This Week in WCIW #56

Happy Valentine's Day to those who celebrate, and welcome to the February 14, 2022 edition of This Week in WCIW, the weekly newsletter from Where Can I Watch – covering the latest news on where TV shows and movies will be available in Canada.

Read on for news about streaming dates for West Side Story, Dune, The French Dispatch, and more.

Barring significant news (and perhaps even if there is), we'll be taking next week off for the Family Day holiday here in Ontario. We expect to be back the following Monday, February 28 with a look ahead to what's new in March.

Programming news

• Disney+ added several 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures films from the latter part of 2021 to its Star streaming lineup this past week, without prior notice: Antlers, The French Dispatch, The Last Duel, and The Night House. Disney has also confirmed that the 2021 remake of West Side Story, released on December 10, will be available to stream on Disney+ in Canada on March 2.
   
  Prior to the launch of Star on Disney+, most 20th Century / Searchlight theatrical movies had their pay-1 releases on Crave. But a few 2021 releases like Nomadland and Free Guy premiered on Disney+ within a few months of theatrical release, before entering a shared window with Crave a few months later. It's not yet clear whether this latest batch of films will be handled similarly, or if they will stream solely on Disney+.
   
  Either way, this does not seem to be exactly the same sort of deal that Disney recently made with WarnerMedia to have some 20th Century films stream simultaneously on both Disney+ / Hulu and HBO Max for the final year of 20th's U.S. pay-1 deal with HBO.
   
• Meanwhile, Crave confirmed following the Oscar nomination announcements that Denis Villeneuve's Dune (released by Warner Bros.) would be available to stream in March; the service's website indicates it'll be available at least in French on Friday, March 18. Crave has also confirmed it will be carrying The Tourist (March 3) and Tokyo Vice (April 7), two more series that were co-commissioned by HBO Max but produced outside of WarnerMedia. [Update: On February 25, we were informed by Amazon's Canadian representatives that Prime Video in fact has the Canadian rights to The Tourist. We also noticed that the reposted HBO Max press release for the series had been removed from Bell Media's website.]
   
  Curiously, Bell Media reposted an HBO Max press release announcing the season 3 renewal for South Side, a ViacomCBS-produced series that aired its first season on Comedy Central (and CTV Comedy), and that season remains available on Crave. However, much like the similarly-situated The Other Two, the second season of South Side, which premiered on HBO Max late last year, has not yet aired in Canada.
   
• Global will be airing CBS' new reality series Beyond the Edge, which will air Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT starting March 16, while HGTV Canada has announced several new and returning series premiering in March, including season 3 of Island of Bryan (Sundays starting March 27).
   
• Paramount+'s Canadian representatives have informed us that Three Months, a coming-of-age comedy-drama starring Troye Sivan, will be available on the Canadian version of the service on Tuesday, March 1, a few days after its U.S. release on February 23.
   
• Hollywood Suite will again air the Film Independent Spirit Awards, this year scheduled for Sunday, March 6 at 5:00 p.m. ET.
   

Other notes

• Further to an item from a few weeks back, Corus' StackTV has now launched on Rogers' Ignite TV and SmartStream platforms, for $12.99 per month on SmartStream or $9.99 per month when bundled with Ignite TV (presumably because the latter already includes Global in its minimum service). StackTV continues to be available as a channel on Prime Video as well.

Recent updates on WCIW

In addition to existing posts to reflect some of the updates discussed above, we added a post about a certain big football game last night (if you missed it and still want to watch, it will re-air on NFL Network this week, and should be available on-demand on DAZN), and another about Bel-Air, which debuts in Canada tonight (Monday) on Showcase and StackTV.

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We'll see you again in a couple of weeks.