Two completely different movies just spurred a huge streaming weekend for Paramount+.
The first thing to know: “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” was the most-streamed movie in the U.S. last weekend, according to Whip Media’s weekly movie ranker. Whip Media’s ranker is based on viewership data from TV Time, its TV and movie tracking app with more than 26 million global registered users.
“Beasts” took the top spot immediately after making its Paramount+ debut on July 25. But its streaming success wasn’t necessarily a sure thing.
The new “Transformers” movie, directed by Steven Caple Jr. and starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, pulled in about $430 million at the box office. That’s a lot of money, to be sure, but it’s also the smallest amount made out of any of the franchise’s seven installments. Its finish atop Whip Media’s ranker marked the first time since...
The first thing to know: “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” was the most-streamed movie in the U.S. last weekend, according to Whip Media’s weekly movie ranker. Whip Media’s ranker is based on viewership data from TV Time, its TV and movie tracking app with more than 26 million global registered users.
“Beasts” took the top spot immediately after making its Paramount+ debut on July 25. But its streaming success wasn’t necessarily a sure thing.
The new “Transformers” movie, directed by Steven Caple Jr. and starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, pulled in about $430 million at the box office. That’s a lot of money, to be sure, but it’s also the smallest amount made out of any of the franchise’s seven installments. Its finish atop Whip Media’s ranker marked the first time since...
- 8/3/2023
- by Sean Burch
- The Wrap
When the Beanie Baby craze reached its apex in the late Nineties, around the time desperate suburbanites were shelling out small fortunes for the purple Princess Diana bear on eBay and ransacking shopping malls whenever rumors hit that a new shipment had arrived, screenwriter Kristin Gore and Ok Go frontman Damian Kulash were barely aware it was even happening. “We were in college,” Gore says. “We were too old to be collectors. We just sort of missed it.”
“I was snobby about it,” Kulash adds. “I was leaving my teens and going into my twenties,...
“I was snobby about it,” Kulash adds. “I was leaving my teens and going into my twenties,...
- 7/29/2023
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
This summer, “Barbie” has revived the box office, making nearly $500 million worldwide in its first week. Earlier this year, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” surpassed the billion-dollar mark. If those two success are any indication, it seems that nostalgia sells — particularly nostalgia for classic toys and characters to which moviegoers have a personal connection.
“The Beanie Bubble” (streaming Friday on Apple TV+) centers around the Beanie Baby craze of the ’90s. But the movie is not really about Beanie Babies.
Based on the book “The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute” by author Zac Bissonnette, the film is the feature directorial debut for co-directors and real-life married couple, musician Damian Kulash and Kristin Gore, who wrote the screenplay. The movie is set against the backdrop of the rise in popularity of Beanie Babies in the 1990’s. But what the filmmakers are aiming to tell is a much deeper,...
“The Beanie Bubble” (streaming Friday on Apple TV+) centers around the Beanie Baby craze of the ’90s. But the movie is not really about Beanie Babies.
Based on the book “The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute” by author Zac Bissonnette, the film is the feature directorial debut for co-directors and real-life married couple, musician Damian Kulash and Kristin Gore, who wrote the screenplay. The movie is set against the backdrop of the rise in popularity of Beanie Babies in the 1990’s. But what the filmmakers are aiming to tell is a much deeper,...
- 7/28/2023
- by Elizabeth Wagmeister
- Variety Film + TV
Apple TV+’s new comedy-drama movie The Beanie Bubble is a decent watch if you’re curious about how the Beanie Babies craze emerged, and how it all eventually came crashing down. The film has been adapted from the 2015 book The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette, which goes into much more detail about the rise and fall of American billionaire toy manufacturer Ty Warner, but who are the other real people behind the characters? And what happened to Ty Warner after his tax evasion conviction?
Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan)
Maya is based on real-life entrepreneur Lina Triveldi, who indeed helped Ty Warner to become a billionaire through his Beanie Babies enterprise online. Triveldi’s computer skills were shaped by her parents, who bought her an Ibm PC and manuals at a young age. She then went to DePaul University and majored in Sociology,...
Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan)
Maya is based on real-life entrepreneur Lina Triveldi, who indeed helped Ty Warner to become a billionaire through his Beanie Babies enterprise online. Triveldi’s computer skills were shaped by her parents, who bought her an Ibm PC and manuals at a young age. She then went to DePaul University and majored in Sociology,...
- 7/28/2023
- by Kirsten Howard
- Den of Geek
Well from the sea of pink still filling multiplex lobbies all across the country it appears that moviegoers are wild about toy property-based movies. Perhaps we can officially call it a genre. And this new film could be a “sub-genre” as it details the creation of a beloved plaything in, well not a docudrama, but more like a “docu-comedy”. This new flick is perhaps closer to Tetris (same producers), with elements of Air and Blackberry. Making it more engaging is that it was something of a pop culture “craze”, maybe even a “fad”. And it also benefits from a cast with some major comedy “creds”. They’re all involved with the tiny dolls that collectors thought were a big investment, which, in turn, created and inflated The Beanie Bubble.
That refers, of course, to the Beanie Babies, a 1990s sensation spearheaded by company spokesman (and face of the fad), Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis). But,...
That refers, of course, to the Beanie Babies, a 1990s sensation spearheaded by company spokesman (and face of the fad), Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis). But,...
- 7/28/2023
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
As cute and understuffed as the plushies alluded to by its title, Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash, Jr.’s “The Beanie Bubble” is a dramatic comedy born from the collision between two different fads: The Beanie Baby mania of the late ’90s, and the corporate biopic craze of the early 2020s.
Like “Air,” “Barbie,” “Blackberry,” and “Tetris” before it (remember when they made a movie about the thrilling race to patent “Tetris?”), this Apple TV+ original uses a footnote in the recent history of North American capitalism as the backdrop for a character-driven saga about the nature of success. And like several of those aforementioned stories of riches gained and/or lost, “The Beanie Bubble” ultimately says more about the state of the film business than it does any other. It says that we used to tell stories about people, but now we’d rather tell stories about products — even...
Like “Air,” “Barbie,” “Blackberry,” and “Tetris” before it (remember when they made a movie about the thrilling race to patent “Tetris?”), this Apple TV+ original uses a footnote in the recent history of North American capitalism as the backdrop for a character-driven saga about the nature of success. And like several of those aforementioned stories of riches gained and/or lost, “The Beanie Bubble” ultimately says more about the state of the film business than it does any other. It says that we used to tell stories about people, but now we’d rather tell stories about products — even...
- 7/20/2023
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The true story behind the once popular children’s playthings is taken on here by a decent cast who can’t stop proceedings unravelling
Some deeply muddled non-storytelling and tonal blandness pretty much sink this movie from the outset, despite its decent cast and origins in a potentially fascinating true story. It might have been served better as a documentary, and right from the off, this feature film deploys the deeply annoying and all-too familiar get-out clause of pre-emptively giggling that it is kind of false and sort of not, flashing up the statement after the opening credits: “There are parts of the truth you can’t make up. The rest we did.”
It is adapted by Kristin Gore from Zac Bissonnette’s nonfiction study The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, and directed by Gore and Damian Kulash; it tackles the little-known human...
Some deeply muddled non-storytelling and tonal blandness pretty much sink this movie from the outset, despite its decent cast and origins in a potentially fascinating true story. It might have been served better as a documentary, and right from the off, this feature film deploys the deeply annoying and all-too familiar get-out clause of pre-emptively giggling that it is kind of false and sort of not, flashing up the statement after the opening credits: “There are parts of the truth you can’t make up. The rest we did.”
It is adapted by Kristin Gore from Zac Bissonnette’s nonfiction study The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, and directed by Gore and Damian Kulash; it tackles the little-known human...
- 7/20/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Dig deep enough through the eBay auction site, and you can still find Beanie Babies listed for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nobody’s buying them at that price, but it’s a reminder that there was a moment in the not-so-distant past when the cheaply made stuffed animals fetched outrageous sums. The phenomenon, while it lasted, was fueled largely by the illusion of scarcity, as collectors chased what they believed to be limited numbers of the highly coveted critters.
Were they really so rare? “The Beanie Bubble” doesn’t have any particularly interesting insights into the craze, focusing instead on their inventor, disgraced self-made toy mogul Ty Warner, portrayed by Zach Galifianakis in one of the discomfort comedian’s most skin-crawling performances to date. Tonally, the movie walks a tricky line between easy-target satire and female-empowering corporate case study, falling into the overcrowded junk-culture nostalgia-porn category so recently represented by “Tetris,...
Were they really so rare? “The Beanie Bubble” doesn’t have any particularly interesting insights into the craze, focusing instead on their inventor, disgraced self-made toy mogul Ty Warner, portrayed by Zach Galifianakis in one of the discomfort comedian’s most skin-crawling performances to date. Tonally, the movie walks a tricky line between easy-target satire and female-empowering corporate case study, falling into the overcrowded junk-culture nostalgia-porn category so recently represented by “Tetris,...
- 7/20/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Plot: Why did the world suddenly treat stuffed animals like gold? Ty Warner was a frustrated toy salesman until his collaboration with three women grew his masterstroke of an idea into the biggest toy craze in history. “The Beanie Bubble” is an inventive story about what and who we value, and the unsung heroes whose names didn’t appear on the heart-shaped tag.
Review: Everyone likely knows what a Beanie Baby is. The tiny plush toys were an insane fad in the 1990s, predating Crypto and NFTs by decades. But, unlike many fads, Beanie Babies became a lucrative financial market during the early days of the World Wide Web and marketplaces like eBay. While the crash reduced toys valued at thousands of dollars to just pennies, the toy’s creator, Ty Warner, remained a multi-millionaire. Despite a felony tax conviction, Warner remains extremely wealthy thanks to his revolutionized plush idea.
Review: Everyone likely knows what a Beanie Baby is. The tiny plush toys were an insane fad in the 1990s, predating Crypto and NFTs by decades. But, unlike many fads, Beanie Babies became a lucrative financial market during the early days of the World Wide Web and marketplaces like eBay. While the crash reduced toys valued at thousands of dollars to just pennies, the toy’s creator, Ty Warner, remained a multi-millionaire. Despite a felony tax conviction, Warner remains extremely wealthy thanks to his revolutionized plush idea.
- 7/20/2023
- by Alex Maidy
- JoBlo.com
Like a ’90s toy store packed with tiny beanbag dogs, this fact-based dramedy about one of pop culture’s cuddliest crazes boasts some seriously hot commodities. “We are so psyched we got this cast,” says Kristin Gore, who codirected The Beanie Bubble with husband Damian Kulash, of the A-list ensemble led by Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect), Sarah Snook (Succession), and Geraldine Viswanathan (Miracle Workers). Apple TV+ Each of the immensely gifted actresses portrays a woman who played a key role in helping eccentric entrepreneur Ty Warner (a wonderfully odd Zach Galifianakis) develop the company behind — and frenzy for — Beanie Babies during the internet’s infancy. Using Zac Bissonnette’s book The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute as their source material, the duo set about to honor the unsung Beanie team. So aside from Ty himself, “the characters are fictional,” says Kulash. “Renderings that...
- 6/27/2023
- TV Insider
The Beanie Baby craze of the ’90s was something to behold. Millions of people collected as many of the colourful plush bears as they could get their hands on, with some even convinced that they would become lucrative investments. As most of us know someone with a box (or several) of Beanie Babies taking up space in their garage, that investment didn’t exactly pay off. Apple Original Films have dropped the first trailer for The Beanie Bubble, which chronicles the rise of stuffed toys.
The Beanie Bubble stars a beardless Zach Galifianakis (which is still so weird to me) as Ty Warner, the toy manufacturer who would become a billionaire thanks to the Beanie Baby craze in the late 1990s. The Beanie Bubble also stars Elizabeth Banks (Cocaine Bear) as Robbie, Ty’s business partner, Sarah Snook (Succession) as Warner’s wife Sheila, and Geraldine Viswanathan (Miracle Workers) as Ty Inc.
The Beanie Bubble stars a beardless Zach Galifianakis (which is still so weird to me) as Ty Warner, the toy manufacturer who would become a billionaire thanks to the Beanie Baby craze in the late 1990s. The Beanie Bubble also stars Elizabeth Banks (Cocaine Bear) as Robbie, Ty’s business partner, Sarah Snook (Succession) as Warner’s wife Sheila, and Geraldine Viswanathan (Miracle Workers) as Ty Inc.
- 6/23/2023
- by Kevin Fraser
- JoBlo.com
The Beanie Baby empire is stuffed until it pops in the first official trailer for The Beanie Bubble, premiering on Apple TV+ on July 28. The film isn’t some twisted live-action imagining of the stuffed plushies that ruled the mid- to late-nineties, especially on the internet — it’s an over-the-top, dramatized portrait of the salesman Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis) who launched the toy craze and the three women he betrayed to making himself a billionaire.
“You have the power to create your own future,” Warner amps up in the trailer.
“You have the power to create your own future,” Warner amps up in the trailer.
- 6/22/2023
- by Larisha Paul
- Rollingstone.com
Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart is taking on one of the bigger questions of our time: “Who gets to decide” what information constitutes “misinformation.”
Speaking on his Apple+ podcast, Stewart cast a cynical eye at so-called “fact-checkers” and the legacy media labeling certain narratives as bad information and casting them out.
“The New York Times, right, was a giant purveyor of misinformation, and disinformation,” Stewart said, citing the media outlet’s support of the reasons for the Iraq war. “And that’s as vaunted a media organization as you can find, but there was no accountability for them.”
Stewart pointed out that he was “very vocal” about his opposition to the Iraq war in 2003, a minority opinion at the time.
“In the Iraq war, I was on the side of what you would think, on the mainstream is misinformation, I was promoting what they would call misinformation, but it...
Speaking on his Apple+ podcast, Stewart cast a cynical eye at so-called “fact-checkers” and the legacy media labeling certain narratives as bad information and casting them out.
“The New York Times, right, was a giant purveyor of misinformation, and disinformation,” Stewart said, citing the media outlet’s support of the reasons for the Iraq war. “And that’s as vaunted a media organization as you can find, but there was no accountability for them.”
Stewart pointed out that he was “very vocal” about his opposition to the Iraq war in 2003, a minority opinion at the time.
“In the Iraq war, I was on the side of what you would think, on the mainstream is misinformation, I was promoting what they would call misinformation, but it...
- 2/12/2022
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
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