DT’s weekly entertainment show, Between the Streams, is your guide to all of the hottest, most important, and (of course) dumbest new developments in streaming and entertainment, providing a handy recap of the week that was, and a preview for what’s ahead. Follow us here every Friday at 2 p.m. PT, or add us via RSS, iTunes, or Stitcher at the links below to take BtS on the road!
This week is another dismal one at the box office as we head into the weekend, with a number of duds — not the least of which is Scarlett Johansson’s attempt at yet another raunch-com about killing a stripper. But that doesn’t really matter because, let’s face it, TV is freaking awesome right now. And frankly, if you’re not watching The Handmaid’s Tale, you’re doing it wrong.
Hulu’s first real home run original, which just concluded its first season, is one of the most fascinating dystopian dramas to hit the airwaves in years. The storyline reaches at the heart of one of our greatest fears, the loss of a fair and functioning democracy, and the fact that it’s brilliantly shot and loaded with superb performances doesn’t hurt either. Given that this Elizabeth Moss-led powerhouse just finished its first run, we’ll spend some time at the top of the show talking about just how compelling it really is, as well as pondering some of the other great dystopian stories from the world of entertainment.
Of course, we can’t ignore the box office completely this week, so we’ll guide you through the muck, which includes an apparently mediocre shark thriller, a seemingly forgettable psychological thriller from Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, and the reportedly middling 2Pac biopic All Eyez On Me. See what they did there, with the “Z” in “eyes?”
Thankfully, there are plenty of other new developments in the world of entertainment to ponder this week, including the addition of ginger queen-bee Jessica Chastain to the latest installment in the ever-sprawling X-Men franchise, X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Chastain is reportedly playing the villain in the new film, which will serve as the sequel to X-Men: Apocalypse. A consummate actress who brings it to every role she takes on, Chastain should add some welcome clout to the franchise after Apocalypse’s relative stumble.
But that’s just a small part of what we’ll be discussing this week. We’ll also get into the Flatliners remake (which looks a lot like the Flatliners), a new Netflix series, a sneak peek at the latest Game of Thrones season, Hulu’s new interactive comedy, and much more.
So tune in at 2 p.m. PT, or take our podcast on the road via the links above!
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?