Most of the new prime video content, that I've seen, seems to have a very safe tone to it. Yes, it's new but it's safe. No one will be surprised or insulted by it. It starts to get boring very quickly.
As new owners, I hope they don't have such a hard hand that they ruin the brand.
I disagree with your premise entirely. I see them trying to unseat HBO as the resource for all the pop culture shows you remember twenty years from now.
I definitely believe them to be bolder than Netflix for their breadth of original libraries.
That might be a little bold, but that’s what I see them trying to do.
It is worth noting that major studios (or the BBC in Fleabag's case) make all of those shows and Amazon buys them.
But I still agree with the general point that it's unfair to argue Amazon "beats the creativity" out of productions it deals with.
Overall I agree with your point and I'm extremely confident Amazon buying MGM will completely and utterly fuck over any creative potential that company has (similar to what's happening with AT&T and HBO), but - if you're looking for something good to watch on Prime, take a look at Invincible. I was actually about to give up on it and then I got to the end of the first episode and I binged the rest of the show in less than a day.
It's the first time in years I've looked forward to the next season of a show that isn't a comedy.
I know amazon paid a fortune for Tolkien's Silmarillion TV rights and we haven't seen a single thing about that situation. My big worry is amazon screws around with the Bond franchise and ruins it, it seems to be doing extremely well with top directors and large blockbuster returns.
Watch Invincible.
Are you sure? I was just watching the first episode of Solos where the character says that Trump has defected/escaped to Russia. I won’t call that a safe line..
Similarly they have Borat 2, again not very safe.
Perhaps you’re referring to some other type of content..
Some newer developments you may have missed:
* Stargate Origins aired in 2018 [1]
* Brad Wright/Joseph Mallozzi are actively working to get a new project off the ground [2] and are looking to tap original cast members (to bootstrap)
* A new Stargate 4X strategy game was just announced [3]
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Origins
[2] https://www.gateworld.net/news/2021/05/stargate-timekeepers-...
[3] https://www.gateworld.net/news/2021/05/stargate-timekeepers-...
The Star Trek movies saved the franchise which lead to TNG, DS9 and Voyager, they didn’t save the original series tho.
I only hope is that they won’t turn Stargate into Discovery like show.
It started off cheesy, but the universe they built was so detailed and neat.
I'm definitely hoping Amazon buys them out and greenlights Stargate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/new-fed-chairman-says-amazon...
Amazon will make the movies, host them on AWS, stream them to their Firesticks, shows them through Amazon Prime on glowing rectangles bought in their store and monetizes it all with their ad service. How is that not a vertical monopoly?
These megacorps shouldn't be allowed to enter fifteen different industries and kill off the incumbents. This is absurd.
Amazon is internet services infra, shopping, logistics, fulfillment, consumer hardware, networking, a payments stack, publisher, grocery store, and now a fucking entertainment company.
They track us, turn us into non-owner subscribers, and prevent us from building companies that can compete with their scale. We're eternally subservient. It's not healthy for innovation!
Break up Apple.
Break up Amazon.
Break up Google.
What surprises me is that at $9 Billion, why hasn’t it been acquired by now?
Right now, video streaming is pretty much a solved problem, and it is content that differentiates one service from another.
If you are an Internet giant, $9 Billion seems like a pocket change to get access to a huge catalog.
I imagine that's the complication, you buy MGM but don't really have full control over the crown jewel so to speak.
The Bond franchise alone probably is worth half of what this deal is gonna cost.
Probably not. MGM doesn't "own" Bond in the same way that Disney owns Star Wars. There are complicating factors to the Bond movies that reduce the brand's value to MGM and any new prospective owner.
Opinion that you didn't ask for: I felt that it was both a good show and a terrible one at the same time and decided to stop watching it. It felt like it was 40% "haha these mega-rich Jews are mega-rich, Jews, and also out of touch", 40% "Gilmore Girls in New York", 19% "romantic nostalgia for Lenny Bruce and a young Joan Rivers", and 1%...I don't know...maybe "they showed boobs on screen that one time".
Because vertical integration is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for a monopoly.
It’s a non sequitur.
"waaaaaaaaaa"
https://youtu.be/z72GiUz2VI8?t=104 https://youtu.be/QRJCpRPpT9U?t=250
How many Netflix productions come even close for all the tens of billions they've poured into it? Reliable names mean customer retention.
Tell that to Netflix, which hardly lost any subscribers when they lost their most popular catalog show.
How many of these do they have a monopoly on? Keep in mind, the definition of monopoly is: "the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service."
They did it to open source, bookstores, retail.
Maybe you don't see the end goal, where every restaurant is Amazon and you rent your home from Jeff Bezos?
Maybe you're not worried and you trust these people?
Maybe you don't want to compete and you just want to be an employee?
I don't know. But this is wrong. You can't compete with this, you're forced to work with it. It decreases degrees of freedom and angle of attack for everyone else.
From Amazon's perspective, their moat becomes an ocean. That's hard to swim in.
Now, if they use a dominant position in one industry to gain advantage in another, that is a different story, but also a harder thing to show.