Why a streamer beloved by fans of British TV is turning to big U.S. stars
'I'm thrilled that people love it and continue to love it,' the movie's star, Alicia Silverstone, said in a recent conversation in New York. 'Young people. Old people. It's really gone on and on, and obviously that's lovely.'
AMC Networks is counting on Silverstone's multigenerational appeal to help boost the New York-based media company's streaming service Acorn TV, which specializes in British dramas and other programs from overseas.
Silverstone is the lead in the new Acorn original series 'Irish Blood,' which premiered Monday. She plays hard-bitten Los Angeles divorce lawyer Fiona Sharpe, who heads to Ireland to resolve a mystery involving the father who abandoned her as a child.
AMC has also signed the imperishable Brooke Shields to star in another Acorn project titled 'You're Killing Me.' She portrays a mystery novelist who teams with a young wannabe writer and influencer to investigate murders in a small New England town. The series starts shooting this summer and is set to premiere in 2026.
Why put two iconic American actresses on a streaming platform with a well-defined niche of providing viewers with international locations and accents that at times require closed-captioning even when the language is English?
Even the small players in streaming have to get bigger.
AMC does not have the deep pockets to compete with the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. The company has blazed its own digital path by serving dedicated audiences who will pay for an additional streaming service that caters to their passions, such as Shudder for horror fans and HIDIVE for anime lovers.
The company's suite of streaming services has around 10.4 million customers. Even with that modest figure, AMC Networks' streaming revenue has steadily grown to the point where it will soon surpass what the company earns from its traditional TV channels such as AMC, BBC America, Sundance TV and WE, which continue to see subscriber declines because of cord-cutting.
AMC has found that the strong fan bases for its niche services are willing to absorb price increases and are less likely to cancel. The company has managed to keep its streaming platforms priced at less than $10 a month.
Now AMC Networks is looking to accelerate its subscriber growth and Acorn — the most popular and profitable of its standalone offerings — is seen as the platform best suited to the task.
'It's a service we really believe in,' Courtney Thomasma, executive vice president for streaming and content strategy at AMC Networks, told The Times in a recent interview. 'Over the last year, we've been really focused on looking for ways to continue to raise awareness of the brand and invite new viewers in who we know would also love it. We're doing that with a focus on investing in the brand and inviting bigger talent that's more familiar to North American audiences.'
Many fans of Acorn — which started out as a direct marketer of British TV series on home video and was acquired by AMC in 2018 — are what Thomasma calls 'armchair travelers' who want to take in a French vineyard or the cobblestone streets of Chelsea. But AMC believes aligning Acorn more closely to the mystery genre will widen its appeal.
A monthlong promotional campaign under the banner of Murder Mystery May — which featured a number of season premieres — drove Acorn TV subscription sign-ups to a four-year high. The 20 million hours watched during the month was the best ever for the service, according to AMC.
The emphasis on mystery provides Acorn the latitude to cast Silverstone and Shields. One way AMC attracts star talent is the opportunity to put their own creative stamp on their programs. 'They become as invested in the success of the projects as we are,' Thomasma said.
Silverstone came on to 'Irish Blood' as executive producer and became involved in the development of the series. She was involved in the hiring of key positions in the production and worked with the writers. She's happy with the result.
'I thought it was quirky and also an emotionally deep drama,' Silverstone said. 'There's a lot for me to do.'
Shields and writer Robin Bernheim pitched the generation gap tandem at the center of 'You're Killing Me' to AMC, and the actor remains deeply involved in the process as shooting begins. 'This is the first time I've ever had this much creative control as an executive producer,' Shields said in an interview. 'I feel lucky that they entrusted me to do what we're doing.'
Acorn teams with production partners around the world and generates revenue from selling some of its series for second runs on international broadcasters and PBS. AMC spends in the range of $1 million per episode for its cost-efficient series, which are heavy on dialogue and largely car-chase free. The audience is older — they are avid readers who are likely to subscribe to newspapers, watch cable news and PBS, and enjoy solving puzzles.
And though Acorn is hoping to attract more younger subscribers, the service won't be losing its British accent.
Acorn recently launched 'Art Detectives' with Stephen Moyer, who also is an executive producer. The series, about a Heritage Crime Unit that solves murders connected to art and antiques, had the strongest premiere in the streamer's history.
Later this year, it will offer a new six-episode series starring Matthew Lewis, known for his Neville Longbottom role in the Harry Potter films. Based on the series of Canon Clements mystery novels by the Rev. Richard Coles, 'Murder Before Evensong' is a co-production with British broadcaster Channel 5.
'We pride ourselves on being a boutique neighborhood store, the kind that you walk in, you know the owner [and] the owner knows you,' Thomasma said. 'We have deep connection to our audience.'
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Associated Press
17 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Bob Odenkirk isn't an action newbie anymore
NEW YORK (AP) — Bob Odenkirk ducks into a West Village coffee shop wearing sunglasses and a Chicago Cubs cap. Some degree of subterfuge might have been necessary for Odenkirk years ago. Surely fans of 'Mr. Show' or 'The Larry Sanders Show' might have recognized him. But with time, Odenkirk has traveled from the fringes of pop culture to the mainstream. He's well-known now, but for what is a moving target. At 62, Odenkirk is not only a comic icon, he's a six-time Emmy-nominated actor, for 'Better Call Saul,' a Tony-nominated Broadway star, for 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' and, most surprisingly, an action star. He's not even a newbie, either. With 'Nobody 2,' the sequel to the 2021 pandemic hit original, Odenkirk's butt-kicking bona fides are more or less established. In the sequel, which opened in theaters Thursday, he returns as Hutch Mansell, the suburban dad with latent powers of destruction. This time, he and his family go on vacation to Wisconsin Dells, where they run into trouble. 'My goal is Jackie Chan's 'Police Story,'' Odenkirk says, sipping an iced tea before a day of promotion obligations. 'It exists to be funny. The disconnect is the lack of irony. Hutch has to mean it.' Odenkirk's unlikely but sincere turn into Keanu Reeves territory has, in a way, only illuminated the rage that bubbled throughout his comedy. Chatting casually but intensely, Odenkirk explained how all of these iterations of him make sense — and how 'Nobody' might have even saved his life. AP: Your friends in comedy, have they been funny about you as an action hero? ODENKIRK: The whole time I was training I was thinking: They're not going to make this movie, and I'm getting free exercise training. The second thing I was thinking: If they make this movie, David Cross, Conan O'Brien, Adam Sandler, David Spade, these people are going to see me do this thing and go, 'Really?' It's just so fundamentally discordant. I could have asked for more comedy in the first one. And I didn't want that. I wanted to either make a real action movie — which would blow my friends' minds — or don't do it at all. If you're just going to ridicule the form, don't do it. Or just do 'Naked Gun,' which is super fun, too. I thought the funnier thing — what I did — was to do it. That's a joke on a cosmic scale. I'm literally pranking the universe. I am, right? That's the big joke. Now, what do I do with it? That's the question. AP: With the 'Nobody' movies and your recent Broadway experience, you've set a high bar for surprising people with what you're capable of. ODENKIRK: I thought about the character of Saul. He never quits. He gets pushed around. He's clever. He's in a spot and he has to think of a way out. That's an action character. While it's true that it feels like, 'Oh, boy, you went so far away.' I didn't really go that far away. It's one step. It's a big step. Everything else is in Saul. I did think that for people who know my comedy, this is going to be a hard sell. But that's not that many people. That's a cult group. AP: And it might not be that hard of a sell to your comedy fans, either. The lie detector 'Mr. Show' sketch, in which you calmly confess to outlandish things, has a similar what's-under-the-surface quality like the 'Nobody' movies. ODENKIRK: (Laughs) Yeah, yes. AP: Maybe the most relevant sketch, though, is the one where you and David Cross playtough guys who bump into each other in a bar and then remained locked in mutual animosity through their lives, even through marriage. 'Nobody 2' kicks off with a similar encounter. ODENKIRK: It's a tap on the shoulder that sets this whole thing off. He agrees to leave. Then this little tap happens. Then he leaves. He's outside. He can keep walking, which is what you would do. You'd get home and tell your wife, 'That guy tapped her on the back of the head.' It would just sit with you forever. The whole thing could have been avoided if it wasn't for who Hutch is, which is a person who allows himself to go crazy. AP: Allowing yourself to go crazy isn't a radically different impulse in comedy. Did you always feel like rage or anger was fueling some of the funniest things you did? ODENKIRK: For sure. I remember sitting with David Cross in the morning. We would start our time at 'Mr. Show' trying to generate ideas, sitting around with the paper. Oftentimes, it was: 'This really pisses me off,' or 'Look at this stupid thing.' So, yeah, frustration, anger, those are the very raw materials of comedy. AP: You're just funneling that rage into a different place. ODENKIRK: Life conjures up this rage in you, but there is no place that deserves it. In the first film, the first place he goes to exact revenge, he realizes all these people have nothing, they don't deserve it. In the second film, he goes after this guy and he's like, 'I'm under her thumb.' It's really not something you're supposed to do in an action movie, and I love that. You don't just get to find a bad guy around the corner. You've got to go looking. AP: You've said you'd like to do a third one that ends with Hutch having nothing. ODENKIRK: Yeah, the moral would be that everything he loves is gone. He burned everything he loved. We let him get away with it because the movie is an entertainment and it's meant to tell you: Yes, you can let go of your rage in this magical world. But in the end, I would think that it's an addiction. And he does want to do it. He does want to have a go, and so does every guy. That's why we have movies. And that's why we have boxing matches. AP: How much credit do you give these movies for saving your life? After you had a heart attack in 2021 on the set of 'Better Call Saul,' you attributed your narrow survival to your 'Nobody' training. ODENKIRK: When I had my EKG, where you can see the heart, the doctor explained that I had almost no scarring from that incident. And that's kind of weird because of how long that incident went on and how drastic it was. They were like: 'This should all be scar tissue, and there's none.' They said that's because these other veins are bigger than we're used to seeing, and that's from all the exercise you've been doing. And, dude, I did a lot. I went from a comedy writer who exercised just by riding a bike three or four times a week to the action I did in those movies. AP: You told Marc Maron you saw no white light and tongue-in-cheek advised him to 'go for the money.' ODENKIRK: Well, I got nothing. Nothing. I did talk to my family the next day. I woke up the next day around 1:30 and talked to my wife and kids. I was talking to people for the next week, and I don't remember any of it, or the day that it happened. AP: But did the experience change you? ODENKIRK: (Long pause) It's a big component of my thinking about who I am and what I want to do with myself and my time. The thing that's driven me the most in my life is a sense of responsibility. Not just like, 'Oh, I have kids. I have to make money and take care of them.' But, like, responsibility to the universe. 'Oh, they'll let you do this action movie.' Well, then you better do a f------ great job. 'They want you do 'Better Call Saul.'' Well, let's go. The universe is saying: You can do this. And you owe that opportunity that's so unjustified and magical. I just feel responsibility almost too readily. But the heart attack, however you want to feel about everybody's expectations of you, I mean, you're going to be gone. The world's going to go on without you, just fine. So I don't know, man. Yeah, you've got to come through for people. But you've also got a lot of freedom to invite who you want to be.
Washington Post
17 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Bob Odenkirk isn't an action newbie anymore
NEW YORK — Bob Odenkirk ducks into a West Village coffee shop wearing sunglasses and a Chicago Cubs cap. Some degree of subterfuge might have been necessary for Odenkirk years ago. Surely fans of 'Mr. Show' or 'The Larry Sanders Show' might have recognized him. But with time, Odenkirk has traveled from the fringes of pop culture to the mainstream. He's well-known now, but for what is a moving target. At 62, Odenkirk is not only a comic icon, he's a six-time Emmy-nominated actor, for 'Better Call Saul,' a Tony-nominated Broadway star, for 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' and, most surprisingly, an action star. He's not even a newbie, either. With 'Nobody 2,' the sequel to the 2021 pandemic hit original , Odenkirk's butt-kicking bona fides are more or less established. In the sequel, which opened in theaters Thursday, he returns as Hutch Mansell, the suburban dad with latent powers of destruction. This time, he and his family go on vacation to Wisconsin Dells, where they run into trouble. 'My goal is Jackie Chan's 'Police Story,'' Odenkirk says, sipping an iced tea before a day of promotion obligations. 'It exists to be funny. The disconnect is the lack of irony. Hutch has to mean it.' Odenkirk's unlikely but sincere turn into Keanu Reeves territory has, in a way, only illuminated the rage that bubbled throughout his comedy. Chatting casually but intensely, Odenkirk explained how all of these iterations of him make sense — and how 'Nobody' might have even saved his life. ODENKIRK: The whole time I was training I was thinking: They're not going to make this movie, and I'm getting free exercise training. The second thing I was thinking: If they make this movie, David Cross, Conan O'Brien, Adam Sandler, David Spade, these people are going to see me do this thing and go, 'Really?' It's just so fundamentally discordant. I could have asked for more comedy in the first one. And I didn't want that. I wanted to either make a real action movie — which would blow my friends' minds — or don't do it at all. If you're just going to ridicule the form, don't do it. Or just do 'Naked Gun,' which is super fun, too. I thought the funnier thing — what I did — was to do it. That's a joke on a cosmic scale. I'm literally pranking the universe. I am, right? That's the big joke. Now, what do I do with it? That's the question. ODENKIRK: I thought about the character of Saul. He never quits. He gets pushed around. He's clever. He's in a spot and he has to think of a way out. That's an action character. While it's true that it feels like, 'Oh, boy, you went so far away.' I didn't really go that far away. It's one step. It's a big step. Everything else is in Saul. I did think that for people who know my comedy, this is going to be a hard sell. But that's not that many people. That's a cult group. ODENKIRK: (Laughs) Yeah, yes. ODENKIRK: It's a tap on the shoulder that sets this whole thing off. He agrees to leave. Then this little tap happens. Then he leaves. He's outside. He can keep walking, which is what you would do. You'd get home and tell your wife, 'That guy tapped her on the back of the head.' It would just sit with you forever. The whole thing could have been avoided if it wasn't for who Hutch is, which is a person who allows himself to go crazy. ODENKIRK: For sure. I remember sitting with David Cross in the morning. We would start our time at 'Mr. Show' trying to generate ideas, sitting around with the paper. Oftentimes, it was: 'This really pisses me off,' or 'Look at this stupid thing.' So, yeah, frustration, anger, those are the very raw materials of comedy. ODENKIRK: Life conjures up this rage in you, but there is no place that deserves it. In the first film, the first place he goes to exact revenge, he realizes all these people have nothing, they don't deserve it. In the second film, he goes after this guy and he's like, 'I'm under her thumb.' It's really not something you're supposed to do in an action movie, and I love that. You don't just get to find a bad guy around the corner. You've got to go looking. ODENKIRK: Yeah, the moral would be that everything he loves is gone. He burned everything he loved. We let him get away with it because the movie is an entertainment and it's meant to tell you: Yes, you can let go of your rage in this magical world. But in the end, I would think that it's an addiction. And he does want to do it. He does want to have a go, and so does every guy. That's why we have movies. And that's why we have boxing matches. ODENKIRK: When I had my EKG, where you can see the heart, the doctor explained that I had almost no scarring from that incident. And that's kind of weird because of how long that incident went on and how drastic it was. They were like: 'This should all be scar tissue, and there's none.' They said that's because these other veins are bigger than we're used to seeing, and that's from all the exercise you've been doing. And, dude, I did a lot. I went from a comedy writer who exercised just by riding a bike three or four times a week to the action I did in those movies. ODENKIRK: Well, I got nothing. Nothing. I did talk to my family the next day. I woke up the next day around 1:30 and talked to my wife and kids. I was talking to people for the next week, and I don't remember any of it, or the day that it happened. ODENKIRK: (Long pause) It's a big component of my thinking about who I am and what I want to do with myself and my time. The thing that's driven me the most in my life is a sense of responsibility. Not just like, 'Oh, I have kids. I have to make money and take care of them.' But, like, responsibility to the universe. 'Oh, they'll let you do this action movie.' Well, then you better do a f------ great job. 'They want you do 'Better Call Saul.'' Well, let's go. The universe is saying: You can do this. And you owe that opportunity that's so unjustified and magical. I just feel responsibility almost too readily. But the heart attack, however you want to feel about everybody's expectations of you, I mean, you're going to be gone. The world's going to go on without you, just fine. So I don't know, man. Yeah, you've got to come through for people. But you've also got a lot of freedom to invite who you want to be.
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
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PureWow editors select every item that appears on this page, and some items may be gifted to us. Additionally, PureWow may earn compensation through affiliate links within the story. All prices are accurate upon date of publish. You can learn more about the affiliate process here. You can learn more about that process here. Yahoo Inc. may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Read the original article on Purewow. In an unexpected appearance by Princess Beatrice, eldest daughter of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, the royal was spotted at a launch event for United Arab Emirate's largest bank, FAB (First Abu Dhabi Bank), as they opened a new London branch earlier this month. But as surprised as we were to see her in an Instagram post shared by the bank, it was her figure-flattering ME+EM dress that most stood out—especially since it's a brand long beloved by the Princess of Wales. Beatrice's style—the 'Silk-Blend Swirling Leaf Print Midi Tea Dress'—is still in stock, $595; $417. (It's also on sale!) But we especially love her choice to pair the floral look with a structured blazer with a bit of length. It's the perfect 'uniform' for transitional dressing as we wrap up summer and head into fall. In fact, the brand suggests pairing it with a similar blazer in a navy hue on their website. (We love how that gives it a hint of moodiness as autumn arrives.)As for Kate Middleton, she's been a longtime fan of ME+EM, a British-based brand best known for their tailored fits and contemporary styles. She's also not the only royal to reach for it: Everyone from Queen Camilla to Duchess Sophie relies on it. (Royal Ascot in particular often feels like a runway for the brand.)Beatrice's latest appearance comes on the heels of a busy summer for the royal: Just last week, she celebrated her 37th birthday—her first since welcoming her youngest daughter, Athena, in January. She's also made regular appearances at Wimbledon and Royal Ascot and even joined King Charles for a special gala event on behalf of the Elephant Family. Her royal diary is certainly on overdrive. As for her latest look? Nab it before it sells out. 1. ME+EM Silk-Blend Swirling Leaf Print Midi Tea Dress ME+EM Chic and fall-friendly. $595 ; $417 at ME+EM 2. Ann Taylor Crinkle Belted Blazer Ann Taylor It's not the exact same style, but it's just as timeless. $198; $80 at Ann Taylor The Best Dressed Royal Was Just Revealed—Here, 3 Outfits That Helped Her Seal the Deal (& That I'm Totally Copying)
