ACORN TV
Programming from several countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand, and UK. AMC Networks chief Josh Sapan told The Hollywood Reporter that Acorn TV has "among the lowest churn" among major services owing to its focus as well as viewers' "dedication and affinity" for its content.

Korean director Erick Oh follows up his Oscar-nominated “Opera” animated short with the more personal and intimate “Namoo” (Korean for tree), which captures the beautiful and heartbreaking moments of a painter’s life, constructed around a symbolic tree. Produced by Baobab Studios, the festival favorite was made simultaneously as a virtual reality experience as well as a 2D/theatrical short using the innovative VR animation tool Quill (formerly owned by Oculus). He hand-picked six Quill experts to assist him. All the layers were done in Quill [modeling, rigging, animating, shading, lighting merged into one].” While the VR experience consisted of watching the tree grow in front of you, the short naturally contained its own narrative that escalated with tension. Thanks to Quill, the painterly, 2D-look was convincingly achievable in CG...

Brad Pitt plans to restore a piece of rock music history on the 900-acre property he purchased with ex-wife Angelina Jolie. In 2012, the two A-list celebrities purchased the entire Miraval estate for a cool $60 million. Located in Correns, France, the expansive property consists of a castle, historic church where the couple privately wed, manicured vineyard, as well as a famous music studio where legendary bands such as Pink Floyd, AC/DC, and The Cure recorded some of their most iconic records. The studio itself measures around 3,000 square feet and is equipped with a control room measuring 650 square feet. Pitt plans to not only open the space up to major recording labels, but also have the studio available for film, theatre, and the fine arts...

Steven Spielberg managed to get critics on board for his ambitious “West Side Story” remake. The moviegoing masses? Not so much. Over the weekend, Disney and 20th Century Studio’s reimagining of “West Side Story” collected just $10.5 million in its domestic debut, a dismal result for a movie of its scale and scope. Among the select people who bought tickets on opening weekend, 57% were female and 26% (the largest percentage) were over the age of 55. The second-largest percentage of moviegoers (21%) were between 25 and 34...

A new report from the British Film Institute (BFI) reveals that film and high end TV tax breaks have resulted in the highest ever return on investment in the U.K. The report, which covers the pre-pandemic period from 2017-2019, calculated that tax reliefs across film, high-end television, video games, children’s TV and animation contributed £13.48 billion (almost $18 billion) to the U.K. economy in 2019 thanks to record levels of production. This amounts to a 56% increase in return on investment since 2016...

The radical revamp of Italy’s Cinecittà Studios, which has been underway since May, is gaining traction with a rise in occupancy of its sound stages and backlot, realistic prospects for profitability, and new state-of-the-art filming facilities on the way, according to managing director Nicola Maccanico. Maccanico, a former Warner Bros. and Sky Italia senior exec, came on board in April to run Cinecittà with a mandate from Italy’s culture minister Dario Franceschini to turn the iconic Rome studios into continental Europe’s top filming facilities thanks to a €300 million ($339) million) investment from the European Union’s post-pandemic recovery fund. He has since been busy overhauling several of the existing 19 sound stages and getting five new stages built, while also devising a five-year financial plan under which Maccanico expects Cinecittà to start turning a profit in 2023...