April Fools is canceled, as extreme as that sound the reality does seem so. With the Coronavirus seemly closing down most of the country, you can still prank your parents or your roommates, but while the spirit is there, it is just not the same. Every year the internet would be flooded with trailer after trailer of fake ads and products meant to excite, but overall trick the viewer. The pranks were so elaborate and realistic that April 1, would also be known as the official Stay Away From the Internet Day. Apple and Google were the biggest contributors, every year they would come up with some of the best pranks.
One of the most memorable pranks was when Google turned Google Maps into Pac-Man:
Video games also seem to have the most fun with April Fool, IGN.com loves to make up elaborate trailers for fake products, and of course the infamous Live Action Legend of Zelda Movie:
These trailers were over the top, but this was the spirit of the holiday, to make people believe that this was real, just to go for a simple lol kidding. When I was younger, I opened magazines that had ads for products and games that made me lose my mind, just to find out that I was getting pranked. Respawn Entertainment shock the internet when they did a Titanfall x Transformers crossover:
Television channels and streaming also had their own fun with the holiday, with Netflix adding over-detailing categories of films and their own categories made entirely of cooking shows. Not to be outdone by Cartoon Network: Their Adult Swim block brought back Toonami, and for April Fools they showed all their programs in Japanese:
Outside of the big companies, Youtubers and Comedians also flood the internet with their pranks. Outside of jokes, and clickbait April Fools also helps bring the spirit of spring. There is something uplifting about going to the internet on a sunny day and laugh at all the great pranks. While there have been some pranks posted this year, all the major players decided to skip this year, pretty much announcing that April Fools Day is canceled. This article is not meant to upset people but to remind people of some of the best April Fools pranks, so please, during this hard time, stay safe.
Onward has had a tough time in theaters, with the movie becoming one of the lowest-grossing Disney movies. The movie is going to find new-life going digital with the movie already available for digital purchase and the movie is also hitting Disney+ on April 3. The moves comes at no surprise with the wave of films hitting digital release early as a response to the Coronavirus.
This is not new for Disney as Frozen 2 arrived on Disney+ earlier this month. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey movie hit digital purchases over the weekend. While Troll 2: World Tour is set to release both on theater and digital.
Disney Plus Release Schedule:
April 3
Onward
Life on the Edge (new episode)
Dolphin Reef (new episode)
Diving With Dolphins (new episode)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (new episode)
Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings (new episode, finale)
Shop Class (new episode)
Disney Family Sundays (new episode)
One Day At Disney (new episode)
Be Our Chef (new episode)
A Tale of Two Critters
In a Nutshell
Don’s Fountain of Youth
Don’s Fountain of Youth
Donald’s Dog Laundry
Double Dribble
Dragon Around
Elmer Elephant
Fish Hooks (S1-3)
How to Play Football
Lambert, The Sheepish Lion
On Ice
Out of Scale
Penguins
Pluto’s Party
Sea Scouts
Sonny with a Chance (S1-3)
The Boy Who Talked to Badgers
The New Neighbor
The Small One
The Straight Story
April 10
A Celebration of Music from the Coco Premiere
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (new episode)
Shop Class (new episode)
Disney Family Sundays (new episode)
One Day At Disney (new episode)
Be Our Chef (new episode)
Life Below Zero (S14)
Paradise Island (S1)
Playtime with Puppy Dog Pals (S1)
Running Wild with Bear Grylls (S5)
Tut’s Treasures: Hidden Secrets (S1)
April 12
PJ Masks (S3)
April 17
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (new episode)
Shop Class (new episode, finale)
Disney Family Sundays (new episode)
One Day At Disney (new episode)
Be Our Chef (new episode)
Brain Games (S8)
Let’s Stick Together
Mickey and the Roadster Racers: Nutty Tales (S1-2)
With China re-opening its Hubei district (where the coronavirus originated), and the country also taking further steps to contain the virus. Other moves are being made to bring back a sense of normality; one of these steps is to bring back movie theaters. China closed down most of its theaters back in January during the early days of the outbreak. According to The Hollywood Reporter, China is starting to re-open approximately 600-700 movie theaters.
“An estimated 600 to 700 Chinese movie theaters open for business,” and now to boost business, all four Avengers movies, Avatar, Inception, and Interstellar will be re-released. Hollywood Reporter explained that a source at one of China’s nationwide cinema operators told them that “whenever the DCPs reach the cinemas,” the films will be available to them. In addition to this, the article notes that the Hollywood studios re-releasing their films in China will still “receive their usual 25 percent share of sales.”
Releasing some of the biggest blockbusters of the last 10 years (and Avatar) will allow nostalgic fans to go to the theaters. As for local filmmakers according to The Hollywood Reporter:
“Over the past week, China’s Film Bureau has introduced measures to help address the bottleneck. In a deal hashed out with Chinese studios last week, state-backed distributor China Film Group said it would allow local theaters to rerelease a raft of past local blockbusters — including Wolf Warrior 2, The Wandering Earth and Wolf Totem, among others — while giving cinemas the right to keep 100 percent of ticket revenue.”
The closed down of theaters has had a strong impact in different markets such as Italy. Movies such as No Time to Die, F9, and Sonic The Hedgehog had their international release days postpone. While this news doesn’t mean that we will start seeing newer movies arrive in theaters, it is a step in the right direction. The only way for studios to see if the theater openings are worth bring the newer movies to them is all going to come down to how much revenue will be made. While 600-700 theaters is a large number, it is not enough to justify new movies trying to break even.
Recently Troll 2: World Tour was announced to release both theatrical and digitally at the same time. Black Widow stars are also campaigning for Black Widow also to be released digitally. While I am on board with movies being available for both theater and streaming at the same time, there is something magical about experiencing a movie in theaters for the first time.
As we start our second week of social distancing, some of the funniest videos that had taken over are celebrities finding ways to pass the time. For some getting lock up at home is just buniess as usual with Late Show host Seth Meyers, and Daily Show host Trevor Noah hosting their respective TV shows from the comfort of their homes:
Jimmy Falon and Stephen Colbert also started to blog from their homes.
Other celebrities decided to have a little bit of fun with their newfound spare time. Gal Gadot surprise the internet by gathering some of her friends (Jimmy Fallon, Will Ferrell, Zoe Kravitz, Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, Sarah Silverman, and Kristen Wiig.) to sing “Imagine,” by John Lennon on Instagram.
Not everyone is enjoying their time indoors, Tom Hanks was diagnosed with the Coronavirus while filming in Australia. Tom Hanks was the first celebrity to be reported to have the virus. Idris Elba would follow along with NBA star Kevin Durant. Tom Hanks has announced that he is feeling better, which is great news:
Despite being stuck at home it is fun to see our favorite celebrities find new ways to entertain us. While also giving us hope that everything will be fine.
With the influx of people staying home to practice social distancing, Netflix (and other streaming services) needed to make adjustments to their servers to lower the strain of having so many people watching at the same time. In order to do this, Netflix is squeezing back video bit rate to reduce the strain on bandwidth-stressed networks worldwide in Europe and the U.K as a response from the European Union who urged to degrade video quality to conserve internet bandwidth. The cutbacks started in Italy and Spain, where the networks have been hit the hardest. Ken Florance, Netflix’s VP of content delivery, wrote in a blog post:
“The action we’ve taken maintains the full range of video resolutions. So whether you paid for Ultra-High Definition (UHD), High Definition (HD), or Standard Definition (SD), that is what you should continue to get (depending on the device you are using).” To chop bandwidth utilization, Netflix for the next 30 days has “removed the highest-bandwidth streams,” i.e., those with the best quality.” Florance attempted to justify the move by writing, “if you are particularly tuned into video quality you may notice a very slight decrease in quality within each resolution,” Florance wrote. “But you will still get the video quality you paid for.”
Australia and India also saw a reduction in traffic networks by 25%. The move has gain criticism for lowering the quality but still keeping the prices the same. With the public given time to pay bills, and loans, it only makes sense for Netflix to lower costs since a significant amount of people are not going to work. Joining Netflix on the effort is Amazon, Youtube, Disney+, and Apple in response to the EE.UU request. The internet has evolved to not only be considered a luxury but a necessity of life. Without it, we are truly isolated from society, so it is imperative to keep the internet going, and if that means less than 1080p, then that is a fair sacrifice.
It is always fun the look through the weekend box office results, at it gives us an idea of what is popular, or what people feel like watching. I wrote before the world of cinema is going through a significant change, with more and more theaters closing to fight against the Coronavirus the movie industry is forced to adapt. With more movies shifting their digital release in order to help people stay indoors it is no surprise that this weekend box office numbers are drastically small. For the third week in a row, Disney’s Onward is still number one; however, what the biggest news of the weekend is that the box office arguably made no money.
As always, the numbers reported are mostly estimated, and when reports claim that there was no profit made, that is not necessarily the case. However, it is important to note that this is a big blow to the film industry. Movies are bigger, and budgets reflect this, so when a movie makes no money, it is something worth talking about. Now I am not saying to go to the theaters because we all need to do our part to stay safe. What I am saying is that film studios have realized that if they want to make money from their movies, then theaters are no longer going to work (at least for the foreseeable future). Recently it was announced that The Sonic The Hedgehog Movie is also going to move its digital release date.
The shift to digital is going to be a gamechanger, but while the reasoning is not the most ideal as I said before, it will be interesting to see how this trend evolves going forward.
For now, I will not be covering the weekend results since it seems that there won’t be any changes coming anytime soon.
