When your writer—one of Hollywood’s hottest—tries to hide their involvement, it’s a bad sign. The Borderlands film’s original script was written by Craig Mazin (The Last of Us, Chernobyl), who recently asked the WGA to use the pseudonym “Joe Crombie” instead of his name.

We hope this means Mazin considers Joe Abercrombie, Lord Grimdark, the grittiness GOAT, but that theory is unproven. Since Mazin wrote the script in 2015 for Eli Roth to direct, a steady stream of writers has been brought in. Aaron Berg, Chris Bremner, Sam Levinson, Zak Olkewicz, Tony Rettenmaier, Juel Taylor, and Oren Uziel have put around 70 fingers in the honey pot.

The name change likely avoids confusion. Mazin probably doesn’t want to be blamed for Jack Black/Claptrap madness, but he wants to keep his rights.

To clarify, the Borderlands film finished filming in 2021, but Roth was replaced by Tim Miller (Deadpool) in January.

When this surprising star-studded film (Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Cate Blanchet) limps out, what are your expectations? We think this was supposed to coincide with Borderlands 3’s 2019 release, but it’s overshot the mark.

Apple is streaming the first episode of “Foundation” on YouTube and hosting a Q&A on Monday before the second season’s premiere.
“Foundation” will return for ten more episodes on Friday, July 14, on Apple TV+. Apple is streaming the first episode of the first season to promote it.

“The Emperor’s Peace” will air on YouTube on Monday at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern. After the episode, executive producer and showrunner David S. Goyer will answer questions live.

 

After a delay, Netflix’s password sharing crackdown is reaching U.S. and international subscribers. After experiencing cancellations in regions where it had already implemented “paid sharing,” the streamer delayed the debut till the summer. U.S. Netflix consumers must either remove people from their account or pay $7.99/month for an additional membership for non-household members.

In weeks and months, many of worldwide markets will undergo similar transformations.

Current members can examine which devices are signed into their account and remove unwanted ones, as well as reset their password, to make this transfer smoother.

A “Transfer Profile” feature lets Netflix account sharers move their viewing history and watchlist to their own account.

Netflix informed investors that despite early cancellations, the password enforcement will benefit its long-term development and financial health.

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said the password enforcement in its first supported markets was similar to how subscribers reacted to pricing increases during its first-quarter earnings.

“We see an initial cancel reaction and then we build out of that, both in terms of membership and revenue as borrowers sign up for their own Netflix accounts and existing members purchase that extra member facility for folks that they want to share with,” Peters told investors on the April earnings call. “First of all, it was a strong validation to see consistent results in these new countries, because there are different market characteristics different from each other and also from the original Latin American rollout countries,” he said.

Netflix tested the feature in Latin America before adding Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain this year. It will reach more global markets today, including Brazil, Bolivia, Belize, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Philippines, Malaysia, Israel, Thailand, Taiwan, Switzerland, Sweden, and others.

The corporation may have postponed the crackdown in Q1 to avoid hurting net additions. Last quarter, the corporation added 1.75 million global customers, below Wall Street’s 3 million projection, to 232.5 million accounts.

It announced at results that U.S. members would receive the password-sharing adjustments “on or before” June 30. Netflix may have accelerated the timing.

Netflix revealed on its blog today that it will email U.S. account sharers.

“One household per Netflix account,” the firm advises. “Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are—at home, on the go, on holiday—and take advantage of new features like Transfer Profile and Manage Access and Devices,” the post adds.

The email, labeled “An update on sharing,” lists options and links to support documentation.

Netflix explains in a press email that it is “now starting to roll out updates to sharing to countries around the world, including the U.S.”

Netflix has yet to see the effects of a password crackdown in the U.S., where it faces increased competition for users’ time and money.

Today, HBO Max becomes Max, a new service that combines HBO and Discovery+ content, doubling the amount of programming. Paramount+ will add Showtime next month on June 27. Disney plans to merge Disney+ and Hulu into one app. Subscribers get more content with some price increases. Netflix is charging more for the same.