Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Archives

Season Two of Amazon’s ‘Jack Ryan’ on Disc Aug. 4

Paramount Home Entertainment will release Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Season Two on Blu-ray Disc and DVD Aug. 4.

The show stars John Krasinski as the CIA analyst from the series of novels by Tom Clancy. In the second season, Jack investigates potentially illegal arms shipments in Venezuela. As Jack threatens to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy, the President of Venezuela launches a counter-attack that hits home for Jack, leading him and his fellow operatives on a global mission to unravel the President’s nefarious plot and bring stability to a country on the brink of chaos.

The cast also includes Wendell Pierce, Michael Kelly, Tom Wlaschiha, Noomi Rapace, Jordi Molla and Cristina Umaña.

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The two-disc Blu-ray and three-disc DVD sets will include all eight second-season episodes, plus exclusive deleted scenes.

The series has already been renewed for a third season on Amazon Prime Video.

Amazon Touts Record Winter Retail Season

Amazon Dec. 26 announced that the 2019 holiday season set a record for the e-commerce giant — driven by myriad items including Echo Dot wireless speaker and Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote.

The most searched for holiday movie on Fire TV with Alexa was Home Alone, followed by Elf and The Grinch.

Amazon Music’s mini-documentary about Mariah Carey’s hit, “All I Want for Christmas is You,” held the No. 1 spot on Amazon Music since Thanksgiving Day.

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Amazon said “tens of millions” of Prime members streamed Amazon Original TV shows and movies over the holidays, including Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” “The Expanse,” “The Report,” “The Aeronauts” and “The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Special.”

“Chicago Fire” has been a streaming hit on Amazon-owned IMDb TV this holiday, on average, customers are streaming seven episodes of the series per week since seasons 1-6 launched on the service in December.

The company said it added more than 5 million new Prime free trials and paid memberships worldwide in one week alone during the holiday period.

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The increase came despite reported delivery issues at Amazon’s in-house distribution channels. Amazon said it has 150 delivery stations in the United States employing more than 90,000 people. The company employs 750,000 people worldwide.

“This holiday season has been better than ever thanks to our customers and employees all around the world,” Founder/CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement.

Indeed, 60% more customers shipped their holiday order to an Amazon pickup point this season compared to last year. The top 10 cities that used an Amazon Locker or Amazon Counter location this holiday were Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, San Jose, Berkeley (Calif.), Austin and Columbus. The last Amazon delivery arrived on Christmas Eve at 11:59pm PT in Seattle, Wash.

Some of the best-selling electronics in the U.S. included Pokémon Sword for Nintendo Switch, Wyze Cam Indoor Wireless Smart Home Camera, and Samsung 128GB MicroSDXC EVO Select Memory Card.

According to Amazon Charts, the most read and most sold book in the U.S. during this holiday season was The Guardians by John Grisham. The most wished for books in the U.S. during this holiday season were A Warning by Anonymous, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball by Jeff Kinney, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: The Illustrated Edition by J.K. Rowling & Jim Kay, and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

Amazon Says Fire TV Stick Most-Purchased Prime Item in 2018

Amazon Dec. 2 announced that its branded Fire TV Stick streaming media device with Alexa voice-recognition software was the top-selling item for Prime members in 2018.

That was followed by the Echo Dot home speaker – which was also one of the most gifted items during the week leading up to both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and the best-selling product on Amazon during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday weekend.

The $119 annual Amazon Prime membership platform, which includes Prime Video, is available in 17 countries. Prime Video is available globally and separately for $8.99 monthly.

Top home entertainment honors in the U.S. went to original TV series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (most awarded show – 8 Emmy Awards – on Prime Video),“Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” starring John Krasinski, and “Homecoming,” starring Julia Roberts in her first TV show (most binged shows on Prime Video), and Justin Timberlake (most streamed artist on Prime Music).

Notably, “X-Ray,” the bonus material feature available on Prime Video that allows viewers to go behind the scenes of movies and TV shows and get access to cast photos, bios, filmographies, sound track info and trivia, continues to resonate with Prime members.

The top-five series and movies Prime members worldwide used X-Ray included “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Psych,” “The Grand Tour,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Vikings.”

Movies included Baywatch; Jack Reacher: Never Go Back; Transformers: The Last Knight; Twilight; and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

“Prime members worldwide ordered more than two billion products for one-day delivery or faster in the last year, which is pretty amazing,” Cem Sibay, VP of Amazon Prime, said in a statement.

Prime Video stats include:

The top three cities worldwide that streamed the most hours of Prime Video per capita include Santa Clara, Calif., Norderstedt, Germany; and Tokai, Japan.

Prime members in the U.S., U.K. and India streamed more Prime Video than any other country between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. local time.

Night owls in Japan, Germany and Spain streamed more Prime Video than any other country between the hours of 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. local time.

The nine NFL games thus far on Prime Video and Twitch have combined to reach 20 million total viewers in over 200 countries and territories and all 50 U.S. states.

The top three American cities that streamed the most minutes of Thursday Night Football so far this year include Atlanta, Denver and Seattle.

The most streamed music artist was Justin Timberlake. Prime members’ favorite albums included Man of the Woods by Justin Timberlake, Camila by Camila Cabello, Astroworld by Travis Scott and Mitchell Tenpenny EP by Mitchell Tenpenny.

Favorite songs sold (and recommended by Alexa) included “The Middle,” by Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey; “Lose It,” by Kane Brown; “Idgaf,” by Dua Lipa; “Better Now,” by Post Malone; and “Done for Me,” by Charlie Puth, featuring Kehlani.

Other Prime member favorites included televisions such as the TCL 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV, LG Electronics 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart OLED TV, Samsung 65-Inch 4K Smart TV

Demand for ‘Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan’ Nearly Doubles as Amazon Series Breaks Into Digital Originals Top 10

A modest rise in demand of less than 5% was enough to propel “Stranger Things” into the No. 1 position on the digital originals chart for the week ended Sept. 8, breaking a five-week hold on the top chart position by “Orange is the New Black,” Parrot Analytics data shows.

Both digital originals series are from Netflix. “Orange,” a drama about women in prison, saw its Demand Expressions fall by about 6% during the week, to 31.4 million, and finished the week at No. 2.

“Demand Expressions” is a proprietary metric used by Parrot Analytics to measure global demand for TV content through a wide variety of data sources, including video streaming, social media activity, photo sharing, blogging, commenting on fan and critic rating platforms, and downloading and streaming via peer-to-peer protocols and file sharing sites.

A third Netflix series, “Ozark” shot up to No. 2 from No. 10 the previous week, thanks to an 85% spike in Demand Expressions the week after the launch of Season 2. “Ozark” stars Jason Bateman as financial planner Marty Byrde, who relocates his family from a Chicago suburb to a resort town in the Ozarks after a money-laundering scheme goes wrong – only to become entangled with a whole new breed of organized crime.

An even bigger week-to-week gain was posted by Amazon Prime Video’s “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” which broke into the top 10 with a 95% gain in Demand Expressions. The action series debuted at No. 7 in the week following its Aug. 31 launch.

Amazon had already announced a second season before the series even premiered.

Hulu’s “Castle Rock,” a horror series based on the writings of Stephen King, slipped to No. 4 from No. 3 the prior week, with demand essentially flat. Also down a notch is “Voltron: Legendary Defender” (Netflix), which took over the No. 5 spot from still another Netflix series, “Disenchantment.”

“Disenchantment,” created by “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” creator Matt Groening, suffered a drop in demand of more than 12% and finished the week at No. 9.

“Disenchantment” is Netflix’s sixth animated series targeting adults. The first, “Bojack Horseman,” returned to the top 10 the week ended Sept. 8 with a 72% gain in demand, with more than 19.3 million Demand Expressions – enough for a seventh-place finish.

Media Play News has teamed with Parrot Analytics to provide readers with a weekly top 10 of the most popular digital original TV series in the United States, based on the firm’s proprietary metric called Demand Expressions, which measures global demand for TV content through a wide variety of data sources, including video streaming, social media activity, photo sharing, blogging, commenting on fan and critic rating platforms, and downloading and streaming via peer-to-peer protocols and file sharing sites.

Amazon’s ‘Jack Ryan’ Getting Dolby Treatment

Actor Jack Krasinski’s recent movie, A Quiet Place, stressed silence as a means of survival against extraterrestrial creatures that hunt by sound.

Now, the “The Office” alum is upping the volume in a second season turn as a CIA analyst in “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” which begins streaming on Prime Video Aug. 31.

Dolby Laboratories and Amazon announced that the series will be available in both Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision HDR. The combined Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision experience will initially be available on certain Dolby Vision TVs and Dolby Atmos enabled audio devices.

Dolby Vision claims to deliver contrast, color highlights that are up to 40 times brighter than standard TV quality, and blacks that are 10 times darker. When combined, Dolby says the lifelike images and sound “leap from the screen” to make entertainment experiences “truly spectacular.”

“Amazon is committed to delivering immersive and compelling content to our Prime Video members around the world,” Greg Hart, VP of Prime Video, said in a statement. “Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision will enhance the action-packed scenes in ‘Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan’and make viewers feel like they are at the center of the story.”

“Dolby enables spectacular audio and visual experiences that take your favorite entertainment to the next level,” said John Couling, SVP, commercial partnerships, Dolby Labs. “Through our growing work with Amazon, we can now bring more lifelike experiences to Prime members.”

Amazon Unveils Premiere Dates for ‘Homecoming,’ ‘Jack Ryan,’ Other Originals

Amazon Studios July 20 unveiled premiere dates for several series and Homecoming, starring Julia Roberts, as well as casting news and clips and trailers for upcoming shows during its San Diego Comic-Con panel.

Homecoming will premiere Nov. 2 on Prime Video. The psychological thriller directed by Sam Esmail (creator of “Mr. Robot”) stars Roberts as Heidi Bergman, a caseworker at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, a facility helping soldiers transition back to civilian life. Walter Cruz (Stephan James) is one of these soldiers. Overseeing Heidi and the facility is Colin Belfast (Bobby Cannavale), an ambitious company man whose manic demands point to questionable motives. Four years later, Heidi has started a new life, living with her mother (Sissy Spacek) and working as a small-town waitress, when a Department of Defense auditor (Shea Whigham) comes to her with questions about why she left the Homecoming facility.

See the teaser trailer for Homecoming here.

Amazon will debut “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” co-produced by Paramount Television and Skydance Television, Aug. 31 on Amazon Prime Video. The eight-episode drama is a reinvention of the Tom Clancy hero with a modern sensibility starring John Krasinski (A Quiet Place, 13 Hours) as Jack Ryan, as well as Wendell Pierce as James Greer and Abbie Cornish (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as Cathy Mueller. Noomi Rapace will play Harriet “Harry” Baumann in Season 2, Amazon announced. Amazon screened the first episode during the panel.

Season 2 of “Lore” will debut Oct. 19 on Prime Video. The series explores the real-life frightening and disturbing tales that give rise to modern-day myths and legends. The hybrid series will continue to feature narration, archive footage and animation to complement the filmed segments.

Frances McDormand, Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actress, will lend her voice to the series “Good Omens” as “the voice of God.” In the series, the end of the world is coming, which means a fussy Angel and a loose-living Demon who’ve become overly fond of life on Earth are forced to form an unlikely alliance to stop Armageddon. But they have lost the Antichrist, an 11-year-old boy unaware he’s meant to bring upon the end of days, forcing them to embark on an adventure to find him and save the world before it’s too late.

Season four of “The Expanse” will debut on Amazon Prime Video in the United States in 2019. Cast and creators of the show sent a video message thanking fans for saving the series based on the popular science fiction novels by James S. A. Corey.

Among the talent in attendance at the panel were Carlton Cuse, a showrunner and executive producer of Tom Clancy’s “Jack Ryan”; “The Tick” creator Ben Edlund; Sam Esmail, director of Homecoming; author Neil Gaiman, creator-writer-showrunner of “Good Omens”; “Lore” executive producer Gale Anne Hurd; and Naren Shankar, showrunner of “The Expanse.”