The chair for the Canada Council for the Arts says, "What you’re seeing is maybe an industry that is so ravenous for stories that it’s realized it has to open the gates beyond its usual suspects." - The New York Times
That's a normal budget for an indie, but it does bring home grim realities of the industry. "The producers of the movie Rust earmarked $650,000 to pay themselves, $7,913 to pay their armorer and $350,000 as a contingency in case anything went wrong." - The Hollywood Reporter
The Netflix series revives the always-popular with Austenites tourism industry in Bath, but then there's David Attenborough's Our Planet and other productions that, said one mayor, "help put our area on the map." - BBC
Yes, of course, it's ultimately to make more money, but here's a glimpse of just how different the content is and a look at the structural reason for that difference. - Columbia Journalism Review
Sources report that the decision is because Disney's Marvel Studios refused the request to cut a male-male kiss. Eternals is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature an LGBTQ+ superhero. - Variety
In Shonda Rhimes’ renewed pact, the bullet points specify that Shondaland will now be, as Rhimes puts it, a “one-stop shopping” source for Netflix for movies as well as a wide variety of other types of content. - Variety
"BoJack Horseman, Fleabag, Veep, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are among the comedies that have left the traditional sitcom form in the dust. … The laughs come with much higher emotional stakes, often juxtaposed with grief, shame, addiction, … and questions about the very meaning of life." - BBC
Over the past few years, a certain genre of media has found opportunity in debunking false conceptions of the semi-recent past and meditating on the cultural factors which contributed to their initial spread. - Gawker
Okay, it's not really a surprise, but we finally get confirmation from the guy who made the decision, along with his feelings about the brouhaha around the show's finale, what led him to make the prequel, and how he feels about film versus TV. - The Hollywood Reporter
Those games go back as far as cilivization does. Yet when archaeologists discover game boards and pieces, of course, they never find rule books. So we haven't been able to play them — until now. - Wired
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos "recognized that viewers were addicts, and that his role was to supply what they wanted" whenever they wanted it. The predictive analytic software that makes recommendations lets users imagine they're in control — just as depicted in Infinite Jest back in 1996. - Literary Hub
The study found that ratings and social media engagement for most groups, including white audiences, peaked for shows that featured casts that were at least 31% minority, while viewership among adults between the ages of 18 and 49 often peaked when a show had a majority minority cast. - Time
Mubi, which caters to cinephiles seeking an eclectic mix of films, has begun offering a membership program: A well-stocked streaming service that movie lovers can flip on from home, bundled with a weekly ticket they can use to go see a handpicked film at their favorite theater. - The New York Times
