WarnerMedia has killed another of its properties after being acquired by AT&T.
On Friday, two of WarnerMedia’s divisions, Turner and Warner Bros. Digital Networks, announced that they would shut down two-year-old indie and classic cinema streaming service FilmStruck on Nov. 29. No new subscribers are being accepted.
“We’re incredibly proud of the creativity and innovations produced by the talented and dedicated teams who worked on FilmStruck over the past two years,” Turner and Warner Bros. said in a statement Friday.
“While FilmStruck has a very loyal fanbase, it remains largely a niche service. We plan to take key learnings from FilmStruck to help shape future business decisions in the direct-to-consumer space and redirect this investment back into our collective portfolios.”
FilmStruck is the third business that WarnerMedia has folded in the past two weeks. On Oct. 16, it shut down Korean streaming service DramaFever. Three days later, Turner’s online comedy hub Super Deluxe was shuttered.
On Twitter, many users lamented the loss of FilmStruck, including Moonlight director Barry Jenkins and Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson. “FilmStruck was too good to last,” Johnson wrote. “I see it sadly floating away from the charred wasteland that is 2018, Lorax style.”
FilmStruck was known for its abundance of art house films due to exclusive streaming access of the Criterion Collection, which publishes “important classic and contemporary films from around the world.” Titles ranged from classic Albert Hitchcock thrillers to modern indie darlings like Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha. The subscription cost $6.99; access to the full Criterion catalog with more than 1,200 films cost $10.99.
WarnerMedia, the rebranded name of Time Warner following AT&T’s acquisition earlier this year, plans to launch a streaming service combining HBO with some other film and television properties. The video service is expected to arrive by the end of 2019, WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey announced earlier this month.
“This is another benefit of the AT&T/Time Warner merger, and we are committed to launching a compelling and competitive product that will serve as a complement to our existing businesses and help us to expand our reach by offering a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation,” Stankey said at the time.
