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Fast & Furious - The Ride Continues

Meadow Walker w/Dad (Paul) and F&F co-star Vin Diesel

A wrongful death lawsuit was filed against German auto manufacturer Porsche by Meadow Walker, the daughter of actor Paul Walker who died in a high-speed crash in November 2013.  In its response, Porsche issued this statement, "we are very sad whenever anyone in hurt in a Porsche vehicle, but we believe the authorities' reports, in this case, clearly establish that this crash resulted from reckless driving and excessive speed."

Roger Rodas, who also died in the accident, was driving Walker's 2005 Porsche Carrera GT at the time of the crash.  He lost control of the car and crashed into several trees and a concrete lamppost.

The lawsuit claims that Porsche knew that the Carrera GT had "a history of instability and control issues". The law suit also questions police reports that the vehicle was traveling at 90 mph. Both LA County Sheriff's Department and California Highway Patrol investigators concluded that unsafe speed and not vehicle mechanical problems caused the accident.

In a related story, it was officially reported that the Fast and Furious movie franchise will end with a trilogy of films.  The next episode is scheduled for release in 2017, with two more sequels to follow. The F&F franchise has been a huge success.  The last episode, Fast and Furious 7, raked in over $1.5 billion worldwide and there is no reason to believe that F&F 8, 9, and 10 can't match or exceed that figure.

Looking At The Competition

A relic of the past? Cable fights for scale.

It is always a good idea to investigate what your competition is up to and how they are coping with the ever changing landscape of the entertainment business. One of the competitors of the cinema exhibition industry is the TV cable business.

Cable is shrinking. Consolidation, competition, and consumer viewing habits are changing the cable TV business.  In the cable business these days it's eat or be eaten as the larger operators gobble up their smaller peers and players outside the TV realm snap-up providers. For example, AT&T recently forked over $48.5 billion for DirectTV.  Charter Communications, in May, purchased Time Warner Cable to the tune of $78.7 billion and picked up 10.8 million cable subscribers.  This and several other purchases of cable operators will give Charter a base of over 17.2 million cable customers by year's end.

The name of the game is scale.  Being bigger and bulking up provides the opportunity to offer new services more efficiently and cheaply across a larger base of customers as the players get bigger and bigger. For example, only five (Cox, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter) of the top 25 cable operators in 1995 still exist today, all the others were consumed.

The problem that cable faces is the internet. People opting for web-delivered content vs. cable or broadcast TV.  Each year thousands of cable subscribers cut the 'cord' essentially leaving cable providers and going solely to the internet for their viewing content.  This leaves the field wide-opened for competition - be it from communications companies like Verizon or AT&T or content streamers like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon.  These competitors offer direct-to-consumer content without ads (for the most part) and they are now producing their own original, high-level content.  So, as cord-cutting continues the cable operators need to add scale to remain profitable.  Currently, in the U.S., of the 116 million households that have cable, over 80% are serviced by just eight cable companies, so it's getting harder to obtain that all important scale.  For example, if the fifth largest cable provider (Verizon) were to purchased the next three largest cable companies below its ranking it would still be stuck in fifth place!

So, long-term it's not cable companies that cinemas need to worry about but internet-based content providers.

'Extras' Protest Nudity & Sex on HBO Film Set

Sparked by a central casting call by HBO for the upcoming 'Westworld' scifi series which required 'extras' to prepare for and consent to being filmed in "graphic sexual situations and other acts the Project may require" SAG-AFTRA (the actors guide and union) went on notice saying HBO's requests were "unenforceable" under the current union agreements.

The current actors agreement ensures that, although actors may sign a consent form, consent to appear in scenes requiring nudity or sex acts can be withdrawn at any time, so long as the scenes have not already been shot.

Cast extras on the 'Westworld' set have been complaining about the show's expansive nudity and sexual violence.  For its part, HBO issued a statement saying, "we do not require any actor to participate in any on-set practices and we provide a professional and comfortable working environment for all performers."

A SAG-AFTRA representative commented, "it's important that performers understand their rights, especially in circumstances like these that pose a high risk of exploitation."

HBO's 'Westworld' is based upon the 1973 movie of the same name which starred Yul Brenner and Richard Benjamin.