TV, Movies & Home Theatre News - Page 6

Halo has set new records at Paramount+ as the most-watched premiere on the service, beating out originals like Star Trek's Picard.

The new Halo TV show, which premiered on March 24, is setting new records on Paramount+. The sci-fi FPS adaptation has become the most-watched premiere on the service, Deadline reports. The previous record-holder was 1883 that attracted 4.9 million viewers; CBS didn't reveal exact numbers but Halo's premiere surpassed 1883's viewership.

As of February 2022, CBS-Viacom announced that Paramount+ had 32.8 million subscribers. That number is likely higher now thanks to two big promotions. The service recently had a substantial cost-savings discount that offered 3 months for $6 and Microsoft is also offering a free 30-day trial as part of its premium Xbox Game Pass subscription service.

Netflix has announced Tekken Bloodline, a new anime series that will delve deep into Jin Kazama's past.

The latest video games adaptation will jump into the Tekken series. Netflix is producing an animated series based on Bandai Namco's popular fighting franchise Tekken, complete with an early exploration of the Mishima family saga that has carried across decades' worth of games. No release date has been announced for Tekken Bloodline.

This isn't Tekken's first anime adaptation; the series was adapted into a motion picture in 1998 during the height of Tekken 3's massive success (and just a year before Tekken Tag's launch).

The first season of the Halo TV series had a multi-million budget similar to a major AAA game.

The new Halo TV show from Paramount+ was quite an expensive series and according to Variety, the Halo TV show cost roughly $10 million per episode to produce. That's roughly $90 million, which is around the production budget of a AAA video game (excluding marketing costs, which can typically cost multiple times more than a video game's development costs).

The news comes at a time when Halo Infinite, the latest mainline game in the franchise, is apparently suffering from lower playercounts due to a myriad of reasons including lack of content, netcode issues, and steep competition from newer games (like Elden Ring). According to SteamDB, Halo Infinite had 10,615 concurrent players in the last 24 hours.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has commented on the recently viral video of a woman interrupting a live Russian news broadcast to protest the war.

The video has been acquired by numerous Western media outlets and has gone viral on social media's such as Twitter and Facebook. A reporter is seen running out during a live Channel One news broadcast to hold up a sign towards the camera. The sign called for "No war", and warned viewers not to trust the news they are watching as they are being lied to about the war. The sign also featured a sentence in English that read, "Russians against war".

According to reports from CNN, the video has sent shockwaves throughout Russian society as the woman was immediately arrested and can face a jail sentence of up to 15 years, under the new laws passed by Russia's President Vladimir Putin that allows Russian authorities to imprison any individual that speaks out against the Russian government.

A reporter has staged a public protest live during a news segment that has since sent shockwaves through Russian society.

Marina Ovsyannikova, the reporter for the state-owned Russian news network, was an editor of Channel One, and during a recent news segment, she held up a sign that read Russians were being lied to about the war and not to trust the news channel she was working for. The sign also called for "No war", and featured an English sentence that read, "Russians against war".

According to a report from CNN, Russian President Vladimir Putin passed a law that allows Russian authorities to imprison any individual that speaks out against the Russian government for 15 years. After the live protest, Ovsyannikova was detained and transferred to the Ostankino police department. CNN spoke to Yakov Kronrod, an American that traveled back to Russia to care for his sick grandmother, who said that the live protest has blown up throughout Russian society.

Sony is currently in talks with Amazon to produce a live action TV series based on Sony Santa Monica's 2018 God of War game.

Sources tell Deadline that Amazon is currently in discussions to make a God of War TV show adaptation. The series would premiere on Amazon's Prime Video streaming service and is reportedly being helmed by Expanse showrunners Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, alongside The Wheel of Time producer and Uncharted film writer Rafe Judkins. Sony's own PlayStation Productions and Pictures Television branches are also involved.

This would mark the sixth major video game adaptation production from Sony, with other projects including 2022's Uncharted film, a new Jak and Daxter film, an upcoming Ghost of Tsushima movie, and TV shows based on The Last of Us (HBO) and Twisted Metal (NBC's Peacock).

Sony has consolidated its anime offerings into Crunchyroll to provide "all your anime in one platform."

Funimation content has arrived on streaming service Crunchyroll to provide a monstrous 40,000 episodes+ of anime. Crunchyroll will also be the exclusive service for new anime broadcasts. Funimation subscribers are encouraged to cancel and move over to Crunchyroll instead, however watch history and queue features haven't been translated over to the new service.

"Crunchyroll subscribers can now enjoy the world's largest anime library of more than 40,000 episodes and over 16,000 hours of content in addition to the upcoming Spring anime season, which will be the biggest on record!" reads a press release.

Sony's Twisted Metal TV show adaptation will premiere on NBC's Peacock streaming service, Deadline reports.

The new Twisted Metal TV show will be a rip-roaring comedy with Marvel star Anthony Mackie (Falcon) leading the cast and Cobra Kai writer Michael Jonathan Smith penning the series. NBC has ordered a season to bolster its Peacock streamer, and Sony's own PlayStation Productions and Pictures divisions are teaming up with Universal Television to produce.

The show is set in the familiar Mad Max-ian post-apocalyptic world established by the original games, and will feature iconic characters like Sweet Tooth. It's possible the series will release at the same time as the new Twisted Metal game that's currently in development.

The Last of Us TV show will not premiere in 2022, HBO has confirmed.

Joel and Ellie's harrowing story won't premiere in 2022, HBO Max chief content officer Casey Bloys has told Deadline. "It's not going to air in 2022 - they are still shooting in Canada. I imagine you will see it in '23."

Bloys talks up Craig Mazin's vision for the series (Mazin, who created the award-winning Chernobyl series, is writing the new Last of Us adaptation): "I have seen some early episodes and I'm very excited. Craig did Chernobyl for us, he is a fantastic writer and director. What I've seen looks amazing, so I'm excited for it, but it will not be in '22."

ViacomCBS orders a second season of the upcoming live action Halo TV series adaptation as part of its new content blitz.

After years of development hell, the Halo TV show finally premieres on March 24 with Pablo Schreiber starring as Master Chief. Strong reception from fans has bolstered Paramount's confidence in the series and a second season of the Halo show has officially been greenlit.

While it's set in the same universe, the Halo Paramount+ series makes significant divergences from the established game lore. The show actually has its own separate parallel timeline called the Silver Timeline which allows writers and creators to conveniently borrow, adapt, and alter key events, characters, and locations to make the decades'-long series more show friendly.