Hollywood

At a time when thousands of Netflix subscribers are jeering the company for the lack of selection in its streaming library, here comes "Irish" Mickey Ward and Don Draper to help mount a rally.

Netflix, the Web's No. 1 video-rental service, now has "The Fighter," the Academy Award nominated film, available for streaming and announced that the much honored AMC TV series "Mad Men" will be added to the streaming library on July 27.

Netflix has been getting clobbered by customers who are angry after the company announced a 60 percent price hike … Read more

Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET (and elsewhere) for Monday, July 18.

• While many consumers are still moaning about the Netflix price hike, CNET's Greg Sandoval asks what it means for the future: is Netflix killing DVDs the way Apple helped kill off floppies?

• CNN and HLN cable-news channels will stream straight to mobile devices such as an iPad or iPhone--helping to broaden their "TV Everywhere" strategy. The service is available to customers of AT&T, Cox, Dish Network, and Verizon--but not … Read more

Big Champagne CEO Eric Garland has seen Netflix's price hike in many different forms over many years.

Industry leaders change directions with a product or service and stunned customers revolt. It's a scenario that played out when Facebook overhauled the social network's interface and in 1998 when Apple released the iMac G3 without a 3.5-inch floppy-disc drive. People called Steve Jobs crazy. But Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, like Jobs before him, is now trying to move the market into the future, says Garland. Netflix's library of streaming movies and TV shows are often dated or … Read more

Some of those searching for clues about why Netflix unexpectedly raised prices last week appear to be convinced that the trail leads to Hollywood, the home of the top six film studios.

After Netflix announced Tuesday that prices would rise by 60 percent, a popular theory was that CEO Reed Hastings sought to build up his war chest. Acquisition costs for streaming content are soaring.

Last week The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Netflix renewed a multiyear licensing agreement with NBC Universal for a fee of as much as $300 million a year. That's more than 10 times the $22 … Read more

Netflix customers are making perhaps the most damning comparison a day after the rental service announced it was raising its prices: They're saying Netflix is just like the cable guys.

Seething blog posts and comments are piling up across the Web in reaction to a price hike that means customers who want access to DVDs as well as streaming video must now pay $15.98, up from the $9.99 they used to pay for both.

Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings may feel a little shell-shocked by the testy reaction. Hastings and his staff have enjoyed nearly unprecedented … Read more

As part of a plan to discourage customers from pirating films and music, some of the country's largest bandwidth providers announced last week that they will take punitive action against customers repeatedly caught in the act.

So far, most of the attention has been on the potential impacts to Internet users, but now some are asking how the major Hollywood film studios and four top record companies were able to convince the Internet service providers to take part. For years, executives from AT&T and Verizon have argued that enforcing copyright was up to the content creators and … Read more

While much of Hollywood appears to be helping pave the way for cloud film services, there are still some nagging questions about how much support there is for the technology.

Certainly, lots of people are saying they're on board. Most of the top Hollywood film studios--with the exception of Disney--are part of a consortium that has developed UltraViolet, a set of technical standards they hope will act as the bedrock for the next-generation home video format. UV is designed to ensure that consumers will be able to play their movies and TV shows through a wide range of cloud … Read more

A start-up service called MoviePass is offering film fans unlimited movie viewing in theaters for a fee of $50 a month.

Wired.com reports that Moviepass will soon enable users to use a smartphone to search for a film, check show times, and provide proof of purchase with ticket takers. The service was announced Monday and is set to launch in a test version in the San Francisco Bay area in time for the July 4th weekend.

This would appear to be a convenience play. Pay a monthly fee in advance, and MoviePass will remove much of the ticket-buying hassle. … Read more

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--The cast of "Iris," Cirque du Soleil's new movie-themed show at the famed Kodak Theatre here, took the stage Thursday to preview the upcoming production's mix of elite acrobatics, audio visual technology, and live music and dance for a select crew of press, corporate reps, and local government officials.

Cirque artists performed 20 minutes of the massive stage production--Cirque's 27th to date--for the eager crowd. When "Iris" opens later this year, it will settle into the Kodak Theatre as a permanent attraction, stepping aside whenever the Academy Awards or other shows require the space.

After opening comments from Cirque executives, the audience enjoyed what could prove to be the opening of the finished production. Performers filled the stage in mini-vignettes highlighting the invention of cinema and the earliest days of Hollywood. A human kinescope danced amid aspiring starlets, blue-collar crew workers, silent film stars, and well-dressed executives.

Technological magic merged with the human elements. Independently animated and radio-controlled "creatures" like studio lights and cameras danced with their human counterparts. The opening number climaxed with an aerial act of two male rigging dancers literally flying about and bouncing off the walls of the Kodak Theatre. … Read more