CBS All Access seemingly has realized its Achilles heel: it’s working on adding more content to attract and hold subscribers.
As long at CBS owns The Twlight Zone, I’ll be at least marginally interested in their service, and season 2 of Jordan Peele’s version will be available June 25 (see: FIRST LOOK: The Twilight Zone (2020) Season 2 – CBS All Access June 25). I’ll be reactivating my subscription and watching.
Sure hope they go all the way with every version of The Twilight Zone TV in their “new” service scheduled for 2021. That should include the Forest Whitaker hosted version of Twilight Zone as well as the second TV series. And all seasons of everything, please.
As of the last time I was subscribed, only the original series and the newest one were available. Note to companies that own great IP: include everything. I would have stayed subscribed longer had they we worked their IP better, including perhaps some sort of ongoing TZ-related content. Heck, throw up a low-budget podcast that deals with their awesome IPs (Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Perry Mason and so on). I’ll re-up, watch the new TZ season and probably cancel again … until something else new (or classic) and interesting comes along.
Good news for existing subscribers, CBS All Access has added an update with over 100 Paramount movies. Their movie library was pretty bare bones before.
The updates to CBS All Access was discussed during the ViacomCBS earnings call in May, expanding on comments made earlier in the year about a “new” service. At the time, the company said that a “soft launch” of the updated service would take place sometime in 2020. The update started with the addition of over 100 Paramount films to the CBS All Access library, including The Godfather trilogy, Airplane, Pretty in Pink, and more movies from the Star Trek franchise.
CBS All Access ‘Super Service’ Will Launch in 2021 | Cord Cutters News
The addition of these 100 Paramount movies doesn’t appear to be the soft launch described in the article, so perhaps more of the proposed new service is coming later. How soon, again, isn’t detailed.
Am not sure why these companies can’t do an actual informational press release holding to some kind of future release date. Some time in 2020 is too vague when there are like six months left in the year. As for 2021? Just tack on another up to 18 months. Again, that’s an eternity in the streaming space. By the time CBS All Access adds more, Peacock will be in full swing (July 15, 2020), Disney+ will have The Mandalorian Season 2 (Fall 2020), HBO Max, Netflix and Amazon will have 18 months to build onto their original and existing libraries.
Notice I conveniently left off Apple TV. I’m not sure what they are up to, other than sitting on tons of cash and sort of poking at the competition with a few originals here and there. Greyhound, Tom Hank’s next movie is coming in July, but to this writer’s knowledge, they haven’t sprung for any other non-original content for their service. That’s going to make it nary impossible for them to keep and grow new subscribers. Sure, some will do the dip in and out subscribe routine, but unless they go in all in, they’re going to lag behind.
Quibi wasn’t mentioned either. They remain an outcast, despite their unusually short format (quick bites, yeah, yeah), but for the nearly $2 billion invested they’ll hang around a little while on content alone. Something tells me they were created to be bought by somebody else, perhaps Apple(?). I doubt Apple will be interested, at least in the near future, but it might be a not too expensive (especially if they wait for Quibi to fall almost completely apart and then swoop in with cash) way for them to expand their original content library. Recently, I started perusing Quibi’s content — now that it runs on my TV thanks to Google Chromecast — and am finding some interesting shows.
Movies, Movies, Movies 
While reading your article, I was hoping there would be any mentions of the Tim Pope cut of ‘The Crow: City of Angels’. The film is now owned by Paramount and there are people who would be interested in seeing this version of the film. If you want to learn more about the Tim Pope cut, you can read my editorial at this link:
https://18cinemalane.com/2020/05/28/why-now-is-the-perfect-time-to-release-the-tim-pope-cut-of-the-crow-city-of-angels/
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Thank you for the comment. I’ll follow your link and read what you have to say about this Tim Pope cut.
A couple good reasons I probably didn’t mention this movie in the post. One, haven’t seen it yet, nor have reviewed it or even read that many people interested in seeing it, two, it’s not on CBS All Access — or being advertised as something that will be on the channel (and be a major draw like The Snyder Cut is for HBO Max).
Your comment is related, however, because maybe they will bring this movie to their greatly expanded library, and maybe it’s more important than I realize.
I was away for a little while, but dug a little deeper.
So where is this movie showing right now? JustWatch.com says: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-crow-city-of-angels
I noticed it’s on the streaming service Hoopla?!?! lol, what is that?
Again, I will stop by your site and read what you have to say about this film. I liked Brandon Lee in the first Crow movie. In all honesty, he was the primary draw for me there.
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You’re welcome! The Tim Pope cut is not as well known as the Snyder Cut. Because the film was released in 1996, there wasn’t much that fans could do about the situation at that time. The video ‘Exploring The Crow City of Angels’ from the YouTube channel GoodBadFlicks is where I learned about this subject. I’ve heard all four Crow films are on Netflix, but I’m not sure if that information is accurate. I haven’t seen ‘The Crow: Ciry of Angels’ either, but would be interested in seeing the Tim Pope cut.
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None of The Crow films are on Netflix as of this moment anyway. July 1, all new movies will be rotating in and out, so who knows where the crow will fly next 😉 Lists are out there making the rounds, so will be keeping more of an eye as to the next Crow sighting.
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