By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Turner And Criterion Developing Streaming FilmStruck For Fall 2016

Turner to Launch New Streaming Movie Service:
FilmStruck
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and the Criterion Collection Collaborate to Develop Turner’s First Domestic Direct-To-Consumer Streaming Product, Launching in Fall 2016
FilmStruck Video Preview: filmstruck.com
Global media company Turner is launching the company’s first direct-to-consumer product in the U.S., called FilmStruck. This brand new subscription video on-demand service for film aficionados, developed and managed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in collaboration with the Criterion Collection, will feature a comprehensive and constantly refreshed library of films comprised of an eclectic mix of contemporary and classic arthouse, indie, foreign and cult films. FilmStruck will also be the new exclusive streaming home for the critically acclaimed and award-winning Criterion Collection, which will include the Criterion Channel, a new premium service programmed and curated by the Criterion team. FilmStruck will allow viewers to watch movies anywhere and anytime on the device of their choice, in a completely ad-free environment, and is slated to launch in fall 2016.
FilmStruck’s impressive library will feature a deep roster of films from such celebrated indie studios as Janus Films, Flicker Alley, Icarus, Kino, Milestone and Zeitgeist, along with movies from Hollywood’s major movie studios including Warner Bros. Among the hundreds of critically acclaimed and award-winning titles to be featured on FilmStruck are Seven Samurai, A Hard Day’s Night, A Room With A View, Blood Simple, My Life As A Dog, Mad Max, Breaker Morant and The Player.
FilmStruck is the latest move in Turner’s overall strategy to innovate beyond the traditional television ecosystem by providing rich viewing experiences that drive engagementacross all platforms. Today’s news follows a string of groundbreaking announcements for the company, such as the formation of ELEAGUE, Turner’s new eSports league created in partnership with WME | IMG and set to launch this summer; Turner’s recent investment in Mashable, which includes access to both content and valuable consumer data; Turner and CBS’s wide-ranging, multiplatform contract extension for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship; and the launch of CNN’s Great Big Story, which combines video storytelling custom-built for social distribution with integrated advertising.
“At Turner, we are dedicated to engaging fans wherever they are, and we’re investing aggressively in content, new capabilities and new businesses to achieve that goal,” said John Martin, chairman and CEO of Turner. “FilmStruck is a terrific example of our strategy to meet consumer demand for great content across all screens. It’s tailor-made for the diehard movie enthusiasts who craves a deep, intimate experience with independent, foreign, and arthouse films. And it takes advantage of TCM’s powerful curation capabilities, as well as its proven track record in building a long-term relationship with passionate film fans.”
“TCM is leading Turner’s strategic move into the direct-to-consumer business with a truly differentiated and distinct streaming product that adds tremendous value to our portfolio,” said Coleman Breland, president of TCM and Turner Content Distribution. “Together with our partners at the Criterion Collection, we are creating a must-have, premium film brand that will draw from the most celebrated movie libraries in the world.”
“Criterion is teaming up with TCM to launch an arthouse film lovers’ dream streaming service,” said Peter Becker, president of the Criterion Collection. “Working with TCM’s programming team, we’ll present a broad, constantly changing cross-section of Criterion titles on FilmStruck, a platform designed from the start to present films with the kind of robust supplemental features that Criterion is known for. The addition of the premium Criterion Channel will offer subscribers the most comprehensive Criterion experience ever available anywhere, including a steady stream of exclusive original content and archival discoveries, plus continual access to more than 1,000 films from the Janus Films library, many unavailable on disc or anywhere else. We’re very excited to be joining forces with TCM to make FilmStruck the streaming service serious movie fans have been waiting for.”
Additional information is available on the FilmStruck website at www.filmstruck.com.
Connect with FilmStruck
About the Criterion Collection
Since 1984, the Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, has been dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. Over the years, as we moved from laserdisc to DVD, Blu-ray disc, and online streaming, we’ve seen a lot of things change, but one thing has remained constant: our commitment to publishing the defining moments of cinema for a wider and wider audience. The foundation of the collection is the work of such masters of cinema as Renoir, Godard, Kurosawa, Cocteau, Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Fuller, Lean, Kubrick, Lang, Sturges, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Ozu, Sirk, Buñuel, Powell and Pressburger. Each film is presented uncut, in its original aspect ratio, as its maker intended it to be seen. Every time we start work on a film, we track down the best available film elements in the world, use state-of-the-art telecine equipment and a select few colorists capable of meeting our rigorous standards, then take time during the film-to-video digital transfer to create the most pristine possible image and sound. Whenever possible, we work with directors and cinematographers to ensure that the look of our releases does justice to their intentions. Our supplements enable viewers to appreciate Criterion films in context, through audio commentaries by filmmakers and scholars, restored director’s cuts, deleted scenes, documentaries, shooting scripts, early shorts, and storyboards. To date, more than 150 filmmakers have made our library of Director Approved DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and laserdiscs the most significant archive of contemporary filmmaking available to the home viewer.
About Turner

Turner, a Time Warner company, which creates and programs branded news, entertainment, sports, animation and young adult multi-platform content for consumers around the world. Turner brands and businesses include CNN/U.S., HLN, CNN International and CNN.com, TBS, TNT, TCM, truTV, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, Turner Sports, Bleacher Report, iStream Planet and ELEAGUE.
Be Sociable, Share!

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon