TV, Movies & Home Theatre News - Page 3

The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has commented on his company's upcoming "Lord of the Rings" prequel series that will release on September 2, 2022.

Amazon has poured about $1 billion into creating a prequel TV show for the "Lord of the Rings", with the TV show being set some 3,000 years before the events that were seen in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

The upcoming show titled "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" is expected to detail the forging of all the Rings of Power, the three eleven rings worn by Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond in the Peter Jackson movies, the eleven rings forged for dwarf lords, and the nine, given to mortal men doomed to die (the black riders in the Peter Jackson movies). Based on the released trailers, we can assume that the story will follow a young Galadriel through of the Second Age of Tolkien's world.

When Disney+ released in 2019 for just $6.99 it seemed too good to be true. Everyone knew price hikes were coming, and of course they happened. Disney+ jumped to $7.99, and now the service is getting its second price hike.

Today Disney announced it's increasing Disney+ subscription prices by $3. Subscribers will have two options on what plans to buy: an ad plan for $7.99 that will run interstitial advertisements periodically through shows or movies, or an ad-free plan for $10.99. The new ad plan will cost as much as the current ad-free plan.

This price hike represents a 38% increase as Disney continues spending big to produce new content. Disney has spent $3.55 billion on Disney+ programming and production costs throughout this fiscal year, with a record $1.435 billion spent during Q3'22 alone. Domestic Disney+ subscribers have reached 44.5 million in Q3 and a whopping 152 million worldwide including Hotstar in India.

A new live action Pac-Man movie is in development, sources have told The Hollywood Reporter.

Japanese games giant Bandai Namco has greenlit a new film based on its most iconic arcade character. The Pac-Man movie will follow Sonic The Hedgehog's winning live-action formula and will be based on an all-original idea from Lightbeam's Chuck Williams, who produced the Sonic films. The Sonic movies are now the highest-grossing video game movies of all time.

Not much is known about the project other than those involved; Wayfarer is set to produce alongside Lightbeam Entertainment, with Wayfarer's Justin Baldoni, Manu Gargi and Andrew Calof joining Lightbeam's Tim Kwok and Chuck Williams on the film. Pac-Man remains one of the most recognizable video game franchises of all time and is prominently featured on Bandai Namco's website, merchandise, and gaming products.

MrBeast is one of the biggest content creators on the planet, with MrBeast aka Jimmy Donaldson, saying to his 100M strong YouTube subscribers that he hopes "to do YouTube until the day I die".

MrBeast tweeted rather humbly: "Over a million people celebrated 100,000,000 subscribers with me. YouTube is the one thing that's always made me happy and I'm grateful I get to do this all day everyday :) Also I just want to say that no matter how big I get I'll never own a mansion, yacht, Lamborghini etc. All I want is to make the best videos possible and help as many people as I can while doing it".

In a statement, Jimmy explained: "100 million means so much. I've been making videos since I was 11 years old. This number in a way represents everything I've ever done in my life and I'm so grateful to everyone who's ever watched a video. I hope to do YouTube until the day I die".

The life of John McAfee was a wild one, ramping up considerably towards the end until his "suicide" and now Netflix has greenlit a documentary on McAfee called "Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee".

Netflix's upcoming Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee will be produced by Reclaiming Amy producer Curious Films, and will feature hundreds of hours of previously unseen footage as well as "in-depth accounts from the people who knew him best" reports Deadline.

Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee will see us follow McAfee as he was travelling through the Belizean rainforest, across international borders, through the river and into the jungles of Guatemala, and into the Bahamas infamously on his boat that was loaded with guns, drugs, booze, and more as he was on the run from US authorities.

Marvel unveiled one of the very rarest collectibles on the planet at San Diego Comic-Con, with Marvel teaming up with East Continental Gems with the introduction of the Infinity Collection of Gemstones.

Marvel teased an image on Twitter, inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and used by Thanos to finger-snap half of existence, out of existence. There will be 6 stones in total, which include: Time Stone, Space Stone, Reality Stone, Power Stone, Soul Stone and Mind Stone. All of the Infinity Stones are (carefully) placed into a custom Infinity Gauntlet, like the one that Thanos (played by Josh Brolin in the Avengers movies) wears.

Paul Gitter, of Marvel Consumer Products explained: "Fans and collectors are a very important consumer for Marvel since they truly live the Marvel lifestyle every day and are always seeking to connect with the brand in new and unique ways. We feel this authentic gemstone collection is cool and unexpected and extends the reach of the Marvel brand".

Keanu Reeves is the star of some of my favorite franchises, the franchises of millions and millions of people across the world: culturally-impacting movies, and now he wants to play Batman... an older Batman.

The Matrix and John Wick star is currently doing the press rounds for DC League of Super-Pets, the new animated DC movie where he voices Batman, and said he'd love to play an older Batman in the future. Robert Pattinson played the caped crusader in Matt Reeves' recent "The Batman", while Ben Affleck truly captured the role in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder's Justice League.

Reeves said: "It's always been a... it's been a dream. Pattinson's got Batman right now, and he's doing awesome. Maybe down the road. Maybe when they need an older Batman".

Game of Thrones is available right now in a 4K HDR box set, but that'll cost you $150-$240 (depending on whether you get it on discount) but winter is coming to HBO Max, folks.

The entire eight seasons of Game of Thrones will debut on HBO Max in beautiful 4K HDR in August, with support for both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos technologies. Game of Thrones debuting in August is a star-aligning marketing move by the company, as House of the Dragon premieres on August 21.

If you hadn't heard of House of the Dragon, it's marketed as Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon. But if you wanted to hit up Game of Thrones on HBO Max then you'll need the ad-free tier of HBO Max, which will cost you $14.99 per month or $149.99 per year. House of the Dragon will debut with all of the tech from the beginning: 4K + HDR10 + Dolby Vision + Dolby Atmos.

Marvel is officially reviving the X-Men animated series from the 1990s with a similar art style and a direct continuation where the show left off.

The X-Men animated series was one of the best parts of growing up in the 1990s. It ran for five years from 1992 - 1997 (I still have my original X-Men Beast shirt from way back when) and was a pivotal part of my childhood. Comics and action figures were everywhere back in those days, and Saturday morning cartoons dominated your weekends. It was a great time to be a kid...and now that old-school fun is coming back.

The new series is called X-Men '97 and will pick up right were the original animated series ended in 1997. Bolivar Trask is confirmed as a villain. Sentinels are back, of course, and it appears Magneto is leading the X-Men. The show is due out in Fall 2023 and has already been greenlit for a second season.

Netflix is moving forward with its plan for a lower-cost, ad-supported subscription tier and has teamed up with Microsoft to make it happen.

Today Netflix announced that it has partnered with Microsoft as its global advertising partner for its new advertisement subscription model. Completely new to the world of advertisements, Netflix has chosen to team up with Microsoft due to the company's massive reach and its ever-growing ad platform (Microsoft purchased adtech specialists Xandr from AT&T in 2021).

Microsoft makes billions every year from its lucrative and powerful adtech platform, which Netflix will use to beam ads to its 221 million subscribers across the world. Netflix has not divulged further details of pricing, availability, or launch dates of its new ad subscription tier.