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Showing success both on transactional and revenue charts, “Croods 2,” is seeing a rebound at $5.99 after two months at $19.99. Per rental, the bounty to Universal per rental is much lower ( $4.20 vs. $16); this is the online equivalent of dollar-house bargain runs, which once were lucrative for distributors. There’s more gold in those hills; it tops both Apple TV and Google Play’s per-rental lists and #2 at transaction-based FandangoNow....

Starting September 8, the streamer unveiled a smattering of new subscriber content, plus rolled out a special one-month offer of $1.99 for new subscribers, compared to the regular $7.99 monthly fee. The promotion lasts through September 19 for new users to register. The 2022 Disney+ Day lineup features highly-anticipated global premieres from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, “The Simpsons,” and more, including behind-the-scenes making-of content for hit “Star Wars” series “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and Taika Waititi’s MCU installment “Thor: Love and Thunder....

So when it was revealed that “Anastasia,” the 1997 animated film from 20th Century Studios that Disney acquired when it bought Fox, was no longer streaming on Disney+, many suspected that it was an act of protest against Russia. After all, “Anastasia” is set in Russia and is based on the Russian legend of Grand Duchess Anastasia, a daughter of the Romanov dynasty who is separated from her family by an evil wizard and grows up in an orphanage without knowledge of her royal lineage....

Nawaf Alsabhan, Saudi Arabia’s general supervisor of cinema classification, told The Guardian that Disney was asked to cut “LGBTQ references” from “Doctor Strange 2″ so the film could premiere in the country. However, Alsabhan noted that the film is not officially banned, despite AMC Cinemas in Saudi Arabia saying it had been “withdrawn” from theaters ahead of its May 6 release. The requested edits are “barely 12 seconds” of footage, as Alsabhan explained, in which lesbian character America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) refers to her “two moms....

In a new interview over at The Film Stage, “Bad Trip” star Eric André and producer Jeff Tremaine detailed a gag that didn’t make it into the final cut. “I think the exorcism prank was probably like the best prank on its own,” André said. “It just didn’t fit into the body of the movie.” The details of the excised prank turned out to be quite sick. “We had this prank where we stayed the night in a motel that was haunted....

The newest study from the Center and executive director Dr. Martha M. Lauzen finds that the percentages of women working as directors and writers on independent films continue to climb, “reaching recent historic highs in 2019-2020.” This new edition of the annual “Indie Women” study finds that women comprised 38 percent of directors working on narrative features and documentaries, up from 33 percent in 2018-19 and 29 percent in 2017-18. Women accounted for 35 percent of writers, up from 32 percent in 2018-19 and 26 percent in 2017-18....

In 2014, I published a book called “Sitcom” that served as a history of the American situation comedy, covering the gamut from “I Love Lucy” to the present day. For that work, I wrote a chapter on “Friends,” rewatching the entirety of the series and appreciating its warmth and its acidic vigor. I felt like I’d said my piece. Then I came across this story in the New York Times about high-school kids watching “Friends” on Netflix and shipping Ross and Rachel, as if this were a hot new series and not a two-decade-old show....