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HBO renews 'Westworld' for a third season
Less than two weeks after second season premiered, HBO has confirmed Westworld will return for a third go-round. The sci-fi drama, which centers around a theme park filled with humanoid robots, has proven a hit for HBO, so it's hardly a surprise the network is saddling up for season three. It's not clear when the third season will hit screens, but given season two is just a couple of episodes in following a 16-month hiatus, it might be some time before it airs.
Vice goes to the big screen with Motherboard science documentary
Vice-owned outlet Motherboard's documentary The Most Unknown, about "the biggest questions in science," will debut on Netflix after its theatrical run. The publication sent nine scientists around the world to get answers to big topics like the definition of consciousness, what exactly comprises dark matter and where life originated. According to Motherboard, "The film is an experiment, one in which we posited that by tossing scientists who'd never met into a petri dish of our own design, we'd learn something about what it means to dedicate one's life to questions we're not yet sure we can answer."
Amazon will make Gillian Flynn's 'Utopia' adaptation, not HBO
Thanks to collective feet-dragging and pre-production hell, Amazon has scored a win over HBO. The US adaptation of Utopia will live on under Jeff Bezos' roof, retaining novelist (and former Entertainment Weekly writer) Gillian Flynn as executive producer, creator and showrunner. The nine-episode limited series focuses on a group of youths who met online, found a graphic novel and as a result are being hunted by a "shadowy deep state organization." The graphic novel deals explicitly in conspiracy theories, and it turns out that the stories on its pages could actually be real. Across the pond, the original series ran for two seasons.
After Math: The golden age of streaming
We're winding down a freaky week of bad omens, unconvincing congressional testimony and sterling new streaming services. While most eyes were fixated on Mark Zuckerberg doing his best real boy impression, GTA IV lost most of its Russian tunes, ESPN debuted a new mobile app and vinyl got a high tech upgrade that nobody asked for. Numbers, because how else are you going to stretch your entertainment dollar?
HBO renews 'Silicon Valley' for a sixth season
HBO announced this week that it's renewing Silicon Valley for a sixth season. Season five, which premiered last month, is the first without TJ Miller, who tweeted his support of the Erlich Bachman-free season earlier this year, saying, "See - told you the show would be better without me on it." Miller was recently arrested and charged with calling in a fake bomb threat.
Hulu discounts its HBO add-on to $5 per month
In case it wasn't already obvious that HBO really, really wants you to watch the second season of Westworld, Hulu just made it crystal clear. The streaming service has discounted its HBO add-on from $15 per month to just $5 ahead of Westworld's season 2 premiere, with that rate locked in for as long as six months. It's not certain how long the promotional price will remain in place, but a spokesperson told Variety that it's available for a limited time. If you're interested, you might want to act quickly -- this makes a basic Hulu/HBO combo more affordable than HBO Now by itself.
'Westworld' creators have an unusual approach to S2 spoilers
During a Reddit AMA with Westworld show creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, Nolan made an unexpected announcement -- instead of making fans cry, they'd spoil their own show. Usually, for a mysterious show like this the fan community spends all season trying to connect threads and predict the plot's resolution without any real idea of what's happening (unless there's a leak). But maybe there's a way to skip all that, and experience the show like Game of Thrones where many people read the books first. The deal was to do it, without saying goodbye, if Nolan's comment received 1,000 upvotes, which it did, and you can view the video after the break. We'd tell you what's in it, but that would be a spoiler, and we'd never hurt you.
'Westworld' season two trailer offers our first glimpse of Shogunworld
Fans have been theorizing where Westworld would go after the shocking finale to its first season. Now we have a longer look at what will go down starting April 22nd. The latest trailer hints that there's more than just the western-themed park at play, with a flitting look at Shogunworld. There's also a tease that we'll see more of the outside world. Perhaps best of all, though, is that the clip is set to a haunting piano rendition of Nirvana's classic "Heart-shaped Box." If you're in the middle of rewatching season one and looking for clues, the embedded trailer below might give you a few more. Or, it could raise additional questions. Either way, we don't have too much longer to wait, as season two premieres on April 22nd.
Live the startup 'dream' in the ‘Silicon Valley’ VR Hacker Hostel
If you've enjoyed HBO's Silicon Valley over the last four seasons, chances are you're keyed in to the same tech and startup scenes that the show satires. Which means you might have an HTC Vive, which is the platform of choice for the upcoming VR experience based on the show. If you want to roam around the suburban "startup incubator" where the Pied Piper team makes the magic happen, Silicon Valley VR: Inside The Hacker Hostel is coming soon to HTC's headset.
The 'Westworld' mobile game is open for pre-registration
If you've been dying to be a part of the team that runs the unsettling theme park in HBO's Westworld, your wait is almost over. At SXSW today, Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment announced pre-registration for the mobile game, which will be released this year on Android and iOS. We learned earlier this year that the game is in the works, and today's announcement sheds light on the plot and timing.
Netflix’s real advantage is that it’s a tech company first
Netflix hasn't been coy about its plans to take over Hollywood. The company has already said it could spend up to $8 billion on content this year alone. But, for all the awards House of Cards and Icarus rack up, one of the reasons Netflix has tasted success so rapidly is its streaming technology. That's an area it has been perfecting in-house since 2010, when it became more than a simple mail-order DVD rental shop.
Surviving Westworld at SXSW
HBO is making the dreams of Westworld fans come true at SXSW 2018. The company built a replica of the show's Sweetwater town in an undisclosed location in Austin, Texas, and we were there to experience it firsthand. Before I tell you how it went, though, it's worth noting that this wasn't a run-of-the-mill installation. HBO says production for the project started in November of last year, and it took a 40-person crew five weeks to build the sci-fi park. In addition to that, the cast playing Westworld robotic Hosts, had a script that was 444 pages long.
We're live from SXSW 2018!
We have arrived in Austin, Texas for the 2018 edition of SXSW, the festival that showcases some of the best things in the tech (interactive), film and music industries. This year, we'll be taking a look at HBO's Westworld installation here on the ground, which promises to be one of the most exciting events at the show. We'll also attend panels featuring Apple's Eddy Cue and YouTube's CEO Susan Wojcicki, among others, as well cover new gadgets like Bose's audio-focused augmented-reality glasses. You can keep up with all the news from SXSW by bookmarking this page here.
Michael B. Jordan burns all the books in 'Fahrenheit 451' trailer
Last year, HBO announced that it was adapting Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 into a movie and today we get its first trailer. In it, we see Captain Beatty, played by Michael Shannon, telling underling fireman Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan) about the dangers of books and why they have to be burned. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," he says. "News, facts, memoirs, internet of old -- burn it." We also see Jordan's character spreading those ideas to school children, lighting room-fulls of books ablaze and saying with barely restrained fury, "I want to burn."
Netflix will stream HBO’s ‘The Defiant Ones’ outside of the US
Netflix might make headlines for securing its latest show, but its documentaries have been powerhouses in their own right; Last year, The White Helmets won the streaming service its first Academy Award. But the company is just as open to securing non-fiction content from other providers. On March 23rd, Netflix subscribers outside the US and Canada can watch The Defiant Ones, the HBO documentary miniseries chronicling Dr. Dre's and Jimmy Iovine's decades-long partnership.
Why is HBO making shows from podcasts?
HBO has signed a deal with political podcast Pod Save America that will see the popular show become a series of TV specials. The episodes will be shot and broadcast during the 2018 midterms, produced and starring the usual trio of (the other) Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor. It's the second time in recent months that the cable giant has sought to adapt a podcast, following its deal with 2 Dope Queens.
'Westworld' season two trailer shows us what comes next, and when
While Netflix dropped a day-and-date trailer for its Cloverfield flick, HBO has a more traditional reveal for season two of Westworld. Its Super Bowl spot (the first one HBO has ever aired for a specific series) showed off the network's "most-watched freshman series ever" with some new scenes that were interesting without revealing too much about where the show will go. We won't go too deep into the specifics for those who haven't checked out the first season yet, but at least now the vision of robots running amok includes massive mechanical bulls.
HBO outbids Apple for J.J. Abrams' latest sci-fi thriller TV series
J.J. Abrams' newest TV show, a sci-fi thriller called Demimonde has landed at HBO with a straight-to-series order. While Apple was very interested in the project, Abrams ultimately went with the network because he was impressed with its work on Westworld, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
A 'Westworld' mobile game is in the works
HBO's version of Westworld seems tailor-made for a video game: it's a fully-realized robot theme park with plenty of opportunities for disaster. And sure enough, you're about to get one. In the wake of a teaser on the website of the show's fictitious Delos Incorporated, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has confirmed to Engadget that a mobile game is in development. It's not saying much about the mechanics of the game itself, but it's working with Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive and the TV series' Kilter Films. The title is "currently being tested in limited release," a spokesperson said.
HBO's 'Silicon Valley' returns for its fifth season on March 25
Silicon Valley is about to return for a fifth season, and as the new trailer shows, things in Pied Piper's world of startup tech are not running smoothly. There's no Erlich Bachman, for a start (although T.J Miller, who played Bachman, has tweeted his praise for the Erlich-free season), hapless CEO Richard Hendricks is struggling to get the new internet off the ground and Jian-Yang has embraced a new badass attitude. Also there's a dead pig for some reason. Startups, eh? Catch the new season on March 25 on HBO.
