PAUL W.S. ANDERSON APOLOGIZES: Monster Hunter director Paul W.S. Anderson has apologized amid a backlash in China, for dialogue that has been dubbed as racist. In a statement provided to Deadline, Anderson says he is “devastated” and “mortified” that anything in the film “has caused unintentional offense… It was never our intention to send a message of discrimination or disrespect to anyone. To the contrary — at its heart our movie is about unity.” Asian-American rapper/actor Jin Au-Yeung also apologized and Milla Jovovich did as well, saying, “It was our fault for not doing our due diligence and finding the WW2 era rhyme that’s caused this uproar.”
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN SLAMS WARNER BROS. STREAMING PLANS: Director Christopher Nolan shared his outrage over WarnerMedia‘s surprise decision to send all of its 2021 films directly to HBO Max next year. He told The Hollywood Reporter: “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service. Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker’s work out everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”
VIACOMCBS MIGRATES TO AMAZON’S CLOUD: ViacomCBS has signed a multiyear deal with Amazon Web Services that has the conglom’s entire global broadcast TV operations onto the AWS cloud. ViacomCBS selected AWS as its “preferred” cloud provider because “we expect their focus and interest in the media and entertainment space to continue to grow,” said Phil Wiser, the company’s EVP and chief technology officer.
HBO MAX REACHES 12.6M ACTIVATIONS: HBO Max has reached 12.6 million activations as of early December, up from 8.6 million at the end of the third quarter. AT&T CEO John Stankey reveals that total hours of engagement are also up by 36% in the past 30 days.