Streaming sites have come to the rescue for shows that networks refuse to touch. Inspector Gadget's new cartoon finds a home there, rather than no export to us like the last show. I'd say Nick and CN screwed Dreamworks out of their animated movie based programming (MVA was abruptly canned after one season, Riders of Berk just disappeared), but their Netflix deal seems to have them thriving (though I think they're only one season deals. Kinda disappointed that Turbo needs a few more episodes because of what they set up). And let's not forget Yahoo stream giving Community a new lease on life when NBC just hated Dan Harmon so much, they put "The Slap" on and thought people would watch that instead.
But it's still a massive tangle of sweetheart deals that see shows and movies disappearing all the time, some moving to
other paysites because of better offers. It's very much unreliable. And if you want to watch everything, you're going to have to pay for each site. Granted, at least it's a better set up than refuses to go ala carte cable (No, I don't want the 5 religious channels and countless home shopping networks, I just want freaking XD... can't do that), but it's still going to cost you to see everything.
I'm not sure where they'd fit on ABC. Could it be a summertime show? Would it be on Sundays? Could they fold it into the weekday schedule? However, please for the love of Frog, not on Fridays! Young people are usually out doing something on Fridays. It's the kiss of death slot best served for reruns of Matlock.
ABC found itself with it's Wednesday Night sitcoms and Thursday Night dramas. They still have embarrassingly stale reality shows (really?!?! the Bachelor is still on?), and Friday Night
awful Tim Allen shows. But I don't see them giving any Muppet vehicle a chance. There's no where to put it. Fridays or Sundays. Not really good time slots that MT once had. I don't think they'd get anything prime or competitive. ABC Family
swears people are watching Mellisa and Joey... I don't see Muppets thriving on any of their other cable channels, either.
And on the subject of MMW, so many films under-performed last year. How to Train Your Dragon 2 and the Penguins of Madagascar movies should have been slam dunks. Critics could claim that they weren't as good as they could have been or that they could have been better marketed, but none of that mattered much before now. The lackluster Shrek and Madagascar sequels fared very well. So what's different now? I don't think it has anything to do with the quality of the films or even ticket prices. People seem to have lost interest in the film experience itself. I think it might snap back after this year's Star Wars and Marvel offerings. However, I think those films are part of what's killing the film industry. Smaller films not connected to bigger extended worlds or based on young adult novels aren't that popular anymore. Let's hope that trend changes.
Both HTTYD2 and Penguins were poorly timed. I'd say HTTYD 2 felt the same movie goer family burnout that Peabody and Sherman and MMW suffered. Penguins got it worse. That Thanksgiving Weekend isn't
half as successful as they think it is. At least not any more. Dreamworks films released before that weekend of that Month tend to do much better. Penguins also faced TOUGH competition from Big Hero 6, so there's that too. And frankly, Dreamworks had a feeling POM wasn't going to make the insane amount of money Madagascar 3 did. I don't think they even had much faith in it since they randomly dumped it on that weekend because they didn't want Home to get a all or nothing weekend. And it WORKED! Home opened the strongest since The Croods. But the Penguins? Even the Happy Meal toys were recycled (from the TV show promotion 4 years ago). I've
never seen them do that before
ever. Something tells me not a single flipper was given.
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