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Foxtel embraces Hollywood classics

A new Movie Greats channel and Bill Collins hosting golden oldies to launch on Foxtel.

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A new movie channel, Foxtel Movie Greats, will launch in HD to Foxtel Movies and Foxtel Platinum subscribers on Friday March 23rd.

It will feature acclaimed actors and actresses including Meryl Streep, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Clint Eastwood, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise, Eddie Murphy, Goldie Hawn, Dan Aykroyd, Molly Ringwald, John Travolta, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, and Sean Astin.

 

Brian Walsh, Foxtel Executive Director of Television, said: “We know how much our customers love movies and we recognise how important it is for them to have choice. That includes movies of every genre and from every decade. We recognised a gap in not providing a service dedicated to the all-time movie greats and that is why this new channel has been added to the line-up.

“Foxtel Movie Greats will be carefully curated with a wide selection of outstanding motion pictures from every major Hollywood studio, including 20th Century Fox, Disney, Warners, Sony, Paramount, Universal and MGM. The channel will feature titles from Hollywood’s illustrious past through to modern classics. It will mean that Foxtel customers will now have the choice of 10 dedicated movie channels, including our incredibly successful Pop-Up Movie channel,” he said.

“All movies on Foxtel are available in HD and ad-break free with fresh titles added to the line-up every week – combined with over 1200 movies to watch On Demand – including the World Movies service, making the Foxtel Movies offer compelling and the best currently available on the market.”

Key titles during launch include King Kong, An Officer And A Gentleman, Kramer vs. Kramer, Saturday Night Fever, The Godfather, Greatest Show On Earth, Risky Business, Flying High and Flying High 2, Chariots of Fire, Escape from Alcatraz, Death On The Nile, Murder On The Orient Express, Pretty In Pink, The Goonies, St. Elmo’s Fire, Trading Places, My Fair Lady, Cleopatra, The Great Escape, Ben-Hur, War & Peace, The Ten Commandments and more. Over 60 films will be available to watch from Foxtel’s On Demand library and streamed on Foxtel Now.

Brian Walsh added: “We have secured brand new digitally remastered prints of many of the titles, which look stunning. For a great many of the movies, this is the first time they will be seen in glorious HD, which will add to the magic.”

Veteran movie critic, Bill Collins, will also be part of an expanded On Demand library service available to subscribers, also from March 23rd.

“Bill is a much loved and highly respected movie reviewer, currently celebrating 55 years on Australian television, 23 of those with Foxtel,” continued Walsh. “From next month, Bill’s popular Golden Years Of Hollywood will be available On Demand, with a dedicated section of the On Demand library boasting a large number of Bill’s personal favourites and the all-time classics from Hollywood’s golden age. It will be a real treasure trove of movie masterpieces.”

Titles available in Bill Collins’ On Demand library, will include, at launch, All About Eve, All That Heaven Allows, Sunset Boulevard, The Wizard Of Oz, Singin In The Rain, An American In Paris, Casablanca, The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, Auntie Mame, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Magnificent Obsession.

Foxtel Movie Greats will be on Channel 403.

6 Responses

  1. Here’s the problem as I see it – it’s a channel that’s trying to be many things, whereas TCM largely did one thing – Hollywood classics and not quite classics mostly from the 40-60s with a bit of 70s and 80s here and there. TCM was also in the basic package, which this isn’t. TCM was also brilliantly packaged, at least in the early days (it lost it a bit a few years ago). All the Foxtel movie channels look drably the same, although they each have different a focus, more of less, the logos look the same, there’s no identity, nothing to get excited about, no destination, which TCM was. You knew what you were getting, it wasn’t perfect but it was reliable. I’d prefer they either spun out Fox Classics to a movie channel hat had more of a focus (lets say, 1930s-1980s) or got TCM back – preferably the superior USA version of TCM rather than the lesser Asia Pacific feed.

  3. David, what’s the difference between “Foxtel Movie Masterpieces” & this new “Foxtel Movie Greats” channels? Can I take a guess? The former: Oscar winning? The latter: box office / popular hits? Both channels from any decade too?

    1. I was wondering the exact same thing! Will Masterpiece take a more Independent and foreign language focus once Greats launches? Or is there just going to be 2 very similar channels with lots of crossover? In terms of age I think I read in the Foxtel Community post that it was focusing on 1960s-1990s but don’t quote me on that.

    2. What ever the difference is, in a couple of years time Foxtel will merge the two, then after a while kill the merged channel and spray the content around other channels that already carry older content such as Fox Classics (does that still exist?).

      Mark My Words. It will happen.

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