A record-breaking outpouring of fan funding for Critical Role’s animated Dungeons & Dragons special has prompted the team to quadruple the length of the project — from 22 minutes originally to a feature-length 88 minutes. Critical Role, which produces a popular weekly live-streamed D&D role-playing show, launched its Kickstarter campaign at 10 a.m. PT Monday.
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The surprise success of “Crazy Rich Asians” at the box office last year is all the more unlikely considering what an aberration it was for one the film’s producers, John Penotti. While he’s best known for shepherding the first film since “The Joy Luck Club” to boast a primarily Asian cast, his focus in recent
Nick Bell, just months after leaving Snap as VP of content, has landed at startup-studio incubator firm Human Ventures where he’s focused on “attention economy” digital-content startups and will lead its new L.A. office. In addition, working alongside Bell as co-managing director, Human Ventures has hired Ashlyn Gentry, formerly SVP of commercial growth and strategy
March 5, 2019 6:53AM PT Amazon Prime Video’s India service launched action-thriller original series “The End” in Mumbai on Tuesday. The series marks the streaming debut of bankable Bollywood star Akshay Kumar (“2.0”). Abundantia Entertainment, one of the producers of Kumar’s 2017 hit “Toilet – Ek Prem Katha,” will produce for Amazon, the second time
March 5, 2019 6:00AM PT Amazon’s Alexa assistant can now be used to control Roku TVs and Roku streaming devices: Roku launched an official Alexa skill for its streamers Tuesday, making it possible to control video playback and more with the help of Amazon’s Echo speakers. The new voice control feature comes after Roku first
Comedy Central has tasked comics from around the globe with solving major global issues with new versions of its shortform series “Comedians Solve World Problems” underway in the U.S. and elsewhere. The original version of the show was made by Comedy Central International for the U.K. and is now being taken into Asia and the
March 5, 2019 12:04AM PT India’s leading OTT platform, the Fox- and Star-owned Hotstar will launch its recently announced original programming slate, branded Hotstar Specials. It has commissioned four shows produced by Applause Entertainment, the content arm of the $43 billion Aditya Birla conglomerate. “Criminal Justice”, the BAFTA winning British series, the first season of
Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, MPAA chairman-CEO Charles Rivkin, Lorenzo De Maio, head of TV advisory and partner, Endeavor Content, and Georgia Brown, Amazon Studios head of European Originals will all deliver keynote speeches at the 2nd Lille Transatlantic Dialogs. They will be joined by an effective French TV high command featuring Gilles Pélisson, CEO, TF1
A project from Critical Role billed as “‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ meets Dungeons & Dragons” has smashed Kickstarter crowdfunding records for a campaign of its size — raising more than $2 million in less than four hours. Critical Role, a popular D&D role-playing game that live-streams new episodes weekly on Twitch, teamed with animation studio
March 4, 2019 12:06PM PT Facebook is looking to launch enterprise edition versions of its Oculus Go and Oculus Quest virtual reality (VR) headsets this year, according to a job listing published late last week. The listing spells out broader plans to bring augmented and virtual reality technology to the enterprise, starting with dedicated enterprise
Spotify, which finally launched in India last Tuesday — albeit without securing a deal with Warner Music — after months of delays, says that it has reached 1 million users on both its paid and free tiers in just under a week. While India’s market is already dominated by local services like Gaana (which in August
March 4, 2019 9:59AM PT Podcast startup Luminary emerged out of stealth Monday with a high-profile line-up for its upcoming $7.99 subscription service: Luminary will feature exclusive shows from A-list creators including Lena Dunham, Trevor Noah, NPR’s Guy Raz, Omari Hardwick and others. The service will include a paid tier, as well as free, ad-supported
Streaming service Alpha is shutting down, a little over two years after Legendary Digital Networks launched the subscription bundle aimed at sci-fi, gaming and fantasy fans that featured original programming from the company’s Nerdist and Geek & Sundry teams. In a message to subscribers Friday, Legendary said Alpha will be shuttered effective March 31, 2019,
Amazon has yanked at least three anti-vaccination documentaries questioning the safety of vaccines from its Prime Video streaming platform. The move came just hours after U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) publicly announced that he’d sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressing concern that Amazon is “surfacing and recommending products and content that discourage
March 1, 2019 1:30PM PT A+E Networks-backed virtual reality (VR) content aggregator Littlstar launched a new premium tier Friday that includes a new sideloading feature for Sony’s PSVR headset. The feature allows PSVR users to access any video stored on a USB drive, including both regular movies as well as VR-optimized 180-degree and 360-degree videos.
The U.S. casting poll for MTV’s “The Real World” reboot on Facebook is now open, with fans getting to pick the final housemate joining the cast. As previously announced, Facebook is partnering with MTV Studios and Bunim/Murray Productions — the creators of the original “Real World,” which debuted in 1992 — to fund new versions
Responding to pressure from activist investors, eBay announced that it has initiated a strategic review of its assets — which may include the sale or spinoff of its StubHub ticket-resale unit. The ecommerce company also said it is evaluating options for the eBay Classifieds Group. EBay announced the review after activist hedge fund Elliott Management,
February 28, 2019 4:06PM PT Twitter is getting ready to test a new feature that will allow users to moderate the replies to their tweets, the company confirmed Thursday afternoon. The new feature would allow users to selectively hide replies to their tweets, but allow others to access these hidden replies. “We already see people
Spotify has tapped longtime TV exec Liz Gateley, most recently head of programming at Lifetime, as head of creative development focused on original podcast content. Gateley will oversee Spotify’s original content development teams in New York and Los Angeles and the company’s expansion into podcasting including in comedy, sports, YA fiction and scripted, news/documentaries and
YouTube said it will disable the ability for viewers to leave comments on most videos featuring minors, as it tries to contain the damage from a scandal involving child predators leaving coded sexual comments on the site. YouTube said in a blog post Thursday that over the past week it had already shut off comments
The U.S. music industry posted its third consecutive year of double-digit growth, according to the RIAA’s year-end revenue report issued today. The report notes that in 2018 U.S. recorded-music revenues rose 12% to their highest level in 10 years — $9.8 billion, up from $8.8 billion the previous year but still below 2007’s $10.7 billion.
February 28, 2019 10:30AM PT Ad-supported streaming service Tubi has struck a deal with NBCUniversal to add close to 400 movies and TV show episodes to its service. Some of the titles coming to Tubi’s service due to the agreement include “Xena: Warrior Princess,” “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” “The A-Team,” “Punky Brewster,” “The Incredible Hulk,”
Facebook has funded a documentary series on the rise — and hard fall — of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the notorious Mexican drug kingpin who now faces life in prison. The five-episode “USA v. Chapo: The Drug War Goes on Trial” comes from Rolling Stone and Jigsaw Productions. The docu-series promises an in-depth, first-hand
February 28, 2019 9:38AM PT Reddit is experimenting with a new tipping feature that could give its users a chance to earn some real cash: The self-proclaimed front page of the internet is currently testing tipping on a single Subreddit, with tips benefitting just one lucky user. “Anyone in r/shittymorph can now tip u/shittymorph for
February 28, 2019 9:05AM PT CNN is coming to augmented reality: The news network launched an app on Magic Leap’s AR headset Thursday, streaming live programming and on-demand videos on the device. CNN’s app is making use of Magic Leap’s screens framework, which brings linear 2D video to virtual TV screens that can be pinned
Disney’s Marvel Entertainment is extending its superhero franchises — including Black Panther, Thor, Black Widow and Jessica Jones — with a new twist on serialized fiction. Marvel inked a pact with digital book startup Serial Box, under which the companies will collaborate to create original stories designed for consumption on smartphones in either audiobook or
Forget VR headsets: The next frontier for immersive storytelling may be your headphones, thanks to a new spatial audio platform that New York-based Vrai Pictures is set to unveil at SXSW next month. Traverse, as the platform is called, allows users to map their surroundings with the help of mobile augmented reality (AR) technology, and
Japan’s NHK is to launch a virtual reality experience “The Time Machine” that it will unveil next month at the SXSW convention. By taking users back to 1964, the last time that the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo, it is intended as a celebration of the Japanese capital in the lead up to next
De La Soul’s 1989 debut “3 Feet High and Rising” is widely acknowledged as one of hip-hop’s all-time classic albums, yet it and several other releases from the group’s catalog have not been legally available on streaming services due to longstanding complications over sample clearances (or the lack thereof). And even 30 years later, as
Disney wants to get even more control over Hulu: The company is in active discussions with AT&T to acquire the 10% stake that WarnerMedia owns in the streaming joint venture, Variety has learned. A knowledgeable source confirmed the talks, which come as Disney heads down the homestretch in gaining regulatory approvals to buy 20th Century