https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjcgM61-J_lAhVig-AKHbRaCpEQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdeadline.com%2F2018%2F06%2Fmoviepass-amc-theatres-new-movie-ticket-subscription-service-1202414051%2F&psig=AOvVaw0mDnDIiAwEnNtPbg1QR6GZ&ust=1571286450035395

In the weird world of movies, streaming, and television, one of the top names in film has made the switch to streaming: AMC. Movie fans will be able to rent and buy movies in the comfort of their own homes from one of the United States’ largest movie theater chains. The movie theater company, AMC Entertainment, will roll out an iTunes-style video store in the United States starting October 15th. The service is said to offer over 2,000 films to rent or purchase and will have a similar layout to iTunes, Amazon, and other video-on-demand retailers.

In light of the new streaming service companies like Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Sony, and Paramount have all made deals with AMC for catalog and new-release movies. Ron Sanders, president of worldwide distribution at Warner says, “For us, it’s all upside. Most of our other big digital partners are focused on multiple other categories — music, books. The great thing about AMC is that movies are the whole focus.” Mr. Aron, an executive at AMC says, “Our theater business is mature. There is a high-growth opportunity in this digital expansion.”

In my opinion, I think this is a great move from AMC. With the expansion of technology and streaming, movie theaters have become less and less popular. AMC moving into the streaming game opens up a whole other world for them. The article talks a little bit about the company using this service hand-in-hand with their AMC Stubs program and I think that’s a great idea. In the article it says, “AMC Stubs members bought about six million tickets to ‘The Lion King’ over the summer. When ‘The Lion King’ becomes available digitally on Tuesday, ‘those people will all get a personalized message from AMC saying that they can now enjoy it at home through AMC Theaters On Demand.'” I think this is such a good idea and even if a small percentage of the people who receive the message rent or purchase The Lion King, the company will still be generating more revenue (after factoring in costs of content acquisition).

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/kevin-feige-upped-chief-creative-officer-marvel-1247801

A reign of supreme control over one property is fairly rare in today’s media environment, unless your name is Kevin Feige. Feige’s upward movement through the ranks of Marvel Studio’s Entertainment division is unprecedented, yet undeniably deserving.

The President of Marvel Studios has now added Marvel Chief Creative Officer to his title, overseeing all creative decisions aligned to Marvel’s storytelling and content creation platforms. This includes the heavily imbalanced Marvel TV division as well as the animation generator Marvel Family Entertainment.

It’s been a busy year for Marvel and the Walt Disney Co. and nothing has come without a myriad of headlines. After a plethora of box office success with record-breaking hits such as Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Man: Far From Home, Feige has been credited as a leader in innovation and strategy when producing his films. His recent success has even led him to lay the foundation of producing a new Star Wars picture. Though after the resurgence and recovery of the immediate fallout between Disney and Sony over the Spider-Man rights, it seems as if Feige’s influence and formula success was too difficult for either side to overlook. Feige controls the game, and I don’t think anyone is complaining.

Feige’s prowess and progressive stature is something that I have never witnessed within one media company. He produces results–most of which accumulate billions of dollars–and has consistently developed, well received, quality content for a staggering ten year stretch. All of which are unheard of and some would say could never be done under one property. Yet Fiege’s success as a producer has more than likely given Disney the growth and revenue needed to become such a progressive powerhouse themselves, attributing to their acquisition of Fox and launching their own streaming service. Most of the popular properties that Disney+ is advertising are under Feige’s creative control and connected to his established universe such as the announced Loki, Hawkeye, and Wanda Vision Marvel series.

Feige’s track record is impressive and Disney relies on him to continue to develop stellar content across its spectrum of entertainment properties. In order for Disney and Marvel to creatively innovate themselves, Feige needs to have full oversight. The decision was simple and gives Disney and Marvel a greater opportunity to explore new directions and creative capacities now that Feige is in full command.

Image source: https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/preorder-death-stranding/

Death Stranding is one of the most anticipated video games this holiday season. The game, launching November 8th, garners mass attention on a daily basis. Though, what’s most interesting is that, even months after it’s trailer debut in the summer and it’s consistent online buzz, people are still piecing together what its actually about.

Watch the trailer below to see what I mean:

Game Radar summarizes it best:

“‘Death Stranding’ is a completely new type of action game, where the goal of the player is to reconnect isolated cities and a fragmented society. It is created so that all elements, including the story and gameplay, are bound together by the theme of the “Strand” or connection.”

• Dan Dawkins, Game Radar

Image source: https://thenerdstash.com/kojima-productions/

Hideo Kojima, the mastermind behind Kojima Productions, has produced other mind-bending, anxiety-inducing horror games such as Silent Hill. But something about Death Stranding is eerily different, possibly due to it’s immersive qualities that early game players claim has riddled them with fear every second they roamed the post-apocalyptic landscape.

Here’s what one previewer had to say…

“Death Stranding’s environment is one of the scariest and immersive I’ve ever experienced in a videogame. Although the world may seem barren and void of life, it never feels like you are truly alone… and it is terrifying… It feels like Hideo Kojima took the Silent Hills vibe and injected it with steroids.”

• Erina Rose, Sausage Roll

I believe this game is one to pay attention to and has the potential to be one of the most influential games of the year, maybe even the decade. Or it could totally flop in every way imaginable and be super confusing and underwhelming. Who knows? Though it looks like a refreshing take that has yet to be seen before; especially in an era where developers are just recycling their staple series, releasing remastered editions, or monotonous prequels, instead of creating original content.

Image source: https://codelist.biz/2019/08/26/7-minute-death-stranding-cutscene-recorded-and-shared-online/

And it stars Normas Reedus as the lead protagonist. Means nothing to me, but just thought that was important to add.

On October 15, 2019 Google release the Pixel 4. This is the fourth phone by the company and apparently the best release they have ever had. In the past there have been rave reviews about the phone regarding certain capabilities such as the camera and battery life. However, the newer version of the phone is being praised in more areas than two.

Google has become a media giant and an internet staple for the past 15 years. Though the company began releasing devices 6 years ago they continue to expand as a media company . In a world where we are competing with Apple and Amazon the strive to be outstanding in the media an tech world is becoming harder. Over the past 10 years Google has been searching for ways to be the biggest player in the tech world. The company’s Google Glass didn’t match its projected result. In 2011 the company bought the streaming website YouTube, which ended up being a great decision.

This raises the question of who’s going to be the biggest media company of this generation, are we still deciding or have one of these companies already won the race.

Image source: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3022168/refuse-hong-kongs-protesters-everything-and-they-will-fight-bitter

In Hong Kong, tens of thousands of people share a gripe towards their government and its allowance of ever-growing Chinese presence in their region. Since June, Hong Kong’s people have relentlessly protested an extradition bill their chief executive was ready to sign off on. Basically, this bill would allow the Chinese government to try Hong Kong citizens who’ve committed a crime in their jurisdiction.

Why is this problematic? China’s government has a very ambiguous ruling system, where criminals often go missing, or are tortured, among other unjust punishments. The possibility of interacting with this heinous judicial system was the final straw for many Hong Kong residents. And thus, weeks of protesting­–often violent on both sides­–proceeded.

Image source: https://boingboing.net/2019/10/04/hkmap-live-hong-kong.html

Apple recently allowed a mobile application, HKmap.live, for the use of Hong Kong protestors. This application allows protestors to track the location of polices forces. The developers created this in efforts to keep protestors alert and safe when exercising their right of free speech. Though, only days after Apple gave the OK for its launch, HKmap.live was taken down due to strong opposition from the Chinese, who believe this was an attempt to mobilize violence against their people.

The billion-dollar corporation claims protestors were using the app to attack police; therefore, they are taking it down permanently. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, says he received credible information that proves the validity of these claims, directly violating the company’s policy.

Though it should be noted that Apple has more at stake in China than any multinational country, because Apple “assembles nearly all its products there and counts the country as its No. 3 market after the United States and Europe”–which left people drawing their own conclusions as to the real reason why Apple took down the app so suddenly.

Image source: https://www.ft.com/content/427bb840-9c5d-11e9-9c06-a4640c9feebb

Tim Cook has no problem speaking on other political issues, such as gun control and immigration. However, he has been particularly silent on China’s politics, which directly effect tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents. It’s fair to assume that Cook may be prioritizing the future of Apple’s relationship in China, before aiding the people of Hong Kong.

Source material: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/technology/apple-hong-kong-app.html

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/341818/amazon-twitch-used-to-stream-shooting-outside-syna.html

“A shooter outside a synagogue in Germany on Wednesday used Amazon Twitch to broadcast the killings on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews.” (MediaPost.com). This was the opening sentence for an absolutely horrifying article on Media Post’s website. The live video was 35 minutes long and streamed the killing of two people.

Twitch issued a statement offering condolences to families, witnesses, and others involved. Obviously, they have a policy against hateful conduct but the fact is that an app was used to broadcast an incident so terrible it can most likely never be forgotten by those who saw it. In addition to the statement, Twitch said that they were working hard to remove any accounts that could be associated with any hateful or terrorist content.

Twitch is mostly a home for gamers but essentially is a live-streaming app. In fact, in September, the company released a brand new advertising campaign emphasizing that Twitch is an “all-purpose live-streaming platform,” which moves away from the focus on a video gaming platform.

Facebook experienced a similar incident in 2019 when the massacre in New Zealand was streamed. These incidents are pretty much unable to be prevented. Streaming systems are designed to stream any sort of content. Unless there is some way for the content to be evaluated live time, there is no way for the stream to be shut down in action.

‘When AT&T bought the direct broadcast service provider DirecTV four years ago , we can only guess they didn’t expect people were going to get rid of their cable and streaming would take off. Or maybe they knew, but thought the benefits of buying DirecTV outweighed the risks. AT&T bought DirecTV in 2015 for $49 billion + DirecTV’s. debt which came to a combined total of $67.1 billion. Since then, DirecTV has been on a downwards spiral, and its not exactly doing nearly as well as AT&T would like them to be doing.

AT&T originally acquired DirecTV because they wanted to expand their offerings and differentiate themselves in on the market and stand out more. However AT&T bought the company right around the time when the pay TV market began to change dramatically. Shareholders are revolting, with most feeling like AT&T’s acquisition of  DirecTV has had “damaging results” to the company. Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, etc. have made cord-cutting (getting rid of cable and utilizing streaming services exclusively) a feasible option for many cable customers. People can easily access their favorite TV shows online, eliminating the need for live and appointment TV. On the other hand, streaming services such as Sling, YouTube TV, and Philo deliver live TV with tons of other features such as cloud DVR– all at a way lower price than cable providers such as DirecTV. The cable service also doesn’t provide internet like their competitors VerizonFios and Comcast Xfinity. These companies have retained customers in a way DirecTV can’t.

When AT&T bought DirecTV, they had approximately 20.3 million customers and AT&T’s own U-verse cable had about 5.7 million customers. As of the second quarter of this year they are down 17% in customers in the last 4 years. Experts believe that this number in customers will only continue to decrease.

Now it seems DirecTV is relying on Sunday Ticket, which lets subscribers watch out-of-market NFL games every Sunday. This has become the centerpiece of the satellite cable company.