ScreenScribe

Lightbox overhauled its TV streaming service today to introduce two subscriber plans and add more than 400 HD movies for rental — but nothing in 4K. HD library titles cost $5.99 and HD new releases $7.99. The pricing is the same as for other Transactional Video On Demand (TVOD) services, like Stuff Pix and YouTubeRed, […]

Below the Surface | Lightbox, from Tuesday ➢ “Thrilling from the off, this Danish crime drama set in Copenhagen opens with the hijacking of a subway train where 15 members of the public are taken hostage by a group of captors (political affiliation unknown) asking for €4m. A counter-terrorism taskforce led by Philip Norgaard (Johannes […]

October is a red letter month on Lightbox for sci-fi buffs with the streaming service premiering season three of Mr Robot and Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams. Lightbox announced this morning that the latter, which it describes as a “hugely ambitious” 10-part anthology series based on the stories of the Blade Runner author, will stream from October […]

The Loch | Lightbox, from Friday ➢ “As a murder mystery, this Broadchurch-a-like drama sounds promising on paper. The Loch has been penned by none other than Stephen Brady, formerly of Fortitude, Vera and Silent Witness. It also stars The Missing’s Laura Fraser as ambitious local detective Annie Redford tackling her first murder case, and […]

The Son | Lightbox, from Saturday ➢ “A brash American epic filmed with cruel enervating tastefulness, The Son suggests a Faulkner novel adapted into a second-rate BBC drama. Adapted from Philipp Meyer’s 2013 book, AMC’s new series doesn’t lack ambition … I’m intrigued by The Son’s possibilities. The opening credits seem to promise an even more expansive […]

Midnight Sun (Lightbox, streaming now) ➢ “A glamorous Parisian cop investigates a death in remote northern Scandinavia in this intriguing series … The investigation, and the series, is a Swedish-French collaboration, The Killing meets Spiral, Abba covers Je t’aime, köttbullar au vin. It’s a promising flavour combination, gory and gothic, even if the meat may […]

If you thought AMC’s western mini-series, The Son, had gone thataway … hitch your wagon to a Lightbox subscription. The Spark streaming service will carry the epic saga that originally was to have starred Sam Neill from August 26. It stars Pierce Brosnan and is one of 10 exclusives that Lightbox will roll out between […]

The Handmaid’s Tale (Lightbox, streaming now) “If 2017 feels like both the best and worst of times for dystopian tales, it also continues to be an exceptional year for straight-to-streaming originals. And [Hulu’s] 10-part adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s landmark 1984 novel plays like true prestige television: A masterfully unnerving vision of a near future in which […]

   Lightbox has picked up a new Hugh Laurie drama from 21st Century Fox TV and signed a programming deal with Warner Bros. The Spark streaming service that’s facing unprecedented competition from giants Netflix and Amazon today announced it had notched up 200,000 customers since launching in August 2014 “and is well on its way towards […]

   Lightbox subscribers won’t have to switch to Amazon Prime to stream the next season of Mozart in the Jungle. While it’s unclear how long Lightbox will retain exclusive rights to Amazon commissions, the Kiwi streamer has confirmed it will launch season three of Mozart on December. All 10 episodes will go online at once, […]