The Emmy committee may not have been so friendly to Netflix's (NASDAQ: NFLX) highly nominated original series Orange Is The New Black, but the Screen Actors Guild was much more generous, honoring the SVOD-only show with two of its bigger awards on Sunday night.
And Netflix also scored points with its subscribers, announcing via e-mail Saturday that The Interview was available to stream. Previously, the movie was available only through transactional VOD outlets (including YouTube) for $5.99 to rent or $14.99 to buy.
At the SAG Awards, Orange Is The New Black received the award for best comedy ensemble, and Uzo Aduba won best supporting actress. House of Cards' Kevin Spacey also won for best male actor in a drama series.
Meantime, Netflix subscribers sounded off happily on social media about the availability of The Interview.
Miranda Remaklus of Fansided applauded Netflix's e-mail notice but criticized the service for not being more communicative with its subscribers about other content available on-demand--or when content will no longer be available.
"We should be receiving e-mail releases about all the movies and television shows they are adding or removing from the service," Remaklus wrote. "It should be something they want to do for their subscribers. To communicate and send their message. It's an absolute mess that people have to conduct random internet searches just to find out information."
Finally, Netflix continued upping its original content stakes, announcing it inked a deal with Duplass Brothers Productions to produce four movies. Those will be released to theaters under a short window before becoming available on the SVOD service.
For more:
- Fansided has this op-ed
- Business Insider has this story
- Variety has this Sundance news
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