ITV

Tag: Stranger Things

  • Five must-watch Hindi-dubbed series for max entertainment

    Five must-watch Hindi-dubbed series for max entertainment

    Mumbai: Embark on an exhilarating journey through the world of Hollywood’s finest series, now tailored to resonate with Hindi-speaking audiences worldwide. From gripping dramas to spine-chilling mysteries, these five must-watch series promise to transport you to realms of intrigue, suspense, and unbridled excitement. Whether you’re a fan of legal thrills, epic fantasy, or adrenaline-fueled heists, there is something here for everyone.

    Better Call Saul

    Set to premiere on Zee Cafe on 1 April at 10 pm, the series dubbed in Hindi has already become a much anticipated show, evident from fans’ reactions across the internet. The prequel to Breaking Bad follows Jimmy McGill’s transformation into the morally flexible lawyer ‘Saul Goodman’ played by Bob Odenkirk. Within the same universe as Breaking Bad, the series explores Saul’s backstory, his diverse clientele, and the intricate legal landscape. With stellar performances and captivating storytelling, Better Call Saul is essential viewing for fans craving intense drama and compelling character arcs.

    Breaking Bad

    Premiered as ‘Baap of all shows’ Breaking Bad in Hindi last year on Zee Cafe is a groundbreaking series that chronicles the transformation of a high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (Bryan Cranston), into a ruthless methamphetamine manufacturer. Fueled by Bryan Cranston’s Emmy-winning performance as Walter White, this dark and gritty drama explores themes of morality, power, and the consequences of one’s choices. Dubbed in Hindi, the series retains its intensity and suspense, making it an unforgettable viewing experience.

    Game of Thrones

    Game of Thrones, adapted from George R.R. Martin’s renowned novels, takes viewers to the mythical realms of Westeros and Essos, where noble houses compete for the Iron Throne. The captivating fantasy series has entranced audiences across the globe with its intricate plotlines, well-developed characters, and stunning visuals. Watching Game of Thrones in Hindi offers an immersive experience, enhancing the enjoyment of its richly woven narrative and epic conflicts, making it a compelling choice for fans of fantasy and political drama.

    Stranger Things

    The series chronicles the adventures of a group of kids in Hawkins, a small town, as they confront supernatural entities and unravel government secrets. Drawing inspiration from iconic 80s cinema and television, this sci-fi horror masterpiece pays tribute to the pop culture of its era. With a blend of suspense, humour, and touching moments, Stranger Things has evolved into a cultural sensation, captivating audiences of every generation. Watching Stranger Things in Hindi offers a nostalgic journey infused with the essence of the era, making it an irresistible choice for viewers seeking immersive entertainment in their native language.

    Money Heist

    Money Heist follows the meticulous planning and execution of daring heists orchestrated by the enigmatic Professor and his team of skilled criminals. Set in Spain, this Spanish thriller is known for its adrenaline-pumping action, intricate plot twists, and complex characters. Dubbed in Hindi, the series has gained a massive international following and has become one of most popular offerings. With its high-stakes heists and gripping suspense, the series is a must-watch for fans of crime dramas.

    These series are not just dubbed, they are reimagined for Hindi audiences, ensuring a truly unforgettable viewing experience. So, grab your popcorn and get ready to immerse yourself in the captivating narratives of Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and Money Heist. 

  • Netflix, The Duffer Brothers announce a new production company Upside Down Pictures

    Netflix, The Duffer Brothers announce a new production company Upside Down Pictures

    Mumbai: The Duffer Brothers announced its new production company Upside Down Pictures for film and television projects. This is a part of their overall deal with OTT platform Netflix. 

    Overseeing this operation is Hilary Leavitt, an executive who has helped develop such hit shows as Orphan Black and Ozark in the past. 

    According to a statement, The Duffer Brothers said, “The Upside Down Pictures will aim to create the kind of stories that inspired the Duffers growing up – stories that take place at that beautiful crossroads where the ordinary meets the extraordinary, where big spectacle co-exists with intimate character work, where heart wins out over cynicism.”

    The Duffer Brothers and Netflix also announced their growing slate of projects in active development including a new live-action television adaptation of the Japanese manga and anime series Death Note, a series from creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance), a series adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub‘s The Talisman alongside Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television to be created by Curtis Gwinn, a new stage play set within the world and mythology of Stranger Things, produced by prolific and multi award-winning producers Sonia Friedman, Stephen Daldry (The Crown, Billy Elliot, The Reader), and Netflix. Daldry will direct the series and 21 Laps will be the associate producer and lastly, a live-action Stranger Things spin-off series based on an original idea by The Duffer Brothers, with Upside Down and 21 Laps as producers.

    The Duffer Brothers most recently released the fourth season of their hit Netflix series Stranger Things, which is now the number one on Netflix’s (all time) most popular English TV list with 1.15 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days – only the second series to cross the billion hour viewing mark, with the final tally expected to be higher as volume 2 reaches the 28-day viewing period. 

    The third season released in 2019 still holds at number three.

    Speaking on the occasion, Matt and Ross Duffer said, “It didn’t take long into our first meeting with Hilary, where we bonded over films like Jaws, Home Alone, and Speed, to know we had found a kindred spirit. Hilary’s passion for storytelling is perhaps matched only by her passion for the storytellers themselves, for whom she is fiercely protective. No wonder so many writers and directors are drawn to working with her. She is a rare talent indeed, and we feel extremely grateful to have her at our side as we build Upside Down Pictures.” 

    Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said, “Matt and Ross are an exceptionally unique talent with a vision so crisp and clear. They are all about the details —  it’s no accident that Stranger Things has pierced the zeitgeist to become the epic pop culture phenomenon it is today. We’re excited to continue telling new stories with them as they grow Upside Down Pictures and to welcome Hilary as creative partner.”

    Leavitt added, “I remember the first movie I saw in the theatre, the first VHS tape I got for Christmas, the first international one-sheet I bid for on ebay because it was cooler than the domestic. And the first time I met Matt and Ross. All of these seminal moments have led to this ridiculously cool opportunity to build a company with the Duffer Brothers where we produce movies and television because we love movies and television. This love is at the core of Upside Down Pictures, where we’re able to collaborate with other artists on projects across the full spectrum of genre. We all love what we do and are excited to do more and more.”

  • Netflix pushes on-ground marketing for fourth season of ‘Stranger Things’

    Netflix pushes on-ground marketing for fourth season of ‘Stranger Things’

    MUMBAI: In celebration of the upcoming return of the show Stranger Things, OTT platform Netflix did a global marketing initiative. Rifts appeared on iconic monuments around the globe. As part of this unique initiative, The Gateway of India joined the world stage alongside a special list of 15 landmarks (across 14 countries), such as the Empire State Building in New York, Duomo Square in Milan, Bondi Beach in Australia, Malecon Barranquilla in Colombia and The Wawel Castle in Krakow, amongst others to capture the love of the fans and showcase the show’s most unforgettable moments.

    In anticipation of Stranger Things season 4 volume 1 which premieres today 27 May 2022, Mumbai was treated to a celebration for the fans with a one of a kind projection mapping of the city’s tourist landmark – The Gateway of India. Taking over the night skies of Mumbai, the heritage monument was lit up with a larger than life display of popular elements from the series. In a grand reveal the iconic monument turned into a massive canvas, giving us glimpses of our favourite characters including Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max and the gang, along with all the mayhem that’s in store for them in the Upside Down.  

    Netflix added that since the launch of its first season in 2016, Stranger Things has emerged as a pop culture phenomenon. Eleven and her friends have captured the imaginations of fans from India and the world and the rifts take them inside the story, taking them through the Upside Down and into an alternate reality. The series is enjoyed by millions of fans and is available in three Indian languages (Hindi, Tamil & Telugu). 

  • ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 to be released on Netflix

    ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 to be released on Netflix

    Mumbai: The fourth and most awaited season of American science fiction horror drama television series “Stranger Things” is all set to make its premiere on Netflix on 27 May.

    Starring Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery, Cara Buono, Dacre Montgomery, and Maya Hawke, the upcoming season of this series is creating a lot of buzz across social media.  

    Let us tell you that not just “Stranger Things” but a lot of American TV shows, films and other programming in different languages are emerging as a favorite of viewers on OTT platforms.  

    According to industry estimates, 30 percent of overall viewership of leading OTT applications comes from American content, streamed in foreign languages such as Turkish, German and Korean — including their dubbed versions in the hindi and other regional languages.  

    While the originals engage the audience in urban areas, the dubbed versions ensure maintain the momentum in regional markets.  

    Recently, “Extraction” and “The Kissing Booth” by Netflix registered significant growth in the Hindi and Tamil markets. Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys”, “The Tomorrow War”, “Wonder Woman” and “Parasite” are also doing exceptionally well in Hindi and Tamil speaking belt. Considering this shift in audience behaviour, Walt Disney has decided to leverage the regional market by dubbing content into regional languages and making it available even on its cheaper price plans.

     

  • Netflix to acquire virtual production studio Scanline VFX

    Netflix to acquire virtual production studio Scanline VFX

    Mumbai: Netflix has announced its plans to acquire virtual production studio Scanline VFX. The company is responsible for the visual effects in Netflix series like “Cowboy Bebop,” “Stranger Things,” and “Blood Red Sky.”

    The company expects to complete the acquisition by the end of first quarter 2022 subject to regulatory approvals. 

    Founded in 1989, Scanline is led by Stephan Trojansky, a VFX supervisor whose proprietary fluid rendering system ‘Flowline’ won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2008. The company has offices in Vancouver, Montreal, Los Angeles, London, Munich, Stuttgart, and Seoul.

    The company is working on VFX effects for upcoming Netflix content including “Don’t Look Up,” “The Gray Man,” “Slumberland,” “The Adam Project,” and “Stranger Things 4.”

    “Netflix will invest in Scanline’s pipeline, infrastructure and workforce and continue to support the pioneering work that Scanline’s Eyeline Studios is doing in virtual production to push the boundaries of what is visibly possible,” said Netflix vice president of studio operations Amy Reinhard.

    Apart from Netflix content, Scanline has done ground-breaking work on series like “Game of Thrones” to films like “Godzilla vs Kong” and “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” “Going forward, the company will continue to operate as a standalone business and work with their variety of clients,” said Reinhard.

    Netflix will continue to rely on other VFX studios around the world “to ensure that our creators have access to the world’s most innovative tech,” said Reinhard.

  • Netflix launches first two mobile games in Poland

    Netflix launches first two mobile games in Poland

    Mumbai: Netflix has launched its first two mobile games on Android – “Stranger Things: 1984” and “Stranger Things 3” for members in Poland. Netflix Geeked made the announcement on 26 August via their official Twitter handle.  

    “Today members in Poland can try Netflix mobile gaming on Android with two games, Stranger Things: 1984 and Stranger Things 3. It’s very, very early days and we’ve got a lot of work to do in the months ahead, but this is the first step,” reads the tweet.

    According to a report by Variety, Netflix games will have no ads or in-app purchases and titles will be included with a Netflix streaming plan. In the Android app, available game titles will show up under a new menu that says ‘Play Mobile Games’ and users who click on it will be directed to a Google Play Store page to download the game. The report indicates that over time the games will be more tightly integrated into the Netflix app itself.

    “Stranger Things 3: The Game” is developed by studio BonusXP and allows gamers to play through familiar events in Stranger Things season three where they will be able to uncover new quests, character interactions and secrets. “Stranger Things: 1984” is described as a stylized retro action-adventure similar to the arcade games back in the 80s, letting players solve puzzles, collect Eggos and gnomes along the way, said the Variety report.

    In July, Netflix hired former Facebook, vice president, Mike Verdu to head its video games unit as vice president, game development. Verdu has been associated with EA Mobile, Kabam, TapZen and served as chief executive officer at Zynga from 2009 to 2012.  

    Last month, the company officially revealed its plans to enter the video game market as a new category to help it attract and retain customers. In their second-quarter earnings call, co-CEO Reed Hastings emphasised that Netflix is not looking to generate revenues from video games per se, it is about “enhancing the big service that we have”, he noted.  

  • Netflix offers free content sampling to viewers without signing up

    Netflix offers free content sampling to viewers without signing up

    KOLKATA: Netflix takes a new route to bring more consumers to the platform. It will now let viewers sample some of the most popular content without an account. It has launched a page dedicated to Netflix's original movies and TV shows that are free to watch globally. 

    It is offering the first episodes of popular episodic originals like Stranger Things, Our Planet, Boss Baby: Back in Business, When They See Us, Love is Blind, Elite, and Grace and Frankie. Films like Bird Box, Murder Mystery, The Two Popes. 

  • Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on global opportunity, subscriber addition and competition

    Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on global opportunity, subscriber addition and competition

    MUMBAI: With Disney all set to enter the direct-to-consumer business with its streaming app, Netflix missing its subscriber addition forecast globally along with losing subscribers in the domestic market is likely to be trouble. Although stocks of the FANG company stumbled as an aftermath of the Q2 result, Netflix is confident of getting back on track in the next quarter. Talking to investors in an earnings call after the Q2 result, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings also showed confidence in global subscriber additions, upcoming competition and the positive impact of streaming war.

    Here are the edited excerpts:

    Global opportunity:

    Well, we do wonder, in the fullness of time, can we be as big as YouTube? YouTube is 7x larger than us roughly in viewing hours, and a phenomenal service. Of course, it's free. So the real question is can we produce enough content that people are willing to pay for? If you look at benchmarks, it's about 700 million households that pay for television outside of China, so that would be kind of the equivalent of the US, 100 million, so that's one established market.

    Now, do we have enough content in each of those countries? Most of that is local content that gets consumed. But the internet is capable of some very large customer bases, as you, I'm sure, know well. So we'll just take it year-by-year and try to have our net adds continue to grow. We still think our net adds this year will be larger than last year. We'll keep pushing on that. And what we want to do is just grow the net adds every year and then the future takes care of itself.

    Streaming War:

    It's never been a better world for talent. They get to bid themselves off between us, Disney, Amazon, etc. So there's a real battle for who will pay for content around the world, but it's not a zero-sum competition. I think everybody gets that people will subscribe to multiple shows. Add wage — most Netflix employees are HBO subscribers. We love the content they do and that spurs us to want to be even better. So it's a great competition that helps grow the industry. And the advantage of having something catchy like streaming wars is it draws more attention. And because of that, people, consumers shift more quickly from linear TV to the streaming TV.

    Product partnerships for Stranger Things:

    Well, we're monetising it today in more membership growth. The focus is to get more people excited about Stranger Things. So they join Netflix. They tell their friends about it. So this year, we'll add about $5 billion of incremental subscription revenue, which is almost all of the gross margin, and that's faster than any entertainment company has grown in the history of the world. So what we want to do is keep that engine going, keep that subscriber engine going and not get distracted with alternative revenue sources which just don't add up when you're growing $5 billion a year. So the core focus is to create all these merchandising opportunities, tie-ins, touch points so that you feel the Stranger Things energy so that more people join. So together, as we do monetise all that, it's just we're monetising it through our giant engine rather than through little sidecar vehicles.

  • Netflix’s first domestic subscriber loss in 8 years; misses international addition estimate

    Netflix’s first domestic subscriber loss in 8 years; misses international addition estimate

    MUMBAI: The streaming giant Netflix witnessed domestic subscriber loss for the first time in the last eight years since it separated its DVD mail-order system and streaming platform. In the second quarter (Q2) of 2019, Netflix also added nearly 2 million fewer international customers than expected.

    In contrast to the projected 5 million addition in international subscribers, Netflix only gained 2.7 million subscribers. On the other hand, the company also lost more than 100,000 subscribers in the US. The company in its letter to shareholders said that Q2’s content slate drove less growth in paid net adds than it anticipated. Netflix added that the missed forecast was more noticed in the regions where prices were hiked. However, the company also denied any impact of the increased competition on the Q2 results.

    “Additionally, Q1, there may have been more pull-forward effect than we realised. In prior quarters with over-forecasts, we’ve found that the underlying long-term growth was not affected and staying focused on the fundamentals of our business served us well,” the company said in a letter to its shareholders.

    The streaming platform has started the third quarter with a returning season of its hit show Stranger Things while the final season of another iconic show Orange is the New Black will be released in the quarter. The company expects the subscriber growth to return to more typical growth in Q3, and said it is seeing that in these early weeks of Q3. It also forecast Q3 global paid net adds of 7 million with 0.8 million in the US and 6.2 million internationally.

    However, Netflix posted revenue of $4.92 billion, in-line with Wall Street’s $4.93 billion estimate, and earnings of 60 cents per share beating analyst consensus estimates of EPS 56 cents. “Much of our domestic, and eventually global, Disney catalog, as well as Friends, The Office, and some other licensed content will wind down over the coming years, freeing up budget for more original content,” the company added.

    The company also highlighted building out its licensing and brand partnerships effort, which is optimising for fan and viewer engagement over revenue maximisation. It also noted during the launch of Stranger Things season 3, the platform partnered with best-in-class brands like Coke, Nike, Burger King, and Baskin Robbins to build deep connections with the fans.

    More importantly, it announced a very important move in its important international market India in front of the product initiative. “After several months of testing, we’ve decided to roll out a lower-priced mobile-screen plan in India to complement our existing plans. We believe this plan, which will launch in Q3, will be an effective way to introduce a larger number of people in India to Netflix and to further expand our business in a market where Pay TV ARPU is low (below $5). We will continue to learn more after launch of this plan,” the company said.

  • Netflix Originals popular in most global markets

    Netflix Originals popular in most global markets

    MUMBAI: Netflix is showing its clout as its popular show Stranger Things’ has emerged as the most popular digital original series in most markets. Parrot Analytics’ Global Television Demand Report examined the demand for all digital original series in 10 markets (Australia, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, Greece, Switzerland, Brazil, UK, US).

    While Netflix is shifting its focus more and more towards originals, the survey report has proved it is definitely helping the company’s popularity. In six markets including Australia, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, Greece, the Netflix original Stranger Things is the most in-demand original series.

    Star Trek: Discovery and Black Mirror from Netflix have been placed among top 10 in-demand originals in the most of the surveyed markets. Other than Netflix originals, Amazon Prime Video’s The Grand Tour has also been placed as a popular one in the list in all markets.

    While globally the demand for OTT services has increased dramatically, the willingness to pay for subscription is still not very high in the markets. Parrot Analytics carried a survey across four markets including Brazil, Italy, UK, US. In Brazil, over 40 per cent of the people are not willing to opt for SVOD subscription. Over 45 per cent of respondents and nearly 50 per cent of the respondents in the UK and US respectively are not willing to subscribe to any video subscription streaming services.

    Italy came out as an odd market in the survey as over 70 per cent of people in Italy are willing to subscribe to one or two SVOD services, much higher compared to the other three markets. Only 18 per cent of people in this territory are not willing to subscribe to a subscription video streaming service.

    Also Read:

    Survey finds word of mouth best way to discover content online

    Netflix hires Shrishti Behl to build original Indian slate