Amazon’s Prime Day sale is underway, and members can subscribe to platforms such as Apple TV, Paramount+ and MGM+ with up to 60% off.
This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more
Project Haily Mary is streaming now on MGM+
Amazon has slashed the price of Apple TV, Paramount+ and MGM+ by up to 60% to mark the start of its latest Prime Day sale. On Tuesday (June 23), the retail giant kicked off its latest site-wide sales event, where subscriptions for several major streaming platforms now start at £2.99.
During the sale, Amazon customers can bag an Apple TV subscription for half price at £4.99 (was £9.99) per month. Those securing the deal will lock in the lower price for two months, after which it reverts to the usual £9.99 until cancelled.
Similarly, MGM+ – the home of Project Hail Mary – is now £2.99 (was £5.99) for two months, while Paramount+ is £2.99 (was £7.99) for one month. The deals are running until July 2 and come as Amazon kicks off its Prime Day 2026 sale.
A caveat is that both the reduced streaming subscriptions and free trials will roll on to standard paid subscriptions at the end of the promotional period. This means subscribers should make sure to cancel their subscription before the end of the discounted or free period if they want to avoid paying the standard rate.
Amazon customers can subscribe to Apple TV through Prime Video for £4.99 per month for two months until July 2.
Elsewhere, Sky is giving away streaming subscriptions at no extra cost with its TV packages, with customers signing up for the £24 Ultimate TV bundle able to claim free access to Netflix, HBO Max and Disney+. It also comes with around 135 channels, including Sky Atlantic
For those opting for Apple TV, the streamer has released some highly acclaimed titles already this year. Including comedy horror Widow’s Bay, which holds an impressive 98% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Just launched is the sophomore season of Sugar. The neo-noir detective series led by Colin Farrell as private investigator John Sugar.
Also available to stream are beloved series like Ted Lasso, Severance and Slow Horses. Alternatively, Apple TV offers a seven-day free trial when signing up directly on the platform.
MGM+ also has some hit new titles streaming now, such as Ryan Gosling’s space epic Project Hail Mary. The box-office smash only hit cinemas in March but is included at no extra cost with the Amazon deal, alongside series like Outlander and the James Bond film catalogue.
On Paramount+, members can catch the latest series of Michael Fassbender’s spy thriller The Agency and new episodes of Yellowstone spin-off Dutton Ranch. These are also available on the Paramount+ platform, which is running its own £2.99 deal.
Actor and racing driver Michael Fassbender is returning this month as CIA Agent Martian in season two of The Agency. He talks sociopaths and obsessive preparation on set.
Michael Fassbender, who is returning as CIA agent Martian in season two of spy thriller The Agency(Image: Nadav Kander/Paramount+)
Leading a double life is nothing new for Michael Fassbender, who is returning as CIA agent Martian in season two of spy thriller The Agency. An actor and a professional racing driver, Michael, 49, has reached an optimum level in both careers. Yet, despite this enviable skill set, achieving success and fitting in perfectly in two very different worlds, it would not mean he would make a perfect spy.
For that, according to a real life agent, who he spoke to while researching his role, Michael would need to be a sociopath. He says of this revelation: “That was a real gateway into the character for me.”
The Agency, starring Michael as Brandon Colby, codenamed Martian; Jodie Turner-Smith as his lover Dr Samia Fatima and Richard Gere as CIA chief James Bradley, launches season 2 on Saturday June 21 on streaming service Paramount+. A dramatic trailer for the series hears Martian saying: “I betrayed my country, did I cause harm? Yes. I lied to my friends, my colleagues. I sacrificed people. I deserve my fate. If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
Season one saw CIA covert operative Martian being suddenly ordered to abandon his long-term undercover assignment in Ethiopia – where he fell in love with Samia – and return to London. In Africa he was working under the false identity – known in the world of espionage as a ‘legend’ – of Paul Lewis.
Michael picks up the story in season two, saying: “Then she [Samia] arrives in London. Then he meets up with her, which he shouldn’t do and then he compromises her. She gets captured and his new objective is to basically get her to safety. But by doing that, he becomes a double agent and betrays his country, becomes a traitor and the walls are closing in on him.”
Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Michael’s mum, Adele, hailed from County Antrim, Northern Ireland, while his dad, Josef, was a chef, who had worked at The Savoy in London. Together with his older sister, Catherine, now a neuropsychologist, the family moved to Kilarney in County Kerry when he was two, where his parents ran a local restaurant, West End House.
A Catholic altar boy when he was young, Michael says this trained him to perform to an audience. And, after initially harbouring ambitions to be a heavy metal guitarist – growing his hair and listening to thrash metal – aged 17, he appeared in a local play and changed direction.
Relocating to London, aged 19, he enrolled at the Drama Centre, but dropped out before completing his third year to start his professional career in a touring production of Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. Launching his film career in 2001 in Steven Spielberg’s Band of Brothers, his credits since include Hunger (2008) Shame (2011) 12 Years a Slave (2013) – for which he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar – and X-Men (2011).
He was also nominated for a best actor Oscar for playing the Apple co-founder in the 2015 movie Steve Jobs. Married to Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, 37, the couple and their two young sons live in Lisbon, Portugal, but retain strong ties with London, where they spent many years.
Known to completely immerse himself in a role – for example, losing 40 lb to play an IRA hunger striker in Hunger – when preparing for the role of Martian, he also met up with two genuine spies. Speaking on The Arts Hour, he says: “The first guy I talked to, I felt like I wasn’t going to need dirt or negative aspects, let’s say. Then I spoke to another guy. We were going through the character and I was like ‘is this guy a sociopath?’ And he was like ‘well let’s go through the characteristics of a sociopath.’”
Clinically diagnosed as antisocial personality disorder, sociopaths have a persistent disregard for the rights, feelings and safety of others – feeling neither empathy, nor remorse. Returning to his conversation with the spy, Michael continues: “We went through the list [of characteristics] and he was like ‘we’re ticking a lot of boxes here.’ I was like ‘yes, ok, so he is.’ And he was like ‘well, it’s a good thing to be in that job.’”
In the new season of The Agency, Martian will be seen desperately trying to claw back some semblance of humanity after being out on his own, as a covert operative, for 7 years. Michael explains: “A lot of spies work in the embassy, so if the heat comes on them, they have a passport and they can get out. But a non-official covert doesn’t have that.”
Describing Martian’s relationship with Samia and with his daughter in London, who he hasn’t seen for many years, he continues: “It’s sort of his fight for humanity. He’s been in the business for about 20 years, so he’s quite jaded. He’s crossed a lot of moral lines he didn’t think he’d do at the beginning of his career.”
As for his own career, for 10 years, Michael has pursued parallel interests in racing driving and acting. Between 2019 and 2023, he stepped away from Hollywood, pursuing a serious career as a professional sports car racer. Joining a development programme with Porsche back in 2018, his greatest racing achievement has been completing the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance classic in 2022.
The 2023 documentary Road to Le Mans follows his journey. Michael has said of racing: “My first dream has always been to go racing. Even before acting.” Someone who doesn’t do anything by halves, it is unsurprising that Michael would never have been content to keep racing as a hobby. His desire to give everything his personal best applies both to racing and acting.
Reputed to have read the script for Shame around 350 times, so he could get inside the head of a sex addict, he claims to have reined in his obsessive preparation for The Agency. He laughs, saying he read the script “150 times.” He says: “I try and do it 10 times a day.”
Explaining the need for this degree of intensity, he shrugs: “I’m a slow learner! It’s just something I’ve always done. If I keep reading it, I feel like the dialogue is seeping into the bones and I’m thinking about the character as I’m reading.”
Hugely professional, Michael adds: “I just don’t want to turn up on set unprepared. A lot of things can fall through the cracks that are out of my control, but the worst thing is if I leave set and I’m ‘oh I messed up because I didn’t do my homework.’“ An anathema to the average sociopath, this sense of duty and consideration for others would probably make Michael a lousy spy.
*This interview has been adapted from The Arts Hour on the BBC World Service, available on BBC Sounds.
CANNES, France — The movies of Na Hong-jin aren’t hard to love — they’re as obsession-worthy as the stylish rigor with which they are made. His 2008 debut, “The Chaser,” found new febrility in the post-Fincher serial killer thriller. “The Wailing” somehow added ghosts, demon-possessed children and inky black crows to the mix with a near-crazed sense of showmanship.
That was 10 years ago. Na, 51, now sits on the other side of a project that has consumed him for years, a sci-fi action film called “Hope” that arrives with expensive CGI, a pair of A-list stars (Michael Fassbender and Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander) and James Cameron-sized franchise ambitions. It will undoubtedly make Na’s gallows-humor-inflected brand more global, even if it lifts him out of the cult niche that’s nourished him to date.
Cannes is an unlikely place to launch “Hope.” That could be seen as a sign that the festival’s increasing accommodation of blockbuster bigness doesn’t need Hollywood. Na sits in the corner of a Côte d’Azur waterfront lounge on a glorious midday, the sky an almost abstract blue. He tugs at his goatee distractedly. His world premiere is tonight.
Neon, the distributor currently enjoying a six-year Palme d’Or winning streak, will release “Hope” in America sometime after its summer bow in Na’s native South Korea. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. It also contains significant spoilers.
A scene from the movie “Hope,” directed by Na Hong-jin.
(Neon)
When did you realize that you had a big sci-fi alien monster movie in you?
The idea came to me in 2017 in Seoul. The premise started off with somebody watching news in a diner or a small restaurant. It was that image that I had in my head. So I started developing that initial image in more detail. By 2018, I was able to write my first draft.
“Hope” brings to mind several genre classics, from “Jaws” and John Carpenter movies like “The Thing,” to something more homegrown such as Bong Joon Ho’s “The Host.” Were those inspiring to you?
I must have looked all the genre films that I could find, including the ones you mention, before I went into filming. And, as I hope you noticed, I was looking more at films from before 2000 and I tried to reflect that look.
It seems like you’re using Cannes as a moment to pivot or reinvent yourself. Is that intentional?
I didn’t intend for this to be a turning point in terms of style or direction going forward. I never thought of it that way. What I really dwelled on was thinking about how to tell this story in a way that was approachable and entertaining for people.
Why did you set the story in the demilitarized zone?
If you look at it from a universal perspective, what happens in this very shabby, humble, small, insignificant space potentially creates an impact that can go on infinitely. I think none of the characters in the film do anything with any malice. I guess the underlying story I want to tell is that there is no reason for evil intention behind anything, but innocent acts can build up to something tragic.
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander are wonderful surprises in the movie as some rather dignified aliens. What led you to them?
When I was casting the alien roles, I had a bigger story in mind. I don’t know whether there’ll be a sequel after this one, but if so, that sequel is going to be centered around them. So picking the right actors was very important for me. We asked them to learn this invented alien language, which they prepared and came onto set knowing.
How important to you is comedy and releasing tension with laughs?
Very. I try to really think it through and if it comes out the way I intended, that gives me such a thrill. I tried to incorporate it in many places.
A lot of the movie feels like a virtuoso chase sequence, people barreling down the road, guns blazing. But it took me a minute to realize that the more interesting question is: Who’s doing the chasing? Is “Hope” meant to make us examine our own violence?
Yes, very much so. And two of the major chase scenes were designed so that what starts off as righteous somehow tilts toward being unjust. I wanted the action to bring up that transition in perspective.
You’ve premiered at Cannes before but, in a way, it feels like the wrong festival for a movie like this. You’re laughing because I think you agree with me.
It goes without saying. I’m incredibly nervous. And I feel so grateful that you’re treating me so nicely and gently.
A scene from the movie “Hope,” directed by Na Hong-jin.
(Neon)
Why did it take you 10 years to make this film?
There was a pandemic in the middle of that. But except for the pandemic where everything stopped, I was working my ass off before and after. It still took this long. I’m a little concerned myself, like: How did this happen?
With “Hope,” are you saying goodbye to the filmmaker you once were?
Not at all. Throughout the entire process of making this film, I was bloodthirsty. I was thirsting for blood. I have another script written already.
And maybe now it’ll go faster because there won’t be a pandemic. Are you hoping that this movie is going to have an impact on the Korean film industry?
It’s not my place to say that. I’m not sure. I want things to be freer.
Would it be a mistake to read this film as an allegory for what’s happening now in the world? Is it a plea for understanding?
I don’t regard it as a plea for understanding. Rather, let’s hope people will be able to relate to it and be empathetic about the story and realize for themselves, understand for themselves. Maybe there’s something more to it, but you take away what you will from that.
Your dark humor flares on occasion. Did you make it a point to try to preserve that?
Well, you can’t just do something like this without having that. It’s not fun.
This doesn’t feel like an “Avatar”-style film. There’s an openness to it, a sense of exploration. Do you believe in heroes?
I do believe in heroes, but, as I tell in the story, anyone can be a hero.
