New streaming service FILMSTRUCK coming from Criterion and Turner Classic Movies. Credit USA TODAY for the article
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/n...vice/83546764/
There's a new movie-streaming service in the works that will surely catch the eye of cinephiles.
Turner Classic Movies and The Criterion Collection this fall plan to launch their own subscription service, FilmStruck, which will have an emphasis on art house, independent, foreign and cult films. Pricing of the service, which will be available on several devices, is still being determined but will be competitive with other services.
FilmStruck is expected to have more than 500 titles from Warner Bros. and other major Hollywood studios and independent studios, as well as more than 1,000 Criterion films on its Criterion Channel within the service, which is managed by TCM. Among titles planned to be part of the service are Seven Samurai, A Hard Day’s Night, A Room With A View, Blood Simple, My Life As A Dog, Mad Max, Breaker Morant and The Player.
"FilmStruck is a terrific example of our strategy to meet consumer demand for great content across all screens," said Turner CEO and Chairman John Martin. "It's tailor-made for the die-hard movie enthusiast who craves a deep, intimate experience with independent, foreign and art house films. And it takes advantage of TCM's powerful curation capabilities, as well as its proven track record in building a long-term relationship with passionate film fans."
When the service goes live this fall, FilmStruck and its Criterion Channel will be the exclusive streaming home for the Criterion Collection. Currently, some Criterion films can be found on Hulu and Fandor.
"Hulu's been a great home for the past five years, but FilmStruck is being built from the ground up exclusively for film lovers and will allow us to present films with the kind of robust curation and supplemental features that Criterion fans have come to expect from our Blu-ray and DVD releases," Peter Becker, president of Criterion and partner in Janus Films, told USA TODAY. "The addition of the Criterion Channel is also a huge plus, because it finally gives us a streaming platform all our own, where we'll be able to create original content and surface archival materials never available anywhere else, to connect our audience with the films and filmmakers they love in a whole new way."
The service will constantly rotate films that are available. Criterion's involvement includes access to more than 1,000 films in the Janus Film library. Its releases include works by filmmakers including the work of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sergei Eisenstein, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, François Truffaut, and Yasujiro Ozu.
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UPDATE: Here is a link to the Criterion site and their article about the service
https://www.criterion.com/current/po...ing-filmstruck Note that I am the one who put certain parts of the text in bold - wasn't that way in the original article.
Night after night, for more than twenty years, the programming team at Turner Classic Movies has been exploring the world of film in a smart, adventurous way. They have stuck to their mission, consistently shining a light on the classics, delighting us with their themes, surprising us with their discoveries, and earning our trust. So when they asked us to team up with them to launch FilmStruck, a new subscription streaming service designed for people who love independent, art-house, and international cinema, we were honored and thrilled. Combining Turner’s programming experience with Criterion’s library of films and supplemental content made all the sense in the world.
FilmStruck will be launching this fall on desktop and mobile devices, and internet-connected television platforms. A service built from the start with nothing but movies in mind, it will feature films from many major studios and independent distributors alongside a broad and constantly rotating selection of Criterion films, complete with the commentaries and rich supplemental content that Criterion viewers have come to expect. Carefully curated and always changing, it should be a cinema lover’s dream.
FilmStruck subscribers will also be eligible to sign up for the Criterion Channel, a premium service that will be all Criterion’s own. Once we’re up and running, the Criterion Channel will not only offer continual access to our library of more than 1,100 films, along with their special features, it will also give us the chance to approach the Criterion mission in a whole new way. After thirty years of focusing exclusively on one film or cycle of films at a time, we will now be able to feature a steady stream of original content that runs across filmographies, genres, time periods, and themes. We’ll reach outside our library to include films from major studios and independent rights holders. We’ll tap into our community of filmmakers and experts to act as guest curators and highlight archival discoveries not available on disc or anywhere else. It won’t replace our Blu-rays, but it will definitely add a new dimension to the Criterion experience.
Sometimes it feels like Criterion lives at a crossroads of classic and contemporary cinema. New filmmakers we admire are passing through our offices all the time, mostly drawn by their respect for the classic filmmakers whose work we are privileged to attend to. One of the most exciting things about the Criterion Channel is that it will give us a chance to capture that energy for our audience, to champion and show more films by filmmakers working today, not just the few we have rights to publish on disc. We’ll bring you carefully selected contemporary films that you might not find anywhere else, including streaming premieres, and we’ll invite those filmmakers to champion the classics they love, as they have been doing on our top-ten lists for years—but now the movies will be available for subscribers to watch right on our channel.
The Criterion offering on Hulu will still be available into the month of November, but after that, FilmStruck and the Criterion Channel will be our exclusive streaming home. Feel free to let us know in the comments what you most want from our new streaming service, and be sure to visit FilmStruck.com to sign up for updates and a free trial offer as soon as the the service launches. It’s going to be an exciting new adventure for Criterion, and we hope you’ll make the journey with us.
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FILMSTRUCK streaming service - Criterion & Turner Classic Movies
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