Comcast Corp. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. said Tuesday they are teaming up to introduce a video-on-demand channel featuring action movies and TV shows.
Comcast, the country’s largest cable operator, already has a hit with another genre-specific VOD channel and Web site, FEARnet, which features horror movies and thrillers, in collaboration with Lionsgate and Sony Pictures Television. FEARnet is also available on mobile phones.
Philadelphia-based Comcast said the “Impact” channel will have 25 to 30 titles every month – and about 200 a year. But it will tap into MGM’s library of over 1,000 action movies and TV shows, including many in high-definition format.
Movies include those in the James Bond franchise, Rocky and RoboCop. Programming will be grouped into categories such as thrillers, crime, war films, martial arts, westerns and espionage. Most movies will be free.
MGM said titles will have similar timing as those released on other pay-TV providers, which means they will come after DVD rentals.
Programming is slated to appeal to the demographic of men aged 18 to 49, and the channel will be partly supported by advertising, the companies said. A Web site is under development.
The channel is being rolled out market-by-market this week to Comcast customers. Los Angeles-based MGM said it is in talks with other pay-TV providers for carriage.
Last month, Comcast announced a deal with Time Warner Cable Inc. to carry FEARnet. Comcast gets licensing fees as well as advertising revenue for the channel. The nearly two-year-old channel is already available through cable operators Cox Communications Inc. and Insight Communications Co. as well as Verizon Communications Inc.’s FiOS service.
In the first quarter of 2008, FEARnet video on demand views were up 40 percent from a year ago. In June, PC Magazine named the FEARnet Web site among the best for movie fans.
Comcast owns 20 percent of privately held MGM.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More