Paul (not his real name) has never seen the movie The Divide. He’s a horror buff and sometimes tries to find odd and decidedly bad flicks to watch with his wife. The Divide would have fit the bill. It made $16,700 at the box office – that amounts to about 2,100 tickets sold – and closed with $130,839 in the bank. It cost $3 million to make. → Read More
The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard is now available for viewing on YouTube. The entire one and a half-hour movie just premiered in Europe and is also available for download on the Pirate Bay. → Read More
Twitter has announced a couple of updates for its web service today, designed around media sharing. There’s a new interface for viewing photos, which provides a larger look at pictures without forcing users to leave the page thanks to a lightbox overlay, accessible when you click a photo from a profile page or in search results. And video from Vine, YouTube, Vimeo, and any other partner whose… → Read More
Apple has opened up movie purchase and rental options in a number of stores today, including a large number of countries in the EMEA region, as well as in Asia and Latin America. The new movie availability covers 42 new localized stores in total, smaller than the 56 markets where it officially opened new stores on Dec. 4, but nonetheless an impressive push to bring its media marketplace to new… → Read More
As you may have heard, Steve Jobs will be getting the Ashton Kutcher treatment in “jOBS”, the first biopic to be released since the Apple co-founder passed away last year. Not to be confused with Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Walter Isaacson’s biography, jOBS reportedly covers the forty “definitive” years of Jobs’ life, beginning in 1971. → Read More
Siri got nice little boost a few weeks ago when she (or he, depending on your locale) was updated to handle sports information, restaurant reservations and movie listings, but it seems the virtual assistant’s faculty with films will soon extend beyond just rattling off showtimes. According to a handful of images obtained by 9to5Mac, Siri will be able to help users buy movie tickets once iOS 6.1… → Read More
HBO GO’s Latin American expansion continues today, with the service’s launch in Columbia. The debut there follows the launch of HBO GO in Brazil earlier this year, where it saw 177,000 visits in its first week. In Columbia, the service is being made available to HBO/MAX subscribers on MiDIRECTV, but HBO says that it’s working with other pay TV operators in the region for future roll-outs.
The… → Read More
If you’re a Path user, you know that you can share the movies that you’re watching with your intimate group of friends and family. It’s not a feature that I’ve used a lot, even though I’m a huge movie freak. I can safely say that I’ve seen at least 50% of the movies ever released. That’s not really scientific, but Path has released some scientific information about the most watched movies as… → Read More
Already, apps are hitting the App Store with Passbook support, providing tickets, loyalty cards and coupons you can actually use. So I tried to do just that, using the newly updated Cineplex (Canadian theatre chain) app and my iPhone 4S, freshly updated to iOS 6. The experience wasn’t exactly as smooth as it might’ve been, and while I ultimately was able to get my ticket to Disney’s 3D Finding… → Read More
“IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry?” Steve Jobs asks us.
“No,” we cheer in unison.
“The entire information age?!?” He asks again, “Was George Orwell right about 1984?” Before we have the opportunity to answer again, the Apple CEO introduces the crowd to the famous 1984 commercial… → Read More
Berlin-based Foundd is a new movie recommendation service launching this week, which not only finds you movies you would like to watch, but also helps a group decide on a movie they can watch together. It’s an interesting twist on the concept of personalized recommendation engines, like those created by Netflix or Amazon, for example, which seemingly presume that watching movies is a solitary… → Read More
Last week I wrote about television; this week I’ve been thinking about Hollywood. Not least because a screenwriter with a pretty good track record recently attached himself to my squirrel book1 and is hoping to adapt it into a big animated movie. But it often takes five years or more to go from script to screen, so I can’t help wondering–will Hollywood as we know it still be around by… → Read More
Amazon is continuing to grow its collection of streaming video titles at Amazon Prime Instant Video, and is today announcing another new agreement with Paramount Pictures bringing “hundreds” of new movies to the service. This deal isn’t as large as March’s partnership with Discovery, which saw some 3,000 new titles added, but it does introduce what are arguably more big-name movies. Included in… → Read More
The Stix project is just a concept now, but what a concept it is. It’s essentially a way for glasses-wearers to enjoy 3D movies without having to put on oddly-shaped and potentially ugly 3D glasses.
The Stix peel off a piece of backing plastic and fit right on your real glasses. When you’re ready to face the real world again you simply peel them off. Lucy Jung and Daejin Ahn designed the… → Read More
Nicholas Sparks, the bestselling novelist and screenwriter known for hits such as The Notebook and A Walk To Remember, is currently on a nationwide tour to promote The Lucky One, the latest movie to be adapted from one of his books. Right now he is making the rounds in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and we were really pleased when he agreed to swing by TechCrunch TV for an interview this… → Read More
Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker was at SXSW this past weekend, where his JuntoBox Films studio — which combines crowdsourcing social media technology with traditional film production — announced it has greenlit its first movie. Watch his interview with TechCrunch TV to see him discuss how technology is democratizing the filmmaking process, how Hollywood is slowly getting over its… → Read More
There’s a new startup called Tugg launching today — it’s led by Nicolas Gonda, who was a producer on The Tree Of Life, and it promises audience members that they can create their own movie screenings at local theaters.
When I asked why theaters would want to do this, Gonda and his co-founder Pablo Gonzalez (they’re CEO and COO, respectively) said via email that the idea came from Gonda’s work… → Read More
NXP Software, developer of the CineXPlayer mobile application, is launching a new iOS app for recording and converting video into 3D. The app, VideoCam3D, lets you record in both blue/red and split screen 3D and works in conjunction with the CineXPlayer video viewing app, which also supports 3D movie playback. → Read More
Walt Disney Studios and YouTube have struck deal which will bring hundreds of Disney movies to YouTube, starting today. The new partnership between the two companies includes movies from Disney, Disney-Pixar and DreamWorks Studios. The films, some of which have already arrived on YouTube, are available to rent starting at $1.99. → Read More
Add this site to your bookmarks because I guarantee you, at some point, you’re going to need it. CanIStream.it is a new search engine that shows you where you can stream, rent, download and buy movies. The site checks the libraries at Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and Hulu and provides links to the appropriate listings. And if a movie isn’t available, you can sign up for CanIStream.it, set a reminder… → Read More
Although, arguably, the second Cars was sub-par, it’s nice to see how Skywalker Sound designed the sounds for the vrooming, racing Maters, Lightnings, and British spy cars in the movie. → Read More
I’m not going to get my hopes up – they’ve been promising a Neuromancer movie for years and, I fear, no one will be able to the book justice – but Vincenzo Natali, director of Splice and Cube, says he is in pre-production on William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel and they will soon begin filming in Canada, Istanbul, Tokyo, and London. → Read More
Variety reports that French developer Ubisoft (Prince of Persia, Assassin’s Creed, Vin Diesel – Wheelman) has established a sub-company, Ubisoft Motion Pictures, that will be in charge of adapting its games into movies. I’m guessing Ubi isn’t investing hundreds of millions in sets, property, cameras, and such, and this is really more of an administrative thing. Its major… → Read More
It must be an absolute nightmare being a Hollywood executive in 2011. Four big studios (20th Century Fox, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.) have announced plans to introduce a premium video-on-demand service, to debut on DirecTV next month as “Home Premiere,” that will screen movies a mere 60 days after their theatrical debut. Renting such a movie will set you back $30. And if you think… → Read More
Here’s a fun one for your Thursday afternoon enjoyment. It looks like Universal Studios is currently shopping around a script to re-make the Doom movie, only this time it will be shot in 3D. Will Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson return? (That’s him to the left, cutting a promo on John Cena, as you do.) Unknown. Will the movie be nothing more than empty action? Almost certainly. → Read More
Here, allow me to ruin your Thursday for you: the production company behind such films as The Blind Side and The Book of Eli is planning to resurrect the Blade Runner franchise! Yay! → Read More
The Motion Picture Association of America says [PDF] the movie industry had its biggest year ever last year. This, despite the fact that folks like the “US Copyright Group” have gone after people for ruining said industry. Down is up, black is white, and the New York Mets are a well-run organization. → Read More
You’ve all seen it before: Apple products in movies. They’re everywhere, from the Mac that save the day in Independence Day to Sex and the City. According to the wiki on product placement, Apple does not pay for this, but also doesn’t say how they get in there. Last year, Apple products showed up in 30% of top movies; but the trend is decreasing — 2009 was 46%, 2008 at 50%. Many companies have… → Read More
The next, and supposedly final, Transformers movie is due for release on July 1, but how can you have a popcorn movie without the popcorn? In this case “the popcorn” is Transformers themed 3D glasses. Hmm. → Read More
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