Established streaming industry leaders like Netflix and Amazon are facing more competition than ever. Now legacy entertainment giants are in the game with their own subscription services, like Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and the Disney Plus / Hulu / ESPN Plus bundle, while Apple TV Plus attacks around the edges. Meanwhile, the rise of ad-supported free platforms like Roku Channel and Pluto TV has attracted enough attention that Plex, YouTube, and Amazon’s Freevee are trying to get a chunk of the action too.
He’s withdrawn financial backing from the bid, which may leave it floundering, and the Warner Bros. board has recommended shareholders reject the hostile offer. It looks like everyone involved is beginning to realize what The Verge’s own Liz Lopatto pointed out yesterday: “What Paramount is doing doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
Update: The Warner Bros. board has recommended rejecting the Paramount bid.
Its historic satellite imagery just happened to catch the set of Apple TV’s Pluribus during filming, revealing a big moment from the show’s seventh episode, which aired last week. Here’s a shot of the cul de sac set caught by Google during construction, but click through for a later photo that spoils the show.
Meta had already announced the streaming service was coming to its headsets, but now it’s here.
As hokey as the first few episodes of Stranger Things’ final season felt, the new trailer for the next batch dropping on December 25th makes it seem like the series is stepping its game up as it races towards the finish line.
The company didn’t share specific numbers, but it still seems like a meaningful milestone. Guess I should watch it.
Free, ad-supported streamer Tubi is now compatible with Matter Casting, making it the first app other than Prime Video to adopt the standard, which is currently only available on Amazon Fire TV devices.
Will you use it? Maybe not, but at least it’s an option, unlike Netflix.
[TubiTV Corporate]
New seasons of Hijack, The Last Thing He Told Me, Shrinking, and Monarch are all on the docket as well as the debut of the film Eternity. Personally, I’m anticipating Hijack the most; the first season was so dumb but also was way more gripping than I expected.
The third movie in the whodunit series is now streaming on Netflix. You can also check out my review of Wake Up Dead Man (it’s good!) and an interview with director Rian Johnson about why he doesn’t plan in advance and why the movies are always rooted in the present.
We don’t even know who will own HBO Max this time next year, but the streamer is putting on a good face with this sizzle reel of new footage from upcoming seasons of House of the Dragon, Euphoria, Dune: Prophecy and Lanterns — all of which are coming in 2026.
Disney Plus is about to become filled with uninspired garbage.
Everyone’s favorite movie-rating social media platform has entered the video rental game. Unlike other rental services, this one is highly curated, launching with just nine films. Of those, four have never been released. Prices are a little all over: some movies, like 1991’s Poison by Todd Haynes, are only $3.99 for a 48-hour rental, while Unreleased Gems like the recent SXSW fave It Ends are $19.99.
Netflix may be the frontrunner now, but the war for Warner Bros. could end in a number of different ways.
The new teaser for season 2 of Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series is full of iffy-looking action, but it gives us a very promising look at Miya Cech’s take on Toph.
And maybe Jared Kushner too? Whether Netflix or Paramount gets Warner Bros., it’s all heading in the same direction.
Jeff Williams, who recently retired from Apple, will stand for election “as a new independent director at the company’s 2026 annual meeting of shareholders,” Disney says. The board will be expanded to 11 members.
[The Walt Disney Company]
Rian Johnson’s latest mystery trades crowd-pleasing spectacle for something that pushes the series in a new direction.
As Ted Sarandos and David Ellison play out a public spat over whose turn it is to play with Warner Bros., while trying to impress Trump and the regulators along the way, just remember that the real winners at the end will be HBO Max subscribers.
sam flynn:
It’s really fun how we all get to sit around and watch these idiots toss gold bars back and forth across Trump’s desk while waiting to see if an HBO Max subscription will be $80 or $100 a month this time next year.
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Since Netflix announced that it was the frontrunner to buy Warner Bros., David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance has been getting more hostile in its bids to own the legacy studio. But Semafor reports that Paramount’s tactics have raised eyes in Washington, where some think Ellison is banking on favoritism from Trump’s Justice Department.
After launching a hostile bid for the entertainment giant, Paramount’s Ellison told CNBC that Netflix’s deal to buy part of WBD would create a company with “unprecedented market power:”
When you combine the number one streamer with the number three streamer, that creates a company that has unprecedented market power, north of 400 million subscribers. The next largest competitor is Disney, with just under 200 million. That’s bad for Hollywood, that’s bad for the creative community, that’s bad for consumers.
Warner Bros. has a long history of bad buyouts and mergers, but maybe Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has been watching a little too much Arrested Development on his own platform.
Bebopper:
Arrested Development but it might work for us .gif
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Despite Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ efforts to woo the president last month, Trump said on Sunday that plans to combine the streamer with Warner Bros. “could be a problem.” Trump said that Netflix already has a “very big market share,” which will “go up by a lot” if the $83 billion buyout goes ahead.
