Netflix fills a sci-fi hole in its originals lineup with Altered Carbon

Netflix quietly acquired the rights to Altered Carbon at the start of 2016, but this sprawling story required a larger production than your average original. Canadian outlet The Province reported that Netflix moved into a state-of-the-art studio in British Columbia that could accommodate hundreds of staff, and Gizmodo wrote that per-episode spending could end up in the millions. If aesthetic and visual believability matters to you in your sci-fi decisions, evidently Altered Carbon will fall into the Westworld-y higher-end of that spectrum.

Mark your calendars: Altered Carbon will hit Netflix on February 2, 2018.

#netflix #alteredcarbon

Disney is pulling Star Wars and Marvel films from Netflix

If you want access to the full catalog of films from the Star Wars franchise or the Marvel universe after 2019, you’ll need to sign up for Disney’s forthcoming streaming service, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced on Thursday.

Last year, Netflix began streaming a wide range of Disney titles, including Disney animated films and films from Disney’s Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel divisions. Last month, Disney announced that it would be pulling a number of Disney titles from the Netflix catalog.

This is pretty dumb. I’m not gonna pay Disney a monthly fee to watch Star Wars and any Marvel movies just like I’m not gonna pay CBS to watch Star Trek Discovery.

With all these companies wanting a monthly fee to stream their shows I’d be back up to paying what I used to for cable.

I like paying for what I watch and Disney has a whole theme park full of load of shit I’m not interested in.

#disney #netflix

Netflix Abandons Plan to Rent DVDs on Qwikster

“We underestimated the appeal of the single web site and a single service,” Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, said in a telephone interview. He quickly added: “We greatly underestimated it.”

I bet they had truckloads of test cases that said “Ya, I want to make my life harder.” And lettuce not forget, we were just dinged on a price increase.

Elsewhere:

• Qwikster: Gonester!

#netflix

Netflix, Qwikster: Two sites, two queues

Netflix is splitting into two companies – one for streaming and one for DVD rentals – in a few weeks. And while the services and prices won’t change, the company’s move could have a side effect that’s likely to annoy its customers: a bit of extra work.

One drawback of the split: “… the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com Web sites will not be integrated,” said Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings in a company blog post. “So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or e-mail address, you would need to do it in two places.”

Personally, I want them integrated. I don’t want different sites for DVDs and streaming. I don’t want different accounts and different website searches. What I want is a great site to find the movies.

There’s more going on that we know. My money is that Hollywood is twisting Netflix’s arm in one way or another and this split is a direct reflection.

Elsewhere:

• 10 things to remember about Netflix while scratching your head about Qwikster
• Net Flixup
• Netflix Forcing the Issue Too Soon
• Netflix Makes Another Video Apology via Conan O’Brien and Team CoCo

#netflix #movies