Slashdot Mirror

From a report: As streaming services like Netflix and Hulu surge in popularity, movie theaters have been trying to compete by rethinking the concession counter and installing seats that resemble beds. Yet attendance was flat at North American cinemas in 2016, and analysts are predicting a 4 percent decline in 2017, bringing ticket sales to a 22-year low. Perhaps something more radical is necessary. Mitch Lowe, a Netflix co-founder, certainly thought so when he took over a ticketing firm called MoviePass in June 2016. By August of this year, when MoviePass introduced a cut-rate, subscription-based plan -- go to the movies 365 times a year for $9.95 a month -- Mr. Lowe had been declared an enemy of the state. "Not welcome here," AMC Entertainment, the largest multiplex operator in North America, said in an indignant August news release that threatened legal action. It may be time to get on board: MoviePass said this month that it had signed up more than one million subscribers in just four months (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). It took Netflix more than three years to reach that level when it started selling low-priced subscriptions for DVD rentals in 1999. Spotify was relatively quick, at five months in 2011. It took Hulu 10 months to reach one million later that year. "We're actually shocked," Mr. Lowe said. "We seem to have hit a nerve in America."

An anonymous reader shares a report: MoviePass seemed like the deal of the century: $10 a month to see one movie a day at the theaters? No contest. But in the three months since the start-up company seeking to disrupt the theater market with a Netflix-like service launched its new business model, MoviePass has been plagued by technical hiccups, backed-up deliveries, and potential lawsuits. As the company expanded its operations, it finally began to settle into its new subscription base of more than 600,000 users. And now MoviePass is already offering up a new deal: an up-front annual subscription of $89.95, which amounts to about $6.95 a month. But how much of a discount is it really? The MoviePass annual subscription is a limited-time promotion that will last 12 months, according to the website. Users pay $89.95 up front, plus a $6.55 processing fee. "Once your year is up, your plan will convert back into your $9.95 a month. Offer valid until it's not. Limit two per household," the MoviePass website says.

An anonymous reader writes Gizmodo published an article on Saturday pointing out that, with The CW having aired its last episodes of Vortexx cartoons last weekend, this is the first weekend in the United States with no Saturday morning cartoons playing on national broadcast stations. NBC stopped airing Saturday morning cartoons in 1992, CBS stopped shortly after, and ABC followed suit in 2004. Gizmodo failed to take into account the Public Broadcast Station (PBS), but during an age of instant online media access...and cable...the oversight is understandable because everyone has already moved on. TV is dead. Long live the Internet.

silentbrad writes "/Film (as well as IGN and A.V. Club) reports about Topher Grace's fan re-edit of the Star Wars prequel trilogy into a single, 85-minute film titled Star Wars: Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back.' Quoting /Film: 'His idea was to edit the Star Wars prequels into one movie, as they would provide him a lot of footage to work with. He used footage from all three prequels, a couple cuts from the original trilogy, some music from The Clone Wars television series, and even a dialogue bit from Anthony Daniels' (C-3PO) audio book recordings. He even created a new opening text crawl to set up his version of the story.' It continues with what stayed and what was cut. It's just too bad it was a one-time-only screening."

chill writes "After years in development, a film adaptation of William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer is finally moving forward. According to a press release, the film has secured sales from distributors at Cannes and visual effects work has already begun. Filming will begin in 2012 with locations in Canada, Istanbul, Tokyo, and London."

cowmix writes "When TPM came out ten years ago, its utter crappiness shocked me to the core and wounded a entire generation of geeks. My inner child had been abused and betrayed. I moped around, talking to no one, for almost two weeks. I couldn't bring myself to see #2 or #3, whatever they were called. Now, a decade later, comes Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review, the ultimate, seven-part, seventy minute analysis of this mother of all train wrecks. Not only does it nail how the film blows, but tells us why. Time, apparently, does not heal all wounds." Or, if you prefer all 7 parts embedded in one page, you can check out slashfilm's aggregation.

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently it with the release of all of Monty Python's material on YouTube, their sales have blown through the roof on Amazon.com. It is too bad there isn't any proper news article about this, but I think it bodes well for those who champion free content. More importantly, it forces the MPAA's feet into their mouths." Not every performer (or group of performers) has the decades-strong appeal of Monty Python, but this is a great thing to see. The linked article claims that the sales increase in the Python DVDs is 23,000 percent; there are probably some other ways to figure the numbers, but a big increase is easy to see.

An anonymous reader writes to mention that Uwe Boll, the infamous German director behind such video game adaptations as House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Dungeon Siege and Postal, has recently admitted that he would retire from making movies if enough people want him to stop. When FearNet mentioned to Boll a petition online signed by 18,000 people requesting that he cease making films, Boll responded that '18,000 is not enough to convince me.' So how much would be enough? 'One million,' Boll said."

An anonymous reader found that "For the last 30 years, Lucasfilm has created special holiday greeting cards for its employees and business partners. For the first time ever, we have compiled most of the Star Wars-themed Holiday Cards on one page." My favorite is 2005. That would make a cool poster or something.

Critical Facilities writes "Someone thought it would be a good idea to model their home theater after the Enterprise NCC-1701D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The result is super geeky, but actually rather cool. Named the best theme theater installation at CEDIA 2007, this Palm Beach County, FL home features motion-activated air-lock doors with series sound effects, and a "Red Alert" button on the Crestron TPMC-10 controller to turn all of the LEDs bright red and flashing."