Jim Henson Company Launches Kids’ Series for Download on iTunes and Google Play

The Jim Henson Company, in partnership with Premiere Digital Services, has launched several of its children’s series on iTunes and Google Play for download in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Content includes seasons one and two of the language acquisition series “Word Party,” (U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia); season one of the animated series “Dot.,” created by Randi Zuckerberg (U.S. and U.K.); and the puppet series “Pajanimals,” “Jim Henson’s Mother Goose Stories” and “The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss” (U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia). The classic Henson fantasy series “The Storyteller” and “The Storyteller: Greek Myths” are available for download in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia.

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“Partnering with Premiere Digital Services has allowed more beloved Jim Henson Company titles to be available to our fans than ever before,” said Jim Henson VP of global distribution Anna Moorefield. “Consumers can expect additional favorites as we continue to make our productions available to established and new audiences wherever and whenever they want to watch.”

“We are thrilled to partner with The Jim Henson Company and expand the reach of their timeless and iconic catalog in the transactional VOD space,” said head of Premiere business development Jeff Goldman. “Working together with The Jim Henson Company and our platform partners, we have the experience and relationships to bring these amazing shows starring some of the best-loved characters to fans of all ages around the world.”

Paramount’s ‘Bumblebee’ Shoots to Top of FandangoNow Chart

Paramount’s Bumblebee fought its way to No. 1 on FandangoNow’s chart of top movies for digital rental and purchase for the week ended March 24.

FandangoNow is movie site Fandango’s transactional VOD service.

The “Transformers” franchise reboot, which earned $127.2 million in theaters, stars Hailee Steinfeld in an origin story about the Autobot warrior Bumblebee. It debuted on digital March 19.

Warner took the second spot on the FandangoNow chart with another new digital release, the Clint Eastwood starrer The Mule, about a broke man in his 80s who unwittingly signs on as a drug courier.

The studio also managed a third-place finish with Aquaman, which sank two spots after two weeks at No. 1. The DC Comics superhero feature earned $334.8 million at the box office.

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Sony’s Best Animated Feature Oscar winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hung in at No. 4 for another week, while Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns, which stars Emily Blunt, remained in the fifth spot.

The top films to purchase and/or rent on FandangoNow for the week ended March 24 were:

  1. Bumblebee — Paramount
  2. The Mule — Warner
  3. Aquaman — Warner
  4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — Sony
  5. Mary Poppins Returns — Disney
  6. A Star Is Born (2018) — Warner
  7. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald — Warner
  8. Green Book — Universal
  9. Instant Family — Paramount
  10. Creed II — Warner

 

Fandango is celebrating the upcoming April 2 digital release of Glass by hosting an exclusive clip featuring scenes from the film and an interview with the film’s star James McAvoy and director M. Night Shyamalan across its various channels.

Google Play Offering Deals on Past Oscar Winners, Featuring This Year’s Nominees

To celebrate the 91st Academy Awards Feb. 24, Google Play Feb. 15-28 is offering deals on some of the past Oscar-winning movies and featuring a collection of this year’s Oscar-nominated films.

Titles on sale include Thelma & Louise, Gone with the Wind, Rain Man, Dirty Dancing, The Wizard of Oz, La La Land, Moulin Rouge, Walk the Line, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Lady Bird, The Blind Side, Moneyball, Million Dollar Baby, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, I,Tonya, American Sniper, RBG, Darkest Hour, The Shape of Water, 12 Years a Slave, Birdman and Moonlight.

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Google Play is also featuring apps and games inspired by this year’s Best Picture nominees.

A complete list of Oscars content on Google Play is on its Oscars Hub.

Oscar Nominees Surge on FandangoNow

Oscar-nominated films announced Jan. 22 accounted for 30% of all sales on FandangoNow, Fandango’s VOD service, Jan. 22-24, according to the service.

Music-based nominees in the Oscar Best Picture category, Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star Is Born, were among the service’s top-selling titles during the period.

FandangoNow’s top-selling movies Jan. 22-24 were:

  1. Bohemian Rhapsody
  2. A Star is Born
  3. The Grinch
  4. Hunter Killer
  5. First Man

 

FandangoNow’s top-rented movies Jan. 22-24 were:

  1. Halloween (2018)
  2. Split
  3. Venom
  4. Once Upon a Deadpool
  5. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween

 

FandangoNow is offering gift cards to watch this year’s Academy Award nominees.

Fans can watch scenes from all of this year’s Best Picture nominees on the Fandango Movieclips YouTube channel here. 

‘Searching’ Top Rental, ‘House With a Clock in Its Walls’ Top Seller at Digital Service FandangoNow This Week

Sony’s Searching and Universal’s The House With a Clock in Its Walls topped the rental and sales charts, respectively, at FandangoNow, Fandango’s digital content service, from Nov. 27-29.

Searching, the story of a father’s quest to find clues in the laptop of his 16-year-old daughter after she goes missing, was followed on the rental chart by Warner’s romantic comedy hit Crazy Rich Asians at No. 2 and The Meg at No. 3.

On FandangoNow’s sales chart, The House With a Clock in Its Walls, director Eli Roth’s adaptation of the children’s book starring Jack Black, was followed by Fox’s remake The Predator at No. 2 and Paramount’s Mission Impossible — Fallout at No. 3.

Top-Selling New Titles to Rent:

  1. Searching (Sony)
  2. Crazy Rich Asians (Warner)
  3. The Meg (Warner)
  4. Mile 22 (Universal)
  5. Incredibles 2 (Disney)

Top-Selling New Titles to Own:

  1. The House With A Clock In Its Walls (Universal)
  2. The Predator (Fox)
  3. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Paramount)
  4. Peppermint (Universal)
  5. The Equalizer 2 (Sony)

‘My Dinner With Hervé’ Available on Digital From HBO

My Dinner With Hervé is available now on digital from HBO Home Entertainment.

The film explores the unlikely friendship between struggling journalist Danny Tate (Jamie Dornan) and Hervé Villechaize (Peter Dinklage), the world’s most famous French dwarf actor.

The story unfolds over one wild night in Los Angeles — an encounter that has life-changing consequences for both men.

My Dinner with Hervé also stars Golden Globe nominee Mireille Enos (The Killing), David Strathairn (Lincoln), Andy García (Ocean’s Eleven), Harriet Walter (Succession) and Oona Chaplin (“Game of Thrones”).

Movies Anywhere Celebrates First Birthday With 6 Million Users and 150 Million Movies Collected

Movies Anywhere, the cloud-based digital movie library service backed by most of the major studios, is celebrating its first birthday with 6 million registered users, 150 million movies collected and more than 1 billion minutes viewed.

To mark its first year, for a limited period, fans who sync for the first time with one digital retailer will receive a copy of Happy Feet. Those who sync for the first time with two digital retailers also receive The Martian and The Fate of the Furious.

“This has been a very exciting first year of growth and immersive engagement for Movies Anywhere,” said Karin Gilford, GM, Movies Anywhere. “Our users are among the most passionate and engaged movie fans, so it’s been incredibly rewarding to see them embrace and value our product in such a positive way.  We look forward to further evolving and enhancing the Movies Anywhere experience in the upcoming year.”

The service, which allows consumers to access their digital movie purchases in one place with one password, is backed by five Hollywood studios and six digital retailers. Studios include Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Pictures (including Focus Features, DreamWorks and Illumination Entertainment), The Walt Disney Studios (including Disney, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm) and Warner Bros. Participating digital retailers are iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Google Play, Microsoft Movies & TV and FandangoNow.

Other first-year milestones for the service include:

  • Fans have streamed more than 35 million movies on more than 100 different devices;
  • 95 percent of users reported high levels of satisfaction with the app, according to an August 2018 Futuresource report; and
  • The service was nominated for “Fan Favorite App” in the Google Play Best of 2018 Awards.

 

The digital movie sales and rights-locker storage service launched last October with support from five of the six major studios, four of the biggest online retailers, and an opening library of more than 7,300 movies. Over the past year the service has grown to more than 7,500 movies and has added FandangoNow and Microsoft Movies & TV to its digital retailer lineup. Paramount Pictures and Lionsgate are not part of the service, which also does not feature television programming.

Digital purchases of movies, TV shows and other filmed content, known in the industry as “electronic sellthrough,” or EST, rose 18% in the third quarter compared with the same quarter in the year prior, a significant uptick from the single-digit gains posted in prior years, according to DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. Industry observers attribute at least some of the gain to the rising popularity of Movies Anywhere platform.

 

‘Flight of the Conchords: Live in London’ Coming on Digital Nov. 12 From HBO

Flight of the Conchords: Live in London, featuring musical comedians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, will come out on digital download Nov. 12 from HBO Home Entertainment.

Filmed at the Eventim Apollo in London, the show features the two performing never-before-televised songs from their recent “Flight of the Conchords Sing Flight of the Conchords Tour,” as well as some of their classics.

New Zealanders McKenzie and Clement appeared on the HBO series “Flight of the Conchords” starting in 2007. The series following fictionalized versions of their lives in New York City and earned 10 Emmy nominations over its two-season run. Their album “The Distant Future” won Best Comedy Album at the 2008 Grammy Awards.

‘Incredibles 2’ First Day Sales Set Record on FandangoNow

Pixar and Disney’s Incredibles 2 Oct. 23 posted the best-ever first day sales for an animated movie on streaming service FandangoNow, according to Fandango.

The first day sales surpassed first day sales for previous record-holder Disney’s Moana.

Fans buying Incredibles 2 on FandangoNow also get the Pixar short, “Bao,” and the new Edna Mode short, “Auntie Edna.”

“Incredibles 2 is the kind of movie you want to bring home to your family and watch again and again,” said Fandango managing editor Erik Davis in a statement. “It’s no wonder that America’s favorite family of superheroes would smash the record for best first day sales of any animated movie on FandangoNow.”

Top Animated Films in First Days of Sales on FandangoNow

  1. “Incredibles 2”
  2. “Moana”
  3. “The Boss Baby”
  4. “Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation”
  5. “Coco”

 

Earlier this year, Incredibles 2 also broke the Fandango record for top advance ticket sales for any animated film in theatrical release.

‘Slender Man’ Materializes in Time for Halloween on Digital Oct. 19, Disc Oct. 30 From Sony

The horror film Slender Man will be available in time for Halloween on digital Oct. 19 and Blu-ray and DVD Oct. 30 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

The film made $30.2 million in theaters.

The story follows a group of friends in a small town in Massachusetts who are fascinated by the internet lore of the Slender Man. They attempt to prove that he doesn’t actually exist — until one of them mysteriously goes missing. The film stars Joey King (Wish Upon, The Conjuring), Julia Goldani Telles (“The Affair”), Jaz Sinclair (When the Bough Breaks) and Annalise Basso (Ouija: Origin of Evil). It also stars Alex Fitzalan (“Crash & Burn”), Taylor Richardson (A Most Violent Year) and Javier Botet (The Conjuring, Insidious: The Last Key, IT).

The digital, Blu-ray and DVD releases include the featurette “Summoning Slender Man: Meet the Cast.”