Two years ago, Disney made a landmark deal with rival movie studio Sony to bring a comic-book fan favorite, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, into Marvel’s multi-billion-dollar universe of interwoven superhero movies. The result, Spider-Man: Homecoming, was the best-reviewed and highest grossing movie about the web-slinger in a decade.
In 2008, Iron Man debuted and began the Marvel Cinematic Universe of comic-book adaptations. Thor: Ragnarok, the latest movie, hit US theaters this weekend. It is one of the best-reviewed Marvel movies, with a 93% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing, and marks its third trilogy for a single character.
Movie studios usually slash a film’s runtime before it hits theaters. Longer movies mean fewer showtimes per day—and fewer potential box-office returns. No one wants to watch a movie that drones on and on, either. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was cut, as was Blade Runner 2049, and many other movies throughout film history.
For all the talk of cord-cutting, US audiences still watch a lot of TV. In fact, they watch more video on regular old TV sets than they do on desktop computers and mobile devices.
Netflix may be a leader in TV, but it’s still establishing itself in film. Which ones should you watch?
Rotten Tomatoes is a root of ire in Hollywood. Producer Brett Ratner calls it the “worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture.” Jilted studios have pinned poor box-office returns on low Tomatometer scores. And others have faulted its reductive method of review aggregation for ruining the art of film criticism.
If Hollywood wasn’t already frustrated with Rotten Tomatoes, let’s see what happens now that it’s bringing its controversial movie and TV scores to Facebook.
“What would Steven do?”
House of Cards proved in 2013 that streaming-video services can make a show as good as anyone else, soon to be followed by shows like Amazon’s Transparent and capped by an Emmy for Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale earlier this year. But we’ve never really known how the viewership compared, because Netflix and other streaming services don’t release viewership data.
If your go-to streaming pick is old reruns of TV shows like Seinfeld, Friends, and The Office, you’re in good company. Netflix and Amazon Prime keep boasting about their originals, but people still watch more of the old stuff.
Looking for a good horror movie to stream this Halloween? Quartz used Just Watch to scour the most US popular subscription-streaming services, so you don’t have to. We looked for the best-reviewed horror movies—with positive reviews from 90% of critics or more on Rotten Tomatoes and scores of 80 or better on Metacritic—streaming now.
Stranger Things, which returns for a second season this week, was one of the first truly global shows on Netflix. The sci-fi series turned cultural phenomenon premiered last year just as the streaming service expanded from 60 countries to over 190.
On a dry day in July seven years ago, Reed Hastings made a huge mistake. The chief executive of Netflix, who rarely makes massive missteps, surprised customers with the news that the company was scrapping its popular $10-a-month DVD and streaming-video package and replacing it with two separate services—one for DVD rentals, which Netflix was hoping to spin off into a company called Qwikster (a plan that failed), and another for streaming video, the service that would come to define Netflix and later house its original content.
David Fincher saw the writing on the wall for cinema years ago. After a long, successful career in film, where Fincher directed smart, character-driven thrillers like Se7en, Fight Club, and Zodiac, he became one of the first filmmakers to defect to Netflix. This was back when the streaming service was just starting to commission its own originals. Fincher was an executive producer on its first original series, House of Cards, and directed the inaugural two episodes in 2013.
Canadians are crushing seasons of their homegrown comedy Trailer Park Boys, apparently.
Netflix has released at least 34 original movies so far in 2017. It plans to release 80 next year, according to chief content officer Ted Sarandos.
Media investors only have eyes for Netflix.
With Halloween almost here, US audiences are scouring streaming services to get their spooky fix. On Amazon, they’re flocking to older hits that were rebooted or revived this year and newer, acclaimed fare.
Netflix is pulling from all corners of the film world to establish itself as a serious player in the movie business. Its latest original, which hits the service today, might just be unstoppable.
Harvey Weinstein is one of the most praised people in Hollywood. That might explain why it took him so long to be outed for allegedly sexually harassing or abusing more than a dozen women.
The fantasy series, Supernatural, created as a modern-day Western by Eric Kripke, follows two brothers who hunt demons, monsters, and other supernatural beings across the US.
Watch out, Netflix. Hulu is coming for you.
Amazon may be at the top of the retail world, but in TV, the streaming service is already losing its edge. Amazon left the primetime Emmy Awards empty handed this year, while top rival Netflix and rising star Hulu cleaned house. Even Amazon series that were critical darlings and cultural touchstones, like Transparent, have reportedly failed the reach the mass appeal of shows like Netflix’s Stranger Things.
As a media reporter, I find myself struggling with what to call TV and film today. In the 1990s, it was easy. Things on TV were TV shows. Things in the cinema were movies. Now, more people than ever are making what we continue to call “TV shows,” but no one is watching them on television screens.
