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 or add us via RSS, iTunes, or Stitcher at the links above to take BtS on the road!
Another week has passed, and another mediocre box office weekend is about to begin — man, do we need to get to the holiday season already. We’ll begin today’s show with your Weekend Box Office Preview, and while it’s still looking a bit grim, there is hope as The Magnificent Seven looks to be a fun, if not slightly underwhelming debut. Look, this film has Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, and Vince D’Onofrio working together — so how bad could it be? While it’s hovering around the 60 percent mark on Rotten Tomatoes, our own Rick Marshall saw the movie and really dug it.
The Magnificent Seven (essentially a reboot of two previous films) sets up Denzel as its lead hero for much of the film, according to Rick, but it also does a good job of fleshing out the other characters in the ensemble flick. Speaking of which, ensemble movies seem to have been having a real renaissance of sorts over the last few years. From comic book movies like Avengers and Justice League (and Civil War), to the somehow-still-kicking Fast and Furious flicks and Expendables movies, people have a soft spot these days for a crew on a mission. That should bode well for The Magnificent Seven, which sees the group trying to save a small town from tyranny in the form of an industrialist played by the great Peter Sarsgaard.
Elsewhere in theaters, there’s the new animated film from Warner Bros. called Storks, which, despite retreading one of the most tired myths in the collective history of mankind, seems to be doing alright with the critics. Finally, there’s a Nick Jonas movie about fraternity hazing — if you’re into that sort of thing. But despite the rather meager box office choices, there’s still plenty going on in the world of entertainment this week.
How about those Avengers taking on Trump, huh? Have you seen this, have you heard about this? A bunch of the cast from the show got together with Joss Whedon to help get out the vote for Hillary Clinton as this insane election draws nearer. That comes on the heels of Clinton’s time on Between Two Ferns, which was as bizarre as it was awesome.
Magnum P.I. … junior? In the wonderful world of reboots and sequels, we got some interesting news this week from our old friend (and seasoned Hawaiian shirt wearer) Thomas Magnum. Well, sort of. Word is that Eva Longoria will be producing a new sequel series based around Magnum’s daughter (who apparently appeared in a few episodes of the show toward the end when they were running out of ideas). The series will see Lilly Magnum taking over dad’s detective agency in Hawaii, and action and mayhem are sure to ensue. We also learned about Fuller House season 2 (yes, it’s been less than a year since the first episode premiered). Believe it or not, this train wreck is one of Netflix’ most popular “original” series, and will be holiday-themed, seeing the cast go through Halloween, Christmas, etc.
Finally in reboot news, there’s also a new Exorcist series. Because if there’s anything that needs serializing, it’s possession by Satan. The series is running on Fox, and will premiere Friday. It’s good timing, what with Halloween on the way and all, and could be a fun show for horror fans.
But that’s just scratching the surface. Remember the Dark Tower movie that’s been in the works for around a century or so? While the movie has finally moved into the serious production stage, with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey playing the hero and villain respectively, we got confirmation this week that the long-rumored TV series that will accompany the movie is a go. We also now know that the series will be a prequel of sorts, following the mythology around the many novels and offshoot stories for Stephen King’s magnum opus.
And how about that Passengers trailer? The uberhyped space film starring J-Law and C-Pratt (that’s probably a thing, right?) finally debuted its first trailer, and it looks pretty epic. The movie first got attention when the world learned that Lawrence would be making a ton more money on the film then her male counterpart, but it’s now getting attention for its novel plot about two colonizers of a new world who wake up from a cryogenic sleep 100 years earlier than planned, with no way to go back. The two are not only stuck together in their vessel, locked away from the rest of humanity for the rest of their lives, but there’s also something wrong with the journey that will put them all in harm’s way. The trailer shows tinges of Interstellar, while beginning with a slightly odd rom-com vibe, which could be a unique take on the space-crisis adventure genre.
We’ll also go over our scores for the Emmy predictions we made last week (spoiler, we kind of nailed it), Clinton’s appearance on Between Two Ferns (we did NOT rip off our name from that show), Marvel’s Luke Cage premiere, and so much more. So follow along today at 2 p.m. PT, or take us 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?