ Trivia’s live mobile trivia games that doles out real cash prizes to winners — before the New York-based comedian parted ways with the startup last month. Rogowsky
“Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series” is coming to the Oculus Rift and Quest headsets this spring, and ILMxLAB and Oculus released the story trailer for the game’s first trailer during Star Wars Celebration on Friday. The game, set for a spring release, will be a three-part series that combines immersive cinematic storytelling with
Augmented reality startup Magic Leap is looking to use Blockchain technology to store and secure some of its user data, according to multiple job listings the company published this month. Among the positions Magic Leap is looking to fill is that of a senior Blockchain architect as well as multiple Blockchain engineers. The senior Blockchain
Coachella is embracing augmented reality (AR) with an immersive stage experience that encourages the audience to take out their phones and participate with audio-reactive AR filters. The experience, which has been produced by Coachella’s digital innovation team, will debut this Friday, and will be available during both festival weekends. “We want to provide fun and
Even in an era of bundle bloat for virtual MVPDs like DirecTV Now and Sling TV, the recent news that YouTube TV had agreed to a carriage deal for Discovery’s major networks was a surprise, taking its total network count to 80. Even more so was the fact that YouTube TV was increasing its monthly
Disney is investing billions in Disney+, its big push into subscription streaming. It’s set to debut in the U.S. on Nov. 12, at an aggressive initial price point of $6.99 per month. So what will subscribers get? For starters, Disney+ will be the exclusive SVOD home for new releases from Walt Disney Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm
Investors cheered Disney’s bold new foray into subscription streaming with Disney+, pushing shares up over 10% in morning trading Friday — while Netflix’s stock was down more than 3%. Disney announced that its Disney+ SVOD service would cost $6.99 per month, nearly half the price of Netflix’s standard $13 monthly plan, at its 2019 Investor
Dragons are coming: HBO is launching the first branded Snapchat augmented-reality lens for “Game of Thrones,” which will let New Yorkers gawk at the sight of an undead ice dragon alighting on top of the city’s iconic Flatiron Building. HBO is using Snapchat’s new Landmarker AR Lens for the promo, which is the premium cabler’s
Apparently, people really do judge a book by its cover. Or at least they do it with music videos, according to new data that Vevo exclusively shared with Variety this month. The major label-owned music video platform has been on a quest to optimize the preview thumbnails it is using on YouTube, and seen double-digit
Audible and Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video announced in February a deal for the “Saturday Night Live” creator’s company to produce original series for the Amazon-owned audio platform. The first show to come out of the deal is “Heads Will Roll,” a fantasy-comedy created by and starring “Saturday Night Live” mainstay Kate McKinnon and her sister, stand-up comic
April 11, 2019 9:47AM PT Apple has been testing a new web interface for its podcast directory, according to a report by 9to5Mac. The new interface not only lists individual episodes of a show, but actually lets users listen to shows right within the browser as well. Previously, Apple had been listing podcasts and episodes
“Power Star Live” sounds very meta: A live show on Twitter about what people are saying on Twitter. But the half-hour show, hosted by Xilla Valentine and Jessie Woo and broadcast on the social media network live every Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET, is much deeper — and more fun — than that. “It is
Since Spotify launched in the U.S. in 2011, there’s rarely been a month, or even a week that the company or its founder have not been in the news — whether in a positive light (Spotify essentially led the streaming revolution that has saved the music industry) or a negative one (songwriters and publishers, among
Augmented reality startup Magic Leap and AT&T have been showing a “Game of Thrones” experience ahead of the premiere of the show’s final season at select AT&T stores this month. “The Dead Must Die: A Magic Leap Encounter” isn’t necessarily breaking ground in location-based entertainment, but it’s a fun little teaser for the show, and
April 10, 2019 1:05PM PT Dish Media, Dish Network’s advertising sales arm, hired Dave Antonelli as director of advertising strategy and sales for Sling TV, the company’s internet-delivered TV service. Antonelli previously was chief revenue officer of Cognitiv, a New York-based advertising platform that uses artificial intelligence to build custom programmatic buying algorithms. Before that,
When a TV show like “Game of Thrones” can boast 33 million viewers each week, does marketing become besides the point, especially when the upcoming final season is sure to take the audience to new heights? Listen to the podcast here: “We could probably do absolutely nothing and shatter every ratings record in the book,”
April 10, 2019 10:22AM PT Investors sent share prices for Snapchat maker Snap Inc. down more than 5% Wednesday after eMarketer projected that the service will lose monthly U.S. users for the first time in its history this year. This comes a week after Snap announced a range of new initiatives designed to boost reach