A little over two weeks since its release, Barbie hit a major milestone by crossing the one billion dollar mark at the box office. (Thanks to CNNfor putting this news on our radar.) The Greta Gerwig film, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was one of the most anticipated films of 2023. First, there was the obvious curiosity about bringing a pop culture icon to the big screen. Then, Barbie’s incredible marketing push sealed the deal for many moviegoers as they donned pink and swarmed theaters. But Barbie showed no signs of slowing after that, the movie is still breaking records and taking titles previously held by top movies like The Dark Knight and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Warner Bros.
Barbie Has Hit One Billion Dollars
Barbie made history by joining a small club of films to hit one billion dollars, with Greta Gerwig making history as the first woman director to hit this mark. The power of Barbie and good Kenergy are powerful, indeed. It joins The Super Mario Bros. Movieas the second film this year to accomplish this great feat.
Warner Bros.
With its huge success, it seems almost inevitable that Barbie will get a sequel. The ending of the film does feel pretty final, but we all know that Hollywood will find a way to make more cash. In fact, Mattel is apparently forming its own cinematic universe with 14 confirmed projects on the way. Barney, Hot Wheels, Polly Pocket, and even the great historian Wishbone will get their time to shine on the screen. We don’t know if they will make a billion dollars like Barbie. But we are still very curious to see if Mattel will continue to have a foothold in the entertainment business.
Barbie Is Breaking Records(And Beating Batman, Mario, and More)
Warner Bros.
In addition to its billion-dollar-plus intake, Barbie is also breaking other records. Recently, it became the highest-grossing domestic/North American release ever for Warner Bros. That record was previously held by Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie The Dark Knight. But in the Barbie vs. Batman battle, Barbie has come out on top. The Dark Knight brought in $536 million, while Barbie just recently passed $537.5. Barbie also became the highest-grossing Warner Bros. movie worldwide. It surpassed the $1.342 billion made by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2.
Additionally, Barbie has also officially become the highest-grossing 2023 movie in North America and in the world. Both these titles were recently held by The Super Mario Bros. Movie which $574 million domestically and $1.35 billion globally. Barbie has now crossed the latter number, recently clocking in at $1.36 billion, and is still on the rise. This officially makes Barbie the top-earning 2023 movie, at least unless some other film swoops in all of a sudden. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a lot of fun, but there’s no beating the Queen, President, Supreme Court Justice, Doctor, Astronaut.
Barbie has even taken on another super-team. Domestically, Barbie has officially made more money than The Avengers. And it is now #11 as far as highest-grossing domestic releases go. It has a long way to go to get to the top, but beating the Avengers is pretty cool.
Other Barbie Victories
Barbie already landed the year’s biggest opening and the biggest opening ever for a movie directed by a woman. Barbie will likely shatter more records as it continues its world domination.
For now, Barbie continues to rake in cash at theaters. The film is set to come to streaming via Max sometime this fall; however, the date isn’t confirmed yet. Barbie will also arrive on digital channels on September 12. We will see just how high those box office numbers will soar for one of the most entertaining and heartfelt films this year.
Planning to experience what’s in store in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty? This paid expansion takes your character, V, to the ruined streets of Dogtown, now in the hands of a disgruntled colonel and his mercs. Thankfully, there are several ways to reach this point in the story. Our guide discusses how to start the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion, as well as what you can expect from various options. Likewise, please be reminded that this article contains minor spoilers.
How to start the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion
There are several ways to begin your next adventure in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. These include:
Skipping ahead to the Phantom Liberty arc.
Completing the Transmission main quest.
Loading an old save file where you’ve already finished Transmission.
Starting a new game and skipping ahead to Phantom Liberty
It’s possible to start the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion right from the get-go. Simply select New Game from the main menu and pick “Skip Ahead to Phantom Liberty.” You’ll be able to customize your main character, and you’ll also have attributes that are allocated automatically (you can change these later).
The main downside here is that you won’t be able to experience the preceding arc, where you’ll learn about V’s backstory and meet their old pals. There’s also quite a bit of worldbuilding here, where you’ll find out more regarding Night City. As such, we don’t recommend this option for newcomers.
You can skip ahead to the expansion’s arc by selecting the new game option in the main menu.
Completing the Transmission main quest
The key requirement if you want to experience Phantom Liberty’s campaign is the completion of a main quest called Transmission. This can be done whether you’re starting a fresh save/new game, or if you’re already progressing through the campaign but you haven’t reached that part yet.
Transmission involves heading to Pacifica and encountering the Voodoo Boys. You’ll also meet characters such as Placide and Brigitte. Once you’re done with Transmission, you should get a call from a character named Songbird, who claims that there’s a way to help V.
You’ll encounter Brigitte during the Transmission main quest.
Loading an old save file after you’ve finished Transmission
Those who’ve already played through most of the base game (thus completing the Transmission main quest) will also be able to try out Phantom Liberty. For instance, one of our writers had a save file at the point of no return (i.e. Nocturne Op55N1). Upon loading that save, they went to sleep in V’s apartment and, once they woke up, they received a call from Songbird.
Likewise, it’s worth noting that veteran players who haven’t checked the game in a while might be surprised by all the changes thanks to Update 2.0. Thankfully, it’s easy to adjust to these new mechanics and features, and you’ll even be able to reallocate your perk points accordingly.
Upon beginning the Phantom Liberty story arc, you’ll have a chat with Songbird.
Regardless of the method you choose to start the Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty expansion, the call from Songbird leads to the Dog Eat Dog mission. From there, you’ll be able to enter Dogtown, which is a walled-off section of Pacifica. You’ll be off to the races in a high-stakes game of espionage. For more on what to expect, check out how long it takes to beat Phantom Liberty.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty has you exploring a new district called Dogtown, all while interacting with secret operatives and mercenary leaders. We’ll have a guides hub soon, so stay tuned.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Hablas robot?Spotify is testing out a way for podcasters to reach listeners in different languages, using artificial-intelligence technology that emulates the podcaster’s own voice.
As part of the pilot, Spotify worked with a “select group” of podcasters — Dax Shepard and Monica Padman (“Armchair Expert”), Lex Fridman, Steven Bartlett (“The Diary of a CEO”) and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons — to generate AI-powered voice translations in other languages including Spanish, French and German for a few episodes. (Hear examples of AI-generated translations into Spanish, below.) Other shows Spotify expects to include in the voice-translation test include Dax Shepard’s “eff won with DRS,” “The Rewatchables” from Spotify’s The Ringer and Trevor Noah’s new original podcast, slated to launch later this year.
The Spotify-developed tool uses OpenAI’s recently released voice-generation technology to match the original speaker’s style. That, according to Spotify, results in a “more authentic listening experience” that sounds “more personal and natural than traditional dubbing.”
Voice-translated episodes from the creators in Spotify’s pilot will be available worldwide on the platform. These episodes will begin to roll out to users on the “Now Playing” view starting Monday, Sept. 25, initially in Spanish, with French and German translations rolling out over the coming weeks.
“By matching the creator’s own voice, Voice Translation gives listeners around the world the power to discover and be inspired by new podcasters in a more authentic way than ever before,” Ziad Sultan, Spotify’s VP of personalization, said in a statement. “We believe that a thoughtful approach to AI can help build deeper connections between listeners and creators, a key component of Spotify’s mission to unlock the potential of human creativity.”
Currently, Spotify says, it has more than 100 million podcast listeners globally and more than 5 million podcast titles available in 170-plus markets. The company was the largest U.S. podcast network based on reach from Q4 2022 to Q1 2023, according to Edison Research.
In June 2023, the company reorganized its podcasting group, laying off 200 staffers. In a memo to staffers, Sahar Elhabashi, Spotify’s VP, head of podcast business, said the company would focus more on partnerships with “leading podcasters from across the globe.” Spotify continues to curate a lineup of originals, with recent and upcoming launches including Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” Season 3, “Case 63” Season 2 starring Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac, and “The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark” starring Hasan Minhaj.
Listen to examples of Spotify’s AI-based podcast language translations:
The WGA and the AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement to end the writers strike, which began back in May.
Just under 150 days after it first started, the Writers Guild of America strike is nearing its official end, as the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have reached a tentative agreement.
In a joint statement (via Deadline), both the WGA and AMPTP said, “The WGA and AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement.” That’s simple enough but really all we need at this point considering that the WGA strike, coupled with the SAG-AFTRA strike, put the industry at a virtual standstill.
Separately, the WGA told their members, “We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language.”
Officially, the WGA strike is still going on even though all picketing has been ordered to stop, which will give Drew Barrymore a nice break…But before the strike ends and writers can resume their work, the union will take the conditions — undisclosed to the public at this time — to a vote to decide if they will then take them to the Writers Guild of America West Board and the Writers Guild of America East Council.
After months of dead-end negotiations, delays and some nasty situations that found those within the industry coming to blows, things really looked like they would be concluding with the WGA strike once they began meeting on a daily basis just last week. At the time, reps for the WGA sat down with some major names: Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, and Universal’s Donna Langley.
At the time of the strike — which began after more than a month of failed talks between the WGA and the studios — the guild issued the following statement: “Though we negotiated intent on making a fair deal – and though your strike vote gave us the leverage to make some gains – the studios’ responses to our proposals have been wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing. We must now exert the maximum leverage possible to get a fair contract by withholding our labor. Members of the Negotiating Committee, Board and Council will be out with you on the picket lines.” The most recent strike prior to this one lasted from November 2007 to February 2008.
This tentative agreement between the WGA and the AMPTP also gives movie fans hope in that perhaps it indicates that the AMPTP could soon settle with SAG-AFTRA, who launched their own strike back in July.
What are your thoughts on the WGA strike coming to an end? What do you hope the writers got in the end? Let us know in the comments section below.
From left to right: Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt (Photo: Brian Lindensmith/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images); Lisa Rinna (Photo: Gotham/WireImage); Simon Cowell (Photo: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic); Tiffany “New York” Pollard (Photo: Bennett Raglin/WireImage)Graphic: Karl Gustafson
Contrary to what some may believe, there is a distinct talent to being a reality star. The appeal of reality TV is that you’re watching, at least in theory, real people go about their situation. These aren’t actors—any of us could potentially be on a reality show. But, through continued exposure (and a healthy dose of producing and editing) certain story tropes emerge, and people begin to fall into the categories of heroes and villains.
Offering your life up and being willing to become a villain is a skill apart from being on reality TV. While the people we think of as reality antagonists may be noted for their egos or their aggression or their general disconnect from reality, there has to be some humility, too. At best, these stars aren’t playing characters so much as caricatured versions of themselves. They have given their names over to villainy, more than any fictional character ever could. Here, in alphabetical order, we look at some of the best who have ever done just that.
Established in 2004, GO-N’s credits include such series as Simon Super Rabbit, Lou!,Zip Zip and Tootuff. The company is hot off being named Producer of the Year at the recent edition of Cartoon Forum.
By joining Federation, GO-N becomes part of a group of 35 production companies in France and around the world, including Vertigo Films, Bonne Pioche and Cottonwood Media. The companies benefit from Federation’s extensive global reach thanks to its in-house sales and distribution operations. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
GO-N brings to children’s division, Federation Kids & Family, 11 series totaling 250 half-hours of animation. The enhanced Kids & Family catalogue now includes over 730 half-hours of animation and live-action programming.
Garnet and De Galard, commented, “GO-N has been creating premium animation for almost 20 years now, and this next stage in our company’s evolution will take things to a whole new level. Our main focus has been on content and talent, extending out programs to young audiences worldwide, whilst also highlighting French expertise. In joining the Federation group of companies, we are aligning ourselves with other producers who share the same values and aspirations. This move will bolster our international development, and allow us to produce increasingly ambitious and original content, both in terms of target demographics, formats and animation techniques. We move into this next phase with our entire team, including Emmanuel de Franceschi, Executive Producer and Amélie Oliveau, Digital and Marketing Manager. We very much look forward to working closely with Federation.”
Said Breton, CEO of Federation Studios, “With the arrival of Anne and Eric, two of Europe’s most talented producers, along with their well-known kids brands, Federation is on track to accelerate its investments and attract top talent, IPs, and build a true federation of European animation producers, as we’ve already achieved in the field of drama.”
The 2023 Golden Horse Film Project Promotion, the project market that accompanies the Golden Horse film festival and awards in Taiwan in November, has laid out a huge 64-title selection for its 2023 edition.
These include 39 film projects at various stages of development and financing; a further seven works in progress; and the 18-previously announced series at project stage.
The event, which runs Nov. 20-22, offers a $31,000 (NT$1 million) first prize and a total prize pool of $250,000 (NT$8 million) from sponsors and industry sources. All selected projects are also eligible to apply to two TAICCA funding initiatives: the Creative Content Development Program and the International Co-funding Program.
Among the Taiwanese filmmakers: Huang Hsin-yao, the director of “The Great Buddha+” and “Classmates Minus,” takes on the legend of Taiwanese treasure hunters in “Super-Reasoning Treasure Hunt”; Tom Lin Shu-yu, director of “Winds of September” and “The Garden of Evening Mists,” teams up with Kimi Hsia for unconventional romance “This Is How I Love You”; Chang Jung-chi (“Touch of the Light,” “We Are Champions”) is pitching “Dangling,” a survival adventure in which a window cleaner becomes trapped on a high-rise building; Laha Mebow, who won the Golden Horse Award for best director with “Gaga,” is this time pitching a cross-era love story mixed with mythology in her new project “Sayun’s Dreams.”
Hsu Chih-yen, who rose to fame with “Dear Ex,” tells the story of a washed-up singer who uses rap to sell fish in “Straight Outta Fishtown.”
Chinese-language projects from Hong Kong and Macau include: Ng Ka-leung, producer and screenwriter of “Ten Years,” with “Mindgration,” a tale of a young immigrant possessed by a British ghost; “Sisterhood” director Tracy Choi pitching “Be Ordinary,” a tale of female self-growth and discovery; and “It is Just a Summer Thing,” produced by Drifting’s Jun Li and to be directed by Sasha Chuk, exploring the complexities of a young girl’s coming of age.
More Than Blue filmmaker Gavin Lin turns producer for director Lien Chien-hung who is pitching “That Year, 162 Rainfalls,” depicting young love on an archery team.
At the more genre-film end of the spectrum, Chang Yao-sheng, wh previously directed “A Leg,” is pitching psychological thriller “The Haunted Socialite”; Tsai Chia-ying leads the award-winning team behind “The Tag-Along” to revisit another Taiwanese urban legend in “Trapped in Yellow.”
Among the cross-border co-productions the team behind “The Post-Truth World” collaborates with South Korean producers to pitch “Anomalies,” an exploration of human wickedness; while “Geylang” filmmaker Boi Kwong pitches a new take on school bullying in “House of the Beast”; and the established duo Huang Ji and Otsuka Ryuji (“Stonewalling”) re-team for “A Woman Builds.”
The WIP selections include: “Number 2,” a sequel to Ong Kuo Sin’s box office hit; “Transamazonia,” being directed by South African Pia Marais; Leung Kin-pong’s “Semi,” which explores the post-protest movement trauma of Hong Kong’s youth; Nelicia Low’s “Pierce,” a portrayal of a fencer from an extreme family; and “Out of Nowhere,” an absurd workplace comedy from Julian Lee.
Fast-growing French production group Federation Studios has acquired French animation company GO-N Productions, Federation unveiled on Monday.
The animation studio, set up by Anne de Galard and Eric Garnet in 2004, is known for such kids series as Simon Super Rabbit, Lou!, Zip Zip and Tootuff. That week, it was named producer of the year at the 2023 Cartoon Forum in Toulouse.
Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
The GO-N library of 11 series totaling some 250 half hours of premium animation will be added to Federation’s Kids & Family division, which now boasts more than 730 half-hours of kids animation and live-action programming.
“GO-N has been creating premium animation for almost 20 years now, and this next stage in our company’s evolution will take things to a whole new level,” Garnet and de Galard said in a statement. “Our main focus has been on content and talent, extending out programs to young audiences worldwide, whilst also highlighting French expertise. In joining the Federation group of companies, we are aligning ourselves with other producers who share the same values and aspirations. This move will bolster our international development, and allow us to produce increasingly ambitious and original content, both in terms of target demographics, formats and animation techniques. We move into this next phase with our entire team, including Emmanuel de Franceschi, executive producer and Amélie Oliveau, digital and marketing manager. We very much look forward to working closely with Federation.”
With the GO-N acquisition, Pascal Breton’s Paris-based Federation now operates 35 production companies in France and globally, including Cottonwood Media (Find Me In Paris, Theodosia), Britain’s Vertigo Films (Bulletproof, Britannia) and Rome-based Fabula Pictures (Netflix’s Baby).
Parduman Suri read the horoscopes of the newly-weds Parineeti Chopra and Raghav Chadha.
Celebrity Astrologer Parduman Suri Foresees A Bright Future for Newlyweds Parineeti Chopra and Raghav Chadha.
In the tapestry of Hindu traditions, the sacred bonds of matrimony are woven with cosmic threads, binding two souls in a journey of love, partnership, and destiny. Such was the case on the 24th of September when Bollywood’s Parineeti Chopra and politician Raghav Chadha embarked on their marital voyage in a splendid royal-style ceremony in Udaipur.
As the world celebrated this union, *Celebrity Astrologer Parduman Suri, India’s Youngest Astrologer, Vastu Consultant, India’s Nostradamus awardee, and Motivational Speaker,* delved into the horoscopes of the newlyweds. What he uncovered was an intriguing alignment of planets, where Rahu and Ketu graced both Parineeti and Raghav’s charts, setting the stage for a promising path of fame, success, and personal fulfillment.
In the realm of astrology, it’s believed that before marriage, each individual carries unique qualities and imperfections. Through this sacred union, husband and wife harmonize these imperfections, creating a complete and balanced existence. Parineeti and Raghav, too, are poised to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses on this cosmic journey, bringing luck and prosperity to their intertwined lives.
Astrologically speaking, their synergy becomes apparent when Parineeti combines her acting career with potential ventures in film-making or studio ownership, while Raghav explores business pursuits beyond his political background. This harmonious blend promises to be a wellspring of wealth and fame, making external pursuits seem almost unnecessary.
However, to thrive in their married life, they must embrace each other as they are, without attempting to reshape one another. Parineeti’s Sun in the tenth house indicates a post-marital rise in her fortunes, yet mutual understanding and acceptance will be key to their shared happiness.
Yet, the celestial canvas reveals its complexities. Parineeti’s horoscope bears a lunar eclipse, while Raghav’s sees the Moon in a debilitated sign. In Parineeti’s chart, the Moon and Rahu share an alignment—a celestial sign of a harmonious post-marital journey free from doubts or conflicts, as long as contentment reigns.
Nonetheless, ego clashes may arise due to the lunar eclipse, potentially causing disruptions. Parineeti is advised to trust her own wisdom for marital harmony. Moon-related irritabilities might surface, demanding vigilance. Raghav, in particular, should be mindful of mood swings.
In this cosmic union, meditation may prove beneficial for Parineeti, who may face mental challenges, while Raghav may encounter bone-related issues down the road. As they embark on their shared path, their love story takes on a celestial dimension, offering the promise of an exciting journey filled with cosmic twists and turns.
At just 24 years old, he has risen to become India’s youngest astrologer and a celebrated motivational speaker. Educated at the esteemed LK Singhania Education Centre in Rajasthan and GJU, he embarked on his astrological odyssey in his youth, driven by an insatiable curiosity about the cosmos. Delving into astrology, numerology, Vastu, and more, he swiftly garnered profound insights, propelling him to success.
Yatamanyu is a multi-disciplinary Journalist & Photographer who dabbles in Films, Poetry, Music, Politics, Pop-Culture and everything in between. …Read More
Adidas executives knew that back in 2013, when they signed the artist formerly known as Kanye West away from Nike. Companies shouldn’t get away with feigning shock after a provocative artist does something provocative.
Opinion Columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports and navigating life in America.
By 2013, Ye, as he is called now, had already said President George W. Bush didn’t care about Black people. He had rushed a stage to insult Taylor Swift. Controversy was part of his brand. “Eccentric” behavior. A provocative genius. Ultimately a risk that the apparel company surmised was worth taking.
“I think Kanye West is one of the most creative people in the world,” Gulden said on a podcast about investing. “Very unfortunate, because I don’t think he meant what he said and I don’t think he’s a bad person. It just came off that way.”
One of Ye’s tweets was a threat to “go death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”
Hard to see the misunderstanding.
So why is Adidas using a compliment sandwich to describe the controversy? Apparently some faction still views Ye as a risk worth taking.
The apparel company did just spend the summer raking in close to half a billion dollars selling shoes and other Yeezy items that I didn’t think anyone would want anymore. After Adidas said it was cutting ties with Ye, it was staring down the possibility of losing nearly $1.3 billion. But the plan to donate a portion of Yeezy shoe sales to charity — rather than destroying them — was successful. Adidas released a limited supply and made $437 million in the process.
The company wants to maintain the distance it has created from Ye while still cashing in on his fame. So after Gulden’s “I don’t think he meant what he said” remark came a statement from the company.
“Our decision to end our partnership with Ye because of his unacceptable comments and behavior was absolutely the right one,” the company said. “Our stance has not changed: Hate of any kind has no place in sports or society, and we remain committed to fighting it.”
While selling Yeezys and defending Ye?
Anything is possible, I guess.
It’s just hard to believe the company that watched the artist make multiple hateful statements over the course of a decade in business together is really “committed to fighting it.” Feels more like damage control now that it’s their brand in danger of being damaged.
In recent months it announced a $1.1-billion partnership with Manchester United, greenlighted a second wave of Yeezy sales and saw its stock price recovering. The last thing Adidas needs is for the cavalier attitude of its chief executive to reignite the controversy. Adidas was getting what it wanted: It could sell Yeezys and also put out news releases saying it had cut ties with Ye.
It’s a similar situation to what Pepsi did with Madonna 35 years ago.
The beverage company partnered with the controversial singer ahead of the release of her “Like a Prayer” album in 1989.
By then she had already angered the Vatican with “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Like a Virgin.” But casting Leon Robinson, who is Black, to play a saint-like figure in a music video and then making out with that figure in church while also dancing in front of burning crosses was … too far. Pepsi canceled airing the commercial, horrified that the provocative artist they signed to promote their soft drink had, you know, provoked people. Last week, more than three decades late, the beverage company finally shared the commercial on social media.
“Thank you for finally realizing the genius of our collaboration,” Madonna posted on Instagram afterward. “Artists are here to disturb the peace.”
Sounds good in theory.
Sounds great in the marketing department.
But when business leaders are reminded what sort of public figures they’ve made a deal with, commercials get canceled and shoes are taken off the shelf. The companies pretend they were blindsided. They say that had they known these artists would do something offensive, they would have looked elsewhere. They also try to keep cashing in on the connection, whenever it’s convenient.
When you team with someone as provocative as Ye, you know from the outset: Anything is possible.
DC characters are often portrayed as weaker in movies than they are in the comics, downplaying their abilities for the sake of the story.
Movie adaptations that alter a character’s power level can be seen as unfaithful to the source material and can cause controversy among fans.
Examples of weakened characters include Atom Smasher, Penguin, Cheetah, Lex Luthor, Superman, Bane, Supergirl, Batman, Ares, and Parallax.
The characters of the DC Universe may be based on those from the comics, but often the transition from page to screen renders them much weaker. DC’s characters rank among some of the most prolific movie superheroes of all time: Superman and Batman alone have each seen a handful of distinct on-screen adaptations over the years, with many other heroes also having their own blockbusters along the way. Then came the DCEU, the first shared DC movie universe to combine multiple heroes under one cinematic banner. Across these adaptations, many characters from the comics have found their way onto the big screen.
Both in the movies of the DCEU timeline and beyond, DC characters are often much weaker on film than they are in the comics. Their power levels are occasionally significantly downgraded in service of their respective movies’ narratives, and villains are regularly made significantly less powerful in order to have the heroes vanquish them within the span of a single movie. However, downplaying a character’s established abilities or power level is often a way to make a movie adaptation seem decidedly unfaithful to the source material, and often contributes to controversy.
Of all the characters in Black Adam, Atom Smasher is hardly the most powerful, but he’s a respectable hero in his own right, particularly in the comics. However, Black Adam portrays him as a clumsy, bumbling young hero who is largely unable to reliably control his powers, and is often shown to cause issues for his fellow JSA members. Though the film certainly didn’t alter the hero’s power set, it did subtly change his personality to make him much less powerful as a hero, as his difficulty controlling his power and managing basic hero work makes him seem decidedly weaker than his comic book counterpart.
9 Penguin (Batman Returns)
Batman’s rogues’ galley is filled with iconic villains, and though the Penguin may not be his most iconic nemesis, he still ranks highly among them. Tim Burton’s Batman Returns introduced a version of the villain who was significantly weaker than the character from the comics, though. The film leaned heavily into the character’s penguin gimmick, focusing on altering the character in order to make him seem more like his namesake. However, in doing so, Batman Returns failed to appropriately depict the character as the criminal mastermind that he traditionally is in the comics, and killed him off before he could live up to his villainous potential.
8 Cheetah (Wonder Woman 1984)
In the DCEU movie timeline, Cheetah is one of the franchise’s first villains chronologically, which is appropriate considering she’s Wonder Woman’s main nemesis in the comics. However, Wonder Woman 1984 substantially weakened the villain, making her a more tragic and sympathetic figure. In the comics, Cheetah is the ruthless and violent antithesis of Wonder Woman, whereas the movie simply portrays her as an unfortunate victim of Maxwell Lord’s magic. The film also relegated her to a secondary villain, implying that she was nowhere near the threat to Wonder Woman that her comic book counterpart usually is.
7 Lex Luthor (Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice)
In the comics, Lex Luthor is one of DC’s most powerful villains. Despite his lack of traditional superpowers, his brilliant intellect, capacity for manipulation, and status as a master tactician are all qualities that make him more than a match for Superman. In Batman v Superman, Jesse Eisenberg’s Luthor excudes none of these qualities, and is instead portrayed as an eccentric and somewhat unhinged young billionaire. By altering the villain’s characterization, Batman v Superman robbed him of his most powerful qualities, making the movie villain seem much weaker than the Lex Luthor from the comics.
6 Superman (Justice League)
Though upcoming DC movies will introduce a new iteration of Superman for a rebooted franchise, the DCEU’s last full appearance of Superman highlighted how much weaker the hero was than his traditional comic book characterization. After the Justice League successfully raises him from the dead, Superman comes back without his memories and spends most of the film recovering them. In fact, Justice League only seems him act heroically in its final scenes, doing very little to showcase his ability to lead and inspire his fellow heroes. Though the hero himself remained somewhat overpowered, he was still depicted as a much weaker character than he is traditionally in the comics.
5 Bane (Batman & Robin)
1997’s Batman & Robin is widely considered the worst Batman movie ever made, but one character that seemed to get the worst deal of all was its version of Bane. In the comics, the villain is not just a physical powerhouse but brilliantly intelligent too. However, Batman & Robin opted to forgo the latter part of the villain’s personality and simply portrayed him as an empty-headed brute. Bane’s intelligence is every bit as important to his power set as his unnaturally oversized muscles, so it’s fair to say that Batman & Robin made him much weaker than it should have despite his amazing strength.
4 Supergirl (The Flash)
The Flash introduced Supergirl to the DCEU – albeit a version of the hero who existed in an alternate universe. Having spent several years trapped in a kryptonite prison, Supergirl is significantly weaker than she is usually written to be in the comics, though here it is for a valid reason. Even after recovering her power, however, she’s easily beaten by General Zod, with The Flash‘s ending revealing that Zod will kill her in practically every eventuality. It’s an almost insulting power downgrade for a classic DC hero, and though the reasons why were clearly explained within the film, it’s still a step-down for her traditional comic book characterization.
3 Batman (The Batman)
As one of DC’s most iconic heroes, it’s a well-known fact that Batman is the most powerful hero without superpowers. The Batman‘s grounded narrative seemed to forgo this idea, though, instead making its version of the Dark Knight decidedly weaker than he is in the comics in order to facilitate its story. Despite being the world’s greatest detective, Batman is easily outwitted by the Riddler and is unable to decipher the villain’s plan until it’s far too late. What’s worse, he’s also physically overwhelmed by a handful of untrained Riddler henchmen, proving that The Batman‘s version of the hero is both less intelligent and less physically capable than his comic book counterpart at this point in his story.
2 Ares (Wonder Woman)
Wonder Woman‘s main villain is Ares, the god of war, who reveals himself to Diana before an epic showdown in which Diana kills the villain. In the comics, Ares is pure evil and lives to cause death and destruction, but the film portrays him differently. Ares is far more sympathetic to Diana, and proves relatively easy for her to kill early in her superhero career. The comics paint him as a recurring villain who harbors a deep-seated hatred for the Amazons, and given his status as a god, he’s not so easy to dispatch. However, Wonder Woman makes him much weaker, allowing Diana to emerge victorious from their battle.
1 Parallax (Green Lantern)
Green Lantern is widely considered one of the worst superhero movies ever, and its treatment of its main villain indicates why. Parallax is the living embodiment of fear and the Green Lantern Corps’ biggest enemy, proving almost impossible to beat on multiple occasions in the comics. The film sees Hal Jordan not just defeat Parallax in his first outing as a Green Lantern, but kill the being permanently by driving Parallax into the sun. Having such an important DC villain killed so offhandedly did more than just make Parallax seem weaker than his comic counterpart, as it also made Green Lantern one of the worst movies in the DC Universe.
Rock Paper Shotgun writes: “Payday 3 has some good, complex levels to do your co-op heisting, but the matchmaking and levelling systems make it harder to have fun with other players.”
Studiocanal has named Patrick Schweitzer as CEO of its UK-based It’s a Sin and Years and Years producer Red Production Company. An industry veteran, Schweitzer has worked across high-end television drama for 30 years. Prior to joining Red, he spent five years at Tall Story Pictures and executive produced such series as ITV’S Grace, Redemption, Bancroft season 2 and The Bay.
Previously, Schweitzer was producer in development on Sky’s Gangs of London, having also produced Sky’s Save Me, the BBC’s SSGB, The Interceptor, Doctor Who and the final season of ITV’s Whitechapel.
Other credits include working as a location manager, then line producer. He was involved in launching such returning TV series as Ashes to Ashes, Spooks, Hustle, The Hour, Blackpool and Call the Midwife.
On Red’s upcoming slate is Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys in co-production with Endor for delivery to Prime Video in 2024. The company’s most recent series include It’s A Sin (Channel Four), Years and Years starring Emma Thompson (BBC One), No Return starring Sheridan Smith (ITV) and Harlan Coben’s Stay Close for Netflix.
Said Schweitzer, “After a wonderful five years at Tall Story and ITV, I couldn’t be more excited to join Red for its next chapter. I thrive to collaborate with the best writing talent from across the country to produce great content. To join this highly regarded company and to be working with Studiocanal, whose iconic catalogue continues to resonate across the globe, is utterly thrilling. With offices in Manchester and London, my ambition is to build on this amazing legacy of shows and the company’s tradition as a home to outstanding creative talent. The aim is for us to continue making both mainstream entertainment and bolder character driven drama, to celebrate stories that encourage new reflection on the familiar and nurture writing that delivers deeper insights into our human condition.”
Anna Marsh, CEO of Studiocanal and Deputy CEO of Canal+ Group, added, “Patrick will be an incredible asset to Red. He already has an extraordinary portfolio of drama to his name and an innate ability to create programming that is relatable to every kind of audience. He shares Studiocanal’s global mission to bring stories to the screen that have both a local and international resonance with real people. Passionate about story-telling in all its forms, Patrick’s relationships with writers, acting talent, broadcasters and his team members are second to none. We are thrilled to know that Red is in such excellent hands.”
The pair met up at what appears to be the only restaurant in Flagstaff, Arizona, to discuss their estranged marriage after Janelle told Kody to get his things and move out.
Janelle explains that in past marriage troubles, they’ve just sort of smoothed things over and ignored issues, but says she can’t do that this time.
“I have realized this time it’s just not working for me anymore. I really want to be treated differently and I want some more things out of a relationship,” Janelle declares.
But despite their nearly 30 years of marriage, Janelle doesn’t know if she and Kody can repair the damage of the last few years.
TLC
The patriarch of the Brown family does start off on a good note, apologizing to Janelle, and once again blaming his outburst on the anger he’s feeling from his split from his ex, Christine Brown.
“I’m embarrassed by my behavior, but I’m also realizing that you don’t have a safe place, a safe way to talk to me,” he admits. “I am realizing that I am morphing or transmuting grief into anger. And I realized that I’m just not a safe place for you to have a conversation, so just one trigger after another just set me off.”
Janelle is tired of the excuse, and tells him she wants to “stay separated” for the time being, so she can figure out what she wants to do without Kody’s influence.
“I’m sort of surprised that she doesn’t want to try and reconcile, that she wants to be separated,” Kody says. “We’ve been separated probably two or three times in the past. Always felt like that was because she couldn’t manage the relationship with her sister wives. I never felt like that was over me, but maybe I was wrong.”
Janelle says she’s open to doing marriage counseling, but neither makes a concrete plan to do so.
TLC
Janelle also says she’s surprised every time Kody claims to not have seen his split from Christine coming.
“He’s been telling me for years that he wasn’t attracted to Christine,” Janelle claims. “They were struggling in their marriage. I would have left his a** the first time he said that to me. I would have.”
Once again, the subject of Kody’s estrangement from his and Janelle’s older children comes up and he says that Christine and Janelle are being “mean girls” together.
“So Janelle’s not in love with me. I think she thinks I’m hot,” Kody claims. “I got nice pecks and great six-pack abs, but that’s all she’s interested in.”
Janelle laughs off the claim, saying, “I’m like, ‘Whoa, buddy, you’re way missing the boat here.’ There’s way more to a marriage than just physical attraction, and I feel like we’re in big danger here.”
Janelle then asks Kody if he still wants a plural family, saying, “sometimes I can’t tell.”
“I felt like Atlas and the world’s on my shoulder, and I just shrugged it off. Nobody else picked it up,” Kody says. “I’ve always worked hard for plural marriage, and just because we got here and I got a little bit cynical doesn’t mean that I don’t want plural marriage anymore.”
Janelle finally sums up her feelings in her confessional interview, saying that she’s simply not getting what she needs from Kody as her husband.
TLC
“I’m not really inclined to stay in this relationship with Kody. I don’t feel like I’m getting what I deserve from him,” she says. “Listen, I’m pretty independent. I don’t need a lot from him. But when it comes down to where he does, all of a sudden doesn’t want to be a father to my kids because they disagree with him. That sort of changes the cost benefit equation for me in this marriage.”
She’s also tired of hearing him “b**ching” about his split from Christine, saying, “Be a big boy and reconcile it.”
But in the end, Janelle does show that she still has feelings for her estranged husband.
“I mean, I miss you, honey. I miss you. And I just don’t know how to fix this or figure this out,” she admits to Kody. “But I don’t want to just because you and I have a tendency to be like you come back and we sort of just forget all the hard stuff and we just things in our little place. I need something different, you know, this time.”
In her confessional interview, she adds, “I do miss Kody. We are very best friends. We have a lot of conversations. I miss him in my bed. I miss him in my house. I miss him. But I am not being treated the way I deserve to be treated here.”
Kody is surprised to see that Janelle isn’t willing to simply take him back, admitting, “I kind of thought that we would reconcile.”
TLC
But she isn’t the only one moving on. Christine has a nervous excitement as she talks to her kids about the possibility of dating again, sharing that she’s working with a professional matchmaker to find someone new.
“He’s the only guy I’ve ever kissed. Oh my god, what if I suck at kissing? What if I suck at everything like that? I don’t know,” she admits of her past relationship with Kody. “Do you see why it’s scary? Do you see why it is terrifying? It is terrifying.”
As for her ideal man — “bald, tattoos, driving a motorcycle.” Hmm, seems to fit the description of her new fiancé, David Woolley, pretty well.
Meri is nervous to be moving her clothing business to Utah, saying she is scared to tell Robyn. It seems like we have another tearful lament from Robyn about not growing old in a rocking chair on the porch with her sister wives on the horizon.
Canadian investment group Letko Brousseau & Associates and Imax Corporation have clashed over July’s proposed move to take private Imax China, which currently has a separate share listing in Hong Kong.
Letko, which owns some 1.7% of Imax China shares, on Friday announced that it will vote against the proposal. It argues that the offer “significantly undervalues Imax China” and “unjustifiably benefits Imax Corporation at the expense of minority investors.”
“The timing of the offer is opportunistic and comes as [Imax China] is beginning to emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic that has kept a significant portion of its theatres closed over extended periods of time from 2020 to 2022, said Letko. It said that the offer’s 39.5% premium to the prior closing price of Imax China shares “is based on a very depressed share price [and ] is less than 60% of what the shares were trading before the global pandemic.
“The offer does not reflect Imax China’s historical level of profitability and its potential for strong earnings growth and cash flow generation going forward [.. ] it values [Imax China] at about 9x 2024 adjusted earnings, which is less than half of the company’s historical valuation and is unjustifiably low in our view given the strong recovery potential.”
Imax hit back on Monday with a statement that suggested its offer was a remedy for recently poor investment returns and deteriorating stock market conditions.
“While Imax China’s first half results are encouraging reflecting both theatre re-openings and increased box office market share, Imax China’s share price continued to exhibit weakness and its trading volume hit all-time lows throughout 2023 prior to the proposed privatization,” Imax said in a statement.
Greater China now represents by far the largest venue for Imax’s premium large format theaters, with 794 in operation at the end of 2022 (in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), compared with 441 in North America (393 in the U.S., 48 in Canada), and 46% of its screens worldwide.
On a recent afternoon, 18 members of Birmingham Royal Ballet spun, pirouetted and leaped across a rehearsal room, with all the grace and skill associated with classical dance. Yet the music blaring out of the sound system wasn’t by Tchaikovsky or Ravel. It was by Black Sabbath.
When the dancers finished the sequence to the Ozzy Osbourne-fronted band’s pounding track “Iron Man,” Pontus Lidberg, the lead choreographer for the company’s new production, “Black Sabbath: The Ballet,” nodded approvingly. Then he decided he needed movement more suited to the aggressive music.
“Shall we try a stage dive?” he said.
In 2020, Birmingham Royal Ballet — based in England’s second most populous, but often overlooked, city — grabbed the British dance world’s attention when it appointed the Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta as its artistic director. Now, Acosta said, he hoped that the Black Sabbath Ballet, which has its premiere Wednesday, would gain the company global attention, too, as well as help the company find a wider audience at home.
The second part appears to be working. An eight-show run at Birmingham’s vast Hippodrome theater is sold out, as are runs in London and Plymouth, England.
Acosta said he had chosen Black Sabbath for his first major commission at the company because the heavy metal band was one of “Birmingham’s jewels.” Before forming, the group’s four members worked in the city’s factories and abattoirs, but soon after they came together in 1968, they began mixing lyrics influenced by horror movies with hard rock, in a style that was eventually christened heavy metal. Over the following decades, most major metal bands, including Iron Maiden and Metallica, cited Black Sabbath as a key influence, and the band sold over 70 million albums.
Acosta noted that Birmingham has a canal bridge named for Black Sabbath, but otherwise, he said, the city hadn’t done enough to celebrate the brand or the genre it created.
The idea of melding heavy metal music and dancing on pointe was initially met with some confusion, Acosta said, including from Black Sabbath’s members. Tony Iommi, 75, the band’s guitarist, said that when he heard about the project, his first thought was: “Dancing to Sabbath! How’s that going to work?”
Still, Iommi agreed to meet Acosta and was won over by the dancer’s enthusiasm for the band and a shared background: Acosta came from a poor part of Havana, Iommi said, while Black Sabbath’s members hailed from rough districts of Birmingham, where street brawls were common and ballet lessons nonexistent.
“Carlos had such a belief in what he was doing,” Iommi said.
It took Acosta several years to work out how to stage a full-scale ballet to the band’s music. Ben Ratcliffe, writing in The New York Times in 1993, described the ideal Black Sabbath song as “slow and low, loud and long.” Lidberg, the ballet’s lead choreographer, said that the repetitive, angry riffs of the group’s most famous songs, like “War Pigs” and “Paranoid,” at first seemed more suited to contemporary dance.
It was only with a deep dive into the band’s catalog that the creative team realized there were other songs — including the psychedelic “Planet Caravan” — that had gentler moods. The final ballet will contain orchestral versions of eight Black Sabbath tracks, as well original music by a team of composers. A metal guitarist will play onstage, too.
Although the piece is no story ballet, it does feature scenes based on real events, including an industrial accident Iommi suffered in 1965 that was key to the development of Black Sabbath’s sound. The guitarist, then aged 17, was working a shift in a Birmingham sheet metal factory when he caught his right hand in a machine. It tore off the tips of two fingers, leaving bloody bones sticking out.
To continue playing, Iommi fashioned new finger tips out of dishwashing soap bottle caps, then slackened his guitar strings to ease the pressure as he pressed down on the fretboard. Those changes helped create Black Sabbath’s — and so metal’s — signature booming sound.
Five years later, when Black Sabbath released its self-titled debut album, critics hated it, but fans flocked to the band’s concerts. Black Sabbath made headlines throughout the ’70s for its drug-fuelled antics as much as for its music. (The sleeve notes for the band’s fourth album, recorded in Los Angeles in 1972, thanked the city’s drug dealers.) But even for Black Sabbath, Osbourne went too far, and in 1979, the band’s other members fired him. In the solo career that came after, Osbourne once bit the head off a live bat onstage.
Lidberg said that he had toyed with including many strange, real-life moments in the ballet, including the bat biting, but, ultimately, the show would be thematic, rather than specific. The first act centers on how Birmingham’s clattering factories influenced heavy metal’s sound, he explained, and the third act is about the band’s fans.
Lisa Meyer, a Birmingham music promoter, is credited as the ballet’s “metal curator,” tasked with ensuring authenticity — but it remains to be seen what metal fans will make of it.
Barney Greenway, the Birmingham-born lead singer of Napalm Death, a band that pioneered the metal subgenre of grindcore, said he hoped the dancers didn’t rely on “metal stereotypes, like throwing the ‘devil horns,’” a hand gesture often seen at rock concerts. Nonetheless, he said, his interest was piqued.
Iommi predicted one subset of fans that would likely appreciate the ballet: Black Sabbath’s original followers from the 1970s. “They wouldn’t want to go to a rock concert anymore,” he said. “Some are in their 80s!” This show would be perfect for them, Iommi added: They can watch it sitting down.
SAN SEBASTIAN — MediaInvest, a new E.U. equity tool managed by the European Investment Fund, which targets the audiovisual industry with €400 million ($424 million) over 2022-27, has made its first deals: An equity agreement with France’s Logical Content Ventures, part of Logical Pictures, and three debt financing agreements, with Spain’s Cersa and Crea and Luxembourg-based The Archers.
Announced Sunday at the San Sebastian Film Festival following on a Spain-hosted E.U. Conference, the agreements are worth a total of €68.25 million ($72.35 million). They are expected to leverage around €500 million ($530 million) of new financing for audiovisual and creative companies and projects, the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, confirmed Monday.
MediaInvest “provides a response to one of the pressing challenges in Europe for audiovisual companies: the lack of access to finance. This will strengthen the financial capacities of European companies, enable them to get better value for the intellectual property they create and in turn boost their growth and international exposure,” Renate Nikolay, European Commission deputy director-general for DG CNECT, told Variety.
Launched in Cannes last year by Commissioner Thierry Bréton, MediaInvest’s ultimate goal is to boost investment in the audiovisual sector and to encourage the creation of audiovisual equity funds, the Commission said Monday in a statement.
Given the intense due diligence conducted by the EIF on any company receiving E.U. moneys, its funding can have a cascade effect, attracting investment from private-sector third parties, Logical Pictures president Fréderic Fiore explained to Variety.
The EIF has approved an investment of up to €25 million ($26.5 million) in Logical Content Ventures. Benefiting from a co-investment partnership with France’s Pathé, one of its biggest production-distribution-exhibition conglomerates, LCV aims to raise up to €70 million ($74.2 million) in equity investment in European audiovisual production and distribution companies.
LCV focuses on the production of movies, TV series and impact content across Europe, dealing with women’s empowerment, diversity and human rights.
“Very flexible,” said Fiore, LCV invests against worldwide rights, recouping from international minimum guarantees, as well as P&A for a films domestic market release.
Its investment strategy, Fiore explained to Variety, is that while the international theatrical value of films has plummeted over the last two decades, thanks to the VOD explosion, movies’ total value in the international market place has increased.
The EIF has also signed with MDDG, a new Luxembourg-based fund, acting as a general partner of its investment vehicles The Archers and The Archers Production.
MDDG is specialised in investments in the audiovisual sector, mainly financing the co-production of films and TV series. The EIF €8.25 million ($8.75 million) guarantee line aims to leverage a portfolio of around €50 million ($53 million) in financing.
The Archers is also financing against international, being “a fund open for European independent producers and European sales company to send a project that needs financing,” Grumbach said at the San Sebastian signature ceremony with the EIF on Sunday.
“We will assess projects’ international potential thanks to sales estimates, script reviews like the usual job of a sales company, of a local distributor,” he added, saying the fund is looking for “projects with a clear international vision, a local project going global.”
While a fairly quiet frame overall, there were some significant milestones this international box office session. To wit: New Line/Warner Bros’ The Nun II topped the $200M mark worldwide and Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan became the highest-grossing Bollywood movie ever in India, overtaking the star’s earlier 2023 movie, Pathaan.
The Nun II scared up another $20.8M in 74 offshore markets during the third frame, elevating the overseas cume to $135M and global to $204.2M. The offshore drop was a great 44% with strong holds in Holland (-14%), Italy (-30%), France (-37%), UK (-38%), Spain (-39%), Australia (-40%), Poland (-42%) and Mexico (-42%).
Germany released this session to a terrific $3.2M on 464 screens and ranked a clear No. 1 with a nearly 50% share of the Top 5 Films. This was good for the highest opening weekend of the Conjuring Universe as well as ahead of all other comps.
The Top 5 markets so far are Mexico ($18.7M), Brazil ($8.7M), Indonesia ($8.7M), Italy ($6.7M) and the UK ($6.4M).
Due ahead are Korea on September 27 and Japan on October 13.
20th Century Studios/Disney’s A Haunting in Venice held to -35% overseas in 52 markets to add $14.7M. The international cume is now $46.2M with $71.6M worldwide. Italy, which is really firing right now, dropped just 3% to maintain the No. 1 spot. The Kenneth Branagh pic was also tops in Spain and the UK.
The Top 5 markets to date are the UK ($6.1M), Italy ($5.4M), China ($5M), France ($3.2M) and Spain ($2.4M).
Expend4bles, or Expendables 4, added $12.3M this weekend, per comScore, following its debut in China last frame. The offshore cume is now an estimated $25.6M for $33.9M global. It has made an estimated $19.3M in China, according to Maoyan. It was No. 2 this session versus local holdover Dust to Dust. We’ll update with other markets when we have more info.
Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Jawan, directed by Atlee Kumar and co-starring Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi, Deepika Padukone and Sanjay Dutt, has become the highest grossing Bollywood film of all time in India overtaking SRK’s own Pathaan from earlier this year. The estimated local gross cume, per Deadline sources, is 663 crore ($79.8M). Globally, it’s only the third Bollywood title to surpass 1000 crores, now with an estimated $121.6M, and the second for SRK after Pathaan.
Christopher Nolan and Universal’s Oppenheimer is holding well, adding $6.95M from 83 offshore markets this session. That lifts the international cume to $604.8M for $926M global.
Here’s the Top 5 to date: UK ($73.5M), China ($57.4M), Germany ($48.8M), France ($42M) and Italy ($28.3M).
In IMAX, Oppenheimer has hit $181.2M global.
Also, ahead of wider rollout next weekend, Paramount/Nickelodeon’s Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie padded into just two markets this session, with a tail-wagging $1.3M including paid previews. The result is 57% above the last film in the franchise.
MISC UPDATED CUMES/NOTABLE The Equalizer 3 (SNY): $5.4M intl weekend (53 markets); $67.4M intl cume/$148.7M global Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story (SNY): $3.9M intl weekend (64 markets); $68.7M intl cume/$110.5M global Barbie (WB): $3.4M intl weekend (73 markets); $797M intl cume/$1.427B global Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (PAR): $2.2M intl weekend (56 markets); $56.4M intl cume/$172.7M global *Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie (PAR): $1.3M intl weekend (2 markets); $1.3M intl cume Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (PAR): $655K intl weekend (38 markets); $395.4M intl cume/$567.5M global Strays (UNI): $394K intl weekend (55 markets); $10.6M intl cume/$34.6M global *Denotes new
Italian fashion icon Donatella Versace has sharply criticized moves by Italy’s far-right government to restrict the rights of same-sex couples, lashing out at anti-LGBTQ+ policies in a speech Sunday night at the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards during Milan Fashion Week.
The new Italian government, under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which took power last year, has rolled out several new laws, including policies ordering municipalities to stop the registration of most children with same-sex parents and extending a national ban on surrogacy for same-sex couples, making it illegal to go abroad for the practice, with prison terms of up to two years and a fine of up to €1 million ($1.06 million).
“Our government is trying to take away people’s rights to live as they wish, they are restricting our freedoms,” said Versace in her speech Sunday night. “The freedom to walk down the street with our heads held high and without fear, regardless of identity. The freedom to build a family and live as one wishes. The freedom to love whom one wishes. We all have to fight for freedom. At a time when transgender people still suffer terrible violence, at a time when children of same-sex couples are not considered their children, at a time when minority voices are being attacked by new laws. At this time, we still have a lot to do.”
The crowd at the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards, the “green Oscars of fashion,” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, leapt to their feet, giving Vesace a sustained standing ovation. Versace was accepting the Humanitarian Award For Equity and Inclusivity and was accompanied on stage by Italian left-wing politician and LGBTQ+ activist Alessandro Zan. Speaking to Zan, Versace said: “Your voice is critical in our world, and I am here to support all that you fight for.”
Accepting the award from Italian pop star Marco Mengoni, who called her “a gay icon,” Versace spoke of when her brother Gianni came out to her as gay when he was 11 years old.
“For me, that didn’t change anything. I loved him and didn’t care who he loved. His love and encouragement made me who I am,” the designer said, her speech interrupted several times by thunderous applause from the audience. “Marco said I am a queer icon [and] I am very proud of that. I fight for freedom, equity, and inclusiveness every day. I built my chosen family with unconditional love. My friends and my team are not defined by race, religion, age, gender or sexual orientation, but by creativity, openness, joy, and kindness – values that matter. If we were all more welcoming and understanding of one another, what an extraordinary world it would be.”
The White Lotus actor Sabrina Impacciatore presented the CNMI awards and the event was attended by the world’s fashion elite, including Oscar winners Julianne Moore and Jessica Chastain and supermodels Bianca Balti and Coco Rocha.
Sponsored by the National Chamber for Italian Fashion, in collaboration with the Ethical Fashion Initiative (Efi) of the United Nations Agency and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with the support of the City of Milan, the awards are meant to honor those in the international fashion world that have distinguished themselves for their dedicated commitment to sustainability.
Ten awards were given by an international jury of 11 members, including CNMI president Carlo Capasa. Other winners include Valentino creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, who took the Education of Excellence Award, Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief of British Vogue, who won the Visionary Award, and Gucci, which took the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Award For Circular Economy for its Denim Project which aims to protect biodiversity throughout its supply chain and use waste cutting techniques to maximize fabric use. Italian luxury textile company Manteco took the Climate Action Award. The Bicester Collection Award for Emerging Designers went to the Ahluwalia brand designed by Priya Ahluwalia; French luxury giant, Keringand won the Biodiversity & Water Award; Chloé took the Human Capital & Social Impact Award; and the Craft & Italian Artisanship Award was won by Dolce & Gabbana. Italian fashion group Candiani won the Groundbreaker Award for Coreva, its new patented technology that allows the production of the world’s first biodegradable and compostable stretch denim.
The European Commission and European Investment Fund (EIF) have announced the first investment of its fledgeling MediaInvest equity investment instrument aimed at the audiovisual sector.
The EIF said it had approved an equity investment of up to €25 million into Paris-based fund Logical Content Ventures, in the first transaction of the MediaInvest Instrument.
It said the agreement aims to raise up to €70 million in equity investment in European audiovisual production and distribution companies.
Logical Content Ventures, was launched by the Logical Pictures Group in 2022, initially targeting €100M in fundraising.
Its investments to date have included the Alexandre Aja-produced Night of the Hunted, which is scheduled for release in 2023, and the thriller Berlin Nobody, produced by Ridley Scott. Earlier this year, it also announced a slate financing deal with French studio Pathé.
The MediaInvest deal was officialized at a signing ceremony on the fringes of the San Sebastian Film Festival on Sunday.
Additionally, the EIF also announced and signed three guarantee deals with David Grumbach’s Luxembourg-based investment group The Archers and Spanish companies worth up to €8.25m, €20m and €15 million respectively.
These accords are expected to leverage a portfolio of up to €425 million.
“I am pleased to see that these agreements have been reached, as they will play a key role in helping secure European audiovisual competitiveness at a global level and boost creative resources in this sector,” Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market said in a statement.
“With this, we are also starting to reap the benefits on the MediaInvest instrument which I launched in Cannes last year. I am looking forward to many more agreements and to seeing this tool continue to help EU creative sectors flourish.”
MediaInvest was created as part of the European Union’s post-pandemic €400M Media and Audiovisual Action Plan and was first announced during the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.
It is part of the broader InvestEU Equity Program, which is managed by the EIF and aims to encourage private parties to invest in the audiovisual sector.
If there’s one constant across the true crime genre, it’s that women and girls do not fare well. For those of us who follow it, there’s no avoiding or softening the horrific fates that often befall them. True crime, after all, is real life. And in the United States, men accounted for nearly 80 percent of arrests involving violent crimes in 2019, according to the F.B.I.; men also made up 88 percent of the arrests in instances of murder and non-negligent manslaughter that year.
That said, there is a much smaller subset of true crime that is perhaps more gripping because it’s so rare: crimes perpetrated by women and even girls.
Here are four picks you can watch or listen to:
Television
There are over 600 episodes across 32 seasons of this Oxygen series, which has been a true crime staple since its debut in 2004. Sure, “Snapped” has all the addictively cheesy trappings of bingeable, guilty-pleasure viewing — indulgent voice-over narration, abundant re-enactments. (The tagline? “From socialites to secretaries, female killers share one thing in common: They all snapped.”)
But what this show delivers cannot be found anywhere else. Each episode explores a crime committed by a woman — crimes you probably would never have heard about otherwise, in part because they happen in America’s nooks and crannies. The stories are largely told through interviews with those involved, often including the criminals or victims themselves. And you get an entire story in about 45 minutes.
While there are some re-emerging themes — namely, women who feel trapped in their lives — the crimes and motivations are expansive. Seasons 12 through 32 are streaming on Peacock, and new episodes and reruns are broadcast on Oxygen.
DOCUSERIES
The bizarre details of the crimes at the heart of this four-part 2018 Netflix series still linger in my mind: In 2003, Brian Wells, a pizza delivery guy, entered a small-town Pennsylvania bank wearing a collar bomb and carrying a cane fashioned into a shotgun. He produced a lengthy note demanding $250,000.
Wells then failed to complete a complex scavenger hunt that presumably would have ended with a code or key to unlock the bomb affixed around his neck. News footage of him sitting on the street pleading with officers as the explosive ticks down is unforgettable. But this is just one layer of an onion that grows only more rotten.
Directed by Barbara Schroeder and executive produced by Jay and Mark Duplass, “Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist” quickly turns its focus to Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, the brilliant, terrifying, mentally unwell “evil genius” of the title. The life of Diehl-Armstrong, who had a string of dead boyfriends behind her, is explored in detail, uncovering a winding tale that never feels fully resolved.
Documentary
Not long ago, this strange and sad story could have been the premise for a “Black Mirror” episode. Over thousands of text messages exchanged between two Massachusetts teenagers, Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy III, from 2012 to 2014, a tragedy unfolds that culminates in Roy’s suicide and Carter’s trial for her role in his death.
In the two-part 2019 HBO documentary film “I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter,” the director Erin Lee Carr does the difficult job of centering the teenagers’ mind-set. Carr fills the screen with the texts sent between them — complete with the dings and swooshes of messages coming and going. “Romeo and Juliet” is mentioned. “It’s okay to be scared and it’s normal,” reads a text from Carter to Roy. “I mean you’re about to die.”
Their exchanges, combined with courtroom footage of Carter sitting quietly as the proceedings are underway, raise all of the necessary questions. I found myself spinning in circles, turning over thoughts about accountability, coercion and the nebulous boundaries of technology.
Podcast
Over about five months in 2020, as many as 200 women who had egg-retrieval procedures at the Yale Fertility Center in Connecticut were exposed to a medical nightmare. A nurse at the clinic was stealing untold amounts of the pain medication fentanyl, swapping the liquid in the vials with saline — which was administered to the patients instead. Some of the women cried out during their procedures; others complained of pain later, while some blamed themselves, saying they had doubted their own intuition. Almost all were dismissed by those in charge, often blamed for their own pain.
“The Retrievals,” from Serial Productions and The New York Times, is reported by Susan Burton, who interviews a dozen of these patients, all of whom are grappling with what they endured. Prepare to be bewildered by how the clinic tried to brush off the ordeal as mostly harmless, underscoring how women’s accounts of their own bodies are so commonly disrespected and diminished.
Recent reports suggest that Robert De Niro might reprise his iconic role as Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver for an Uber ad campaign, causing a mix of excitement and disappointment among fans.
The screenwriter of Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader, expressed his disapproval of De Niro’s potential involvement in the ad campaign, stating that he couldn’t understand De Niro’s decision.
De Niro will soon continue his collaboration with Martin Scorsese in the upcoming film Killers of the Flower Moon.
Recent report have claimed that seminal actor Robert De Niro could be gearing up to reprise his role as Travis Bickle from 1976’s classic Taxi Driver for an Uber ad campaign. And it seems like not everyone is happy about it. After working for the first time with Martin Scorsese in Mean Streets, and after participating in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, Robert De Niro became a true cinema legend with Taxi Driver, his second collaboration with Scorsese.
The story centers on a war veteran who recently returned from Vietnam and feels left out of society. He suffers from anxiety and post-war depression, which causes him insomnia. Since he can’t sleep, he decides to drive a taxi at night on the streets of New York, meeting different characters from the city’s nightlife. Tired of the insecurity that reigns on the streets after witnessing it firsthand as a taxi driver, Travis decides to buy a gun and take justice into his own hands.
Taxi Driver is one of the most acclaimed titles in which De Niro has worked on alongside Scorsese, and one of the best performances of his career. Therefore, when it was reported that more than 45 years after the film’s release, the actor would reprise the role for an Uber ad campaign, many fans celebrated. Though some, of course, wept at the idea of another beloved film being deprived of oxygen by the stranglehold of capitalism.
One such person who feels very much the latter is the film’s scriptwriter, who did not have a positive response to the possibility.
Paul Schrader Does Not Support De Niro Reprising His Taxi Driver Role for Uber
Columbia Pictures
Reacting to one of the articles that shared the news about the campaign, originally published by The Sun, the Taxi Driver screenwriter shared his opinion on the matter:
“Ouch. Why Bob would do this is beyond my reckoning. But I haven’t seen it. If I’m lucky I never will.”
Fortunately for Schrader, Variety later shared details about Uber’s campaign starring De Niro, which will have no relation to the acclaimed film. “We are filming with Robert De Niro in London for a new Uber UK campaign, which will launch later in the year,” Uber said in a statement, with De Niro’s spokesperson Stan Rosenfield stating that the actor will not reprise the role of Travis Bickle for the ad, and he will not repeat the famous line, “You talkin’ to me?’”
What De Niro will be doing once again is working with Scorsese, with whom he has shared a long list of projects besides Taxi Driver and Mean Streets. On October 20, Killers of the Flower Moon will hit theaters, the director’s new film that brings together his two favorite actors, De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, along with Jesse Plemons, Brendan Fraser, Lily Gladstone, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion, William Belleau, Louis Cancelmi, Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Tatanka Means, Michael Abbott Jr., Pat Healy, Scott Shepherd, Gary Basaraba, Steve Eastin, Barry Corbin, and Katherine Willis.
The story is set in the 1920s in Oklahoma, when members of the Osage tribe begin to be mysteriously murdered after oil deposits are discovered on their land, making them extremely rich. The murders trigger an investigation by the FBI to uncover the dark truth of what is happening.
Amazon is investing up to $4 billion in OpenAI rival Anthropic as a way to provide advanced deep learning and other services to its Amazon Web Service (AWS) customers, the company wrote in a press release. In return, AWS becomes Anthropic’s “primary cloud provider” to train and deploy its future foundation models. It’s the second large investment in the company, founded by former OpenAI executives, following Google’s $400 million partnership with the firm.
The e-commerce company will start with a $1.25 billion investment to gain a minority stake in Anthropic, with an option to boost that to a total of $4 billion. Along with Google and Amazon, Anthropic also counts Salesforce, Zoom, Spark Capital and others as backers. Notably, Anthropic’s deal with Google didn’t require it to buy cloud services from the search giant.
Anthropic recently unveiled its first consumer-facing chatbot Claude 2, accessible by subscription much like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The Claude “Constitutional AI” system is guided by 10 “foundational” principals of fairness and autonomy and is supposed to be harder to trick than other AI. Anthropic is also working on a chatbot it calls “Claude-Next” that’s supposed to be ten times more powerful than any current AI, according to TechCrunch.
The startup touts itself as an advocate for responsible AI deployment, and recently formed an AI safety group with Google, Microsoft and Open AI. It has been with AWS since 2021. “Claude excels at a wide range of tasks, from sophisticated dialogue and creative content generation to complex reasoning and detailed instruction, while maintaining a high degree of reliability and predictability,” according to Amazon.
Instead of training their own models, AWS customers will be able to use Anthropic’s AI models via Amazon’s Bedrock, a service designed specifically for AI development. Amazon Cloud also offers its own AI applications, and with the new partnership, is hoping to position itself as a key player in the field.
Microsoft-backed OpenAI is largely considered to be the leader in AI and chatbot tech, thanks to its ultra-popular ChatGPT chatbot and DALL-E image generation service. Use of AI in business continues to grow exponentially, despite concerns over the legality and ethics of AI-appropriated content — it was considered to be a strong sticking point in the WGA writer’s strike, for example.
UK industry bodies Bectu and the Writers Guild of Great Britain are saluting the tentative agreement reached on Sunday by the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end the writers strike after nearly five months. They also called for a speedy resolution to the SAG-AFTRA strike. The UK industry has been hard hit by the labor unrest on the other side of the Atlantic.
Broadcasting union Bectu, which reps more than 30,000 staff, contract and freelance workers in creative industries, welcomed news of the deal whose framework was finalized between the WGA and the AMPTP yesterday when they were able to untangle their stalemate over AI and writing room staffing levels.
However, Bectu also urged the AMPTP to resolve the ongoing actors strike. In a statement today, Bectu’s chief Philippa Childs said, “It’s now critical that the AMPTP directs all its energies into resolving the dispute with our SAG-AFTRA colleagues.” (Scroll down for the full note.)
On behalf of the WGGB, Chair Lisa Holdsworth said, “We send our congratulations to our sister union in the States on reaching a tentative agreement with the AMPTP.”
She added, “We look forward to a speedy resolution to both this strike and that of SAG-AFTRA, to whom we continue to send our solidarity.”
Here’s the full memo from Holdsworth, followed by that of Bectu’s Childs:
WGGB:
“We send our congratulations to our sister union in the States on reaching a tentative agreement with the AMPTP.
“In the past 146 days we’ve seen an extraordinary show of solidarity from writers and their union siblings on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed around the world. We’ve been overwhelmed by the response of our own membership in standing with their striking colleagues overseas – you have followed the WGA strike rules to the letter, turned out to the WGGB protest in London in the summer and sent a tsunami of support on social media. Some of you have even joined picket lines in the States. Your solidarity has counted and your voice has been heard – both by the Writers Guild of America and their members but also by the streamers, studios and producers who have witnessed this global display of collective action and have – finally – listened.
“We are also aware of the acute impact the strike is having on the UK creative industries, on our own members and members of our sister entertainment unions, too, so we look forward to a speedy resolution to both this strike and that of SAG-AFTRA, to whom we continue to send our solidarity.
“We look forward to the details of the WGA deal and its implications for UK writers. All writers working for streaming platforms must enjoy decent terms and conditions and the best way to achieve these is through union agreements – our work here will continue.”
Bectu statement:
“This is welcome news for our members and the UK film and TV industry as a whole. UK crew and other workers have suffered at the hands of the AMPTP’s failure to reach an acceptable agreement with WGA and SAG-AFTRA, and this news will provide some hope after months of instability.
“It’s now critical that the AMPTP directs all its energies into resolving the dispute with our SAG-AFTRA colleagues.
“The AMPTP cannot be ignorant of the huge and detrimental impact their disputes are having on our industry. Hardworking crew and other workers whose livelihoods have been devastated by these protracted negotiations will be watching developments closely.
“Our members are highly skilled, talented professionals and the backbone of our film and TV sector, and they want to get back to work. We urge a swift and successful conclusion that will help get film and TV production in the UK back to normal.”
Amazon Prime is diving into The Swarm, snatching up rights across sub-Saharan Africa for the ecological thriller from Game of Thrones producer Frank Doelger.
The limited series, adapted from Frank Schätzing’s international bestseller, tells the story of a series of escalating disasters emerging from the world’s oceans. As scientists around the globe rush to discover their cause, it becomes clear that there is something bigger is at play: An intelligent life force, dwelling in the deeps that is manipulating all life below the surface.
Barbara Eder (Barbarians, Concordia), Luke Watson (Ripper Street) and Philipp Stölzl (The Physician) directed the series, which features an ensemble cast including Alexander Karim (Dying of the Light), Cécile de France (The New Pope), Leonie Benesch (Babylon Berlin, The Crown), Barbara Sukowa (Hannah Arendt), and Takuya Kimura (2046, I Come With The Rain). Frank Doelger produced through his Intaglio Films, together with Eric Welbers, Marc Huffam and Ute Leonhardt.
Yuliya Fischer, director Drama at ZDF Studios, brokered the Amazon deal.
“The Swarm is one of the hottest titles in our scripted catalog,” she said in a statement. “I’m delighted that Prime Video will be introducing its African subscribers to this ecological thriller that is like no other.”
ZDF Studios and Beta Film are handling world sales on the 8-hour limited series, which has already sold across most of Europe and Asia, with the CW taking U.S. rights.
The Swarm has been a hit in ZDF’s home territory in Germany, where the show has racked up some 10 million views per episode on linear TV and online catch-up.
The Swarm was produced by Schwarm TV Productions GmbH & Co KG, a joint venture between Intaglio Films and ndF IP for ZDF, France Télévisions, Rai Fiction, Viaplay Group, Hulu Japan, ORF, SRF, in co-production with Bravado Fiction and Beside Production, in co-operation with ATHOS KG.
Apple TV+’s new docuseries The Super Models is a celebration of the ways in which Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington dominated and revolutionized the fashion industry decades ago. Through contemporary interviews, archival footage, and more than a couple iconic photoshoots, The Super Models transports 2023 viewers back to the days when everything was shot on film, magazines were major, and glamazons ruled the runways. Besides recapturing the spirit of the late ’80s and early ’90s, the series also subtly reappraises the narratives we’d come to assume about these four iconic women. It’s a must-watch for pop culture obsessives and the young folks who’ve only ever known social media.
Hussle died in 2019 at age 33, and he was known as a skilled lyricist and activist who worked to build and unite his South Los Angeles community. The 39th running of the L.A. Marathon takes place on March 17, 2024.
“We are honored to be able to partner with the LA marathon. It means a lot to us because it’s something that Nip spoke about and had an interest in being a part of. He told the whole team about it and how he wanted the brand to do something with the LA Marathon especially since it’s in LA,” Sam Asghedom, Hussle’s brother, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Nip actually wanted to run the Marathon. He told us all to get ready and get in shape for it. That’s why it feels so good for this to be coming to fruition.”
Hussle’s The Marathon Clothing (TMC) brand will enter a team of 15 or more in the marathon and all funds raised by each runner will aid the Neighborhood Nip Foundation, which was created in 2019 to inspire the community through initiatives benefiting underprivileged youth. Those who wish to run in support of Hussle’s foundation can register at themarathon2024.com and the foundation plans to sponsor individuals who cannot afford the marathon fees.
“Nipsey Hussle’s iconic legacy is a beacon of inspiration for everyone in the City of Los Angeles and we are delighted to welcome the Neighborhood Nip Foundation as an official charity partner in March,” Melissa Christian, charity director for the Los Angeles Marathon, said in a statement. “The Los Angeles Marathon is so much more than just a race; it’s a platform to empower communities and this partnership truly embodies that spirit, uniting our neighborhoods in a shared commitment to build a healthier world while celebrating Nipsey Hussle’s enduring legacy of resilience in the city he loved.”
Hussle was shot to death on March 31, 2019, outside his Marathon clothing store in the South Los Angeles neighborhood where he is from. He was remembered as a talented rapper, caring activist and loving father at his public memorial service held at the Staples Center, and his funeral was the first held at the concert arena since Michael Jackson’s in 2009. After spending years releasing mixtapes, he dropped his major-label debut album, Victory Lap, in 2018, and it earned him his first-ever Grammy nomination. A year later, he won a pair of Grammys posthumously for the songs “Racks In the Middle” and “Higher,” his collaboration with DJ Khaled and John Legend.
The Neighborhood Nip Foundation will kick off programming in 2024 with a reconstruction of the Nipsey Hussle Plaza property, located at 3420 W. Slauson Avenue, the original location of his Marathon store. The renovated site will serve as a community center for elementary and high school students and will focus on academics and music.
“Hussle’s ‘marathon’ mentality and mindset fueled his ability to persevere against all odds and achieve greatness in every endeavor of his life. We are so proud and honored to be a part of the LA Marathon. As Hussle would say, ‘Life is a marathon, run a lap,’” Asghedom says.
The L.A. Marathon is presented by Asics and the team participating on behalf of the Neighborhood Nip Foundation is being sponsored by The Marathon Clothing, The Marathon Water and Puma.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have tentatively agreed to a new contract after a months-long standstill, Variety reports. The writers strike—ongoing since May 2—will continue until the new deal is ratified by vote of its 11,500 members, but picketing has been suspended.
The WGA and AMPTP had resumed bargaining negotiations on Wednesday, September 20, with major studio CEOs Bob Iger (Disney), David Zaslav (Warner Discovery), Ted Sarandos (Netflix), and Donna Langley (Universal) in attendance. The studios publicly announced Saturday (September 23) that they had submitted their “best and final” offer; the union returned with additional asks before the negotiations wrapped up Sunday night.
Striking writers were seeking changes to television staffing practices, greater residuals from streaming media, and limits to be placed on the use of artificial intelligence. The strike resulted in production stoppages, impacting late night shows as well as major films and television series like Stranger Things. Drew Barrymore and Bill Maher both recently announced intentions to bring their talk shows back without writers, but both backtracked on those plans. The Emmy Awards, originally scheduled to air on September 18, were postponed due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. SAG-AFTRA’s strike is ongoing.
The strike impacted workers across the entertainment industry, including musicians and music supervisors. Many crew members’ access to healthcare plans contingent upon working a minimum number of days to qualify were impacted by the strike, prompting auctions and other fundraising endeavors. Read Pitchfork’s article “What the Hollywood Actors and Writers Strike Means for Music.”
Halloween is right around the corner. Horror enthusiasts everywhere rise, ready to welcome another spooky season with a spine-chilling movie marathon.
However, some people are more interested in creating their own scary films. For those just starting out, making a convincing movie can be challenging.
So, what does it take to develop an effective horror short?
Why Setting the Right Atmosphere Is Important
The most crucial part of horror filmmaking is setting the atmosphere. People fear ghosts and monsters, but those supernatural creatures aren’t the scariest part of horror films. They become scary because the filmmaker has built up the tension and anticipation for them.
Yes, the ghost crawling on the ceiling is horrifying. But what makes it scary rather than odd is that the protagonist is alone in a dark, cold room. She sees a vague reflection on the shiny floors. The music swells and she looks up very, very slowly as a low, inhuman groan comes from off-screen.
When the protagonist finally sees the ghost, the audience is perfectly primed for the scare. They feel that adrenaline rush and catharsis afterward because the atmosphere makes it effective.
Set the right atmosphere for your film by focusing on the environmental factors around your characters. Things like lighting, sound, weather and location can all contribute to that looming sense of dread.
How to Craft the Ideal Horror Atmosphere
Here’s everything you need to know about setting the stage for your next short film.
1. Light and Shadow
It almost seems like a rule for horror movies to be dark, but with the rise of brightly lit horror films like Ari Aster’s “Midsommar,” it’s evident that’s not always the case. Whether you go dark or bright, remember to use atmospheric lighting depending on your intent.
The dark evokes audiences’ fear of the unseen. Fear of the dark is a survival instinct — prehistoric humans were more likely to be attacked at night. As humans evolved, that fear of the dark remained. That anxiety and fear you feel keeps you vigilant for any possible danger.
On the other hand, a very bright light evokes a lack of privacy, like the characters are vulnerable and exposed for the world to see. It can also elicit a feeling of coldness and sterility, showing your audience that the film lacks warmth and safety. It’s up to you to utilize lighting, depending on what story you’re trying to tell.
Lighting can tell many stories, and so can shadows. In the same way smoke appears when there’s a fire, a shadow can only occur when there’s something to cast it. In a horror short, that “something” is just out of sight, around the corner of one’s eye, biding its time before it inevitably strikes.
2. Music and Sound
Sound is one of the most compelling storytelling elements you can use in filmmaking. You can use it to quickly build the atmosphere for a horror short.
You can use typically scary sounds like creaking doors or disembodied humming. However, silence works just as well. It creates a feeling of foreboding, like bated breath waiting to be released.
You can also use music to evoke fear. Typically, horror film music utilizes sounds that can affect people’s moods and emotions. Humans react to the themes of “Jaws” or “The Shining” because of their use of nonlinear sounds. A screaming baby or dissonant chord can trigger an evolutionary reaction related to the fear of losing one’s offspring.
3. Weather and Temperature
It’s admittedly cliche to use a dark, stormy night to make your film scarier. However, the right weather usage can carefully craft the perfect atmosphere for your movie.
Cold weather is an effective way to elicit feelings of fear, danger and vulnerability. You can do this by setting your film in a rainy or snowy background. You can also visibly show your characters shivering.
On the other hand, you can also use heat to your advantage. Sweltering, unforgiving heat can evoke a kind of misery and desperation you can use for different storylines. A character profusely sweating can show struggle and discomfort, adding to the general unease needed to create a good horror film.
4. Location and Scenery
For horror shorts, shooting in one location makes the most sense. Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Many filmmakers choose just one place because it takes time to build tension. Time is not something you have a lot of when it comes to short films, after all. It also helps you with budget constraints.
When you choose your location, make sure it contributes the most to your story. An abandoned building, remote campsite deep in the woods or sterile morgue might immediately set a scary atmosphere, but you can also use normal places like an apartment. The important thing is to utilize it to the fullest.
A typical home can be made scarier by how you decorate it. What does the home exterior look like? Do flickering candles set a spooky scene? What about the inside? Does the occupant have an excess of lifelike dolls? Is the house overly clean or downright filthy? These decisions can help you set the right mood for your film.
Moreover, don’t be afraid to use everything available in your chosen location. If you’ve decided to film in a derelict children’s park, you should definitely use the abandoned swings and slides to your advantage.
5. Vagueness and Conjecture
Whatever the big, bad, scary thing you use in your film, use it sparingly. The more people see your monster, the more they’ll grow accustomed to it. By the end of your movie, the final scare won’t have the desired effect.
If you must show your monster, show parts of it. Provide a glimpse of its traces and the damage it can do. A trail of blood that leads to a closet may do the trick. Show a clump of bloody hair that can’t have been from any of the characters.
Whatever you do, keep your monster hidden, looming and watching your protagonist’s every move. When you bring out the big scare in your finale, the stage will have been set for your audience.
6. Design and Mood
Perhaps the most exciting part of the film for you and your audience is the haunting. What kind of fear will the protagonist go through? Think of what visual and aural elements you’ll use to create terror.
People are afraid of what they can’t see, predict and control. You can use these three basic fears to design your character’s haunting. Here are some examples of elements you can use:
Can’t see: Things moving on their own, religious symbols turning upside down, things the character has thrown away coming back, creaking sound from above, approaching footsteps
Can’t predict: Mysterious artifacts, occult symbols, animal bones, erratic behaviors from people close to the main character, pets or kids acting strange, dark figure at the end of the hallway
Can’t control: Plumbing overflowing, doors and windows slamming repeatedly, inexplicable things happening to the character’s body, character slowly losing their mind
Film Your Horror Masterpiece
Horror is a beloved genre by many. The atmosphere makes up most of the horror experience for those who enjoy scares and thrills. Learning to harness the power of atmospheric elements is the key to producing a genuinely scary and satisfying film.
Oscar Collins is the editor-in-chief atModded. He’s passionate about films, filming techniques and the finer details of filmmaking. Follow him on Twitter@TModded for frequent updates on his work!
Barely a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland cast aside decades of military nonalignment and self-reliance and joined the NATO alliance.
That happened with breathtaking speed, as these matters go, but gaining membership may have been the easy part. Now comes the complicated process of integrating itself into the alliance and its requirement of collective defense — with all of its financial, legal and strategic hurdles.
“Joining NATO is an expensive business, and supporting Ukraine is an expensive business, and there’s no end to that in sight,” said Janne Kuusela, director-general for defense policy at Finland’s Ministry of Defense.
Membership in NATO has long been considered a cheap benefit, given the American nuclear umbrella and the principle of collective defense. But NATO also has extensive requirements of its members — not just spending goals for the military, but specific demands from each country for certain capabilities, armaments, troop strengths and infrastructure as defined by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
Achieving that will demand some difficult and costly decisions from the government and military officials as they learn to think strategically outside Finland’s borders and adapt its forces and their capabilities to the alliance’s needs.
They will have to decide how to move troops and equipment to Norway, Sweden or the Baltic States in the event they need reinforcements, for instance, or whether to participate in other NATO tasks like patrols in Kosovo or the Mediterranean.
At the same time, Finnish officials and analysts say, Finland will not alter its intention of defending every inch of its own territory, given its 830-mile border with Russia, a doctrine considered old-fashioned in the age of modern warfare. It sees itself as remaining capable of self-defense for now, so unlike many of the NATO countries that border Russia, Finland is considered unlikely to ask for a rotating presence of allied troops.
“The whole security and foreign-policy establishment believes that no such troops are needed now, but it’s not a categorical no,” said Matti Pesu of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, a research institution.
At the same time, the country is negotiating a bilateral defense cooperation agreement with the United States, the kind of accord Washington has with many countries around the world, making joint exercises easier to plan and quicker to implement. It will cover what kind of U.S. troop presence Finland would allow and where, and what sort of equipment NATO’s most powerful country will be able to bring to Finland for exercises or prepositioning. The agreement also governs issues like judicial jurisdiction should U.S. troops commit a crime.
The negotiations are complicated, said Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, in an interview. Given its history of fending off Russian assaults, she said, Finland is protective of its sovereignty.
“Of course, it’s a balance, how to also defend your sovereignty against an aggressive and unpredictable neighbor, who does not respect the same values that we do with our friends and allies,” she said. “But Finland is a country where, typically, we like to have agreements, we like to have treaties, we are very legalistic.”
Finland’s relationship with the United States is considered as important as the one with the larger alliance, especially given the American nuclear deterrent that protects all NATO members. Finnish law prevents the importation or storage of nuclear weapons on its soil. But Finland will have to decide its policy on nuclear deterrence and the nature of its involvement in shaping NATO’s nuclear policy.
Relations with neighboring Russia have also inevitably changed. Before invading Ukraine, Russia demanded a roll back of NATO’s borders and warned Finland against membership. But the invasion caused a rapid shift in Finnish public opinion. Support for membership soared from about a quarter of the population before the invasion to more than 80 percent.
Initial Russian reaction to Finland’s joining NATO was muted, given Moscow’s preoccupation with Ukraine. And with Russia having redeployed many of its forces from near Finland to Ukraine, few see any immediate threat.
But Finns see Russia as a permanent potential aggressor, and recent statements by Russian officials, perhaps aimed at changing popular Russian perceptions of Finland, have treated it as “a member of an enemy alliance,” said Mr. Pesu.
In a sort of rear guard action, he said, Russia “wants to intimidate us and limit NATO presence and Finnish integration into the alliance.”
Russia has even been dismantling monuments to the Finnish war dead in Karelia, which it seized from Finland in World War II. Those tributes had been erected with Russian permission in a more cooperative time.
Much of the responsibility for integration with NATO rests with Gen. Timo Kivinen, the commander of Finland’s defense forces. At the core, he said in an interview, is Article Three of NATO’s charter, “which underlines that the first priority to defend a country lies with the country itself.” To him, it is as important as Article Five, which treats an assault on one member country as an assault on all.
He is familiar with the inner workings of NATO, since Finland has long been a partner nation and involved in NATO exercises; several hundred NATO troops have been stationed almost continuously in Finland since April 2022. Even as a candidate member, Finland began the first stage of alliance defense planning that July.
Now, as a full member, the planning is more intensive, but there is much to consider, he said, to align Finland’s defense plans with those of the larger alliance.
Article Five will require more from Finland, General Kivinen said. “We need to be capable to contribute to NATO collective defense outside Finland’s borders, and that’s new,” he said. It will have an impact on Finland’s forces “when we go on to develop those deployable capabilities, those capability targets” that NATO demands, he added.
There are other NATO missions as well, like air policing outside Finland, naval task forces and possible participation in the multinational forces the alliance has deployed in other frontline countries. Finland will also have to decide what officers to provide to which NATO headquarters, and how it wants to influence alliance policies.
The war has made northern Europe and the Arctic more important for the security of the whole alliance. So, General Kivinen said, it is also vital that Sweden, a longtime defense partner for Finland, get into NATO soon.
That would make alliance planning easier, especially in determining how best to defend the Arctic, the Baltic region and four of the five Nordic countries — Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark (Iceland is the fifth). Already these four have agreed to operate their approximately 250 fighter jets as a joint operational fleet and also to provide air policing for Iceland.
Then there is the issue of where Finland fits in NATO’s three operational commands, responsible for different geographical areas. The five Nordic countries would prefer to be in the same command, run from Norfolk, Va., which is navy-focused and defends the Atlantic sea routes, the Nordics and the Arctic. The logic is that in war, reinforcements would be likely to come from the West, across the Atlantic.
But Norfolk is not yet fully operational. And given the war in Europe and the current threat from Russia, NATO has placed Finland in the land-oriented command based in Brunssum, the Netherlands, which is charged with defending Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland and the Baltic nations. Finland hopes that is temporary, but so far, officials say, the integration has been going smoothly.
Finland has already increased its defense budget, in part to pay for the purchase of F-35 fighter jets and new ships to better patrol its seas and hunt for submarines. It vows to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on the military, as NATO desires.
Joining NATO will require significant cultural, political, legal and military changes, Mr. Kuusela, the defense official said, and it will take years. But of all the countries of Europe, he said, Finland would be the last to underestimate the long-term Russian threat.
For the first time since their brutal fight before Christmas, Janelle Brown and Kody Brown sit down to talk in the September 24 episode of Sister Wives. Initially, Janelle, 54, admits she hasn’t “really missed” Kody, 54, since their fight. She offers to do some counseling with Kody to work on their marriage.
However, she is upfront with Kody about wanting to “stay separated” for the time being. Kody is “surprised” by Janelle’s decision. After another heated discussion, Janelle tells Kody that she’s not sure “how we come back from this.” She asks him if he even wants a plural marriage at this point.
Janelle Brown sits down with Kody after their fight. (TLC)
In her confessional, Janelle reveals why she’s “not really inclined” to stay in her relationship with Kody. “I don’t feel like I’m getting what I deserve from him,” she says. “Listen, I’m pretty independent. I don’t need a lot from him. But when it comes down to where he does, all of a sudden doesn’t want to be a father to my kids because they disagree with him That sort of changes the cost-benefit equation for me in this marriage.”
During their lunch, Janelle is honest about wanting to try to work things out with Kody, and she does yearn for him. “I do miss Kody. We are very best friends. We have a lot of conversations,” she admits. “I miss him in my bed. I miss him in my house. I miss him. But I am not being treated the way I deserve to be treated here.”
Janelle tells Kody that she’s “not leaving” him, but she wants to be “separate” while they figure everything out. “I still am not 100% sure we can save it,” Janelle says about her marriage to Kody. However, Janelle is concerned about how she’ll survive financially if she does step away for good since her money is all tied up with Kody. “I’m completely vulnerable. If I decide to leave Kody I have nothing,” Janelle confesses.
Kody Brown at lunch with Janelle. (TLC)
Kody continues to blame Christine Brown for not being fully present with Janelle. “It is the weirdest thing in the world, you have to understand, to be getting divorced from one wife while you’re having a relationship with another wife,” Kody tells Janelle. Janelle is trying to be understanding, but she’s well aware that Kody’s current situation is a chance you take when you’re dealing with plural marriage. New episodes of Sister Wives air Sundays on TLC and Max.
That is the eeriest part of these videos — the parents are barely interacting with their kids. Instead they are relating to a mirror image of their children that they are spreading online. And they are reveling in their power over that image.
Children in crisis have been an onscreen fascination since the beginning of screens. In the Lumière brothers’ 1896 silent short “Querelle Enfantine,” two fancy babies in lace bonnets grapple over a silver spoon from adjacent high chairs, slapping and wailing and then consoling one another as the filmmakers, presumably, look on. More recently, similarly embarrassing footage has been mailed into “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” forwarded in chain emails and uploaded to YouTube.
But TikTok and its Instagram competitor, Reels, have made such content ubiquitous. You need not be a filmmaker or even a dedicated family vlogger to casually offer your offspring to the viral gods. The apps are always coursing with some new prompt beckoning parents to show off their big babies, their ugly babies, their ugly babies’ glow-ups. It feels so easy: You’ve got your phone, you’ve got your kid, and because of the kid, you’ve got nothing else to do except look at your phone. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the egg crack challenge took off at the end of August, in the desperate final days of summer break.
It’s seductive for new parents to think of our children as an extensions of ourselves, and social media makes that fantasy visceral. Profiles that once featured pictures of our own faces now center snapshots of our children. Babies are cute (even the ones their parents advertise as ugly), and their emotions are sweeping and operatic. Plus, as we grow older and less algorithmically favored, our children teem with beauty and verve. When they are babies, objectifying them feels straightforward: We wheel them around, we dress them and feed them, we choreograph their lives. Babies at least seem within our control. Toddlers, famously, do not.
If the cheese slice trick imagines the baby as a kind of benign Mr. Potato Head figure, the egg crack challenge views the toddler as a Whac-a-Mole, a wily adversary that needs to be thumped into submission. Both trends imagine that the child itself functions like a gadget, with a “docile switch” or a “grumpy switch” that can be toggled for our own comfort or amusement. Inside the phone, a child can be coached, filmed, reshot, spliced and filtered. A child can be saved, or it can be deleted.
The British version of the iconic reality TV series “Big Brother,” which first launched 23 years ago, is set to return to ITV screens on Oct. 8. The show is hosted by AJ Odudu and Will Best and produced by Initial, part of Banijay U.K. “Big Brother: The Launch” will air on ITV1, ITV2 and streamer ITVX, while the remainder of the series will be available nightly at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX, except Saturdays.
“Big Brother” will be followed each night by “Big Brother: Late & Live,” hosted live by Odudu and Best from the site of the Big Brother house in front of a studio audience, where evictees will be interviewed. Following this, “Big Brother: Live Stream” will stream live footage seven nights a week on ITVX.
The Banijay format is popular globally with some 500 seasons of the show having aired around the world in 64 countries and regions. In the U.K., “Big Brother” first aired on Channel 4 and ran for 11 seasons, plus seven seasons of “Celebrity Big Brother” and a final special edition season titled “Ultimate Big Brother.” The show subsequently aired for a further eight seasons on Channel 5, with an additional 15 celebrity seasons, before going on hiatus in 2018.
KUROSAWA’S LEGACY
Chinese director Gu Xiaogang and Indonesian director Mouly Surya have been named as recipients of the 2023 Kurosawa Akira Award. The prestigious award was revived by the Tokyo International Film Festival last year after 14 years in remission and was presented to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Fukada Koji. Gu has made just one film to date, the acclaimed 2019 title “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains.” “We present this award in recognition of his unique talent and in the hope that he will make a substantial contribution to cinema culture in the future,” said the awards committee.
Surya has made three: 2008’s “Fiction,” 2013 title “What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love,” which went to Tokyo and Sundance, and “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts.” The latter won the Grand Prix at the Tokyo Filmex festival, was Indonesia’s Oscars contender and went on to be theatrically released in 14 countries.
SCREEN CASH
Six feature films, two television dramas and one children’s project will share in over A$10 million ($6.5 million) of production funding from federal body Screen Australia. The projects include: “The Fox,” which stars Jai Courtney and is from the producers of supernatural horror film hit, “Talk to Me”; “An Ideal Wife,” about the story of Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance Lloyd from writer-director-producer Sophie Hyde (“Good Luck To You, Leo Grande”) and starring Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones”); reimagined television drama “Ladies in Black,” adapted from the original novel “The Women In Black,” by Madeleine St John; and season three of ABC’s popular children’s show “Ginger and the Vegesaurs.”
ACTORS ON ACTORS
Korean actors Jung Woo and Han Yeri have been named as the jury members who will decide the actor of the year award at next month’s Busan International Film Festival. The award is presented to one male and one female actor appearing in a Korean independent film appearing in the New Currents or Korean Cinema Today – Vision sections. Jung has a filmography that includes “C’est Si Bon,” “The Himalayas” and 202’s “Hot Blooded.” Han is best known for her co-starring role in Oscar-winning U.S. film “Minari.” The 28th Busan International Film Festival runs Oct. 4-13.
SALES
All3Media International has sold five-part BBC drama “Better,” produced by Sister, to Hulu for the U.S., Pickbox for the Balkans, Sýn hf for Iceland, Binge and Foxtel On Demand for Australia, TVNZ for New Zealand, BritBox International for Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden, NPO for the Netherlands, VRT for Belgium and America Video Films S.A. in a pan-territory deal covering South America.
Written and created by Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent, “Better” follows the story of Lou (Leila Farzad), a high ranking police officer whose shared history with powerful criminal Col (Andrew Buchan) continues to bind her to him despite their separate paths.
“Probably the worst of the 65,536 worst mistakes is ‘Zoom! Enhance!’ You start with a grainy frame from a security camera, and the suspect’s face takes up maybe a 10×20 pixel area of a much larger scene. The boss yells, ‘Hold it there! Zoom and enhance!’ Suddenly, that 10×20 blob becomes a fully detailed, easily recognizable face.”
“I’m a personal trainer, and I regularly work with people on their grip and hand strength. Because of that, I get annoyed every time I see the ‘hanging from a ledge’ cliché in action films. The vast majority of people have trouble hanging from a pull-up bar for more than 30 seconds. And that’s a pull-up bar that is designed to fit well in the hand. Hanging from a ledge is a whole different story. Tom Cruise could NOT hang from a ledge with one hand. He’d slip off after about 10 seconds. And 10 seconds is being generous.”
“Ever notice the diet of most Hollywood film characters? Meat and vegetables. Yep, when there’s a dinner scene, it’s normally meat and string beans. Dry, no gravy. (I know it’s for logistical reasons, but just once, it would be nice to see them eating a messy burrito, taco, curry or spare ribs.)”
“Lack of entropy. Have you ever had a toaster suddenly stop working? For no obvious reason? How about something more complicated, like a watch? Or really complicated, like a laptop computer? If you spill so much as a teaspoon of water into your laptop while it is running, it will not be. But somehow ancient ruins and old gadgets and gizmos work perfectly even when stored in somewhat sub-optimal condition for centuries.”
“I really hate it when a character in a movie puts a flame to a fire sprinkler head which activates, and, in turn, activates all other sprinklers. WRONG! Fire sprinklers are individually activated. Why flood an entire store and ruin everything if there is a fire in a small janitor closet? Fire sprinklers are basically spring loaded (or pressure driven) valves that are held closed by a piece of metal alloy that melts at a certain temperature or a glass tube containing a liquid that expands and breaks the glass when subjected to heat.”
“This bugs me and I always look for it. When people take a sip from a cup. Do this test at home. Take a sip of coffee. It takes a couple seconds to take the liquid into your mouth pass it through and down your throat and swallow. Breathe out a little bit and possibly lick your lips because of the moisture. Everyone on TV takes that quick sip and then recovers too quickly to start talking.”
“When being chased on foot by a car, they will always run down the middle of the road and it never occurs to them they could get away very easily just by running down an alleyway or somewhere else too narrow for a car to follow.”
“I love the Doctor Strange movie, but when he flatlined, his fellow surgeon thought shocking him would bring him back to life. If someone is flatlining, give them CPR. The R stands for resuscitation and is the key word in CPR. Giving bolts of electricity will not resuscitate them.”
“Up lights inside of space-suit helmets. The idea of a vision panel in a space suit is so the astronaut can see out. This is not enhanced by having a glarey light right in your eyes! Yes, it is a problem seeing the actors’ expressive facial expressions behind the glare of reflected lighting off the from of the faceplate glass, but a bright light inside the helmet just looks dumb!”
“Always getting a parking spot. I think most of us have gone to San Francisco or New York and have had to drive around for a half hour to find a spot.”
Finally, “I have a big problem with how bushes and hay are presented in movies and shows. Y’ever just hop into a bush or land in a bush from a fall? How do you think it feels? Soft? Basically a bed or a cushion? Nope! I think movies forget that bushes have branches. Hard, pokey branches. Those branches may have thorns. The leaves could be pointy.”
The Writers Guild of America’s negotiating committee sent out a message to its members announcing the tentative deal that was reached with Hollywood studios Sunday night.
The letter was posted to the WGAContract 2023 website used by the guild to communicate with its members.
We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language.
What we have won in this contract — most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd — is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days. It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal.
We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.
What remains now is for our staff to make sure everything we have agreed to is codified in final contract language. And though we are eager to share the details of what has been achieved with you, we cannot do that until the last “i” is dotted. To do so would complicate our ability to finish the job. So, as you have been patient with us before, we ask you to be patient again — one last time.
Once the Memorandum of Agreement with the AMPTP is complete, the Negotiating Committee will vote on whether to recommend the agreement and send it on to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council for approval. The Board and Council will then vote on whether to authorize a contract ratification vote by the membership.
If that authorization is approved, the Board and Council would also vote on whether to lift the restraining order and end the strike at a certain date and time (to be determined) pending ratification. This would allow writers to return to work during the ratification vote, but would not affect the membership’s right to make a final determination on contract approval.
Immediately after those leadership votes, which are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday if the language is settled, we will provide a comprehensive summary of the deal points and the Memorandum of Agreement. We will also convene meetings where members will have the opportunity to learn more about and assess the deal before voting on ratification.
To be clear, no one is to return to work until specifically authorized to by the Guild. We are still on strike until then. But we are, as of today, suspending WGA picketing. Instead, if you are able, we encourage you to join the SAG-AFTRA picket lines this week.
Finally, we appreciated your patience as you waited for news from us — and had to fend off rumors — during the last few days of the negotiation. Please wait for further information from the Guild. We will have more to share with you in the coming days, as we finalize the contract language and go through our unions’ processes.
As always, thank you for your support. You will hear from us again very soon.
Who are these giant, beautiful creatures? What makes them such a vital part of the franchise? And what is their connection with both the Force and the ancient history of the galaxy far, far away? Here’s everything we know about Star Wars‘ giant star whales, the purrgil, and what they mean to some legendary Jedi.
What Are Star Wars Giant Space Whales, the Purrgil?
Lucasfilm
In the Star Wars universe, purrgil are semi-sentient, large-headed animals who most closely resemble whales, but with some notable differences. Living in deep space, they have one cloudy blue eye on each side of their head. They also have four tentacles at the end of their long blue and purple bodies which also glow in certain parts. Purrgil also sport fins that help them fly, and some even have long whiskers.
Despite their atypical habitat, the elegant creatures with oval-like teeth still require a specific, rare green gas to breathe. Without Clouzon-36, which they can locate on planets and moons, their bodies begin to turn brown and gray. But with Clouzon-36 (the same gas used as hyperdrive fuel), Star Wars‘ purgill are able to “ travel great distances” among the stars.
Lucasfilm
The graceful but imposing creatures fly together in groups known as pods, flocks, or swarms. Before Ahsoka showed a much bigger pods they were though to be as large as 12 members. The leader of a swarm is known as a King Purrgil. Most space whales are the size of small ships, but a type known as Purrgil Ultra can grow far, far bigger.
Those behemoths can reach the equivalent in length of half an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Based on their relative size to Din Djarin’s N-1 Starfighter in The Mandalorian, Grogu likely spotted Purrgil Ultras flying through hyperspace in their very own simu-tunnel. Purrgil are not only capable of traveling at hyper speeds, though. They’re said to have actually inspired humanoids own hyperspace aspirations.
Why Are Purrgil Both Hated and Revered in the Star Wars World?
Lucasfilm
Purrgil are no strangers to the smugglers, pirates, pilots, and other travelers of the galaxy far, far away. Hera Syndulla once called the animals “dangerous” because of their proclivity to wander into hyperspace lanes. Many in the galaxy far, far away have lost their lives in crashes with purrgil. But it’s unlikely the space whales meant cause those incidents even though they have a type of intelligence unto themselves. Purrgil are not immune to injury and would not intentionally crash into anyone. Regardless of intent, pilots hunted down and killed many of the animals to make high-speed interstellar travel safer.
Yet some think the entire galaxy owes a debt to Star Wars‘ purrgil. Some believe the creatures’ natural ability to travel through hyperspace served as a guide for sentient races to learn the ways of moving faster than the speed of light. Without purrgil, travel between star systems might still be impossible in the galaxy. It’s why some of the first hyperspace ships created in the Star Wars‘ universe were named for purrgil. Their simu-tunnels were precursors to the very hyperspace lanes they wander into.
The study of purrgil brains and bodies even led both Jedi and Sith alike to creating wayfinders. Those ancient relics, which proved so important in The Rise of Skywalker, allowed Force users to navigate especially difficult expanses of space.
Where Have Purrgil Appeared in Star Wars Before?
Though mentioned in some Star Wars publishing, prior to Ahsoka most purrgil appearances primarily happened on Star Wars Rebels. The mystical space whales made a big impression during their debut on the animated series, too. Despite Hera’s fears about the creatures, Jedi Padawan Ezra Bridger and Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus persuaded the crew of the Ghost to follow purrgil. During an ensuing battle at a Clouzon-36 gas refinery under Imperial control, a purrgil saved Ezra’s life. He then saw a vision in the animal’s eye, forming a strong magical connection between the two. Ezra then rode the purrgil as it helped the Ghost take the much-needed gas.
While the otherwise serene purrgil appeared on the show multiple times, their most important moment came in the series’ finale during the Ghost crew’s greatest time of need.
How Did Purrgil Help Ezra Bridger Stop Grand Admiral Thrawn?
Lucasfilm
Star Wars Rebels ended with the denizens of Lothal trying to free the planet of Imperial control. Without a fleet of its own to match the one Grand Admiral Thrawn commanded, Ezra Bridger and his friends needed help.
For that, Ezra turned to the purrgil, which he summoned to fight back against Thrawn in a surprise attack. The Star Wars space whales worked with the Rebel forces to destroy many of the Imperial ships serving as a blockade.
The purrgil took hold of the Grand Admiral and jumped into hyperspace, taking both Thrawn and Ezra with them to an unknown region of the Star Wars universe.
Lucasfilm
In Star Wars Rebels‘ final scene Sabine Wren and Ahsoka Tano set out to find Ezra, whose whereabouts still remained unknown at the start of Ahsoka.
What Was the Significance of Purrgil Appearing on The Mandalorian?
There were two likely reasons purrgil made their live-action debut on The Mandalorian in such a quick manner, and they are not mutually exclusive. The first is that the purrgil offered a way to establish yet another connection between the show, Star Wars Rebels, and Ahsoka. When Rosario Dawson first brought Ahsoka Tano to live-action on The Mandalorian,she was seeking information about the location of Thrawn. She had not given up hope of finding her friend Ezra, either. Dawson’s former Jedi and her Padawan Sabine resumed their hunt for both the Grand Admiral and Ezra on Ahsoka.
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm is not shy about having their Star Wars shows’ plots overlap in significant ways, and the dual appearances of purrgil in live-action certainly accomplished that.
But the sight of purrgil might ultimately prove far more important to The Mandalorian‘s little green star. We know from Ezra Bridger’s experiences with those magical animals that they have a special connection with Force users. And since they’re rarely spotted traveling at hyperspeed, it’s significant a powerful little Jedi saw them flying alongside him. Purrgil might one day prove to be as significant in Grogu’s life as they were in Ezra’s.
They’re poised to be that important in Ahsoka’s.
What Did Ahsoka Reveal About the Importance of Purrgil in the Galaxy’s Ancient Past?
Lucasfilm
Before Ahsoka most of the biggest questions about purrgil had to do with their potential future in the Star Wars franchise. Will Grogu eventually meet them and become friends with the space whales? Will they bring Ezra Bridger back to his home galaxy so he can meet other surviving Jedi? Might those beautiful tentacled beings who travel among the stars fight alongside Grogu and save Mandalore the way they saved Lothal? Could they stop Thrawn once more?
But while seeing purrgil for just a brief moment on The Mandalorian raised countless possibilities for what role they might still play in Star Wars, their role on Ahsoka gave us reason to look back at the part the space whales played long ago. Huyang revealed the Jedi Archives contain record of old intergalactic hyperspace lanes. The galaxy far, far away once had established space roads to entirely different galaxies, including the Pathway to Peridea. And those hyperspace lanes, whose existence changes everything we know about the galaxy far, far away, were based on the natural migration paths of purrgil.
Lucasfilm
Not only did those Force-sensitive explorers inspire hyperspace travel, they once connected galaxies throughout the universe. Those lost galaxies contain secrets about Star Wars‘ past that not even the Jedi know about.
Now they’re about to show us some of those secrets.
How Did Ahsoka Make a Connection with Purrgil?
Lucasfilm
Ahsoka‘s fifth episode saw Anakin Skywalker give his former Padawan her final lesson. That trip through her past trauma helped Ahsoka lift the shadow over her heart, and when she emerged from the World Between Worlds Ahsoka was able to do something we’d only seen Ezra Bridger do before. She used the Force to make a strong spiritual connection with a Purrgil Ultra who agreed to take Ahsoka, Huyang, and their ship into deep, unknown hyperspace in across galaxies. They’re going after Sabine and the Eye of Sion to find Ezra.
Lucasfilm
What will they find out in parts of the universe only purrgil travel to? Where exactly are they going? We don’t know yet, but we do know purrgil are, somehow, even more important to Star Wars’ story than we thought when they first took to the sky on Rebels.
This post originally published on March 1, 2023.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike, and also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The director of Dragon’s Dogma 2 has cited Grand Theft Auto 5 as a key inspiration.
In an interview with VGC, we asked game director Hideaki Itsuno if there were elements from other games that inspired development on Dragon’s Dogma 2, given how far the fantasy RPG genre has evolved in the decade since the first game.
Itsuno replied that the studio’s main focus was just to build on the original with features that weren’t possible back then.
“We mostly just wanted to take things that we couldn’t achieve in Dragon’s Dogma at the time it came out, whether it be from just lack of time or pushing the limits of the hardware that was around at the time,” he told us.
“So the main inspiration was sort of ourselves, and finally being able to achieve what we wanted on this current console generation.”
However, in terms of other games providing inspiration for the studio, Itsuno revealed that it wasn’t a fantasy RPG, but Rockstar‘s GTA 5, that impacted most on development.
“If I had to pick one other game that came out in the meantime, I would actually say GTA 5,” he explained. “I kind of admired how they were able to create a world in which it really felt like the NPCs were going about their lives independently of the player.
“All kinds of interesting emergent behaviour could happen whenever you were exploring the city and all kinds of weird accidents felt like it would happen whether you were there or not.
“That feeling of a living world is something that I’ve definitely tried to achieve in Dragon’s Dogma 2.”
In a new hands-on Dragon’s Dogma 2 preview, VGC said the sequel “feels a lot like the first game, and that’s a good thing”.
“So far, Dragon’s Dogma 2 certainly feels a lot like the game that has come before it, though we have to bear in mind it’s still the first playable build at a relatively early part of the game,” our writer said.
“As long as it remains weird for all the reasons its most hardcore fans have championed it all these years, that’s no bad thing at all.”
In a post on the WGGB’s website on Monday morning, chair Lisa Holdsworth wrote: “In the past 146 days we’ve seen an extraordinary show of solidarity from writers and their union siblings on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed around the world. We’ve been overwhelmed by the response of our own membership in standing with their striking colleagues overseas – you have followed the WGA strike rules to the letter, turned out to the WGGB protest in London in the summer and sent a tsunami of support on social media. Some of you have even joined picket lines in the States.”
Holdsworth continued, “Your solidarity has counted and your voice has been heard – both by the Writers Guild of America and their members but also by the streamers, studios and producers who have witnessed this global display of collective action and have – finally – listened.”
As long as the new, three-year contract is ratified in the coming days, the nearly five-month writers strike will come to an end. This gives renewed hope that actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, which remains on strike, will soon reach a tentative agreement with the AMPTP as well, as Holdsworth hinted at in her note.
“We are also aware of the acute impact the strike is having on the U.K. creative industries, on our own members and members of our sister entertainment unions, too, so we look forward to a speedy resolution to both this strike and that of SAG-AFTRA, to whom we continue to send our solidarity,” Holdsworth said. “We look forward to the details of the WGA deal and its implications for U.K. writers. All writers working for streaming platforms must enjoy decent terms and conditions and the best way to achieve these is through union agreements – our work here will continue.”
After five days of negotiations, the WGA said in an email sent to members on Sunday night that “this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.” Though picketing has been suspended, WGA members are still technically on strike until the new contract is ratified. A vote is expected on Tuesday to determine whether the strike order against the AMPTP will be formally lifted.
J.A. Bayona was given a homecoming hero’s welcome at the San Sebastian Film Festival over the weekend as he touched down for the Spanish premiere of air crash survival drama Society Of The Snow.
The drama – recounting the experiences of the Uruguay rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountains in Argentina in 1972 – was the closing film of Venice but in many ways its San Sebastian outing was a more momentous affair.
The director was given a rapturous reception on Friday night as he took to the stage in the company of one of the survivors Gustavo Zerbino. He was then feted over the weekend by local industry at a cocktail at the swanky Maria Cristina hotel organized by Netflix, which is also celebrating its first Spanish Oscar submission with Society of the Snow.
“It was the first time that we were showing the film in Spain. It was very emotional to be back home shooting in your language again, after 16 years. We had the warmest welcome you could imagine. You could feel the love for the movie at the end. There was a very long applause,” Bayona told Deadline on the fringes of the cocktail.
The director said the response was welcome after the complex shoot in Spain, Uruguay and then in freezing conditions at altitudes of 13,000 feet (3,900 metres) in the Andes Mountains of Chile and Argentina, including the actual crash site.
“We shot in very similar conditions to what they went through. The whole film has been like a journey where I went with my actors, hand in hand, through all the experiences, and very, very in touch with the families of the people who didn’t make it and the survivors,” said Bayona.
“We nurtured them [the actors] with as much information as possible and then we went through the experience chronologically. It was a very intense journey, where every head of department had to give their best in in very difficult conditions. Once you see the film with the audience, it pays off. I had the impression that they went through the same journey we did when we were doing the film.”
Bayona revealed the production team raced to finish the film in order to show it to the Spanish Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences (AACCE) in time for consideration.
“It’s been a very tough journey… very, very hard to get here on time. We were finishing the film as we were showing it for the first time to the Academy members ahead of Venice. We were almost mixing the sound while we were showing the film to them,” he said.
“Then, right after that we got to Venice. We didn’t have time to process where we were at that moment. But here in San Sebastian, we’re more relaxed, more confident and it was a perfect night.”
Bayona has been put forward for consideration at the Academy Awards for his English-language films such The Impossible and A Monster Calls but has never been nominated before.
“For me, it’s like the best opportunity to make the film be seen by as many people as possible. It’s a film to be enjoyed on the biggest screen possible. Let’s see if we have the time to show it to all the Academy members on the big screen. That would be fantastic,” he said.
Bayona’s long-time producer Belén Atienza, who was also enjoying the San Sebastian vibe, agreed.
“Awards in themselves are great because they’re an acknowledgement for everyone involved, from the director to crew, but they also help the movie get seen everywhere. It gives a lot of visibility to the movie and when you do a movie, you want as much as people as possible to see it.”
The film is heading next to the Sitges Film Festival in early October and then on to Thierry Frémaux’s Lumière Film Festival in Lyon in mid-October.
Further Best International Feature Film candidates playing in San Sebastian this year including The Taste Of Things (France), Fallen Leaves (Finland), and Io Capitano (Italy).
Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Sept. 25-Oct. 1. Details and times are subject to change.
Monday
THE VOICE 8 p.m. on NBC. Niall Horan, John Legend and Gwen Stefani are welcoming another a new judge to join them in their red swivel chairs: the country-music star Reba McEntire. Per usual, the season will begin with blind auditions.
BELOW DECK MEDITERRANEAN 9 p.m. on Bravo. You all thought I was done talking about the Below Deck franchise? Nope! Captain Sandy Yawn will be back at the helm of this show and also a new boat. Some familiar cast returns (including the deckhand Luka Brunton, who was on TV screens just last week as the crew said goodbye to each other on “Below Deck Down Under.”) and we’ll also get to know a new bosun, chef and a stew. If you want to make the show more enjoyable, take a drink every time Sandy micromanages or mentions the infamous slide.
THE IRRATIONAL 10 p.m. on NBC. Apparently 2023 is the year that cable TV is bringing back the art of the crime procedural a la “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” or “Criminal Minds.” This new series follows the behavioral science professor Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) as he uses his expertise on psychology and body language to solve high-stakes crimes.
Tuesday
DANCING WITH THE STARS 8 p.m. on ABC. Though this is the 32nd season of this show, things are feeling new: There is a new host (Julianne Hough joins Alfonso Ribeiro), a new pro dancer (Rylee Arnold) and, of course, new celebrity contestants. This season is a little trickier than others because of the ongoing Hollywood strikes. A writer on staff is a member of the Writers Guild of America, for instance, and many of the contestants are members of SAG-AFTRA union, which represents TV and movie actors. Though it makes things a little more complicated, “DWTS” also continued amid the 2007-8 writers’ strike.
SAVIOR COMPLEX 9 p.m. on HBO. In 2010, Renee Bach, an evangelical missionary from the United States, went to Uganda to set up a charity hospital. She was 20 years old and didn’t have a medical degree. In five years, Bach said that her hospital took in 940 children — and 105 of them died. In 2020, she settled a lawsuit after two mothers of children who had died in her care sued. This three-part documentary examines the lead-up and the aftermath.
Wednesday
SURVIVOR8 p.m. on CBS. This season’s castaways are headed to Fiji and are going to be divided up into three tribes of six people. The man we all know and love, Jeff Probst, will be back to host as the season gets underway with a new 90-minute episode.
Thursday
THE GOLDEN BACHELOR 8 p.m. on ABC. The host, Jesse Palmer, is working overtime to get his check this month with two new “Bachelor” franchise shows premiering back to back. First up, we have the new series with the 72-year-old bachelor from Indiana, Gerry Turner, and the women vying for his heart. Since Instagram and influencing isn’t as much the rage with Boomers and Gen Xers, we will hopefully have less of the “here for the right reasons” conversations. Although, my grandfather loved scrolling TikTok, so who really knows?
BACHELOR IN PARADISE 9 p.m. on ABC. Jesse Palmer travels to Mexico for the new season of “Paradise.” We know the drill by now: singles who have previously been on “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette” head down to Puerto Vallarta with the hope of another chance at love.
Friday
THE NEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS: HOW TO FIX A PAGEANT 10 p.m. on FX. The third season of this stand-alone documentary series begins with a look into the world of pageants. Crystle Stewart, a beauty pageant titleholder, became the president of the Miss USA organization in 2020. Three years later, she left the role. This episode features an interview with Stewart after her departure.
Saturday
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013) 9:30 p.m. on IFC. Jordan Belfort, a corrupt stock trader played by Leonardo DiCaprio, becomes simultaneously lauded and reviled onscreen in this movie about greed directed by Martin Scorsese. What makes the movie “a vital and troubling document of the present is not so much Jordan’s business plan — he tells us repeatedly that it’s too complicated and boring to explain — as his approach to life,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times.
Sunday
FAMILY GUY 9:30 p.m. on Fox. This beloved and long-running adult cartoon is back for its 22nd season and things are starting out with … an accidental baby? Meg agrees to be a surrogate, but when the couple never comes to pick up their baby, the Griffins must welcome another family member.
UPDATED with WGA–AMPTP joint statement: The Writers Guild has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end its strike after nearly five months. The parties finalized the framework of the deal Sunday when they were able to untangle their stalemate over AI and writing room staffing levels.
“The WGA and AMPTP have reached a tentative agreement,” the WGA and the AMPTP said in a joint statement this evening.
“We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language,” the WGA told its members in a release, which came just after sunset and the start of the Yom Kippur holiday that many had seen deadline to wrap up deal after five days of long negotiations.
Details of the WGA’s tentative agreement haven’t been released, but will be revealed by the guild in advance of the membership ratification votes.
Next steps in process will see the Ellen Stutzman-led WGA negotiating committee vote on “whether to recommend the agreement and send it on to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council for approval” in votes tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, the guild said tonight. Another vote by the respective board and council could lift the strike”restraining order” and allow scribes to “return to work during the ratification vote” – a big deal for both the WGA and the studios. Pending those votes, the WGA told its members that it is still on strike, but that all picketing is hereby suspended.
Read the guild’s full statement to its members below.
Virtual discussions began mid-afternoon between negotiating committees for the WGA and the AMPTP. Along with the fine tuning on issues like AI and staffing one element of some continuing dispute today was around back-to-work schedules and protocols.
The studios also inquired if, once a tentative agreement is ratified by the scribes, if the writers would pick up their pens and hit their keyboards again very soon afterwards. The guild, from what we understand, had made the request that their members not return to work until SAG-AFTRA also had a new agreement with the AMPTP, reflective of the WGA’s feeling of solidarity between the two unions that has characterized their first mutual strike since 1960. It seems a pathway to split the difference was found.
With all that, it will take a few days for the strike to be officially over as the WGA West and WGA East proceed with their ratification process. During the WGA’s last strike in 2007-08, a tentative agreement was reached on the 96th day and it wasn’t over until the 100th.
Gilbert Flores/Deadline via Getty Images
Gilbert Flores/Deadline via Getty Images
The first shows to shut down when the current WGA strike began on May 2 – late-night comedy shows and daytime talk shows – will be able to return to air almost immediately because SAG-AFTRA’s ongoing strike doesn’t include them as struck productions. Films and scripted TV shows that didn’t sign Interim Agreements with SAG-AFTRA will remain dark until that strike is settled as well.
All attention will now turn to ratifying the WGA deal and getting SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP back to the bargaining table to work out a deal to end the actors’ strike, which has now been going on for 73 days.
Hollywood and the entertainment industry can breathe just a little easier, but economists estimated that the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have cost California’s economy some $5 billion.
Here’s the WGA’s message to members tonight:
DEAR MEMBERS,
We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language.
What we have won in this contract – most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd – is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days. It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal.
We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional – with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.
What remains now is for our staff to make sure everything we have agreed to is codified in final contract language. And though we are eager to share the details of what has been achieved with you, we cannot do that until the last “i” is dotted. To do so would complicate our ability to finish the job. So, as you have been patient with us before, we ask you to be patient again – one last time.
Once the Memorandum of Agreement with the AMPTP is complete, the Negotiating Committee will vote on whether to recommend the agreement and send it on to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council for approval. The Board and Council will then vote on whether to authorize a contract ratification vote by the membership.
If that authorization is approved, the Board and Council would also vote on whether to lift the restraining order and end the strike at a certain date and time (to be determined) pending ratification. This would allow writers to return to work during the ratification vote, but would not affect the membership’s right to make a final determination on contract approval.
Immediately after those leadership votes, which are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday if the language is settled, we will provide a comprehensive summary of the deal points and the Memorandum of Agreement. We will also convene meetings where members will have the opportunity to learn more about and assess the deal before voting on ratification.
To be clear, no one is to return to work until specifically authorized to by the Guild. We are still on strike until then. But we are, as of today, suspending WGA picketing. Instead, if you are able, we encourage you to join the SAG-AFTRA picket lines this week.
Finally, we appreciated your patience as you waited for news from us — and had to fend off rumors — during the last few days of the negotiation. Please wait for further information from the Guild. We will have more to share with you in the coming days, as we finalize the contract language and go through our unions’ processes.
As always, thank you for your support. You will hear from us again very soon.
“We’re just so happy to be here with y’all tonight, celebrating us, celebrating the moves we’re making, celebrating the way we love and support each other, the way that we shift the world. Let’s enjoy ourselves!” Good said.
Jonathan Majors made headlines on March 25 when he was arrested following an alleged domestic violence dispute. “A preliminary investigation determined that a 33-year-old male was involved in a domestic dispute with a 30-year-old female,” the New York Police Department said statement to Variety at the time, noting that Majors was identified in the report […]
“So many beautiful Black faces. I love us, y’all! We are so beautiful! That’s all I got. I’m just happy to be here and I love y’all!” she continued. “Babe, you want to say anything?”
“Y’all heard the Mrs., so that’s what it is,” Majors replied.
With that declaration, the crowd erupted in cheers. It remains unclear what “the Mrs.” really means. Us Weekly has reached out to both Majors and Good’s reps for comment.
Majors reached stardom in 2017 when he was cast as Ken Jones on ABC’s limited series When We Rise. Majors made his debut in Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2021 when he played Kang the Conqueror on the first season of Disney+’s Loki (and is expected to reprise the role in the upcoming second season).
Let’s do the time warp again! Loki is set to return to Disney+ for season 2 after leaving Marvel fans on the edge of their seats with the 2021 cliffhanger. The first installment sci-fi series ended with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in an alternate timeline after he and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) faced He Who Remains […]
Good, for her part, has been in films such as Eve’s Bayou and Lifetime’s thriller Death Saved My Life. She tied the knot with DeVon Franklin in 2012 before they separated in August 2021. Usconfirmed the divorce was final in June 2022.
“After much prayer and consideration, we have decided to go into our futures separately but forever connected,” they said in a joint statement to Us in December 2021. “We celebrate almost a decade of marriage together and a love that is eternal. There’s no one at fault, we believe this is the next best chapter in the evolution of our love.
“We are incredibly grateful for the life-changing years we’ve spent together as husband and wife. We are also extremely thankful to God for the testimony being created inside us both and for blessing our lives with each other.”
Majors and Good made headlines in August after arriving at New York Criminal Court together. The Creed III actor was arrested in March for allegedly physically assaulting a 30-year-old woman while riding in a New York taxi cab.
While Hollywood may appear to be all glitz and glam on the surface, the industry has seen its fair share of scandals through the years. The New York Times and the New Yorker first published investigative pieces in 2017 that accused disgruntled movie producer Harvey Weinstein of decades of sexual assault and harassment. Soon after, Weinstein stood trial and was […]
Majors, for his part, has denied the allegations. In his own court filing, he claimed a “drunk and hysterical woman” caused him harm while also stealing his phone and spending between $6,000 and $7,000 on his credit card. He also said that the woman had previously attacked him, but he did not file reports to document those incidents.
His lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, said in March that she expected the charges against her client to be dropped, claiming that there were “two written statements from the woman recanting these allegations.”
Following these allegations, Majors was dropped by longtime talent manager Entertainment 360. The U.S. Army also pulled an ad campaign featuring Majors.
