Scouting Hollywood: Feb.9-15

A roundup of news, gossip and history of the entertainment business brought to you from Hollywood, Calif.

The boob tube (or more aptly screen) is big! According to the Nielsen Co., which tracks metrics, Americans streamed 19.4 million years of content across platforms in 2022, the highest mark ever and up 27 percent from a year earlier. When do we have time for anything else?

Video games are fast making their mark in streaming services, and HBO’s new hit series The Last of Us, released earlier in January, attracted 4.7 million viewers to the first episode. The story of a smuggler and a teenage girl in a zombie-infested U.S. is based on a Sony PlayStation game that’s moved 37 million units since introduced in 2013. You can bet Grand Theft Auto is right around the corner. What will that do for our skyrocketing auto insurance rates?

Avatar: The Way of Water remained atop the Box Office last week and, with the film’s advent in China, now has climbed to the fourth highest grossing film ever.  Director James Cameron has the distinction of helming three of the top four: Number 1 Avatar and number 3 Titanic. Avengers: Endgame is No. 2. Disney Studios, with its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, owns seven of the top 10 according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. 

NEWS: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem attacks education lobby after death of 'educational freedom' initiative