Paramount Global and WB Discovery in merger talks

[payn]

I don't get netflix, not sure why anyone pays for netflix and their prices. Doesn't seem like you get enough of a return for what it offers.

Then again, I pay for Paramount+ /showtime these days so...who am I kidding (though as they said two years ago, it's the star trek man...it's the star trek!)

Netflix is now getting many of the former exclusives from other streamers as they start looking for more revenue. If you just have to have one streamer -- and aren't deeply invested in Star Trek -- it's probably the one to get.

This. A lot of syndication has come back to Netflix raising its value. They have most of the AMC stuff now and just took over Walking Dead Dead city. Not the best of AMC but NF is buying shows again.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe. But to be clear, if vindictively screwing over a person actually cost the company, execs engaging in it would get the boot. Fiduciary duty to investors, and all that. Screwing folks over may be a desired coincidence, but not the main goal.

True. I'm more used to Hollywood accounting being used to screw over other creatives.

What you describe is more accounting 101. Farmers here are all broke but they drive 100k trucks and their kids qualify for student allowances. Poor souls can only afford 1 business trip to Europe this year.

Jack Nicolson became one of the highest paid actors ever when he took a cut of the gross on 1989s Batman. Harder to hide box office gross.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sadly, they get more eyeball time from us on junk food like The Circle, which is astonishingly (and wonderfully) dumb. And definitely incredibly inexpensive to produce.

Is that sad? Let a thousand Circles bloom, to severely paraphrase Mao. Also I kind of enjoyed the first 2-3 seasons of The Circle US (it's actually a British format, invented by Channel 4 here, and licenced or whatever by Netflix - I found the British version unwatchable because I just don't like watching British people on that kind of show - Australians are actually the best for that kind of show, but failing that Americans > British for those shows), it only went downhill when the people signing up for it understood the format too well (so became sorta "competent" at it, yawn).

I'd much rather Netflix made a lot of cheap and diverse shows than blowing hundreds of millions on absolute trash that is so bad it couldn't even attract the audience of a typical Netflix faux-blockbuster movie (I'd prefer scripted over unscripted but still). I mean, I don't know about in the US, but in the UK, a place no pickier than the US about quality, it only lasted like 2-3 days at the #1 spot on movies, which is practically unheard-of, and is now at #4 behind < checks notes > 2015's Hotel Transylvania 2... I suspect that a lot of very bad or mediocre Netflix movies made on a fraction of the budget did a lot better than that. I honestly didn't expect it to do that badly despite being so bad. Either the basic package is inherently unappealing (Pratt, Brown, mascot robot war, etc.), or word of mouth really sunk it (or some combination thereof), because bad reviews didn't ever stop a Netflix movie before.

No. It is for avoiding paying taxes by having losses on the books that reduce supposed profits.

This was my understanding also, certainly re: the primary purpose.

This. A lot of syndication has come back to Netflix raising its value. They have most of the AMC stuff now and just took over Walking Dead Dead city. Not the best of AMC but NF is buying shows again.

Yeah this is interesting. It's pretty bad for the movie/TV industry in a lot of ways, because Netflix is spending a lot less money on stuff that actually keeps actors/writers/showrunners/etc. in work (not just already-overtaxed SFX technicians/artists), but it returns Netflix to more like what it was, say, a decade or more ago, which is a service which just has a lot of pretty-watchable TV and movies on it. Often stuff you knew was good but missed for whatever reason the first time around. It's valuable (more valuable than terrible "Netflix Originals") but I don't know if you can carry a streamer that costs as insane an amount as 4K Netflix does on it in the longer term. Maybe the idea will be to slow the price hikes but I doubt it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Is that sad? Let a thousand Circles bloom, to severely paraphrase Mao. Also I kind of enjoyed the first 2-3 seasons of The Circle US (it's actually a British format, invented by Channel 4 here, and licenced or whatever by Netflix - I found the British version unwatchable because I just don't like watching British people on that kind of show - Australians are actually the best for that kind of show, but failing that Americans > British for those shows), it only went downhill when the people signing up for it understood the format too well (so became sorta "competent" at it, yawn).

I never cease to be amazed at how many people, seven seasons in, are shocked by the basic format of the show, even as they all clearly have grown up in a media environment created by the finale of the original US Survivor season.

Everyone knows what an alliance is and expects everyone else to be in them but are shocked, shocked, that they are being asked to vote out other players so early in the game.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I never cease to be amazed at how many people, seven seasons in, are shocked by the basic format of the show, even as they all clearly have grown up in a media environment created by the finale of the original US Survivor season.

Everyone knows what an alliance is and expects everyone else to be in them but are shocked, shocked, that they are being asked to vote out other players so early in the game.

The trouble with Americans in these is that I feel like a lot of the weepy "IM SO SHOCKED AND HURT" stuff is either totally fake-as-hell, or just fairly naked and unpersuasive attempts at taking the moral high ground/pretending to be "good people" (as if this wasn't a game show!), or just like, naivete of a truly bizarre kind (rarely). British people actually do it less on our version of The Circle, but British people are just inherently slightly annoying (to me!) on game shows for other reasons so the US version remains preferable.

This is why I swear by Aussie Survivor, they have so much more fun with it, and are much more accepting that it's a game and less given to weepy displays of blatant sentiment-based manipulation (not that it doesn't happen - it's just a lot less effective and a lot more likely to be called out without faux-outrage from the manipulator and their buds than US Survivor). Sadly there is no The Circle Australia, which would probably be the best version.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The trouble with Americans in these is that I feel like a lot of the weepy "IM SO SHOCKED AND HURT" stuff is either totally fake-as-hell, or just fairly naked and unpersuasive attempts at taking the moral high ground/pretending to be "good people" (as if this wasn't a game show!), or just like, naivete of a truly bizarre kind (rarely). British people actually do it less on our version of The Circle, but British people are just inherently slightly annoying (to me!) on game shows for other reasons so the US version remains preferable.

This is why I swear by Aussie Survivor, they have so much more fun with it, and are much more accepting that it's a game and less given to weepy displays of blatant sentiment-based manipulation (not that it doesn't happen - it's just a lot less effective and a lot more likely to be called out without faux-outrage from the manipulator and their buds than US Survivor). Sadly there is no The Circle Australia, which would probably be the best version.

I would 100% watch Circle Australia.

I'm also fascinated by the logistics of the Circle. Is everyone just sitting around most of the day in silence in their apartments? Are they allowed to go out on their balconies? If so, do they stagger when they're allowed outside so they can't talk to each other?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm also fascinated by the logistics of the Circle. Is everyone just sitting around most of the day in silence in their apartments? Are they allowed to go out on their balconies?

Yeah this is a great question. I know from the UK version that they weren't allowed on the balconies, but were allowed to go to a gym in a staggered way (which was fairly rarely shown, I think). In the UK version you're also allowed to bring non-electronic entertainment - i.e. books, puzzles, etc.

They also are given alarms to wake up etc. by the showrunners, told that it's lunch time and so on, but not given actual clocks. Nevertheless at least in the UK the showrunners have screwed up multiple times on that, like letting one guy in with his watch on.

I also learned that because America is a country with an unusually high proportion of weirdos who think their laws should (or worse, simply "do") apply everywhere, even in the UK version of The Circle (which predates the Netflix version), they enforced a drinking age of 21 because apparently otherwise US networks showing it would get into trouble with aforementioned Chauvinist lunatics for showing """""""underage""""""" drinking.

 

[Zardnaar]

The trouble with Americans in these is that I feel like a lot of the weepy "IM SO SHOCKED AND HURT" stuff is either totally fake-as-hell, or just fairly naked and unpersuasive attempts at taking the moral high ground/pretending to be "good people" (as if this wasn't a game show!), or just like, naivete of a truly bizarre kind (rarely). British people actually do it less on our version of The Circle, but British people are just inherently slightly annoying (to me!) on game shows for other reasons so the US version remains preferable.

This is why I swear by Aussie Survivor, they have so much more fun with it, and are much more accepting that it's a game and less given to weepy displays of blatant sentiment-based manipulation (not that it doesn't happen - it's just a lot less effective and a lot more likely to be called out without faux-outrage from the manipulator and their buds than US Survivor). Sadly there is no The Circle Australia, which would probably be the best version.

Watching Australian survivor lol same reason.

Current seasons very messy and fun. Makes US season look anemic

UK Traitors also better than US version.