Taking advantage of some of the newly afforded options of producing TV content in a video streaming world, the legendary filmmaker and director Steven Spielberg is working on a new series that viewers will only be able to watch when it's dark.
With the working title of Spielberg After Dark, the series that Steven Spielberg is creating as "a super scary story" for yet another upcoming new streaming called Quibi that will be launched in April 2020 by Jeffrey Katzenberg, will only work and play on people's digital devices during night time.
The in-built clocks on mobile devices will allow Spielberg After Dark to play or not.
The series - essentially one long movie - like other content on Quibi - will be released in 10-minute mini-sodes.
"He's writing it himself," Jeffrey Katzenberg said of the show at a press conference on Sunday at the Banff World Media Festival in Canada. "He hasn't written anything in a while so getting him to write something is fantastic."
Apple is taking on Netflix in the video streaming wars with its new Apple TV+ streaming service that will launch later in 2019.
Apple TV+ will give users access to a bunch of new drama series, films and documentaries currently in development and in production, in partnership with marquee banner-names ranging from Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston to Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and M. Night Shyamalan.
As was expected from Apple's "Show Time" media announcement it made Monday evening in its Steve Jobs Theatre at its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California and streamed worldwide, Apple is entering the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) market to compete against the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video with its own roster of high-quality original TV and film content.
Apple is upgrading its Apple TV app that will include Apple TV Channels and that will start in May 2019 in more than 130 countries, with Apple that will announce the pricing of its Apple TV+ pay-TV service later in the year.
Apple TV+ bosses Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg said that users will be able to stream watch shows or download them, entirely ad-free, with more content that will be added monthly.
Apple has already spent more than $1 billion to produce over 20 drama series and comedies, as well as films and documentaries to create its first-ever slate of Apple Originals, with more on its way.
"Our vision for the Apple TV app is to bring together your favourite shows, movies, sports and news and make them available on all of your devices," Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said.
Apple played both a black-and-white vignette of all the stars, producers, writers and directors talking about the creative process(above), as well as a short sizzle-reel teasing some of its upcoming content (below).
Steven Spielberg is the executive producer of a new reboot of his former science fiction anthology series for Apple, Amazing Stories.
Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell will star in The Morning Show, a backstage drama series following the behind-the-scenes conflict at an American breakfast show, with the show that has a two-season 20-episode order.
Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard have starring roles in the 10-episode See, a science fiction drama series set hundreds of years in the future where what's left of mankind lost the sense of sight and only a few people who still believe that mankind once had the ability to see with their eyes.
Kumail Nanjiani is doing an anthology series Little Americaabout immigrants.
Oprah Winfrey took to the Apple stage at the end, announcing two documentary projects, as well as a plan for an Apple-Oprah book club, saying she decided to team up with Apple TV+ "because they're in a billion pockets y'all".
"The Apple platform allows me to do what I do in a whole new way – to take everything I've learned about connecting to people to the next level. Because they're in a billion pockets y'all," said Oprah.
"The whole world has them in their hands and that presents a major opportunity to make a major impact. I'm proud and honoured to be part of this platform. My intention is to illuminate consciousness and create greater awareness with leaders, artists and newsmakers."
Oprah's Book Club returns Oprah Winfrey also plans to relaunch and return her Book Club made famous by her TV talk show.
"I want to convene a meeting of the mind connecting us through books. For me there is nothing more thrilling than being transported by a brilliant book."
"The only other thing more gratifying than an extraordinary read is being able to share that experience with others, and we're going to do just that by building the biggest, the most vibrant, the most stimulating Book Club on the planet!" Oprah Winfrey exclaimed.
"Imagine where Apple stores stream a conversation with the author and me, live across all devices, across all borders, uniting people to stories that remind us that no matter who you are, or where you are from, every man, woman and child looks up in awe at the same stuff."
"For as long as I remember, I had this dream for us all to someday realize that deep potential that we're all each born to, abides in every soul; I know this to be true."
"My deepest hope is that we all, humans, get to be the fullest version of ourselves as human being, to join in the mission and vision for our common good, to leave this world more enlightened, kinder and better than we found it, and to move together one billion-plus strong into a future of our own design, all connected through Apple!"
Microsoft is working on a deal with the Showtime TV channel in America for Halo for the series to start its episodes on TV first, before being rolled out on the new Xbox One game console as well.
Halo is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and game maker 343 Studios. The project comes from Nancy Tellem, who runs XBox Entertainment Studios which will bring the futuristic world of Master Chief to life.
The Halo TV series will be its one stand-alone stor but will also complement and enrich the game experience of the Halo game series, Bonnie Ross, the general manager of 343 Industries wrote on Friday on a blog posting.
There's already been four Halo games, and a fifth, Halo 5: Guardians, will be released at the same time as the new Halo TV series.
A massive Steven Spielberg movie festival of more than 31 50! films is coming to M-Net's M-Net Movies Showcase (DStv 108) channel in March for DStv subscribers with Spielberg after Spielberg movie.
The treasure trove of Spielberg movies - including have to watch special director's cut movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind will be unspooling on the M-Net supplied movie channel to MultiChoice during the month of March.
Analysing the new "big music,with big crescendos" on-air M-Net teaser promo which the pay-TV broadcaster started running on Sunday evening during Survivor South Africa: Champions on the M-Net channel, its clear that the M-Net Movies Showcase movie channel on DStv will showcase tens of Steven Spielberg's biggest movies during March.
Some of these movies include the Jurassic Park movies, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, War Horse, the Indiana Jones movies, War of the Worlds, The Color Purple, Hook, Catch Me If You Can, Men in Black and many more which will definitely be a part of M-Net and M-Net Movies Showcase's "The Big Spielberg Experience".
These are the movies of which clips are included in the on-air promo teaser.
It's likely that at least 31 Steven Spielberg movies for the entire 31 days of March - if not more movies where Steven Spielberg were involved with, either as director or producer - will be shown on M-Net Movies Showcase during March with a new one every day.
UPDATE 19:40: M-Net confirms the news following a media enquiry I made after I've seen the promo and tells TV with Thinus that "in March M-Net Movies Showcase will be screening more than 50 films by Steven Spielberg, undoubtedly the greatest filmmaker of all time".
M-Net says that "an unprecedented 31 day Spielberg experience is awaiting M-Net Movies Showcase viewers in the month of March".
"Having so many Spielberg films on a movie channel in one month is an extra-ordinary feat," says Lani Lombard, M-Net's head of publicity.
"This is the biggest Spielberg extravaganza ever, and the results of more than two years of planning and hard work on the side of our M-Net movie team."
"In the late nineties M-Net ran a Steven Spielberg movie festival that captured the imagination of our viewers.This one is way bigger and a comprehensive update of his massive oeuvre. It's a mega-treat for movie lovers."
M-Net Movies Showcase will have at least one Steven Spielberg movie per day during March in primetime, or some days more than one.
"While some viewers will dip into the schedule to watch their favourite Spielberg movies again or find out what the fuss was about, some others - cinema-buffs - will be able to track in detail the way movies changed over the years, the Spielberg way," says Lani Lombard.
DStv subscribers will also be able to watch the acclaimed Steven Spielberg mini-series The Band of Brothers and The Pacific on M-Net Movies Showcase during March.
Here is the list of movies from Steven Spielberg which will be shown during March on M-Net Movies Showcase:
ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
Always
Jurassic
Park
The Lost
World – Jurassic Park
The Color
Purple
Amistad
Munich
Saving
Private Ryan
The
Terminal,
The
Adventures of Tin Tin: Secret of the Unicorn
The
Twilight Zone
Schindler's
List
AI
Artificial Intelligence
War of the
Worlds
War Horse
Lincoln
Sugarland
Express
Jaws
Raiders of
the Lost Ark
Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade
Close
Encounters of the Third Kind (director's cut)
1941
Empire of
the Sun
Hook
Minority
Report
Catch me if
you can
Duel
Here is the additional list of movies which will be on M-Net Movies Showcase during March as part of "The Spielberg Experience" in which Steven Spielberg was the executive producer or producer:
The hugely successful Halo video game is becoming a live-action TV series executive produced by Steven Spielberg specifically for Microsoft's XBox.
The announcement of HaloThe Television Series and the video game franchise being turned into a TV science fiction action drama was just made by Microsoft during the launch and unveiling of Microsoft's new XBox One console taking place in America and the United Kingdom at the same time.
Halo will be produced by Steven Spielberg and game maker 343 Studios. The project comes from Nancy Tellem, who runs XBox Entertainment Studios which will now bring the futuristic world of Master Chief to life.
Steven Spielberg says that he is "excited to be involved with the heroes, worlds, and wonders that Halo will take us to."
"For me, the Halo universe is an amazing opportunity for the intersection of mythmaking and technology."
What do you do when you're big friends in real life, if you both love science fiction, if you both create science fiction movies and TV shows, and if you love each other's work? Well, if you're Steven Spielberg you do a micro second tribute in your science fiction show of your friend's science fiction work.
Steven Spielberg's new TV sci-fi drama Falling Skies starts Monday 4 July at 20:15 on Fox Entertainment (TopTV 180). Fox Entertainment made the first few episodes of this great new TV show available as a preview screener to a select group of South African TV critics. Exactly 8 minutes and 16 seconds into the first episode of Falling Skies I noticed a micro second don't-blink-or-you'll miss-it moment: a shout-out tribute by Steven Spielberg to his buddy George Lucas's Star Wars mythology.
The commander of the ragtag group of humans still left forming the resistance after Earth's been invaded by aliens in modern-day Boston, moves his hand on the map whilst discussing strategy. In a split second in Falling Skies, almost too quick to catch it, what viewers will see is Star Wars figurines - a Battle Droid and Anakin Skywalker action figures from Star Wars The Clone Wars (The Cartoon Network, DStv 301, Thursdays, 17:55). The Battle Droid represent the Mechs - the one type of alien attacking humans. Anakin Skywalker of course represents the remaining humans.
Below I have another image from the first episode of Falling Skies, the other type of alien called Skitters, who run and surround a human they just shot:
The best new TV show for 2011 which I really can't wait for, Steven Spielberg'sTerra Nova, yields more tantalising titbits of terra-fic information about this futuristic, yet set back in the past TV show, that is shaping up to be the most expensive TV show ever produced.
The Wall Street Journal spills some interesting facts about the show that will start with two episodes in May in America and had M-Net already snapping up the rights for South Africa. There will definitely be a first full season. Just the first two episodes which will be shown back-to-back in America, already has a production cost of $16 million and after than the production will have a per episode cost of $4 million. It took 15 weeks to build the sets that include a market, hospital and homes. In the 2nd episode there will be a big velociraptor.
Terra Nova reportedly has a production crew of 300 people, the director had to stop production to take a leech off of one of the actresses. Terra Nova started out as an original script entitled ''Gondwana Highway'' after a prehistoric supercontinent. And a flash flood in December almost killed a security guard who was trying to save a power generator.
Each Terra Nova episode will try to introduce a new creature or dinosaur. Paleontologist Jack Horner who consulted on Steven Spielberg's Jurrasic Park is helping to authenticate the dinosaurs, many of whom will appear birdlike and some will have feathers. The first episode will have 3 different types of dinosaurs, including an ominous new dinosaur referred to as ''the slasher''.
Meanwhile Steven Spielberg already doing Terra Nova and Falling Skies is now working on a 3rd new could-be TV series entitled Smash and which will be looking to copy the success of Glee. According to Reuters, Smash that will be produced by Dreamworks TV is an ambitious one hour musical TV series about the mounting of a Broadway musical and is based on an idea by Steven Spielberg himself.
The uber producer behind movies like Jurassic Park is the executive producer of what is to be a sure-fire upcoming TV hit. In fact I would go as far as saying that Terra Nova will be next year's biggest new TV show that's currently in development and production. Just watch. It will be interesting to see which South African broadcaster (M-Net?) snags the broadcasting rights to this massive and epic show first.
Terra Nova starts filming in Australia soon and the premise is out of this world: Think the new Lost meets Earth 2 meets Lost in Space meets Otherworld. Imagine the world of Avatar on your TV screen. In 2149 the world is dying. Earth is overpopulated, overdeveloped and overpolluted. With no way of reversing the damage. Scientists create a time machine and a portal to prehistoric Earth. Yes. Similar to an episode of what Professor Amadeus Sharp did in The Bionic Six. The plan is for families to ''relocate'' to the past, 85 million years ago, as a second chance for civilization and mankind. The Shannon family steps through. . . Then the trouble starts, and its not because of the dangerous dinosaurs and other prehistoric threats.
''Terra Nova will be one of the most visually stimulating and dramatically grand series to air on television,” said Kevin Reilly, president of entertainment of America's Fox network in a press release. Fox is already planning to make event television of Terra Nova and there will be at least 13 episodes of this incredible-sounding family adventure drama.
