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27 minutes ago, The Hot Dog Buffet said:

She's probably there to make sure they include at least one steamy sex scene between Dumbledore and Grindelwald.

Given that her original audience is now in their 30s and 40s since the first book came out 26  years ago, ehh...

39 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Was third Fantastic Beasts any good? It seems like a pretty solid cast. I liked the first one. Skipped the second because Depp is a joke. 

If they had launched  a series based around Mads Mikkelsen as Grindelwald and Jude Law as Dumbledore, the series would have been much better.  Those two were solid, and it was a better movie than the first two.  The Fantastic Beasts movies just couldn't figure out what they wanted to be.

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bernorange
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Started watching Chernobyl (HBO miniseries).  Haven't seen it before.  2 episodes in currently.  Good stuff.

Augustus
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I'll be happy when somebody just finally packages all these streaming services together and provides them as one product, and then perhaps does away with the need for glitchy wifi by just running it a

irishtexan
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I’m pretty sure I’d much rather hang out with Guy Fieri than any of the pretentious squares on this thread bashing Guy Fieri. We’d be pounding Jager bombs and slayin late-40s lake poon while crushing

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2 hours ago, Chopper said:

Just a total wild ass guess on my part, and I say this as someone who hasn't seen more than 5 minutes of a Harry Potter movie, nor read a single page of any of the books. But the involvement of JK Rowling will turn this production into the biggest shit storm to hit Hollywood

The shitstorm has already passed for the most part - Rowling wrote the screenplays for the three Fantastic Beats movies, and some fans vowed to boycott them.

Her writing the screenplays is part of the problem though with the quality of them (the third movie, she did get a co-writer, and it helped, but mainly the cast and focus changing helped).

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3 hours ago, Chopper said:

Just a total wild ass guess on my part, and I say this as someone who hasn't seen more than 5 minutes of a Harry Potter movie, nor read a single page of any of the books. But the involvement of JK Rowling will turn this production into the biggest shit storm to hit Hollywood since that time Harvey Weinstein got out of prison and landed a production deal. Oh wait that didn't happen. Well too bad for HBO that it didn't because it would have surely surpassed the ferocity of the shit storm they're about to stir up with the involvement of Rowling. They're probably going to have problems filling production and acting spots. And I think they'll also find a large portion of their old audience is no longer interested in any output from Rowling.

Anyway feel free to ignore my rant. I'm probably just pissed that HBO is picking up a Rowling series while passing on a David Chase (Sopranos) series, which they had a right of first refusal on, but which is now going to Fx.

 

https://www.hbo.com/c-b-strike

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Chopper

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I had to research this but it was only 3 years ago that she made bigoted, anti-trans comments, which are the reason for my prediction upstream about failure for a new HBO HP tv series. If you believe Deadline it appears her business hasn't gone so well since https://deadline.com/2023/03/jk-rowling-bronte-film-tv-profits-plummet-strike-renewed-1235314388/

CB Strike is still aight but so far imo the writing peaked at season 1-- though based on its renewal we'll see what the future holds.

 

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8 hours ago, Chopper said:

I had to research this but it was only 3 years ago that she made bigoted, anti-trans comments, which are the reason for my prediction upstream about failure for a new HBO HP tv series. If you believe Deadline it appears her business hasn't gone so well since https://deadline.com/2023/03/jk-rowling-bronte-film-tv-profits-plummet-strike-renewed-1235314388/

The problem is that she was writing the Fantastic Beasts movies, and the writing/plotting was shit, so it's hard to say whether her comments hurt the movies or not.  We watched the movies hoping it'd be something cool, but it took three movies to get to a cast/characters and some storylines that were interesting.

Disney is about to unleash the Percy Jackson floodgates with their upcoming TV series, and it's perfect timing - for whatever reason, those books are insanely popular among a lot of the elementary/middle-school crowd these days (well I know why, there's been a ton of new books by other authors set within the Percy Jackson universe, only tapping into the mythologies around the world).  I don't think WB would piss away a lot of money on a HP series at this point - somebody has done some number crunching and reading reviews of the movies.

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10 hours ago, Chopper said:

I had to research this but it was only 3 years ago that she made bigoted, anti-trans comments, which are the reason for my prediction upstream about failure for a new HBO HP tv series. If you believe Deadline it appears her business hasn't gone so well since

I would toss in that the Hogwarts Legacy game sold over 12 million copies, and brought in over $850 million and is one of the top-selling games of last year and this year.  Her involvement was almost non-existent, but there were plenty who wanted it boycotted.

I'd bet that WB's success with that game led them to greenlight a Harry Potter series.

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On 4/5/2023 at 7:53 PM, atomheartbevo said:

I would toss in that the Hogwarts Legacy game sold over 12 million copies, and brought in over $850 million and is one of the top-selling games of last year and this year.  Her involvement was almost non-existent, but there were plenty who wanted it boycotted.

I'd bet that WB's success with that game led them to greenlight a Harry Potter series.

If the show is any good it will be a massive hit

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Augustus

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On 4/5/2023 at 7:04 AM, Chopper said:

I had to research this but it was only 3 years ago that she made bigoted, anti-trans comments, which are the reason for my prediction upstream about failure for a new HBO HP tv series. If you believe Deadline it appears her business hasn't gone so well since https://deadline.com/2023/03/jk-rowling-bronte-film-tv-profits-plummet-strike-renewed-1235314388/

CB Strike is still aight but so far imo the writing peaked at season 1-- though based on its renewal we'll see what the future holds.

 

 

Her comments will have no impact on whether the show's a success.  If it's a great program, people are gonna watch.  If it's not, they won't.

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Vic Mackey

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Dated a chick who was way into Harry Potter. She wanted to stick a quidditch broom handle up my ass
My fiance loves Harry Potter. The books and the movies. I watched all 8 movies a few years ago with her just to see what it was going to be like. They were more interesting than I thought but definitely not something I'll dive into again or the shows. It doesn't interest me that much.

As someone above mentioned, maybe a back story of pre Harry Potter life with the professors and his parents, that might gain my attention. But not with the kids again.
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Chopper

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The new version and name (just 'Max'?) for the HBO Max-Discovery merger gets an official unveiling before the press tomorrow. All the doctor pimple popper episodes you care to watch! Is the person in charge of that dumpster fire going to produce a great Harry Potter tv series? LOL.

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Js1

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26 minutes ago, Chopper said:

The new version and name (just 'Max'?) for the HBO Max-Discovery merger gets an official unveiling before the press tomorrow. All the doctor pimple popper episodes you care to watch! Is the person in charge of that dumpster fire going to produce a great Harry Potter tv series? LOL.

Yes, marketing and creative are the same person, of course 

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Chopper

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1 hour ago, Red Five said:

So HBO is removing the HBO from the name of their streaming service? 

That's what everyone seems to be expecting. The name HBO will be gone. The people from Discovery who took over the company are in charge now. They've been busy running CNN into the ground and are now turning their full attention to HBO. Big press conference tomorrow to announce their plans.

https://mashable.com/article/hbo-max-discovery-merger-max-launch-date

April 11, 2023

CEO David Zaslav's stewardship of Warner Bros. Discovery has been a perilous journey, but it's about to reach one major destination.

After nearly a year of rumors to this effect, a report from The New York Times(Opens in a new tab) indicated that the long-awaited merger between the HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming apps will happen in either May or June of this year. The new app will simply be called "Max" and will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $16/mo, which is what HBO Max costs now.

We'll have to wait until Wednesday for full confirmation, as the Times reported that Warner will hold an announcement event at that time.

Some of the major components of this merger that haven't been clarified yet include what content from each app will survive on the joined streaming service and how current HBO Max subscribers will be grandfathered in, if at all. The Times reported that there will be cheaper versions of the service, including a tier with ads. So you don't have to pay $16/mo if you don't feel like it.

While this news may be exciting for Warner shareholders, fans of HBO Max might reasonably be worried about what this means for the service. HBO Max has been popularly regarded as one of the best streaming platforms out there, thanks to a focus on high-quality movies and TV. Removing "HBO" from the name and bringing in Discovery's more reality TV-focused portfolio could dilute the product.

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Captainant

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3 hours ago, Chopper said:

That's what everyone seems to be expecting. The name HBO will be gone. The people from Discovery who took over the company are in charge now. They've been busy running CNN into the ground and are now turning their full attention to HBO. Big press conference tomorrow to announce their plans.

 

1 hour ago, Texzilla58 said:

I get HBO max free with my att phone plan. I buy discovery+. I am preparing to get fucked.

[laughs in profit margins]

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Augustus

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I'm looking forward to the White House Plumbers series, though I'm disappointed it looks like a comedy, which might be appropriate for the situation, given that it all fell apart and ultimately led to the resignation of a US President because of a piece of tape left over a door bolt.

I read Will, LIddy's autobiography back in the 80's, and used to listen to him on talk radio back in the late 90's and I was surprised at how entertaining he was.  

He was supposed to play Clarence Beeks in Trading Places, but backed out when he learned that the character got buttfucked by a gorilla.  So they had the dude who played the role, the Breakfast Club detention teacher dude, reading Will in a scene on the train.

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6 hours ago, Red Five said:

So HBO is removing the HBO from the name of their streaming service? 

1 hour ago, Deej said:

Well, it was a good run while it lasted, HBO. 

25 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

Imagine having a brand like HBO who has spent decades producing the best television in the world and thinking we should get rid of that. 

It's so much worse - Discovery is hell-bent on gutting HBO of stuff that can be licensed on other platforms like fucking Tubi and Roku (in case you are wondering why shows like Westworld have disappeared).

https://www.engadget.com/westworld-roku-tubi-warner-bros-discovery-ad-supported-channels-183905525.html

I'm so fucking pissed I renewed HBO for the year back in December.

 

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HamsterHookah

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32 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

Imagine having a brand like HBO who has spent decades producing the best television in the world and thinking we should get rid of that. 

@Chopper pasted an interesting reason why they did this on the business of hollywood thread, but I'll post it here since it's specific to HBO, and it does make sense, especially the bolded:

Quote

 

It is not yet clear how existing subscribers will migrate from HBO Max to the new service once it’s available. That is one of the topics that executives are expected to address on Wednesday. Discovery+ will remain a stand-alone app.

Some analysts question whether combining Discovery’s library of programming with the scripted shows available on HBO Max will put the new combined app over the top. Julia Alexander, the director of strategy at the research firm Parrot Analytics, said she was “skeptical that it will drive the level of subscriber acquisition that some on Wall Street are looking for.”

But, she argued, it will help with time spent on the app, pointing to data that many subscribers use streaming services for ambient television experiences — the kind of watch-it-while-you-fold-the-laundry fare that is Discovery’s bread and butter with brands like HGTV and the Food Network.

“You’re opening HBO Max once a week and might not open it up for the rest of the week,” she said. “They want you to open it two, three or four times a week. Unscripted programming creates that increased engagement.”

Indeed, even though HBO has been on a delirious hot streak — one hit after the next going back to August, including “The House of the Dragon,” “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us” and, now, “Succession” — the amount of time spent on the app in the United States is toiling in the lower-middle ranks of the top streaming services.

According to Nielsen, 1.3 percent of the total minutes spent by Americans using television was with HBO Max in February, a fraction of what YouTube (7.9 percent), Netflix (7.3 percent), Hulu (3.3 percent) and Amazon Prime (3 percent) garnered. HBO Max instead finds itself in the same neighborhood as Comcast’s Peacock and the Fox Corporation’s free advertising-supported streaming service, Tubi.

If there is more time spent on the new service, Ms. Alexander said, that could help prevent subscribers from canceling the service when the company inevitably raises the price. And it could increase revenue from advertisers on the streaming service’s lower-priced tier.

And removing HBO from the streaming service’s name also signals an ambition to attract more subscribers.

“Dropping HBO from the name is cementing that ‘we’re not just a home for premium programming,’” Ms. Alexander said. “‘We’re the home for anything you want to watch.’”

 

I think there are a ton of people like me, as I mentioned in the other thread,  who gladly pay the HBO subscription to open the app once a week for my show (Succession) and that's it. Once the show ends, I'll cancel my subscription again. I can see how trying to be more sticky is important these days to Wall St. and investors, and to be growing outside of the small and intelligent viewer who likes prestige shows and into more reality-shows and stupid vapid crap that HGTV and Cooking Channel competitions do all day.

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Reading the email they sent out to everybody, reading their comments at this press conference, they are trying really fucking hard to make everybody think nothing is changing, yet they are making changes to the recommendation algorithms and how content is presented to us, and we already know they've been getting rid of past content.  The leads are pushing this whole "our research indicates everybody loves both scripted/prestige and unscripted reality shows, so we are going to make sure that everybody will have recommendations for prestige and reality shows after they watch something."

The problem is that their "reality" shows are cheap as hell to make, so that's what they are going to probably push on us, because if it's one thing these people are pushing, it's to do everything as cheaply as possible.

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Wulaw Horn

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On 4/4/2023 at 9:56 AM, Js1 said:

It’s her stuff so I completely understand that. She sucks monkey ass but keeping the series in line with her source material is important. I’ve been reading the books again / watching the movies as I go along and the movies just did such a disservice to the books. 

Yeah, but… those books were 800 or 900 pages long toward the end. Almost impossible to turn that much stuff into a coherent 2.5 hour movie. 

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I can see it now, in a few years if they do this, you can finish an episode of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and then it'll immediately recommend "90 Day Fiance" and "My Husband is a Piece of Shit" and "I Have 25 Cats, Should I Get More"? because the viewers of the last three may have watched something with Harry Potter, so it assumes all HP viewers will be interested in them.

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Celery Man

Celery Man 20996

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I'm so curious to see what exactly they do. I suspect I'm not abnormal for an HBO Max subscriber in that I have consistently paid for HBO as an a la carte offering for... 15 years? I mean, as soon as I started paying for cable at my first apartment, I checked the box next to HBO so that I would have HBO. I watched premieres of shit like Game of Thrones live on TV and recorded episodes of shows i wanted to watch on my DVR. And then they started offering an app, or... an on demand channel? I honestly don't know how it worked, but it just gradually transitioned from "I pay for HBO as a TV Channel" to "HBO is one of the streaming apps I have", but the consistent thing throughout is that HBO is the part that I give a shit about. If it goes from HBO Max to simply Max and they go much further at all down the path of removing HBO content (I really don't give a shit about Westworld although it is alarming), this is no longer HBO and it will go from "I have always paid for HBO which either has my favorite show or is probably about to have my favorite show" to... maybe we'll turn this on for a month when all the Harry Potters are out. Like any of the other B or C tier streaming services.

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23 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

If it goes from HBO Max to simply Max and they go much further at all down the path of removing HBO content (I really don't give a shit about Westworld although it is alarming), this is no longer HBO and it will go from "I have always paid for HBO which either has my favorite show or is probably about to have my favorite show" to... maybe we'll turn this on for a month when all the Harry Potters are out. Like any of the other B or C tier streaming services.

It's alarming because it maybe the canary in the coal mine - it is/was an HBO top-10 most watched show ever (if it dropped out of the top 10, it's only in the last year or two)..

The accountants have decided that rather than just leaving these shows on "Max" where people can revisit them in the future, or maybe they find a new audience with younger people, the model going forward could be if a show is older and/or not getting enough views (whatever number they come up with), then it will be auctioned/licensed off, so you might have to watch Tubi, or Roku or another service (there's a lot of smaller services now that are buying up rights to older or less-popular stuff). It could also mean the Netflix model kicks in and stuff can be canceled quickly, so that the HBO of old that would take risks and build an audience over a season or two is gone in favor of the Discovery Reality TV people who are always tinkering and rebooting their shows.

It wouldn't suck so bad if they didn't keep charging us the same prices, while at the same time reducing content that they want to license elsewhere and/or replace with shitty reality TV.

We are liable to end up with a Max that has Game of Thrones shows, Harry Potter shows, maybe Euphoria and maybe a few shows like Band of Brothers, and then you'll have Sopranos, Succession, and Veep on Netflix, True Detective and Chernobyl and Westworld on Tubi, The Wire on Roku, etc.  The Cartoon Network stuff could get pushed off to one of the large animated services, and if James Gunn doesn't figure out the DC Universe quickly, we could end up with DC movies and shows scattered across multiple services.

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If I was in charge, I'd keep the HBO branding, lock down everything HBO has produced and keep it on HBO (and if it was licensed elsewhere, bring it back when licenses expire), and I'd do the same with older Warner Brothers content (including DC stuff) and the other channels.  I would be doing everything possible to build up a massive library, not looking for stuff to license out to other services.  I might even consider buying a few of the smaller niche services (perhaps an anime service).  Disney is doing this stuff as we speak, and has been, and has even spent tens of billions to increase their content library.

And then I'd rebuild the app.  Disney, for all of the shit I give them, it's fucking easy to find stuff - there's the Star Wars area, Marvel area, National Geographic area, Disney Jr area, etc.).  HBO's current app is not always friendly in terms of casual users hopping on and looking for something.  It's better than it was but they could do a better job of creating areas/portals to various properties.

As for the Discovery/History/TLC reality shit, create a fucking portal for the reality shit, and charge people $6 or $10 a month for that, and if they pay, have the portal turned on in the HBOMax app, and if they don't pay, the portal never appears for existing HBOMax customers.  Provide a few free shows every month if you want to try and lure them in.

This whole thing fucking feels like because the Discovery/TLC people are in charge, and because they are insecure about their programming versus what's on HBO Max now, that they are going to bury that labeling because they think their cheap-ass reality TV show shit is better than Game of Thrones or whatever.

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Deej

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On 4/11/2023 at 5:17 PM, Augustus said:

I'll be happy when somebody just finally packages all these streaming services together and provides them as one product, and then perhaps does away with the need for glitchy wifi by just running it all through a cable directly to my home.

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Celery Man

Celery Man 20996

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Every now and then I try something I don’t know anything about on HBO and discover shows I love like Crashing, How To, and High Maintenance. It would be a bummer if they held on to the marquee deals series but parceled out the smaller shows across the random ad supported platforms.

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11522

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They’ve been slipping a lot of CW shows into the Just Added feed. I can’t even remember the last time they dropped a new movie I wanted to watch. The HBO Saturday Night movies were very good just a few short years ago. 
 

They really don’t have shit for a long time after Succession ends. Their subscription numbers will fall off. 
 

I’ll watch White House Plumbers in May, and the probably pause my sub for the summer. 

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