Starz Digital Renews Movie-Parody Web Series

NEW YORK: A second season has been ordered for Starz Digital Media’s How It Should Have Ended, with the franchise expanding into the video-game genre in its new iteration.

The series of online video spoofs parody the endings of popular films and iconic TV shows. Starz Digital Media will distribute new webisodes monthly as part of the second season of the show at howitshouldhaveended.com and through its official YouTube channel.

How It Should Have Ended: Halo is the first installment in the new episodes centered on video games, set for the Machinima.com network. HISHE: Video Games will have the same animated look and feel as the original web series, but will focus on parodies of plots and characters from best-selling and iconic video-game franchises. The Machinima.com network generates more than 50 million monthly unique users and more than 500 million monthly video views. Under terms of the agreement with Machinima, the video-games episodes will have an exclusive, five-week online run across Machinima.com’s content network, and will then reside alongside other videos on the HISHE homepage and its dedicated YouTube channel.

"How It Should Have Ended has been a real success story for Starz Digital Media, reaching millions of viewers each month," said Marc DeBevoise, Starz Media’s senior VP of digital media, business development and strategy and lead executive for Starz Digital Media. "We are very pleased to renew the franchise for a second season and expand into the video-game genre, working with Machinima in creating a second web series. HISHE‘s success is a great example of how Starz’ innovative approach combines our robust digital distribution capabilities with passionate creators, such as Daniel Baxter and Tina Alexander."

"Our partnership with Starz has allowed us the freedom to focus on developing great content for our fans while giving us the platform to reach a larger, global audience," added Daniel Baxter, HISHE‘s co-creator. "We are very excited to continue our partnership with Starz, parody more movies, and expand the franchise into video games."

"Our ability to activate significant audience engagement around content we know will resonate with video-gamers, makes this partnership a natural fit," commented Sanjay Sharma, Machinima’s senior VP of strategy and business development. "We’re excited to bring innovative new content, such as HISHE: Video Games, to our 50 million-plus fans worldwide."