Hey, just a quick question… what’s going on?
Just as many streaming platforms have begun offering subscription bundle plans and the streaming wars finally seem to be coming to an end – a very unexpected force has entered the game late, hoping to shake things up, funded not by Big Tech, but by Big Fundamentalist Pickle-Brined Fried Chicken. I swear on my life this is not a headline from The Onion, but rather as previously reported deadlineChick-fil-A is launching its own streaming service. I’m already offering my deepest condolences to the creative who received the inevitable call from their reps saying “Chick-fil-A passed” when their project was rejected.
I, and I cannot stress this enough, absolutely hate this announcement, but I would hate it a little less if they would at least commit to this part and call it “Flick-fil-A.” Chick-fil-A’s streaming platform is reportedly working with major production companies and even Hollywood studios, with a focus on family-friendly entertainment and non-scripted programming. Deadline reports that they’re also looking at licensing and acquiring movies and TV shows, so they won’t be an “exclusive-only” platform.
There’s no definition given for what “family-friendly” means in this context, but given the fast-food chicken place’s history of donating to faith-based, anti-LGBTQIA+ hate groups (which just *checks notes* Last Month), it’s safe to assume that “family friendly” means “conservative.” Are we looking at the second coming of Pureflix? Or are they just creating an Eden for movies like “God’s Not Dead 2”? Either way, Chick-fil-A has actually been in the entertainment business for a while, it’s just taking it to the next step.
Again, I’m not joking, and I wish I was.
Chick-fil-A has already ordered 10 episodes of a game show
Deadline’s sources report that a family-friendly game show from Glassman Media (“The Wall,” “Match Made in Heaven,” “Ultimate Cowboy Showdown”) and Sugar23 (“Dickinson,” “True Detective,” “The Knick”) has already been given a 10-episode order. Again, no word on what “family-friendly” means in this context. Maybe it’s one of the family competition shows like “Double Dare,” or maybe it’s more like “Family Feud,” without the hints that drive Steve Harvey crazy when contestants have dirty minds.
The head of programming is Brian Gibson, who served as executive producer on shows like “Top Gear USA”, “Wayne Brady’s Comedy IQ” and produced the narrative mini-series, “The Kennedys”. Ironically, he also worked as a story editor on “Boy Meets Boy”, an early-aughts reality dating show where a gay man was looking for love among eligible bachelors, some of whom were straight. This is undoubtedly Gibson’s biggest role to date, with discussions of scripted projects and animation on the horizon. Last month Chicken Joint released “Rocky Road”, a short animated film about a cow that gets stuck in a food truck, so it’s likely this will be his first animated series.
And because we’re still living in the most non-serious timeline, there’s also no information on whether the streaming app, like Chick-fil-A, will be closed on Sunday.
