Starz Media Guide
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PRESS GUIDE ABOUT STARZ Starz (www.starz.com), a Lionsgate company (NYSE: LGF.A, LGF.B), is a leading global media and entertainment company that provides premium subscription video programming on domestic U.S. pay television networks and produces and distributes content for worldwide audiences, including its investment in the STARZ PLAY Arabia OTT service. Starz is home to the flagship STARZ® brand and STARZ ENCORE channels and provides high-quality, entertaining premium subscription video programming with 17 premium pay TV channels and associated on-demand and online services, including the STARZ app. Sold through U.S. multichannel video distributors, including cable operators, satellite television providers, telecommunications companies, and other online and digital platforms, Starz offers subscribers more than 5,000 distinct premium television episodes and feature films every year and up to 1,500 every month, including STARZ Original series, first-run movies and other popular movie and television programming. PROGRAMMING Starz offers cable, satellite, telco and digital distributors up to 17 uncut, commercial-free premium channels spearheaded by the STARZ® and STARZ ENCORESM brands, in addition to MOVIEPLEX® RETROPLEX® and INDIEPLEX®. The Starz Networks operating unit is home to the flagship STARZ® brand with 24.1 million subscribers in the United States. Starz offers exclusive original programming and quality feature films on its domestic pay television services. STARZ Original series in 2017 include Emmy®-Award winning “Black Sails,” “American Gods,” “Outlander,” “Power,” “Survivor’s Remorse,” “The Missing,” “The White Princess,” and the documentary film Nude. Starz licenses exclusive first-run movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment, including Columbia Pictures, TriStar, Screen Gems and Sony Classics as well as hundreds of feature films from a wide array of independent distributors and a vast collection of classic and favorite titles from all Hollywood studios, including Warner Bros., Fox, Universal, MGM and Lionsgate. Launched in April 2016, the STARZ app offers STARZ original programming including “Outlander,” “Power,” “Survivor’s Remorse” and hit movies including Ghostbusters, Inferno, Passengers, Underworld: Blood Wars, The Shallows, Don't Breathe, Concussion, Pride and Prejudice, and Zombies; and television series including “Magnum, P.I.,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” and “The Jeffersons.” A single app destination for subscribers who want to stream or download STARZ premium content, the app has achieved nearly 2 million subscribers since April 2016. In December 2016, the STARZ app was named by Apple® as one of Apple TV's® "10 Best Apps of the Year," and has consistently ranked in the Top 10 Entertainment Top Grossing category on iTunes since its launch. The STARZ app is offered on a variety of devices such as: select Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Apple TV, iPhones and iPads running iOS 8.0 or higher, Roku®, Sony Android TV, as well as most Android phones, tablets and TV devices. For a complete list of supported devices, please visit www.starz.com/settings/faq. STARZ subscriptions can be purchased directly on Starz.com or through the Samsung App store within the Smart Hub across select Samsung Smart TVs; Amazon Appstore, App StoreSM, Google Play or Roku for $8.99 per month with a 7-day free trial for new subscribers. STARZ subscribers from participating cable, satellite and telco partners can also authenticate and view STARZ content in the app including every episode of every season of the best of STARZ’s original programming, as well as the biggest, most extensive movie library of all the premium subscription networks in the U.S.* *Source: SNL Kagan data April 2017 CHANNELS AND SERVICES 2017-18 STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES AMERICAN GODS Season One The on-screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s enormously popular novel of the same name posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of biblical and mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity, and drugs. When Shadow Moon is released from prison, he meets the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and a storm begins to brew. Left adrift by the recent death of his wife, Shadow is hired as Mr. Wednesday’s bodyguard. He finds himself in a world where magic is real, where the Old Gods fear irrelevance and the growing power of the New Gods, and where Mr. Wednesday seeks to build a coalition of Old Gods to defend their existence in this new America, and reclaim some of the influence that they’ve lost. As Shadow travels across the country with Mr. Wednesday, he struggles to accept this new reality, and his place in it. ASH VS EVIL DEAD Season Three - Coming in 2018 STARZ Original series “Ash vs Evil Dead” stars Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, the chainsaw-wielding anti-hero tasked with saving the world from evil. Lucy Lawless plays Ruby, the unpredictable foe and occasional ally who has strong ties to the origin of the “Necronomicon.” Ray Santiago plays Pablo Simon Bolivar, Ash’s loyal sidekick and eternal optimist. Dana DeLorenzo plays Kelly Maxwell, orphaned in Season One and ready to kick some evil ass. The third season finds Ash’s status in Elk Grove, Michigan has changed from murderous urban legend to humanity-saving hometown hero. Evil wages war on the Ghostbeaters but this time, they have an army behind them. Blood is thicker than water in the battle of good vs Evil Dead! The Evil Dead original filmmakers Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell serve as executive producers with Ivan Raimi. Craig DiGregorio serves as Executive Producer and Mark Verheiden serves as Showrunner with Producers Aaron Lam and Moira Grant. BLACK SAILS Season Four The Emmy®-winning Original series “Black Sails,” sold in nearly 200 countries worldwide, takes place 20 years prior to Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island, and follows the most feared pirate of the day, Captain Flint (Toby Stephens). Created by Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine, “Black Sails” is executive produced by Steinberg, Levine, Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Chris Symes, Brad Caleb Kane, and Dan Shotz. The fourth season of the stand-out high seas drama brings fans to the heroic conclusion of the Treasure Island prequel, and finds our pirates at war in the West Indies. The shores of New Providence Island have never been bloodier, but the closer civilization comes to defeat, the more desperately, and destructively, it will fight back. COUNTERPART Coming in 2018 STARZ Original series “Counterpart” from MRC, Anonymous Content and Gilbert Films is an espionage thriller with a metaphysical twist starring Oscar® winner JK Simmons. “Counterpart” is the story of Howard Silk (JK Simmons), a lowly cog in a bureaucratic agency, who discovers that the agency he works for is really guarding a secret crossing into a parallel dimension. Through Howard and his “Counterpart” on the other side, the show will navigate the themes of identity, idealism, and lost love. “Counterpart” is created and written by Justin Marks (Jungle Book) with Oscar®-nominated (Imitation Game) Morten Tyldum set to direct the first two episodes. NUDE Documentary Film premieres October 29, 2017 The feature-length documentary NUDE explores perceptions of nudity in art by chronicling the creative process of fashion photographer David Bellemere. Commissioned by NU Muses founder Steve Shaw to shoot a fine art calendar of nude photographs to debut at Art Basel in Miami, Bellemere’s unique methods and visual style are examined. The film also looks at the creative and business aspirations of Shaw and how social media shapes the lives of today’s young models. The film is directed and produced by Anthony B. Sacco and produced by Josh Shader. 2017 STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES HOWARD'S END Coming in 2018 Often considered E.M. Forster’s masterpiece, “Howards End” is the story of two independent and unconventional sisters and the men in their lives seeking love and meaning as they navigate an ever-changing world. Academy Award®-winning screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan brings a fresh take to this adaptation directed by BAFTA winner Hettie Macdonald. Margaret Schlegel (Hayley Atwell) is an intelligent, idealistic young woman who is courted by the older Henry Wilcox (Matthew Macfadyen), a self-made conservative businessman, after his wife Ruth Wilcox (Julia Ormond) dies unexpectedly and he becomes owner of Howards End. Meanwhile Margaret’s passionate and capricious younger sister Helen Schlegel (Philippa Coulthard) takes up the cause of Leonard Bast (Joseph Quinn) a young bank clerk who falls on hard times at work and at home with his partner Jacky (Rosalind Eleazar). In the absence of their late parents, the sisters’ loving but interfering Aunt Juley (Tracey Ullman) tries to keep the young ladies and their brother Tibby (Alex Lawther) on the straight and narrow. OUTLANDER Season Three The “Outlander” series, adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s international best-selling books, is Executive Produced by Ronald D. Moore. Book three of “Outlander” picks up right after Claire (Caitriona Balfe) travels through the stones to return to her life in 1948. The “Outlander” series, adapted from Diana Gabaldon’s international best-selling books, is Executive Produced by Ronald D. Moore. Book three of “Outlander” picks up right after Claire (Caitriona Balfe) travels through the stones to return to her life in 1948. Now pregnant, she struggles with the fallout of her sudden re-appearance and its effect on her marriage to her first husband, Frank (Tobias Menzies). Meanwhile, in the 18th century, Jamie (Sam Heughan) suffers from the aftermath of his doomed last stand at the historic battle of Culloden, as well as the loss of Claire. As the years pass, Jamie and Claire attempt to make a life apart from one another, each haunted by the memory of their lost love.