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Posted: |
May 11, 2012 - 8:37 AM
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By: |
dragon53
(Member)
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FRIDAY, MAY 11 THE AVENGERS---hypothetical repair cost for damages to midtown Manhattan incurred in the movie is $160 billion according to disaster assessment firm Kinetic Analysis Corp. By comparison, the firm said the repair cost for the September 11 terrorist attacks was $83 billion, Hurricane Katrina was $90 billion and the Japanese tsunami cost was $120 billion. The firm added, tongue-in-cheek, "Given the involvement of individuals considered deities in some cultures (Thor, Loki), there is even the potential to classify the event as an ‘act of God,’ though that designation would be subject to strenuous theological and legal debate." SWITCH---movie underway based on the Elmore Leonard novel about the wife of a wealthy Detroit developer who is kidnapped for ransom and then helps her kidnappers when he refuses to pay the ransom. Jennifer Aniston and Dennis Quaid star. ABC---renewed MODERN FAMILY, THE MIDDLE, SUBURGATORY, ONCE UPON A TIME, REVENGE, GREY'S ANATOMY, CASTLE, DANCING WITH THE STARS, SHARK TANK and THE BACHELOR. COUGAR TOWN was picked up by TBS. NBC---renewed 30 ROCK for Season 7 (its last), PARENTHOOD and COMMUNITY (only 13 episodes). GAME OF THRONES---FORBES magazine said the fantasy series is the most-pirated tv series. So far, Season 2 has been illegally downloaded 25 million times. The April 29 episode was downloaded 2.5 million times which is equivalent to almost $40 million in revenues for HBO. Also, Sean Bean was arrested by London police for sending harassing texts to his ex-wife Georgina Sutcliffe. RED 2---Catherine Zeta-Jones and Byung-Hun Lee will co-star with Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich in the sequel. SOLACE---Anthony Hopkins stars in this supernatural movie as a psychic doctor who helps the police hunt for a serial killer. SHADOW RUNNERS---movie underway at Sony Pictures about an ex-SEAL leading an elite team against a mysterious foe. Chris Hemsworth (THOR) is attached to star. COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER---Zooey Deschanel will play Loretta Lynn in an upcoming Broadway play based on her autobiography. A 1980 movie version starred Sissy Spacek. Deschanel has been replaced by Rachel McAdams in the time-travel movie ABOUT TIME. FROM THE DUST RETURNED---movie underway based on the Ray Bradbury anthology. MAGGIE---Chloe Moretz is in talks to star in this movie about a young girl who is slowly turning into a zombie after a plague strikes. ALL BY MY SIDE---unauthorized biomovie of Jimi Hendrix is underway starring Andrew Benjamin, Hayley Atwell (CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER) and Imogene Poots (FRIGHT NIGHT). Hendrix's estate does not approve of the biomovie and will not participate in it. THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN---movie in which an infertile mother finds her baby son growing in the soil. The new son magically brings happiness to those around him. Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton star. AGENT: CENTURY 21---comedy movie underway starring Cameron Diaz and Benecio del Toro in which a real estate agent gets involved with a Mexican drug cartel. THE 39 CLUES---Shawn Levy (REAL STEEL, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM) is in negotiations to direct this movie based on the children's book series about the world's most powerful family. The secret to their power can be found by finding 39 clues hidden around the world. THE STARVING GAMES---movie parody of THE HUNGER GAMES underway from the creators of MEET THE SPARTANS and DISASTER MOVIE.
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Re:AVENGERS destruction totals: If you're wondering how he eats and breathes And other science facts, Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show, I should really just relax
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Posted: |
May 11, 2012 - 9:39 PM
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By: |
JSWalsh
(Member)
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Why am I getting the sense that folks are blaming HBO for their property being stolen? HBO makes money from subscribers to its cable service who pay for the priviledge of seeing these programs first. The expense of putting these programs on is in large part recouped by HBO's cut from DVDs. So how are they to blame for their business model? It sure seems like folks are cutting their morality to match their desire to have a new entertainment product now! now! NOW!!!! I don't get it. We post thousands of threads against the horrors of stealing FSM CDs--is it only bad when "our guys" are stolen from, while HBO is an evil capitalist monster that's asking for trouble? If HBO wants to get out of the cable business and just be a direct-to-video outlet, I don't think we'll be seeing such things as GAME OF THRONES being made--look at all the direct-to-video/streaming garbage that is low-budget because that's what the demand will support. When someone pays for a premium cable service, one thing they're paying for is the specific shows on HBO they want, and then HBO hopes to capitalize on that by also premiering shows they hope their existing subscribers will ALSO like, and the cycle continues. I'm not bashing anyone here personally, I'm just skimming the posts from a couple of folks whose opinions I may not comment on but whose little avatars I recognize and who I respect as smart and polite posters here. But the attitude toward HBO in this instance is startling. If HBO continues to lose money like this, the alternative may not be to make the product available instantly to everyone, since that conflicts with all sorts of advertising models, for one thing--they might just get into the kind of studio-cable station argument that ends these expensive propositions in favor of something cheaper and more profitable using their current model (shows which appeal to audiences that don't steal so much, for example). I'm surprised by this response.
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Posted: |
May 11, 2012 - 10:03 PM
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By: |
Sirusjr
(Member)
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I don't see how the HBO situation described with Game of Thrones is remotely similar to the situation with downloading music. Most of the limited edition scores we talk about here are made available and anyone in the world can buy it when it is released. Sure it may take a few weeks to get to some people in Europe, but there is no market that is totally ignored. Plus, any new release score that isn't a limited edition release is available on iTunes and Amazon mp3 on the same time of release for those who prefer to buy them. Not to mention many show up on spotify or other legal streaming sites. HBO on the other hand, has one subscription model, that requires you to pay for a cable subscriptionand requires you to pay an additional amount for accessing all the HBO content. The thing is, the audience who wants to watch game of thrones but doesn't have cable (the people who are discussed as hopping on bittorrent to download new episodes) don't care about the rest of the HBO shows, and can easily access the majority of the other TV content they watch through legitimate outlets. Amazon and iTunes sell individual episodes as the shows air for the most part that any user can grab for something like $2 per episode. Plus, users who pay for Hulu Plus and other online streaming outlets can access a good amount of other content (though I'm not sure how soon after release they are available on there). So this segment of the audience has already made a conscious decision to not subscribe to cable and it is unlikely that they are interested enough in the rest of the HBO lineup (or even know what all HBO is showing) to pay for not only basic cable that they already don't want but also HBO's extra subscription fee. Nobody is suggesting that HBO should stop offering their shows through their traditional cable subscription method. There are plenty of people who pay for cable because they need to access their favorite sports teams or they watch enough content on TV to make it worth it (though mostly the older generation). Those people who also watch more than one show on HBO would then find it worthwhile to subscribe, like all the people who already do. The question is, whether HBO should just ignore an entire segment of the market--those who have decided they don't need cable and can do with the digital alternatives--or try to meet the needs of those users by offering an alternative way to legitimately purchase a single show. Clearly they are ignoring a huge source of potential revenue by not offering Game of Thrones through some sort of legitimate online distribution.
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Posted: |
May 11, 2012 - 10:16 PM
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By: |
JSWalsh
(Member)
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It's precisely like the CD situation because they are making a product and NO ONE has the RIGHT to it. If HBO felt like it, they could manufacture a million DVDs and then destroy them and never sell them--period. They never would, of course, but my point is it's their property. (This is basic stuff.) Because people really, really want it, they get to steal it? I read your post and it strikes me as a lot of rationalization to make HBO be seen as something they are not in order to make stealing their property seem like the lesser of two evils. That's bull--they are a business that is running business in a legal, ethical way. Someone really, REALLY wanting to own their product NOW instead of then it is legally available has no--zero--claim on that product. I can't understand why people can't just wait and buy it when it's made available. Are they going to die or explode if they don't see it RIGHT NOW? Making someone want their product is the basic practice of a commercial enterprise--"We have this cool thing you want, in order to get it, give us this amount of money and it's yours!" You don't pay, you don't get. This makes getting their station a valuable item, a product. Stealing that product because you don't want to abide by their legal method of distributing it simply isn't part of the deal.
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Honestly? I kind of get where HBO is coming from. Although there is no question that they are leaving a decent amount of money on the table by not making their original programming available to non-subscribers immediately after broadcast; on the other hand, I suspect most HBO subscribers are subscribing to the channel for the original programming. In the age of red box, netflix, cable on demand, and online rental sites like iTunes and amazon, who would honestly pay good money for movies that are mostly shown in pan and scan and have a corporate logo "watermark" showing at the bottom of the screen throughout most of the broadcast? If they made their original programming otherwise available, such as through $2 an episode purchasable online available after the conclusion of an episode, what is the point of subscribing to HBO? Although they are risking losing money from the illegal downloads, I suspect they risk losing a lot more by having their original programming available. Plus, the real question, which I don't know if anyone really knows the answer to, is how many of the people illegally downloading Game of Thrones honestly would opt to pay for a legal method of downloading the episodes as opposed to illegally downloading the episodes? I don't pretend to know the answer to this, but food for thought.
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