Slowly but surely, Netflix‘s crackdown on password sharing is reaching households one by one, like a menacing mudslide. Of course, as is to be expected from whatever stage of capitalism we’re currently living through, the streamer’s competitors wasted no time playing their hand via funny internet memes.
As for the land of television and film, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s true-to-form jump into the world of scripted television self-feeds the action hero’s legend, while an unexpected turn of events sees a Cannes critical success become the streamer’s latest long-term investment.
In a show of good faith, Prime Video and good ol’ Blockbuster kick Netflix while it’s down
After Netflix issued a statement on Tuesday reminding everyone of the imminent death of their accounts — once sharing passwords between households is effectively banned — the streamer’s main rivals instantly jumped at the opportunity to poke fun at their increasingly unpopular competitor.
Prime Video didn’t hold back, pulling up a now-infamous tweet dating back to 2017 where Netflix mused about how “love is sharing a password.” The fellow streaming platform, owned by Amazon, replied with an image of their profile selection page titled “Who’s watching?” where each username spells out the sentence: “Everyone who has our password.”
Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Blockbuster teased the former DVD rental company with a blast from the past. “A friendly reminder that when you used to rent videos from us. We didn’t care who you shared it with… As long as you returned it on time,” they tweeted.
FUBAR stars are all about Arnold Schwarzenegger
FUBAR‘s release on Netflix is in full swing, as the cast — including the Austrian Oak himself — spill the beans on what it was like on the set of the action-comedy series.
Monica Barbaro, who has had a chance to share the screen with two of the biggest action stars in history, Schwarzenegger and Tom Cruise, revealed just how different the two are on set. While Cruise asks questions about “every single piece of what’s going on,” Schwarzenegger believes ignorance is bliss. And, while the Top Gun leading man does push-ups between takes, the Terminator would rather smoke his cigar.
Jay Baruchel and Gabriel Luna also had a lot to say about working opposite a veteran like Schwarzenegger. Baruchel confessed to always feeling like a kid to the point where he’d have to remind himself not to just stand and stare at his childhood hero. Luna, who’s worked with the actor-turned-politician in the past in Terminator: Dark Fate, surprisingly (or not) named an entirely different film as his favorite Schwarzenegger hit — 1993’s Last Action Hero.
Netflix bids $11 million to ensure the North American rights to Todd Haynes’ May December
While Netflix has become synonymous with Stranger Things, Wednesday, and The Kissing Booth in the past few years, the streamer has always been a consistent bettor in auteur cinema from Martin Scorsese to Jane Campion and Andrew Dominik. The latest film to be distributed by the streamer is Todd Haynes’ May December, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
Netflix won an all-night auction for the rights to the film after it premiered at Cannes to an eight-minute standing ovation. The decision to shell out $11 million in a film that, despite receiving critical acclaim, will likely not compete against the likes of Barbie and Killers of the Flower Moon this awards season might feel surprising, especially in the midst of the platform’s financial problems, which have left a path of controversial series cancellations in its wake. In all fairness, as the home of Riverdale, it makes sense that Netflix would want to secure the movie that is expected to make Charles Melton the biggest star to come out of the CW show.
Published: May 26, 2023 10:00 pm