Model Taylor Hill married venture capitalist Daniel Fryer in her hometown of Winter Park, Colorado, on June 10. “I just kind of wanted the whole thing to feel really relaxed because we’re in my hometown,” Taylor toldVogue. “I wanted this element of feeling like you were constantly at somebody’s home.”
Hill married her “soulmate” in an elegant off-the-shoulder Etro gown two years after their Italian engagement in June 2021. “This is [actually] the first wedding dress that Etro has ever made,” Hill told Vogue. “When they sent me the sketches of it, I was like, ‘It’s like you’re in my head.’”
She added, “My favorite part of the dress is probably the top and the sleeves. It gives it the element of romance that I was looking for.”
Bitcoin is the most distinguished name in the world of cryptocurrencies. For those unfamiliar, cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies that operate on a direct peer-to-peer value exchange basis using decentralized protocols. This system doesn’t rely on any central authority or an institution for financial transactions. The removal of third-party involvement comes with a myriad of advantages, especially in the case of online transactions.
From an obscure term in the past, Bitcoin has become an accepted and normalized payment method worldwide with a growing number of users. Whether you are considering investing, buying online, or making a bitcoin casino deposit with credit card, this article will provide a concise exploration of the advantages of Bitcoin in online transactions.
History and Development of Bitcoin
The experiment with digital money started even before the occurrence of Bitcoin, with prominent examples of ecash protocols, b-money, or bit gold, to name a few. In 1992, cryptographers Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor were the first to suggest ascribing value to solving computational issues, laying the foundation for the future development of cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin first appeared in 2008. The person responsible for designing its protocol was a mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto whose real identity, despite numerous speculations, has never been confirmed. Other cryptocurrencies emerged around 2011, competing for the same attention and value.
A key concept for understanding how crypto functions is blockchain technology — a distributed database shared between network nodes. The structure enables decentralized and safe transactions directly between peers. Unlike fiat currencies, crypto’s value lies in its usability. The demand dictates the price. The more crypto is accepted and used, the higher is its price.
Over time, Bitcoin’s value skyrocketed, so much that it is now a popular saving/investment option, like gold or real estate. In the beginning, many people managed to become rich because of the lack of regulations which is now changing. With broader acceptance comes stricter regulation. But even today, various countries have different laws and tax requirements for crypto. It is vital to check your region’s regulations before starting any action.
Bitcoin as a Form of Cryptocurrency
We are in the midst of a crypto revolution, with many companies and institutions introducing their cryptocurrencies. Neither has reached the value of Bitcoin, but many have been widely accepted, which changed the financial reality.
Advantages of Bitcoin for Online Transactions
Bitcoin has many advantages over traditional payment options, especially in online transactions. In the following text, we will introduce you to the major ones.
Lower Transaction Fees
Transferring money can be expensive due to massive bank fees. Bitcoin transactions are considerably cheaper. It is not surprising many people choose this option over the traditional ones.
Speed of Transactions
Transactions between bank accounts can take days, while e-wallets enable quick, even immediate, results.
Enhanced Privacy and Security
Anonymity is a priority for many Internet users. Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals enable you to keep your identity from prying eyes. Every transaction is encrypted, making it safer and more private. Instead of giving personal information, you provide a wallet address. This doesn’t mean crypto transactions cannot be traced at all, but it protects private data.
A word of caution, though. If you make a mistake, it will be impossible to retrieve the lost money because of the decentralized nature of the process. This is one of the downsides of crypto transfers. Make sure to give the correct wallet address information, or you will lose your money.
Decentralization and Transparency
As mentioned before, decentralization removes the power from a central authority to a distributed network. It also allows all transactions to be transparent through the blockchain explorers.
Bitcoin in the Online Casino Industry
Online gambling, just like traditional, is a popular activity with gray areas. Many countries restrict gambling practices and employ different laws and regulations regarding casinos and the tax one has to pay for their winnings.
Crypto casinos are a particularly lucrative industry since joining is often easier. On some sites, all you need is an e-mail address to register. The usage of crypto is more convenient than traditional payment methods. The deposits and withdrawals are processed more quickly, so you can start playing immediately upon registration.
Benefits for Players and Operators
Cryptocurrencies have revolutionized the world of online gambling by ensuring private participation without the need to give away credit or debit card information. They also enable people to withdraw and deposit instantly. The sites use AI algorithms to ensure provably fair games, and you can access an online casino from anywhere. The only obstacle is the fact that some casinos restrict access to players in certain areas. This is due to specific local gambling laws.
Conclusion
Since its emergence, people’s attitudes toward Bitcoin have been contradictory. Some believed it to be the world’s biggest scam. Others predicted utopias of non-regulated access to money for everyone and democratized monetary politics.
Over time, we witnessed that neither was correct. The crypto market is becoming more regulated, and although Bitcoin is immune to inflation, the crypto world is equally affected by the forces that govern the general economy. Still, the acceptance is widespread and advantageous. It offers quicker, cheaper transactions, more privacy, and online safety. Cryptocurrencies have become integral to the current financial climate and are opening doors to innovative directions in the future.
Author’s Bio
Noah is an expert in cryptocurrencies and gambling. He has extensive experience in these fields and provides useful information for beginners and professionals alike.
Taylor Sheridan may have populated 1923 with mega-stars but it wasn’t just Harrison Ford or Helen Mirren who blew away viewers with a stirring performance. For the first time on TV, Sheridan depicted the dark legacy of Catholic boarding schools and how they dehumanized young indigenous women — one of whom is played by the courageous Aminah Nieves. While the Duttons were busy saving the ranch in one part of Montana, Nieves’ Teonna Rainwater was being held prisoner by savage, paddle-swinging nuns in another. Here, the Indiana-born newcomer recalls how hard it was to decide whether to accept such a life-changing role.
DEADLINE: How did you first land the part of Teonna?
AMINAH NIEVES: I was not aware of the Taylor Sheridan universe before. It happens the way it always happens, you get it through your team. I read it and was emailing my manager like, “I don’t know man. I don’t know if I should do this. It’s just heavy and triggering.” My manager was so supportive and said, “you know what? I support anything you do so whatever decision you make is a good one.” My mom is my reader for everything. We talked about it a lot. I did the audition the day it was due because I waited so long. I was scared. My mom was like, “Aminah, you have to do this, not just for you, it’s for us. It’s for our communities and for all indigenous peoples across the world.”
DEADLINE: Was this your very first job in Hollywood?
NIEVES: I background acted for four or five years. I was working four jobs at once in New York, trying to make rent. I’m also an herbalist, so I was working at my herbal shop and doing my own practice outside of that. I was also a doula and worked in a clothing store. But I quit all of those at once because I realized I wasn’t fulfilled. The reason why I started background acting was not just because of the money, but because I wanted to know how it all worked. After I saved up money, I quit and moved to my parents’ house. I had $21 to my name when I booked 1923.
DEADLINE: Do you remember when you first wanted to act?
NIEVES: It’s kind of interesting because from the moment I could even dream or wish up on a star, I wanted to be on stage. I knew I wanted to perform. I did music. I thought I was going to be this traveling symphonic musician. And then I was like, psych! I’m going to actually go to New York and go to school for acting.
Nieves and Michael Greyeyes as Hank.
Christopher Saunders/Paramount+
DEADLINE: Was your rep encouraging about the opportunities for indigenous actors?
NIEVES: We talked a lot about my expectations and my strong ability to say no, because I’m not going to do something that feels icky or doesn’t feel good in my body. He was honest that there isn’t a lot out there, but he was going to try to get me into every room possible. He only submitted me for leads. I was only with him for eight months before I booked 1923.
DEADLINE: Do you remember your first day on set? Did you have to get right into the heavy stuff?
NIEVES: I had to go straight into it. The first scene we did was the first scene that you see Teonna with Sister Mary [Jennifer Ehle}. The moment I put on the uniform, I looked at myself and couldn’t stop crying. I had to step away, go outside and just walk. It was heavy.
DEADLINE: Your character takes a lot of beatings. I imagine there was a lot of preparation involved.
NIEVES: Yeah, there was prep. Right before we shot the scene, we’d have a little conversation about it. But everything that you see, the leather mallets, the rulers and stuff, they had a furry coating. I was hit quite a bit and still got bruised up. But for the most part it was all pretty painless, unless I overextended myself, which I usually do because I like to do most of my stunts. Jennifer is just an incredible talent. I bow to her. She was so tender and kind, moving through everything that we did. We talked a little bit before each scene, but typically they would just give us the stunt choreography in like 10 minutes. Then we’d be, “alright, let’s shoot it.” You kind of have to separate yourself a little bit from what’s happening because it’s a lot of physical and spiritual energy. We always made sure to be with one another.
DEADLINE: You end up exacting revenge on the very nuns who beat you.
NIEVES: That was the hardest scene for Jennifer and I to do together. For Teonna, it wasn’t joyous for her. It was the hardest thing she’s ever had to do because she sees Sister Mary as an abuser. But it’s just like what she told her — “I am the land, no one who is the land is killing you.” In that moment she’s sitting there with her thinking, I wish she could have understood that we are way similar more than Sister Mary thought. We share the same soil. We walk the same.
DEADLINE: When you got back home after shooting each day, what would you do to get out of the dark mood?
NIEVES: I would first take a shower. Water is so healing and I would just kind of sit there, close my eyes and sing a little bit. Then I would stuff my face with goat cheese and crackers and an avocado and be like, “alright girl, burn your medicine, take a breath, go to sleep.”
Greyeyes and Nieves.
Christopher Saunders/Paramount+
DEADLINE: How much did you interact with Taylor Sheridan?
NIEVES: Taylor would call me sometimes and say, “don’t stop, keep going.” I’d be like, “OK, you’ll tell me if it’s not good though, right? That’s the last thing I want, but this is hard, so just be honest with me.” And he was like, “I’m never gonna have to tell that to you.”
DEADLINE: At the end of the season, how would you describe where Teonna was emotionally?
NIEVES: I think there’s a little childhood glow, showing her dad how worthy she is and how strong and capable she is. I want to focus on her joy right now. Episode eight was the first [gentle] human touch that Teonna had. Let’s see what Season 2 brings. I’m very excited but scared.
DEADLINE: Do you have any hint where things will pick up in the new season? Have you been told anything?
NIEVES: No, and I’m at the edge of my seat. I have no clue.
DEADLINE: So now that the first season is over, what kind of feedback have you received, especially from Indigenous community?
NIEVES: From what my family says and from what other cast members and their families are saying, it’s really great feedback. People have told me that it’s given them the opportunity to be more open with what is happening [within the community]. I think that’s the whole reason why we do this art, to share honest and real stories that spark curiosity and help people feel safe. Having a moment to see yourself and to feel strength to talk about certain things is super important. That’s all I wish for — sharing these stories that make people want to do a Google search to see what really happened.
Confused about how to secure some of Diablo 4’s rarest items? You’re not alone. In fact, Diablo 4’s lead class designer Adam Jackson has been questioned enough about the action RPG’s more unusual uniques that he decided to post a helpful tweet about them.
Whilst warning us that the highly sought-after items were “realllly rare”, Jackson explained that there are currently six in the game – Andariel’s Visage, Doombringer, Harlequin Crest, Melted Heart of Selig, Ring of Starless Skies, and The Grandfather – and that they will always drop at 820 item power.
As for where to find them? Jackson confirmed that “you get them anywhere you can get a regular Unique” and “they can drop from level 85+ enemies”.
Hello! I wanted to clear up some details on the rarest Unique items in Diablo 4.1. They can drop from level 85+ enemies2. You get them anywhere you can get a regular Unique, and they always drop at 820 ipower3. We currently have 6 of them in the game4. They’re realllly rare! pic.twitter.com/pVVj5DTEaUJune 24, 2023
The battle pass – which is scheduled to launch in mid-to-late July, along with other seasonal content – means that your existing character won’t be able to experience the new content, so players must start from scratch with a brand new character. Writing on Twitter, Fergusson stated that: “to take part in the seasonal questline, mechanics, season journey and battle pass, you will need to create a new seasonal character”.
“Perhaps Diablo 4’s most adventurous quality is the move towards an open world in the ‘modern’ sense,” we wrote in our Diablo 4 review.
“What could have been a featureless, bland expanse is, instead, a delight. Brimming with intrigue and danger, the open world of Sanctuary fits the Diablo formula like a glove, providing the space in which the game’s macabre aesthetic and bold mechanical design cohere beautifully.”
Meghan McCain, the daughter of late Senator John McCain, is the latest target of nepo baby discourse after the former “The View” co-host attacked Hunter Biden as “the ultimate product of nepotism” in her latest Daily Mail column, which has led many critics to point out the hypocrisy at work.
In the column, published Saturday, McCain called out President Joe Biden for inviting “America’s disgraced First Son” to this weekend’s White House State Dinner, calling the President’s son “an elitist scumbag,” among several other flashy titles.
“Mr. President – when will you realize that your nepo-baby scumbag son doesn’t deserve to be an honored guest at the People’s White House?” McCain wrote in the opinion piece. “You’re spitting in the faces of Americans who pay taxes and earn an honest living.”
Shortly after the article’s publication and widespread circulation, McCain responded to the backlash on Twitter saying, “Thank you all for getting my recent Daily Mail column trending and spending your day talking about me. I’m taking care of my babies and don’t have time to get into petty back and forths on Twitter.”
Thank you all for getting my recent @DailyMail column trending and spending your day talking about me.
I’m taking care of my babies and don’t have time to get into petty back and forths on Twitter.
As expected, Twitter erupted with outrage over McCain’s comments, with replies ranging from “nepo baby says what?” to “do they know who your father was?” accompanied by a video compilation of McCain saying “my dad” during various media appearances.
“Meghan McCain calls Hunter Biden ‘an elitist scumbag, the ultimate product of nepotism,’ interesting, coming from an elitist scumbag, the ultimate product of nepotism,” one Twitter user wrote, while another took issue with the column’s bold point of view that McCain shied away from defending on social media, saying “NepoBarbie had time to write her op-ed on Hunter but doesn’t have time to defend it. We see you NepoBarbie.”
Another user urged “someone who loves Meghan McCain to give her a definitive heart-to-heart that her entire public career has been the beneficiary of unabashed nepotism.”
The former co-host for “The View” has yet to engage further with critics calling out her own nepo baby status.
Check out more reactions to McCain’s column below:
Doesn’t have time to get into petty back and forth, but has plenty of time to write hypocritical garbage.
— ANTIFA Camp Counselor (@FEMACounselor) June 25, 2023
And yet, here you are.
— Kimberly #SlavaUkraini ?? ? Willardson (@kimberrry) June 25, 2023
Dear Meghan McCain, Hunter Biden has accepted responsibility for his actions. He had a really rough start to life losing his mother to tragedy You literally were devastated after your dad’s passing. Joe Biden is a dear friend of yours. Your narcissism is truly pathetic.
Emily Ratajkowski doesn’t let the season dictate her fashion choices.
This Saturday, the 32-year-old model admitted to dressing “inappropriately” for the summer weather in Paris, which reached a high of 84 degrees Fahrenheit on June 24. Ratajkowski arrived at the Loewe menswear fashion show dressed in her best Matrix cosplay: an oversized black leather duster jacket. What else, you ask? Well, nothing other than some black leather boots, a puffy green purse, and large oval sunglasses.
“I’m naked underneath this,” she told one reporter in a TikTok video posted by i-D.
TikTok content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
When asked about how she dresses for hot weather, Ratajkowski replied, “inappropriately, obviously,” suggesting she was feeling a bit toasty despite her single-layered look. “I’m sweating so much.” Ratajkowski later added that she was planning to change outfits.
Emily Ratajkowski attends the Loewe Menswear Spring/Summer 2024 in Paris, France on June 24, 2023.
Jacopo Raule/Getty Images
Of course, Emily Ratajkowski is no stranger to pushing the fashion envelope. In October 2022, the model reflected on the most “controversial” look of her career: a naval-plunging cutout gown that Tim Gunn called “appallingly vulgar” in 2016.
“If I saw this at a party, all I could do would be to drink. I couldn’t eat. There’s absolutely no way,” Gunn said during an appearance on Fashion Police at the time, per Vanity Fair. “This dress is so appallingly vulgar and revealing. Why wear anything? Why not just take it all off?”
Six years later, Ratajkowski shrugged off the comment. “I still think I look great,” Ratajkowski told Harper’s Bazaar, regarding the backlash. “Somebody called it ‘extremely vulgar’ and it became this huge controversy on the internet. I was in my 20s and just, like, hadn’t registered that it was so sexy, because there is a panel in the middle, but it looks like there isn’t.”
When the anthology film “Twilight Zone: The Movie” opened on June 24, 1983, reviews were mixed; The New York Times’s Vincent Canby deemed it “a flabby, mini-minded behemoth,” and that was a fairly representative view. A middling box office performer, the film may well have been forgotten entirely were it not for another news event, related to the picture, reported that same day: the unsealing of the grand jury indictments against five of the filmmakers, including the director John Landis, for their responsibility in a stunt gone horrifyingly awry, killing three people during the picture’s production.
It happened at 2:20 a.m. on Friday, July 23, 1982. Landis’s segment — which concerned a loudmouthed bigot (Vic Morrow) who gets a taste of his own medicine when he steps into the Klan-era South, Nazi Germany and a Vietnam War battle, and is mistaken for the very people he’d previously derided — was to culminate in a spectacular display of stunts and firepower. Chased by a military helicopter, Morrow’s character was to carry two Vietnamese children across a river to safety as a village exploded behind them. But the sequence was poorly planned and barely rehearsed, and the explosions damaged the rotor blades of the chopper, causing the pilot to lose control. The helicopter crashed into the river, dismembering Morrow and the two children: Myca Dinh Le, age 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6 (spelled Renee Shinn Chen in The Times’s early reporting).
As investigators examined the crash, they discovered that the children’s mere presence on the set had been illegal. Child labor law regulations prohibited children from working at that late hour; further, no on-set child-welfare worker would have permitted them to work in such proximity to explosions or a helicopter. So Landis and one of the producers, George Folsey Jr., went outside regulations, casting children of mutual acquaintances, keeping their names out of the production’s official paperwork and paying them in petty cash. A production secretary recalled Landis joking of the scheme, “We’re all going to jail!”
That cavalier attitude carried over onto the “Twilight Zone” set. Landis was described as a “screamer,” prone to temper tantrums and abusive invective, and thus resistant to concerns raised by crew members about the safety of that sequence — or an earlier scene, in which Landis, unsatisfied with the effects achieved by fake gunfire, ordered the use of live ammunition.
Communication between the director, the special-effects crew and the helicopter pilot was all but nonexistent that night. When a stunt performer noted that the explosion was more forceful than expected in an earlier helicopter shot, Landis reportedly replied, “If you think that was big, you haven’t seen nothing yet.”
It took three more years, after the unsealing of those indictments on the film’s opening day, for the case to come to trial. Landis, Folsey and three other defendants were charged with involuntary manslaughter, a felony. The trial was a media sensation, promising “some of the splashy drama of a guns-and-action Hollywood film.” Yet the defendants were acquitted on all charges, thanks to a somewhat bungled prosecution and a seemingly star-struck jury.
There were some consequences for the filmmakers and for Warner Bros., the studio behind the picture, including fines for labor violations and settlements in civil suits filed by the families of the deceased. But in spite of the deaths on his set, and the troubling stories of his behavior and decisions leading up to it, the industry rallied behind John Landis. Sixteen significant directors — including Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, John Huston, George Lucas, Sidney Lumet and Billy Wilder — signed an open letter of support for the filmmaker. Several director pals also appeared in cameos in “Into the Night” and “Spies Like Us,” two of the features Landis made between the deaths and his acquittal.
Landis also directed the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and the feature comedies “Trading Places” and “Three Amigos” in that period. Dan Aykroyd, who appeared in the Landis-directed “Twilight Zone” prologue as well as in “Trading Places” and “Spies Like Us,” dismissed the tragedy: “That was an industrial accident, nothing more.” After the trial, the “Trading Places” actor Eddie Murphy hired Landis to direct his 1988 comedy “Coming to America,” though they clashed during production; while promoting the film, Murphy was asked if he’d ever work with Landis again, to which he replied, “Vic Morrow has a better chance of working with Landis than I do.” But the film was a gigantic hit, and six years later, Landis again directed Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop III.”
Landis’s career would eventually slow down — not because of the deaths, but because his films stopped making money. In a hearing after the “Twilight Zone” deaths, Art Carter, the chief of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, said that while speaking to industry veterans and union representatives about tightening safety restrictions on sets, “No one could recall a single instance in which a given movie or television program could not be made because of safety considerations. Rather, it was a matter of spending the necessary money to assure protections.”
The questions of verisimilitude versus safety, of what risks are permissible in the making of art, have not gone away in the 40 years since “Twilight Zone: The Movie” was released. But the sole public statement on the matter from Steven Spielberg, who directed another of the film’s segments, remains illuminating. His name was conspicuously absent from the open letter of filmmakers supporting Landis, and in April of 1983, he summed up the experience in a Los Angeles Times interview: “No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now than ever before to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn’t safe, it’s the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, ‘Cut!’”
That’s the question we’ll ponder in the latest MarvelBlog News update.
Disney (and Everyone Else) Will Skip Comic-Con
Source: Jesse Grant/ Getty Images
Several times recently, I’ve indicated that Marvel will likely hold off major project announcements until July’s Comic-Con.
I’d like to formally extend an apology to those of you who believed me, as I’m dead wrong here.
Marvel will skip a formal Hall H presentation at Comic-Con this year, which you may take a certain way at first blush.
Source: by Chelsea Lauren/Variety/Shutterstock (10341985ce)
That decision certainly hints at turmoil behind the scenes at Marvel that has caused executives to decide not to appear.
While that could play a factor, it’s not the deciding one here. Instead, Disney has liaised with Marvel and chosen to pass on a presentation this year.
The reason why is that the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike would cause optics concerns for Disney.
Richard Madden and Chloé Zhao at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 in San Diego, California. Photo: Getty/Alberto E. Rodriguez
Several of Marvel’s recent projects have gone on hiatus due to the WGA strike.
So, the studio has no way of knowing when those titles will finish production.
Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney
Productions like Daredevil: Born Again, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, and Wonder-Man remain in flux at the moment.
In addition, talking about the work of writers while those same professionals bemoan their salaries isn’t a tasteful strategy.
Other Studios Follow Suit
Photo: Comic-Con International
Marvel/Disney aren’t the only organizations to recognize this fact, either. On Friday, Variety reported the following:
“Marvel, Netflix, Sony, HBO and Universal to Skip SDCC as Fest Faces Another Existential Threat.”
The headline included another phrase: “Comic-Con Crisis.”
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are handed out each year at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Photo: Forbes/Comic-Con International
I must admit I don’t even consider that clickbait. It’s an accurate summary of what’s happened.
Comic-Con had canceled in-person attendance for two years during the pandemic.
Now, only one year after its big comeback, the beloved fan event faces another impactful setback.
Source: Kendall Whitehouse/ Marvel Studios/ San Diego Comic-Con 2019
If you’ve got tickets to the event, you’ll still enjoy the proceedings, as all your favorite merchandise and actor/character interactions will remain.
The only thing lacking will be television series and movie presentations. That’s become the core of Comic-Con lately, though.
The Secret Invasion Controversy
Image: Marvel
We’ve got two new Marvel-related controversies this week.
Unlike other recent ones, these aren’t anti-Marvel inasmuch as…odd.
The first of them involves the new Disney+ series, Secret Invasion. I’ve watched the premiere and am biting my tongue about spoilers.
Image: Marvel
As usual, MarvelBlog will post a weekly recap/discussion of each episode.
One subject I avoided is the one that has attained the most online conversation thus far. Well, second-most.
Those of you who have seen the episode know what the seminal topic is.
Image: Marvel
Another one has garnered plenty of dissent, though. Marvel used AI to create the opening credits for Secret Invasion.
As a reminder, one of the reasons why the WGA is striking is a fear that budget-conscious studios will employ AI rather than people.
So, the timing here is…less than ideal. In truth, some are perceiving Marvel’s actions as a bit of an FU to creators.
Image: Marvel
Wired has an article describing the defense of human employment as “oddly hopeful”.
As you might imagine, Method has grown defensive about its AI usage. Studio representatives have since claimed that no human lost work over this.
Here’s the official statement:
Image: Marvel
“AI is just one tool among the array of tool sets our artists used. No artists’ jobs were replaced by incorporating these new tools; instead, they complemented and assisted our creative teams.”
Image: Marvel
I read that as, “We’ve ticked off Marvel, and they’ve told us to deal with it. We screwed up but aren’t quite ready to fully own that fact yet.”
Your mileage may vary.
The Other Marvel Controversy
Credit: Marvel
Remember all the accusations about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania?
As a reminder, a Vulture writer suggested that Marvel had created a toxic work environment for its special effects team.
That story gained so much heat that Victoria Alonso eventually took the fall for Marvel.
Source: Sony Pictures/ Marvel
Now, the same author has returned with another scapegoat piece regarding Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
I’ll editorialize just a bit before delving into the piece. I’ve also written an article that earned millions of views and then tried to create a follow-up.
Source: Marvel
Generally, the second story lacks the meat of the original. It generally loses its freshness and originality as well.
In that regard, reporting works similarly to any kind of storytelling. And I feel that’s the case with this article.
This piece describes working on Across the Spider-Verse as “death by a thousand paper cuts.”
Source: Sony Pictures
However, most of the complaints fall into the same bucket that special effects teams work long hours and sometimes lack work.
That statement proved true with Across the Spider-Verse because the production team used a unique creative process.
Phil Lord (especially) and Chris Miller would request changes as they came up with new ideas for the project.
Source: Sony Pictures
This style of direction caused 100 people (out of a staff of more than 1,000) to quit due to the frustration of repeated lost work.
The difference with the conversations is that these animators will splash Across the Universe on their resumes for the rest of their lives.
We’re talking about an instant classic movie. It’s harder to argue with these kinds of results as opposed to the Quantumania debacle.
Source: Sony Pictures
As such, I doubt this story gains anywhere near the traction the Quantumania one did.
In fact, the only subject of note is that Beyond the Spider-Verse may face delays.
The Sony Stories
Source: Sony/ Marvel
I won’t sugarcoat this one. Sony’s Spider-Man Universe has suffered through a tough week. It’s been pretty brutal.
First, the trailer for Kraven the Hunter debuted. Here it is:
You’re, uh, you’re making a face right now, aren’t you? If so, you’re not alone.
Many responses to this trailer included some variation of “It’s Morbin’ time!” to reflect the *ahem* lackluster quality of the dialogue.
These are professional actors, some of them Academy Award winners, throwing under performances you’d watch in a 7th-grade play.
Source: Marvel/ Sony
Adjust your expectations for the film accordingly. Then again, at least we’re sure Kraven will happen.
That’s no longer the case for El Muerto, which Sony has removed from its movie schedule.
Source: Marvel
As a reminder, Bad Bunny, arguably the most popular musician/celebrity on the planet today, specifically picked El Muerto for his Spider-Verse film debut.
Now, some outlets are reporting that Bad Bunny has dropped out of the project entirely.
Source: Collider
These sources aren’t ones I entirely trust, but I’m honestly just awaiting confirmation from a more reliable publication.
Everything else about the rumor aligns. Bad Bunny’s brutal touring schedule and recent fixation on the WWE have siphoned his time.
As I said during the project’s announcement, I struggle to envision a time when he can set aside four months to film El Muerto.
Source: wearemitu.com
Sony built an entire film franchise around Bad Bunny. Now, it cannot pin him down to appear in the film. And El Muerto without Bad Bunny is like a Taylor Swift concert without Taylor Swift.
Sony has proven it can make exceptional Spider-Man movies. The rest of the Spider-Verse is in shambles, though.
Marvel Miscellany
Image: Marvel
I’m running long, but let’s cover two other quick stories.
First, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will debut on streaming services on July 7th.
However, that’s not the date the film will appear on Disney+. Instead, it’s the digital sales date on Vudu, Amazon, and Apple.
Image: Marvel
Disney has reestablished the release schedule window. So, GotG3 will probably debut on Disney+ at some point in August.
At the box office, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has absolutely shredded expectations, which ties back to what I was just saying.
Source: Sony
After this weekend, the film has grossed $317.1 million domestically and $560.3 million worldwide. It’s objectively one of the biggest hits of the decade.
Finally, I’ve got one more tip for you. If you go to Marvel’s official website here and enter the code, SKRULLS, you’ll get a free digital copy of the Secret Invasion comic book.
Thanks for visiting MarvelBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below, and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond-Level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon!
As shared by box office expert Luiz Fernando, The Flash suffered a massive drop at the domestic box office in its second weekend, grossing an estimated $15.3 million after an already disappointing $55 million opening weekend.
The massive decline means The Flash faced the biggest second-weekend box office drop in DC history with 72.5%, beating out the previous record of 71.5%, which was set by The Suicide Squadduring the height of the pandemic.
The biggest second-weekend drops for DC movies at the domestic box office can be seen below:
The Flash – 72.5%
The Suicide Squad – 71.5%
Jonah Hex – 69.7%
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – 69.1%
Shazam: Fury of the Gods – 69%
Even going beyond that, The Flash suffered the third-worst second-weekend drop in superhero movie history at the domestic box office, only being beaten by Morbius‘ 73% and Steel‘s 78%.
The worst drops for superhero movies domestically are listed below:
Steel – 78%
Morbius – 73%
The Flash – 72.5%
X-Men: Dark Phoenix – 71.5%
The Suicide Squad – 71.5%
Hellboy II: The Golden Army – 70.7%
Jonah Hex – 69.7%
Hulk – 69.7%
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – 69.1%
Elektra – 69%
The Flash currently has a domestic total of $87.6 million andis said to be eyeing a total U.S. run of around $110-120 million on an insane budget of $220 million, not including marketing and other major costs.
The Multiverse blockbuster has also crossed the $200 million mark worldwide, now sitting at $210.1 million across all territories, including the U.S.
The total will likely leave The Flash as the ninth-highest-grossing of the 13 DCEU movies at the domestic box office when all is said and done:
Wonder Woman – $412.6 million
Aquaman – $335 million
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – $330.3 million
Suicide Squad – $325 million
Man of Steel – $291 million
Justice League – $229 million
Black Adam – $168.2 million
Shazam – $140.4 million
The Flash – $110-120 million (estimated)
Birds of Prey – $84.2 million
Shazam! Fury of the Gods – $57.6 million
The Suicide Squad – $55.8 million
Wonder Woman 1984 – $46.8 million
The Flash finished third at the domestic box office for the June 23-25 weekend, narrowly beating out Jennifer Lawrence’s comedy No Hard Feelings but falling behind Sony Pictures’Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verseand Pixar’s Elemental:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (fourth weekend)– $19.3 million
Elemental (second weekend)- $18.5 million
The Flash (second weekend) – $15.3 million
No Hard Feelings (opening weekend)– $15.1 million
How The Flash’s Failure Could Impact DC’s Future
Both Shazam 2 and The Flash have now proved to be box office disappointments for Warner Bros., which will undoubtedly leave the studio worried about the fate of its two remaining DC movies ahead of the reboot – Blue Beetle and Aquaman 2.
With Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom likely to suffer the same box office fate as Shazam 2 and The Flash, especially after the worrying news from test screenings, there is a conceivable world where Blue Beetle could come out as the highest-grossing DC movie of 2023, toppling the works of all the familiar characters.
After churning out $220 million on The Flash‘s production and reportedly plenty more on an extensive marketing campaign, the movie now seems unlikely to turn a profit, and could instead lose Warner Bros. a massive amount of money.
Fans have blamed this disappointment on a number of factors including the Ezra Miller controversy, the mixed word-of-mouth, the imminent DCU reboot, superhero fatigue, and the several main criticisms facing the movie. But, realistically, the true explanation lies in a mix of all these factors, which combined to topple The Flash.
Although this failure is unlikely to impact much in the way of DC’s future, especially James Gunn’s reboot plans, The Flash‘s unexpected flop may prompt Warner Bros. to be more careful with handing out massive budgets going forward.
The Ouya is celebrating its 10-year anniversary today, June 25, 2023. Below, we look at its legacy as a system that endeavored to crack into a market with an atypical approach.
Like many failed console projects, the Ouya was both ahead of and behind the times. Released 10 years ago today, the Ouya was an independently developed console, funded, in part, by a massive Kickstarter campaign. Questions, criticisms, and concerns abounded, but there was also excitement at the possibility space such a console would create. What could an independent-focused console and development community create?
The Ouya was a $99 micro-console, built with Android architecture. The pitch was in the low-price point and the fact that every console shipped was also a dev kit. Anyone with some technical knowhow could begin developing games for the platform. The console promised to have accessible developer tools, a library of exclusive indies, and to bridge the mobile and console worlds.
Before it was even out, academic Ian Bogost argued that the appeal of the Ouya is not in the literal box, but in “the entertainment value of expressing your support for such a hypothetical console… the pleasure of participating in hypothetical disruption is sufficient.” Indeed when the Ouya released, the reception was lukewarm. The console flailed, was acquired by Razer, and died a slow death. Much of the eulogizing around the Ouya is about how it failed, moving from one of the most-funded Kickstarter campaigns ever to being frequently forgotten–and overshadowed by future, larger Kickstarter projects. In some sense, Bogost was right. The Ouya collapsed because its purpose had already been served before the point of sale.
Even watching the original Kickstarter video, the Ouya’s pitch is grand. Industry disruption, mobile games on the big screen, enabling small developers to play with the big boys. The future is here; it’s in this little box. The original Ouya packaging even came with inserts bearing slogans like “and so begins the revolution” or “thank you for believing.”
However, the Ouya’s strength was in its smallness. The grand vision of its creators of disruption never came true, but they did succeed at building a fairly affordable, open-source space for strange creations. In a warm and funny piece for the now-defunct Killscreen, Zack Kotzer argued that Ouya is a fantastic purveyor of games to play while you’re high. He points to rain simulators, surreal sails through void seas, absurd valet parking sims–games that don’t need to be everything because they are something.
Even the Ouya’s clearest success, the multiplayer fighter Towerfall, is an example of that smallness. The most-cited complaint at the game’s launch was its lack of online multiplayer, a complaint I both understand and feel misses the mark. Towerfall is a game made for close calls, shouting at the television, and hearing the laughter fill a room. A multiplayer lobby with the right set of players can capture this feeling, but online multiplayer can create distance. Towerfall’s strength is in frenzied obsession over a weekend and an occasional match over the following years. Unlike practically every major multiplayer game on the market now, Towerfall cannot make the presumption to take over your life. It is small by definition, much like the Ouya itself.
Although the Ouya allowed truly small stuff on its platform and created a number of development tutorials, its pitch aimed slightly higher. Shortly after the console launched, the Ouya team opened a $1 million funding campaign. Kickstarted indies could get their money matched dollar-for-dollar by Ouya in exchange for a six-month timed-exclusivity contract. The policy was controversial, as some developers were accused of artificially boosting their Kickstarters to gain access to the promised funds. The policy received changes based on developer feedback. It also showed the scale of Ouya’s ambitions. Indie hits a la Super Meat Boy or even Towerfall were the name of the game. The ever smaller games that crowded the corners of Ouya’s shop received less institutional support. Kotzer wrote, “better anarchy than antiquity,” a warning that has become a prophecy.
Even more unfortunately, the Ouya was something of a closed ecosystem. When it was announced that its online ecosystem would be shutting down, preservationists rushed to save the games that the lack of official support would leave behind. The Ouya fared a little better in this because it was built on Android architecture, which is hardly a niche or locked environment (unlike Dreams or Game Builder Garage or Mario Maker). But it’s not as if nothing was lost or abandoned in its collapse.
Weirdly enough, it’s the personal computer that has taken the place the Ouya attempted to claim. Portable PCs like the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally are relatively easy to develop for. More people than ever have a laptop or PC for school or work. The website and desktop client Itch.io, which launched just months before the Ouya, is now the best way for anyone to publish their games, participate in a game jam, or just soak in the strange and broken and wonderful (yes, even while high). The cultural forces that shaped the Ouya, and those it helped shape, are still with us.
One of the differences is that a personal computer, even a cheap one, can be significantly more expensive than the Ouya was–or even than it still is. You can now pick up an Ouya on eBay for anywhere from $50 to $200. Another difference is that basically every kind of personal computer, with some notable exceptions, comes from massive hardware companies. The Ouya got institutional support but was also, in theory, an independent console. It’s worth remembering, too, that the Steam Deck is the latest, most successful chapter in a long line of Valve’s attempts to break into hardware manufacturing. With its truly ungodly amounts of money, Valve can afford to lose over and over again until it finds a hit. The Ouya could not. The exact vision of a truly independent game console is further away than ever. Even successors like the Playdate are more niche than the Ouya ever pitched itself to be.
Video games are an often unsustainable industry. From environmental impact to working conditions to the scale of big-budget projects, the industry cannot just scale upward forever, no matter the ambitions of CEOs and studio heads. The Ouya’s central failure was perhaps its ambition, the scale it attempted to reach. Its success was perhaps building a model for a different kind of gaming ecosystem. The Ouya is far from the only small console with big dreams to be consigned to the dustbin of history. But like all those other consoles, the Ouya points at alternate histories and alternate futures. You can now hack your Ouya to connect it to a new, community-run server to download and play games. After all its history, it remains small, independent, and alive. I only wish more people could participate in that.
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.
In the 20th century, filmmakers came up with some truly unusual and creative gimmicks to make the movie-going experience more exciting for audiences.
This post was written by Toni V. Genov.
It seems like the 1960s might have been the peak time for unconventional film marketing campaigns. Whether it was skeletons flying over the audience, life insurance in case you get scared to death, or special ghost-viewing glasses, one thing is for sure–no idea was too wacky.
Check out the video below to see the gimmicks in action, including the one I actually try out myself.
Creating an Immersive Beginning: Psycho
On June 16, 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho premiered in a manner that defied convention. Unlike traditional movie screenings where viewers could enter at any point, Hitchcock insisted on a strict set of rules: Nobody was allowed into the theater after the movie began, and once inside, nobody could leave until it ended.
This was partly to protect the legendary plot twist of the film but also acted as an ingenious marketing campaign. The unique approach created long queues outside theaters and contributed to Psycho becoming a tremendous commercial success.
‘Pyscho’ announcement to keep audiences in theaters for the film’s entire runtimeCredit: Tonis Film Club
The Tingler and Percepto: Engaging the Senses
While Hitchcock’s rules set the stage for audience engagement, William Castle took movie gimmicks to new heights. He was not just a filmmaker but also a showman who understood the power of creating unforgettable experiences for moviegoers.
In his movie The Tingler, he introduced a parasite that thrived on fear, growing larger the more terrified its host became. To enhance the movie’s impact, Castle devised a gimmick he called “Percepto.”
Theaters were equipped with small buzzers installed under seats, which vibrated during key moments, creating a tingling sensation among the audience, mirroring the film’s concept. Moreover, during a pivotal scene, a paid actress would scream, pretend to pass out, and be carried away by fake nurses.
As the tension heightened, the audience witnessed the shadow of the Tingler crawling on the movie screen and were encouraged to scream. These immersive elements made The Tingler a massive hit and solidified Castle’s reputation as a master of gimmicks.
‘The Tingler’ posterCredit: Columbia Pictures
Emergo: Skeletons Roaming the Audience
In House on Haunted Hill, Castle introduced Emergo, a gimmick that surpassed the 3D experience of the time.
The movie revolved around an eccentric millionaire who invited guests to a haunted mansion, promising a substantial reward if they stayed the night. During a climactic scene where a skeleton chased a character, Castle arranged for a plastic skeleton to zip across the theater on a wire, seemingly emerging from the screen itself.
The clever play on the words “Emerge” and “Emergo” added a captivating visual element that thrilled the audience, further immersing them in the movie’s atmosphere.
According to the stories, kids absolutely loved it and would try to hit it with their throw popcorn and soda cups.
‘House on Haunted Hill’Credit: William Castle Productions
Illusion-O: A Personalized Ghost Viewing
For his film 13 Ghosts, Castle introduced Illusion-O, a gimmick that engaged viewers in a supernatural way. Each audience member received a “Ghost Viewer,” which was a pair of glasses with red and blue lenses. When a character in the film wore theirs, viewers were instructed to do the same. Those who believed in ghosts could look through the red lenses and see them, while the skeptics could use the blue lenses and make the ghosts disappear.
The simple yet effective use of color in a black-and-white movie created a personalized ghost-viewing experience for each viewer, amplifying the thrill and immersion of the film.
I actually managed to get my hands on an original pair and had an absolute blast watching the movie that way. It works perfectly!
Illusion-O glassesCredit: Tonis Film Club
The Legacy of William Castle and the Fading Era of Gimmicks
William Castle’s innovative and immersive gimmicks resonated deeply with audiences, offering them a chance to be part of the movie itself.
Despite not being regarded as a serious director making important films, his unique contributions to the movie industry cannot be undermined. He remains one of the greatest showmen of Hollywood and it truly makes me wish that one day Hollywood will bring some of those fun gimmicks back.
Francis Ford Coppola’s lifelong commitment to taking creative risks and betting on himself is culminating with “Megalopolis,” his self-financed passion project that recently wrapped production. The epic romance, which takes place in a futuristic city called New Rome, was dogged by rumors of on-set dysfunction that Coppola and his A-list cast denied. But the film’s staggering scale has impressed many cinephiles — including Jon Hamm.
In a new appearance on the Back to One podcast to promote his role in “Maggie Moore(s),” Hamm praised Coppola for taking such an ambitious swing.
“Look at what Francis Ford Coppola is doing right now,” Hamm said. “He’s making a $300 million movie that he just has wanted to make. I did a table read of it, I know how impossible this movie is to make. But he’s making it. And God bless him, that’s exactly what he should be doing.”
Hamm explained that he received an inside look at Coppola’s creative process when he was invited to participate in a table read of “Megalopolis.” While Hamm is not starring in the film, he joined a coterie of actors to help Coppola work through the script — and walked away shocked by the scope of the project.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know how he’s gonna make this movie,’” he said. “I sat at a table with Al Pacino, Shia LaBeouf, all these amazing actors. I thought ‘I don’t know know what this is gonna be, but I’m unbelievably happy to be here in this room on the Paramount lot where 45 years ago he made ‘The Godfather’ when Robert Evans was walking around. Like ‘okay, I’ll be part of this.’”
Hamm’s comments echo similar remarks from “Megalopolis” star Adam Driver, who recently praised Coppola’s creativity and willingness to take on such an ambitious project.
“‘Megalopolis’ is one of the most exciting things that I’ve ever been a part of, with Francis in particular,” Driver said. “It’s one of the best shooting experiences I’ve had. And the things that he’s made, there’s no frame of reference for it. It’s so unique and inventive and hopefully accessible by everyone. That it’s not so elusive that it’s for a certain audience, it’s for everyone. And he is everything that you hope he will be.”
The Wall St. Journal reports movie mogul Katzenberg has joined with other advisers to tell Biden to “own” his age and turn it into an asset. If Jagger (who turns 80 soon) and Ford (now 80) can still do it, Joe can lean into his longevity, the WSJ said, quoting sources.
Katzenberg is reported by the WSJ to have become “an influential outside adviser” in the last few months. The former studio head brings years of business experience, Hollywood storytelling bona fides, and a Rolodex of contacts in California’s entertainment and tech industry, the Journal contends.
“He is determined, and the thing about Jeffrey is there’s just no version that he takes no for an answer,” actor George Clooney said in an interview. “Jeffrey will call, and I will help.”
Katzenberg faces big challenges, the WSJ says, including Biden’s low approval ratings, a majority of Democrats who would rather he not run, and festering allegations of corruption.
Biden welcomed Katzenberg’s input, which brought an outside the Beltway perspective. Katzenberg was announced as one of seven national cochairs of Biden’s 2024 campaign. He is the only one who doesn’t hold elected office.
Katzenberg’s role is still evolving, the WSJ says, he could help raise as much as $2 billion and connect the campaign with technology, social media and messaging strategies by leaders.
Republicans don’t seem concerned, the WSJ reports.
“It’s another wealthy Hollywood celebrity whispering in the ear of a presidential candidate who is failing to connect with a working-class population that doesn’t feel like the administration is dealing with their economic concerns,” said Jesse Hunt, a Republican strategist.
Vin Diesel as Dom in ‘Fast X,’ directed by Louis Leterrier.
The past always has a way of catching up with Dominic Toretto and his gang. This time, someone from Dom’s past shows up in the most unexpected way, putting everyone in danger, including Dom’s son – Little B.
“Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they must confront the most lethal opponent they’ve ever faced. Fueled by revenge, a terrifying threat emerges from the shadows of the past to shatter Dom’s world and destroy everything — and everyone — he loves.”
‘Fast X’ premiered in Rome on May 12, 2023. It opened in theaters domestically on May 19th. The film opened to $67 million and has grossed over $676.9 million worldwide since its release.
The Past Continues To Haunt Dominic Toretto
(L to R) Vin Diesel and Daniela Melchior in ‘Fast X,’ directed by Louis Leterrier.
Trouble always seems to find its way to Dominic Toretto’s doorstep, much like when ‘Fate of the Furious’ villain Cypher (Charlize Theron) shows up at Dom’s home badly injured. She tells Dom of a new threat named Dante, who turns out to be the son of drug lord Herman Reyes. Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) appeared in ‘Fast Five’ and met his end after chasing Dom’s team for the vault.
Played by Jason Momoa, Dante seeks revenge for his father’s death and will stop at nothing to hurt Dom – including kidnapping his son Brian. Dante may be the franchise’s most interesting and formidable villain so far – outsmarting Dom in ways we’ve never seen before. Fashionable, unhinged, and outright entertaining to watch, Dante steals every scene he is in.
New Players Entering ‘The Fast & Furious’ Franchise
(Right) Brie Larson is Tess in ‘Fast X,’ directed by Louis Leterrier.
Joining the Fast family are Brie Larson (‘Captain Marvel’), Alan Ritchson (‘Dark Web: Cicada 3301’), and Daniela Melchior (‘The Suicide Squad’). Brie Larson portrays Tess, who is revealed to be the daughter of Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). She is helping Dom and his team in their fight against Dante Reyes. Alan Ritchson plays Aimes, the new head of The Agency. Daniela Melchior plays Isabel, a Brazilian street racer who is connected to someone from Dom’s past.
There is more than meets the eye with these new characters, so you should check out the movie to find out exactly who they are and if they’re on Team Dom or plotting against them.
Where Can I Watch ‘Fast X’?
Jason Momoa as Dante in ‘Fast X’, directed by Louis Leterrier.
The film was released theatrically in the United States on May 19th, 2023, and its follow-up is already announced to be released on April 4th, 2025. While the movie is already available on VOD, you can still catch the high-octane action in theaters. ‘Fast X’ is available in IMAX, Dolby Atmos, 3D, and 4DX format, so be sure to check with Moviefone below for showtimes in your area. ‘Fast X’ has a total runtime of 2 hours and 21 minutes, making it the second-longest movie in the franchise.
You now have the option to rent or purchase ‘Fast X’ on VOD for $19.99 or $24.99, respectively. The movie is available on platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Direct TV, Google Play, Vudu, Microsoft, YouTube, AppleTV, and Redbox.
As the movie is distributed by Universal Pictures, Peacock subscribers (in both Premium and Premium Plus tiers) will be able to stream ‘Fast X’ once available – likely to be in late August or early September though no official date has been announced by the studio.
No official date has been announced for the DVD/Blu-Ray release of the film, though pre-orders are already available from stores such as Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Best Buy.
(Clockwise, from left) Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Han (Sung Kang), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), Dom (Vin Diesel), Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry), Abuelita (Rita Moreno), Mia (Jordana Brewster), Tej (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, back to camera) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson, back to camera) in ‘Fast X,’ directed by Louis Leterrier.
In a town where plastic surgery is as ubiquitous as kombucha, where and how one recuperates can be as vital as which board-certified doctor performs the operation.
“People are investing upward of $100,000 on cosmetic surgeries but choosing to skimp on the post-op care, and it’s not a good idea,” Beverly Hills-based plastic surgeon Lisa Cassileth, who specializes in breast reconstruction, tells THR. “A lot can go wrong after major surgery, and having a friend or family member take care of you could set back the recovery and the result and ultimately affect how you end up looking.”
Postsurgical retreats have been a mainstay in L.A. for years, with Serenity Aftercare, a health-care facility in Santa Monica, reigning as the gold standard. But after it closed during the pandemic, a new crop of post-op hideaways has emerged, and they’re upping the ante thanks to partnerships with posh hotels including the Four Seasons, SLS Beverly Hills and The Beverly Hilton, where patients recover in luxe surroundings with room, nursing, meals and transportation included in the nightly fee.
Opened in 2021 by facial plastic surgeon Ben Talei, Aura AfterCare (auraaftercare.com, from $1,750 per night) now employs much of Serenity’s staff, including skilled nurses with more than 25 years of experience. It comprises four 3,500-square-foot condos, most with their own private balconies, in a luxurious residential building in the Wilshire Corridor. Nurses are on call 24/7, and there is an in-house chef who creates a customized menu of foods designed for optimum nutrition and recovery including Kosher, vegan and vegetarian options. The post-op center offers à la carte healing treatments such as an LED bed (said to help reduce inflammation); IV drip therapy (to boost hydration and provide vitamins); and a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. “The 60- to 90-minute sessions help increase the blood supply into the tissues after being disrupted by surgery,” says Talei.
A hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Aura AfterCare.
Courtesy of Subject
There’s even medicinal leech therapy, which was approved by the FDA in 2004. “This is beneficial if the blood supply ended up being compromised after surgery, which can happen with a revision face-lift, nose job or tummy tuck,” says Talei. “It’s an old therapy that’s been around a long time and helps thin the blood to reduce swelling.”
Irina Brodsky (@laleeches) has been practicing this ancient treatment, referred to as hirudotherapy, for more than 10 years. “Leeches were the original antibiotics,” she says. “Their saliva, which is very compatible with the human body, is essentially a live pharmacy containing enzymes, amino acids, and proteins that are very healing and acts like a natural blood thinner, especially when there is bruising or if decongesting is necessary,” she adds. Each 90-minute session (from $200) is very tolerable and can also be effective for treating hormonal imbalances, joint pain, and even depression according to Brodsky. “There is a sensation of mild burning on the surface of the skin as the leeches work like little pumps, releasing natural blood thinner into the body, but there isn’t any pain,” she adds
Another newer aftercare spot, Calicia Care (caliciacare.com, from $2,000), co-founded by sisters Erika and Lexi Maldonado (Lexi is an RN), offers patients recovery time in plush guest rooms at The Beverly Hilton. “We take care of everything, and it’s always one-on-one nursing care,” says Erika. Treatments can include in-room lymphatic drainage treatments and reiki sessions, plus services like dog walking, manicure/pedicures and makeup/hairstyling “if patients want to go home looking fresh,” she adds.
Prestige Surgical Aftercare (prestigeaftercare.com, from $2,099), housed at the SLS Hotel Beverly Hills, has suites that include D. Porthault linens and automated voice control for the lights, beds and 55-inch flat-screens.
Aesthetic and reconstructive plastic surgeon Payman Danielpour shares that his go-to for aftercare is Immortelle Healthcare Group (immortellemed.com, from $3,300), which has 12 rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills. “It has all the amenities and abilities of a mini hospital, and my patients love the white-glove, royal treatment and extra attentive care,” he says.
Wellness bed at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills
Don Riddle
Sought after for elective and nonelective post-surgical recovery, Immortelle prides itself on a holistic approach to aftercare. “With every patient, we consider not only the internal medicine component and post-surgical care, but psychological support as well,” says co-founder Evan Pinchuk. “All three go hand in hand when it comes to helping improve patient outcomes.” And thanks to the extensive medical equipment they have on site, Immortelle can perform hospital-level interventions if necessary. Treatments include photobiomodulation light therapy, which promises to reduce inflammation, swelling, pain and anxiety. The 20- to 60-minute treatment (from $300 per session) doesn’t involve discomfort and “helps patients get better faster,” says Pinchuk, who adds, “We deliver Four Seasons level of care, experience and service.”
For patients looking to continue the healing once they are back on their feet, Pause Studio (pausestudio.com) has several Los Angeles locations and offers an array of treatments at their sleek outposts for anyone seeking a dose of restoration, including LED light therapy beds and compression therapy, which aid in repairing damaged tissues and decreasing inflammation (from $40 per session).
A version of this story first appeared in the June 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Aphex Twin’s headlining DJ set at Barcelona’s Sónar festival last weekend was a nonstop onslaught of sensory overload: breakneck tempos, strafing lasers, overdriven bass, and earsplitting dissonance more in line with a noise show. But “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f,” the Cornish musician’s first new music in five years, is an altogether friendlier affair. Much like “T69 Collapse,” which opened 2018’s Collapse EP, the new song brandishes its analog-sounding drum machine as though it were a shiny new toy, snares and rimshots so dry they’re practically vacuum-sealed. He offsets the skipping drum groove with one of the gentlest synth melodies he’s crafted in ages, answering sighing pads with a sweetly downcast counterpoint. This is Aphex, of course, so nothing is as it seems at first. The groove thickens as it goes: Nagging breakbeats poke and prod, while insistent crash cymbals blanket the high end in white noise. But he never lets it get too extreme; every time you think things might go off the rails, he falls back on those soft, ruminative synths, closing with nearly a minute of somber ambience. It’s an unusually reflective look for electronic music’s biggest trickster.
OAK CLIFF FILM FESTIVAL 2023 REVIEW! Plenty of movies and television have highlighted the magic and nostalgia of working at one’s local video store. Chandler Levack’s feature film, I Like Movies, may wash away some of the magic and grounds us in a good way.
I Like Movies is the story of 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen), who dreams of attending film school at NYU and becoming a great director. He spends all his time with his buddy, Matt (Percy Hynes White), and each weekend is Rejects Night, when the two watch Saturday Night Live.
Right out of the gate, we learn that Lawrence is a bit messed up. His father recently committed suicide. His single mother is forced to work long hours to support the family, and there’s not exactly enough money to pay for Lawrence to attend NYU. That’s the sob story.
Lawrence is also a narcissist…like a colossal narcissist. The story opens up with Matt and Lawrence’s school assignment to produce a video analyzing bias in media. Instead, Lawrence produces a comedic short about Rejects Night because he doesn’t care about the assignment.
Realizing that he has no money for NYU, Lawrence gets a job at his local video store, Sequels. His new boss, Alana (Romina D’Ugo), tries to put up with Lawrence’s BS and forms an odd relationship with him.
“Realizing that he has no money for NYU, Lawrence gets a job at his local video store…”
I Like Movies essentially documents Lawrence’s spiral downward, and his story is the heart and soul of the film. We learn not only learn that he suffers from panic attacks and mental health problems.
While attempting to make Lawrence a sympathetic character, writer/director Chandler Levack insightfully addresses issues of entitlement, narcissism, and the oppression Olympics that the youth are engaged in today…though set in the early 2000s. Levack addresses these issues in a blunt and straightforward way. So much so that I wish we could turn back the clock to 2002.
There’s a scene where Alana and Lawrence sit in an HR disciplinary meeting, and words get brutal and honest. “Eggshells” are broken all over the place. I’ll just say that meeting resonates today.
I Like Movies is very low-budget and low frills. It rests solely on Levack’s sharp and poignant script and fantastic performances by Lehtinen and D’ugo. Two scenes featuring Lawrence’s final breakdown and Alana’s heartbreaking confession about her past prove you don’t need Hollywood to make a great movie only to have someone meddle with the story you want to tell.
Provincial funding to help reduce the risks of future disaster-related natural hazards and climate change is coming for the Village of Lumby, B.C.
MLA Harwinder Sandhu says $150,000 in funds will benefit the city and boost ongoing flood mitigation.
“Disaster can strike at any time. That’s why our government is helping communities all over B.C. to plan and prepare for emergencies to help keep more people safe,” said Sandhu. “The $150,000 in funding for Lumby will boost the ongoing flood mitigation plans that help reduce serious risks to residents.”
Parker Cove evacuation orders lifted after flood
The money is directed at Bessette Creek Flood mitigation near Maple Street.
Approximately $2.3 million through the Community Emergency Preparedness Fund (CEPF) is going to local governments and First Nations across B.C. under the Climate Risk Reduction-Climate Adaptation stream.
The funds will help communities to reduce risks from climate-related emergencies, such as floods and extreme heat events.
Pink, 43, shared an Instagram video that showed her fans how she got ready for her first of two shows at the British Summertime Festival on Saturday, and it involved an ice bath! The singer wore a metallic pink one-piece swimsuit that had the words, “Vicious Bitches” in white text on the front, in the clip, as she walked over the full outdoor bath and bravely made her way in. “Man that’s cold. Oh gosh, it hurts just so much,” she said after getting in the cold water.
She also wrote a caption alongside the post that showed off her excitement for her performance, which was set in London’s Hyde Park. “HYDE PARK NIGHT ONE OF TWO!!!! Gettin it all in before we go get it!!!! SEE YA SOON CUTIE PATOOTIES,” the caption read. Once the post was published, her fans shared their thoughts in the comments section.
“I don’t know how you do it! You are super woman!❤️,” one fan wrote, while another wrote, “You, madam…are a legend. Thank you for an epic night out. You are incredibly inspiring.” A third shared, “The physique” along with a heart-eyed emoji, and many more, who later attended her show, called it “amazing.”
Pink swimming during a previous outing. (MEGA)
Pink’s ice bath video comes after she shared a cute black and white video of her and her family arriving in Paris, France. “WE GO HARD. 3 MILLION OF YOU PLUS US. THIS IS WHERE WE SHINE ??????,” she captioned the post.
When Pink’s not sharing moments from her career, she’s sharing snapshots and videos of her personal life. The “Try” crooner celebrated Father’s Day earlier this month by creating a post in honor of her husband, Carey Hart, who is also the father of their kids, Willow, 12, and Jameson, 6. “Happy Fathers Day @hartluck. These kids are so lucky to have a Papa that loves them and sees them and goes out of his way to make them feel important. Fishing, camping, skating, cuddles, scrambled eggs and manicures. You’re up for all of it. ♥️❤️♥️,” she sweetly wrote alongside photos of the proud dad and his two children.
While “The Idol” viewers may have grown accustomed to the HBO drama’s scandalous nature, Da’Vine Joy Randolph teased that the series will transform in its remaining two episodes.
“What you’ve seen up until now, it’s about to completely turn on its head,” Randolph told TheWrap, adding that discourse about the HBO drama’s nudity and profanity is “about to turn” and “reveal something different.”
“The man [created] ‘Euphoria,’” Randolph said of “Idol” creator Sam Levinson. “You really think it’s gonna be surface and obvious? No, there’s a spin — there’s a huge, huge spin.”
As the relationship between rebounding pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) and shady nightclub owner Tedros (Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye) continues to escalate, it’s safe to say he is involved in whatever sinister plot comes next. The developments will confirm suspicions from Destiny (Randolph), Jocelyn’s manager who foresaw the trouble Tedros would bring from a mile away.
While Randolph noted that upcoming episodes hint at Destiny’s background in the industry, she envisions that Jocelyn’s other manager, Chaim (Hank Azaria), brought her into the pop star’s team to bring some edge and freshness into the fold.
“She’s been a part of this life in a very intimate way herself, even in some ways as a performer,” Randolph said. “This is someone who’s been there, done that, and now has found their new way of how they want to still be a part of this world but in a new space.”
As Jocelyn struggles with rebuilding her image after a nervous breakdown derailed her last tour — as well as grieving the loss of her late mother — Destiny and Chaim are her first line of defense when it comes to both business and personal needs. Functioning as a chosen family, Randolph said Destiny wears many hats in Jocelyn’s life, sometimes acting as a mother, best friend or auntie depending on the circumstances.
“I am there as a support system — I know when to talk business to her and I know when she needs… love and TLC,” Randolph said. “[Destiny] is someone who deeply loves and cares for [Jocelyn]… I wouldn’t say she feels sorry for her, but she’s very empathetic to her. It’s very hard — the situation she’s in — so I want to see her succeed.”
Like any woman in the industry, Randolph imagines that Destiny has also experienced her share of trouble surrounding overzealous and sleazy men, leading her to immediately call “bulls–t” when Jocelyn starts bringing Tedros around.
“When this Tedros guy comes, she’s been there, done that — she knows this type, yes probably dated one of these guys herself at some point in her life,” Randolph said. “The moment she sees him, [she knows] it’s bulls–t… There’s no disrespect to Abel and his character, but it’s like, ‘I know what this is. I know this guy. I know what this type is.’”
Though her character knows her gut feeling is correct that Tedros is “a problem,” Randolph noted that “Destiny is not all that worried, because she knows what to do when the time comes.”
Instead, Randolph likened her character’s treatment of Jocelyn to that of a pre-pubescent teenager, who would take a slap on the wrist as an opportunity to deepen her involvement with Tedros, prompting Destiny to observe the pair carefully while letting Jocelyn believe she has total freedom to galavant with her new beau’s crew.
“It’s kind of like how parents are like, ‘You guys have a party, but you’re having it at our house and we’re gonna be here’ — it’s supervised fun,” Randolph said. “I’m gonna make you think that you’re doing your thing, and you’re having a blast and you have complete freedom, but the moment something truly goes left, I’m stepping in and shutting it.”
Amid pressure for Jocelyn’s comeback album to soar to the top of the charts, and the growing influence of Tedros and his friends, Randolph emphasized Destiny’s careful balance to avoid pushing Jocelyn too far into Tedros’ scheme — noting that “for Jocelyn to lean more [into Tedros] would be a tailspin of utter destruction.”
“It really is this fine line negotiation that she’s mastering of spinning all these plates and letting everyone do their thing, making sure everything falls into place,” Randolph said. “She’ll never let anything get too crazy, while at the same time making people feel like they’re making their own decisions for themselves.”
“The Idol” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and streams on Max.
Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen is no stranger to big budget Hollywood productions with his seven U.S. credits to date including Clash Of The Titans, Hannibal and Doctor Strange.
This did not stop him from feeling in awe of the scale and legacy of Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny on his first day on set, in the role of Indy’s nemesis, the former Nazi turned scientist Jürgen Voller.
“It felt gigantic. No spoilers but we are in 1944 in the beginning, and there was just a ton of extras and treasures and a big train. And there was the mist and the moon. It was just enormous and fantastic,”
“There’s no way around it. You’re wearing a fanboy hat in the beginning, but you’ve got to throw it off and start doing what you’re being asked to do which is bring life to this character. But you’re pinching yourself a little.”
Mikkelsen was talking to the Deadline Studio at the Taormina Film Festival this weekend where the film makes its Italian premiere on Sunday as part of it red carpet tour ahead of its June 30 release.
Voller marks the sixth Hollywood “baddie” role for Mikkelsen, who rarely plays the antagonist back home in Denmark. The actor says he relishes roles.
“The baddies is something that is kind of concentrated in America. I don’t think we’ve ever made a film in Denmark, where we have like villains,” he said.
“I embrace it. I’m lucky that it’s different genres, different frameworks and I get a chance to play some different villains… I have a career back home and in Europe, where I get the chance to play variations of real human beings.”
Mikkelsen said he had not gotten hung up on the Nazi backstory in Voller’s past because of the cinematic context within which he was playing the character.
“If we were doing a different kind of film and diving down into the darkness of what that ideology meant to the world, it would be a very different approach. This is obviously an Indiana Jones film, and they’re [the baddies] are there for a purpose. They’re very easy to read. They’re the bad guys for a reason.”
He revealed his approach to playing a character like Voller.
“I believe my characters are the heroes of their own story in their own world,” he said. “It’s no secret that this is based loosely on the real-life Nazi and later NASA engineer Wernher von Braun, a notable German scientist among the hundreds who worked for NASA right after the war.
“Tons of people did that and tons of people went to the Soviet Union as well. Everybody apparently decided to close their eyes and say that nothing happened in the past. So, I look at him as a scientist who has a higher vision for the world, a better place… it can be a better place if he had a chance.”
Talking about villain characters in the Taormina press conference on Saturday, Mikkelsen revealed his fascination with the figure of the Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan.
He explained to Deadline afterwards: “Somehow he managed to pull off the people kind of lean back and go, ‘It was a cool period. They look cool. They were cool.’ Like how did he you manage that? Because he did kill a lot of people and raped a lot of people.
So I say that more as a jokey thing but it’s also it’s it’s interesting to see who who turns out after committing such atrocities to be not doomed as a complete person, which is very interesting.”
Mikkelsen’s will next be on big screen after Indiana Jones in Nikolaj Arcel’s mid-18th century drama The Bastard.
He plays the real life figure of Ludvig von Kahlen, a former soldier who tries to make his fortune by taming the then wild and lawless heath of the Danish Jutland peninsula, so it could be turned over to cultivation following a declaration by King Frederik V.
“We’re just finishing the edit as we speak. It’s the second film I’ve done with Nikolaj Arcel, after A Royal Affair. It takes place at the same time, the 1700s. It’s a fascinating part of Danish history, a very brutal story and also beautiful, if we get lucky,” he explains.
Mikkelsen says its important for him to keep working at home as well as in the U.S.
“It’s my native tongue. Those are my stories and those are my friends back home. So of course, it’s special and I will always go back home,” he says.
“The scale is the most obvious thing that’s different. When I come onto a set in Denmark, I say good morning to ten people. On Indiana Jones, you say good morning to 300 people, he adds.
Mikkelsen heads to Budapest to reunite with Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller on his feature debut Dust Bunny.
According to previous reports, he will play the intriguing neighbor of an eight-year-old girl who enlists his help to kill the monster under her bed that she believes ate her family.
“And as you probably would have guessed, this will be a very beautiful but very crazy film. I don’t think I can say anything. But it’s about kids and if we’re lucky kids can also watch it.”
Quizzed on other films that he would liked to do in the future in the press conference, Mikkelsen revealed that he had always wanted to do a zombie movie
“I love zombies,” he told Deadline afterwards. “I don’t know why.I’ve watched so many films since I was a kid, and it has always been fascinated. There’s something interesting about an enemy that moves so slow that you can actually picture yourself in that universe and get away from them and still get the thrill of being chased. Except for the World War Z, where they’re fast zombies.”
Savage spends the first few seconds of his 1984 national television debut frozen stiff. As the intro of his first single, “Don’t Cry Tonight,” begins to play, he poses in a half-kneel, his right hand resting on his leg in front of him, his left around his neck. A fedora covers his entire face, like an off-brand Bob Fosse impersonator. Behind Savage (real name: Roberto Zanetti) spin the neon blue lights of the futuristic set of Discoring, a show airing on Italy’s Rai 1 network that regularly features acts from the country’s burgeoning dance scene.
After eight motionless bars, Zanetti raises his head and looks into the camera. Suddenly, a jolt: His right hand pounds the ground and his left points behind him to 8 o’clock. He rises slowly, arms outstretched at his sides, index fingers pointed, then drawing them together in front of his chin. He balls his hands into fists and hides his face again, only to re-emerge when, about 75 seconds into his song, he begins lip-synching lyrics that have the syntactical incoherence but emotional clarity of someone talking in his sleep: “When you find the light to an upset shade away/If you’ll never, never let me go with every melody…” Zanetti, though, is very much awake, his eyes wide open and barely blinking. His expression, sometimes punctuated by a grimace, is so intense, its projected passion feels potentially murderous, like that of a chronically misunderstood loner in a giallo.
Zanetti’s performance elicits the same response as the best songs in Italo disco, the genre that Savage would come to exemplify. Heard the first or the fiftieth time, an effective Italo song makes you wonder, What’s going on here? What’s going to happen next? This is a style so reliant on novelty, it can shock from measure to measure. In his memoir, Italo Disco: History of Dance Music in Italy from 1975 to 1988, producer Raff Todesco (Time’s “Shaker Shake”) enumerates the elements to a successful Italo song, including synths, a lack of guitars, an embrace of technology, and, perhaps most notably, a “catch,” by which he means “something that was unique”—a vocalization, a strange sound, a weird way of singing. The result is a genre that is a true neophile’s delight, a smorgasbord of idiosyncrasies.
It has been posited that for all its garish futurism, bald-faced hokeyness, and earnest expressions in limp English, Italo is “the most amazingly uncool genre ever created,” but Savage wasn’t necessarily trying to be cool. He was trying to be different. Like the disco that preceded it and the house that would follow in its wake, the Italo hits of the early ’80s generally landed around 120 BPM, like ‘Lectric Workers’ “Robot Is Systematic,” Gary Low’s “You Are a Danger” and “I Want You,” and Klein & M.B.O.’s “Dirty Talk.” To stand out from the pack, Savage deliberately paced his first single at a slower-than-typical 104 BPM. In a conversation with Pitchfork, Zanetti said that when clubs would play his song—and it was met with such fervor upon release that this sometimes happened three or four times over the course of a night—DJs would have to stop the music to make way for the lumbering strut of “Don’t Cry Tonight.” From the jump, Savage was, simply, unmatchable.
Hollywood studios will get a lucrative tax benefit they have long sought and workers on film productions will get new safety protocols they’ve wanted since the deadly “Rust” shooting under new legislation that Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign into law by the end of this week.
It reflects a grand deal between the governor and state lawmakers to tackle Hollywood’s thorniest political fights in Sacramento in one sweeping bill that was made public Saturday as lawmakers race to finalize the state budget.
The legislation will extend California’s film and television tax credit for five more years with a new “refundable” feature allowing studios to receive cash payments from the state if their credits are larger than their tax bills — a perk studios have lobbied for in California for several years in the face of competition from other states.
It weaves in the set safety issue by requiring that productions receiving the tax credit follow new safety rules including hiring a safety advisor to perform a risk assessment and be on set during filming. For all productions, it will require that prop masters and armorers handling weapons have firearms training and a special state permit.
And it adds new diversity requirements that were a priority for Democratic lawmakers who have been frustrated that Hollywood workers do not reflect California’s ethnic and gender diversity. A portion of the tax credits that productions will receive will depend on meeting diversity targets. A larger slice of the tax credits will go to job training programs in community colleges that predominantly serve students of color. And the legislation requires adding a new member to the state film commission who has expertise in diversity, equity and inclusion.
“It’s the art of compromising and negotiating, finding a solution that works for everyone,” said Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), who played a key role in crafting the bill.
“The studios want refundability and have been wanting to have more access to these dollars. The unions have been advocating for set safety supervision, given what happened on the ‘Rust’ set. … On both ends, this was an agreeable compromise to see if it works.”
Attempts to pass set safety legislation last year stalled amid disagreements between the Motion Picture Assn. and the IATSE union that represents entertainment industry workers. They continued negotiating this year and had come to agreement on the terms in Senate Bill 735, which has been folded into the new film tax credit bill.
The author of that legislation, Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San José), said that some version of the bill for greater safety and firearms protections on film sets has been in the works since the week after the “Rust” shooting in 2021.
He recalled contacting Cal/OSHA and the Department of Industrial Relations after the fatal shooting and asking what laws were on the books to prevent that from occurring in California.
“I thought there’d be all kinds of bill history,” he said. “But there was nothing.”
This year, Cortese said, after he facilitated negotiations with the Motion Picture Assn. and IATSE units to put together SB 735, a conversation began to happen among the governor’s office, the Motion Picture Assn. and labor groups about including the film safety bill in the budget bill.
“There’s a certain efficiency and expediency in getting it done now,” he said.
Cortese said that he visited Universal and Warner Bros. sets during the drafting of the bill to see how they worked and that the firearms component of the bill is meant to codify into law what those top studios are already doing.
“Just because they do it doesn’t mean it trickles down to the rest of the industry,” he said. “We wanted it to be law so it applied to everyone, top to bottom.”
The legislation incorporates much of Newsom’s proposal earlier this year to make $330 million in film tax credits available per year from 2025 to 2030. By making the credit refundable, Carrillo said more companies will be able to take advantage of it, which should bring more productions to the Golden State.
Currently, she said, only Disney and Universal Studios benefit from the tax credit because they have larger tax bills in California due to their theme parks. Making it refundable will allow Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony and Paramount to benefit from the program too, Carrillo said. Even if their California tax bills are smaller than the tax credit they qualify for, the new program will allow them to get a portion of the credit paid in cash.
“We are in a very competitive fight to ensure that these jobs stay in California, and they are jobs that primarily impact Los Angeles County and the city of L.A.,” Carrillo said.
The film industry legislation is one of nearly two dozen budget-related bills that lawmakers are expected to pass Tuesday as they work toward a final agreement with Newsom on the 2023-24 state budget. Negotiations have been dragging as Democrats who control the Capitol grapple with a $31.5-billion deficit.
Newsom faces a June 30 deadline to sign the budget. He is expected to sign the raft of budget-related bills lawmakers send him this week by that date.
Now that connection has been established, it will be interesting to see how this Multiversal storytelling escalates, especially in light of Sony’s back-to-back Spidey slate.
In all, a lot has changed and developed since 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is only expected to evolve and expand ahead of Venom 3.
It will be fascinating to see how this growing universe impacts Venom‘s final chapter and if filming for the threequel reveals any of what Sony has in store for the coming months.
Venom 3 is expected to arrive in theaters in October 2024.
Works of sci-fi are often inspired by a particular vision of the future that dwells in the mind of an author, a filmmaker, or even a comic book artist. These tales are thrilling escapes into realms of futuristic societies, technology akin to magic, and intergalactic adventures. Some of the most thrilling sci-fi concepts of the past are slowly turning into our current reality. These mind-bending ideas shape the present’s escapism and the future of the next generation.
If you’re a die-hard science-fiction fan or simply seeking an exhilarating movie that challenges your perception, Netflix has you covered with its diverse selection of sci-fi offerings. You can explore captivating worlds and take a look at the future as it’s been envisioned by many filmmakers. The most popular online streaming service has its own titles and licensed popular properties, so you can enjoy a great evening with futuristic films packed with thought-provoking ideas, suspense, and plenty of action. Let’s take a look at the best sci-fi films on Netflix, in no particular order.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
The Adam Project (2022)
Netflix
Ryan Reynolds has a great deal going strong with Netflix, and The Adam Project is one of his latest offerings. Directed by Shawn Levy, with a script by Jonathan Tropper, Reynolds takes the lead alongside Zoe Saldana and Mark Ruffalo. This visually stunning sci-fi adventure follows Adam as he travels back in time, seeking the help of his younger self to save his father in the past. It’s a great time travel story that doesn’t get muddied with the usual antics about alternate realities, with tons of humor and excellent family dynamics.
The Platform (2019)
Netflix
Spanish cinema has brought audiences some of the most thought-provoking sci-fi films of all time. The Platform is an intriguing offering directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, with a script by David Desola, and featuring the talent of popular Spanish actors such as Ivan Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, and Antonia San Juan. The story is set in a dystopian era, in a strange prison.
Without spoiling too much of the plot, we can firmly say this sci-fi drama explores the dark side of human nature with many metaphors, as inmates in prison must fight for their survival while contending with limited resources provided in the mysterious platform that falls daily, offering food for those on the top.
Level 16 (2018)
Netflix
Several sci-fi films deal with the treatment of so-called ‘social undesirables,’ and none paint a great picture of how the elites and powerful treat the marginalized among us. Level 16 is one of these offerings, written and directed by Danishka Esterhazy, with a young all-female cast including such as Katie Douglas, Celina Martin, and Sara Canning.
This dystopian thriller takes place in an all-girls boarding school where the students are educated to be clean and obedient while disregarding negative vices such as anger or curiosity. Two friends get curious and embark on a journey to discover the real secret behind their existence in this thrilling movie exploring control, conformity, and rebellion themes.
Battleship (2012)
Universal Pictures
Battleship was supposed to be a tentpole blockbuster for 2012 that bombed at the box office, but in the past decade, it’s had a small critical reevaluation as a fun, wacky movie with a Starship Troopers-type military allegory. The movie, directed by Peter Berg and written by the Hoeber brothers, is based on the classic board game, and has an all-star cast including the likes of Taylor Kitsch, Rihanna, and Liam Neeson.
When an alien invasion threatens Earth, a naval fleet must engage in an epic battle on every front. The impressive special effects are on par with most Transformer films, making for an exciting, explosive sci-fi adventure.
Bird Box (2018)
Netflix
Sandra Bullock made a remarkable comeback with this sci-fi horror story. The actress would publicly thank Netflix for giving her a second chance after Hollywood studios began favoring younger faces. Bird Box is an atmospheric and tense movie directed by Susanne Bier, based on a screenplay by Eric Heisserer.
Trevante Rhodes and John Malkovich star alongside Bullock in a post-apocalyptic world where unseen entities cause anyone who sees them to commit suicide. A woman and her two children must embark on a dangerous journey while blindfolded to save themselves.
Imagine a world where emotions are repressed for the sake of an orderly society. This is the question posed by Lois Lowry in the novel The Giver. The film of the same name was written by Michael Mitnick and directed by Phillip Noyce. The stellar casting includes veterans such as Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep, alongside newcomers Brenton Thwaites and Odeya Rush.
The story follows a supposedly utopian society where emotions and memories are suppressed after the fall of mankind until a young man named is chosen to be the Receiver of Memory. He would discover the dark truths that created this new, seemingly perfect facade.
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Universal Pictures
After Pitch Black became a sleeper hit, Universal saw the potential to expand on the lore of this character. The result was a bold entry in the Riddick saga. The Chronicles of Riddick is written and directed by David Twohy, with Vin Diesel returning to the role of the rogue Furyan.
The stakes escalate quite a bit in this story as Riddick finds himself at war with the Necromongers, a race of intergalactic zealots. The action-packed film features a large ensemble cast and some of the best action shots in the franchise, with Riddick fighting for his life and unwillingly becoming the ruler of a new empire.
The Colony (2013)
Image Entertainment
Imagine a world where climate change gets so bad, that humanity is forced to develop technology to control the weather at will until the machinery fails. The Colony tells a story about that scenario; this excellent sci-fi flick is written and directed by Jeff Renfroe and features the talents of Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Zegers.
In a post-apocalyptic frozen world, a group of survivors living in underground colonies receives a distress signal from another colony. A crew gets together to embark on a dangerous journey facing the elements and threats from within. The film was overshadowed by another, and admittedly superior, 2013 sci-fi film about a frozen post-apocalyptic world, Snowpiercer.
Oxygen (2021)
Netflix
Suppose you enter a cryogenic chamber to take a long nap in the future, and you suddenly wake up with no memory, running out of oxygen, only to find out from the manufacturer your chamber was damaged years ago. This claustrophobic sci-fi thriller Oxygen is written by Christie LeBlanc and directed with style by Alexandre Aja, featuring Mélanie Laurent as Liz.
With no memory of who she is, how she got there, and her oxygen supply running out, Liz faces the ticking countdown to her survival. She must do whatever she can to unravel the mystery of her identity and try to escape before it’s too late.
Mute (2018)
Netflix
Many critics gave this film an undeserved bad rap, but we’d like audiences to make up their own minds. Set in a futuristic neo-noir society and written and directed by Duncan Jones (who made waves with his excellent sci-fi film Moon), Mute features the talents of Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd, and Justin Theroux.
A mute bartender named Leo is searching for his missing girlfriend, and has to navigate the city’s underworld; he soon finds himself entangled in a web of crime and corruption. It’s a great story with all the tones of a detective pulp novel with a futuristic set-up, half Blade Runner, half Brick. The solid cast and enchanting visuals make it one solid offering in the ranking.
The first time we got Dune on the big screen was at the hands of David Lynch. The story is based on the novel by Frank Herbert, deemed unfilmable by multiple studios. Lynch co-wrote the script with Eric Bergren and assumed direction duties. The diverse cast includes Kyle MacLachlan, Virginia Madsen, Patrick Stewart, and Sting.
Set in a distant future where interstellar travel and political intrigue are the norm, the story follows the adventures of young nobleman Paul Atreides as he witnesses the downfall of his family while surviving power struggles and becoming the ruler of a new race. The original Dune has been regarded as a failure for a long time, but in recent years received a bit of a critical reevaluation, if only because it’s so bonkers. It’s a film with a lot of charm but doesn’t hold a candle to the current remake. Still, it can be appreciated for what it is and the novelty of it.
Project Power (2020)
Netflix
Some of the most brilliant superhero films are not from Marvel or DC. Project Power presents an exciting premise: what would you do with a pill that grants you superhuman abilities for five minutes each time you take it? The story is written by Mattson Tomlin and directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. The cast has an all-star lineup including Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dominique Fishback. We follow a former soldier, a cop, and a drug dealer who must join forces to take down the people behind the drug distribution.
Stowaway (2021)
Netflix
What would you do as a crew member in an interstellar mission if you suddenly find out you have a stowaway passenger in your ship? That’s the question posed by Stowaway, written and directed by Joe Penna with the assistance of Ryan Morrison. The outstanding cast includes Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, and Toni Collette. The story explores the consequences of an uninvited guest whose sole presence threatens the stability of the mission as all supplies in the ship are measured to cover the basic needs of the crew. It’s a film that explores pragmatism, humanity, and moral dilemmas.
The Wandering Earth (2019)
China Film Group Corporation Netflix
The Wandering Earth explores the idea of humanity’s contingency plan by the time the sun begins to die. Based on a novel by Liu Cixin, the author behind the massive hit The Three Body Problem, the film is directed by Frant Gwo, with the screenplay adapted by Gong Geer and Junce Ye. We follow a team of scientists looking to save humanity by moving the Earth out of the solar system and turning the planet into a giant spaceship. You can’t fault the story for going big to try and save us, and while the Chinese sci-fi film wasn’t a big blockbuster ot anything, its visuals are extremely imaginative and surreal.
What Happened to Monday? (2017)
Netflix
If you ever wondered about the acting range of Noomi Rapace, you only need to watch What Happened to Monday. The wild story, written by Max Botkin and Kerry Williamson, is directed by Tommy Wirkola and features the talents of Rapace, Willem Dafoe, and Glenn Close. In a dystopian future with strict population control measures, seven identical sisters (all portrayed by Rapace) must live a single life, each named after a day of the week and a distinct personality in order to hide their existence. When Monday suddenly goes missing, the other sisters must uncover the truth while evading the ruthless government enforcers.
You can never go wrong with anything directed by Paul Verhoeven. His bananas satire Starship Troopers is a clever adaptation of the novel by Robert A. Heinlein that explores themes of colonialism, warfare, and fascism. The incredible screenplay by Edward Neumeier is masterfully crafted for the talents of Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, and Neil Patrick Harris. The satire is very tongue-in-cheek, but it flies past many audiences. In the story, we follow the ongoing war between humanity against giant insectoid aliens, which has led to a complete reorganization of society as only the people who serve in the military are considered citizens.
World War Z (2013)
Paramount Pictures
World War Z has become something of a guilty pleasure for many people out there. While the film failed to capture the nuances of the novel by Max Brooks, it tells a competent story, even if it’s predictable. The script written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, and Damon Lindelof had to be reworked multiple times at the studio’s request. Marc Forster did his best to direct the feature, with solid acting from Brad Pitt as a former UN investigator who must travel the world to find a way to stop the global pandemic from turning people into zombies.
Circle (2015)
Netflix
Circle follows the same premise as Saw but ramps up the higher stakes. Written and directed by the duo of Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione, the film features a cast of working actors such as Allegra Masters, Michael Nardelli, and Julie Benz. The whole movie is set in a single room, where a group of strangers awakens to find themselves trapped and standing in marked circles. Someone in the circle dies every few minutes, forcing the remaining survivors to make difficult choices. It’s a great movie with tense pacing, and explores the moral dilemma of the lifeboat thought experiment and questions the weight of someone else’s death on a group.
Replicas (2018)
Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures
Replicas offers something entirely different: an underrated performance by Keanu Reeves. The intriguing writing of Chad St. John, and the direction of Jeffrey Nachmanoff, put Keanu in the shoes of an incredibly talented neuroscientist named William Foster, who loses his family in a car accident. Without thinking clearly and being overwhelmed by the grief, he becomes obsessed with bringing them back using the experimental cloning technology he’s been developing in his line of work. Foster delves deeper into the ethical and scientific ramifications by testing the limits of his own ethics and defying the laws of nature.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Tri-Star Pictures
Terminator 2: Judfgment Day or T2 is the sci-fi blockbuster that marked an entire generation. Written and directed by James Cameron, the second entry in the Terminator saga is considered by many as the last good film in the franchise. Cameron went all out and brought Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton back to pair them up with newcomers Edward Furlong and Patrick Stewart. The T-800 is back again, but he’s here to protect John Connor from the new menace represented by the T-1000. It’s a classic story full of twists and turns and plenty of action that remains the ultimate milestone in sci-fi cinema.
There are many game modes to look forward to for Madden fans. However, those who own older-gen consoles such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will not get to relish in the excitement of Madden NFL 24 game modes that PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S owners will get to.
EA Sports has proclaimed that because of the contrast in gameplay Madden players will experience due to platform differences, game modes will differ. Also, with the announcement that Madden 24 is cross-play compatible, knowing what game modes are coming is more of a priority now. In this post, I’ll be listing all of the game modes and what platforms get to enjoy them, as well as what game modes will be included in cross-play.
Listing All Madden NFL 24 Game Modes
EA has reintroduced some of the fan-favorite game modes while removing some of the deadweight from current-gen platforms that players were not in favor of. Some of these game modes will be a means of progression in a couple of single-player modes while also being stand-alone modes that players can play.
The developers have also introduced tiered abilities and real-time player grading to certain single-player modes, promising a far better NFL experience for Madden players after dropping The Yard and Face of the Franchise for newer-generation consoles and PC owners. Below is the list of Madden NFL 24 game modes.
New Game Mode Features Coming with Madden NFL 24 (Screenshot via Prima Games)
Madden NFL Game Modes for PS5 & Xbox Series X/S, & PC
Franchise Mode (Some major updates are only available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC),
Superstar: The League and Showdown,
Mini-Games,
Madden Ultimate Team, and
Madden NFL Skills Trainer.
Madden NFL Game Modes for PS4 & Xbox One
Franchise Mode,
Mini-games,
Madden Ultimate Team,
Madden NFL Skills Trainer,
The Yard (PS4 and Xbox One only), and
Face of the Franchise (PS4 and Xbox One only).
Cross-Play Game Modes
Players who want to enjoy cross-play gaming and features must have a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S, as cross-play is restricted to these platforms.
Head-to-Head,
Madden Ultimate Team (MUT),
Superstar KO, and
Superstar Showdown.
There should be more game modes coming with the game but we’ll know more about that closer to the time of release. For more on Madden 24, you can read: What is Madden NFL 24 Duel Entitlement? Learn how it benefits you if you’re thinking about running Madden 24 on a PS4 or Xbox One
Monty Python star John Cleese has revealed he plans to ditch the famous song ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ from his new stage adaptation of religious satire The Life Of Brian.
One of the most memorable scenes from the 1979 hit film was the finale when Brian (Graham Chapman) and his disciples broke into the song as they were being crucified.
“It was shocking in 1979. It was absolutely astonishing.
“People thought it was hilarious, they screamed with laughter. Well, nobody is going to be shocked now – the joke is 40 years old.
“People do love the song but do we want to end with something that’s completely predictable?”
And Cleese added that he will also ditch the scene where ‘Romans Go Home’ is written in graffiti, because the language is much less taught in schools now than when the film was released.
However, the comedy veteran doubled down on including the scene where revolutionary Stan announces he wants to be a woman and mother.
Cleese claimed it was “misreported” that he was planning to cut the “Loretta” scene. Instead, he said he has “no intention” of removing it.
The scene in question features a male character declaring that he wants to be woman named “Loretta,” and wants to have a child. Cleese’s character tells the man that the notion is ridiculous, while another suggets that they all advocate for his right to childbearing.
“I want to be a woman. … It’s my right as a man,” the character claims “I want to have babies… It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.” After Cleese’s protest, the character snaps, “Don’t you oppress me!”
Cleese told the Mail on Sunday he was still tweaking the script for the stage project after three years.
“I listen to everyone and then I think about it long term and make up my own idea at the end of that,” he said.
Secret Invasion is next in line to grow out the Marvel Cinematic Universe through Disney+’s array of Marvel originals. But is this Nick Fury-centric series helping guide the MCU in a more positive direction after several bad reviews in a row of Marvel content?
When the series picks up, it is clear that Secret Invasion’sbiggest Marvel connection is to Captain Marvel and Nick Fury’s relationship with Talos and his past with the Skrulls. The background conflict follows that the Skrulls may be going rogue and wish to take over Earth, eliminating the human population in the process.
The series premiere makes it clear that Nick Fury is not the man he once was. Rather than the man on top, the person three steps ahead with all the plans and backup plans, he has never been the same since returning from the Blip.
Nick Fury has lost some of his motivation and has abandoned Earth for a few years, but will his return help him regain control?
In the past, Marvel movies and shows have been condemned for trying to force jokes where they were not needed to keep the MCU’s comical tone in place. Secret Invasion’s first episode does not make that mistake, instead understanding that while sarcastic comments are allowed as a way to add moments of humor, the show does not need to go out of the way to add comedy in a way that will undermine the severity of the situation at hand.
While appearing in other MCU projects, such as Captain Marvel and in the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Skrulls have not been a heavily present population in previous Marvel projects.
Marvel may be using Secret Invasion to show that they will be more active in the MCU moving forward, especially when the upcoming The Marvels comes out, given Carol Danvers’ connection to the group.
While Nick Fury has been involved in Marvel projects for years, his role has jumped between being a key player and a background character. For the first time, Nick Fury’s involvement rests at the heart of the story, finally allowing his character to be explored beyond the strong presence for the Avengers he had always been.
While Secret Invasion spends a lot of time suggesting that Nick Fury had lost his way, the series still has plenty of time to dig into how he dealt with the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame and show how he can return to the man he had been, or take how he had responded to the Blip to show he is more vital than he had ever been before.
Secret Invasion spends a lot of time setting up the complicated friendship between Fury and Talos and how Talos struggles with the idea of harming one of his own. The premiere’s painfully unexpected ending may be exactly what Nick Fury needs to prepare himself for what will follow. Still, while Secret Invasion takes a different and potentially more serious approach, will this be the show that can help restore Marvel’s reputation? Or will it only help the MCU fall further?
Hit sitcom “Roseanne” was canceled by ABC in 2018 after a racially-charged tweet by Barr about Valerie Jarrett, an African-American woman who was a senior adviser to Barack Obama throughout his presidency. Barr later apologized.
Later that year, Goodman told the Sunday Times: “I was surprised at the response. And that’s probably all I should say about that … I know for a fact that she’s not a racist.” He added that Barr was “going through hell.” Barr then thanked Goodman “for speaking truth about me.”
At the Monte-Carlo Television Festival this week, where he served as president of the fiction jury, Variety sat down with Goodman in the Blue Gin Lounge of the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel, overlooking the Mediterranean.
Does Goodman regret speaking up for Barr? “No. At the time I remember going to some kind of junket where they saw the pilot, and then the interviews, and it just turned into attack. And that made me very uncomfortable with them just attacking Roseanne.”
He adds: “Yeah, I felt bad for her. And then, yeah … I just feel terrible about the whole thing. You know, we had a great time. And I love her. She’s just her own person.”
Would he work with her again? “I don’t know. If she’d liked to … I just don’t know. I miss her,” he says. “I wish her well.”
John Goodman, Roseanne Barr in Season 8 of “Roseanne”
Courtesy of Carsey-Werner/Paramount Television/ABC/Everett Collection
Reflecting on the success of blue-collar comedies “Roseanne” and “The Conners,” which is a reboot of “Roseanne” but with Barr’s character killed off in an early episode, what does Goodman see as their strengths?
“I think a lot of people have tied into the struggle that it lives paycheck to paycheck. And we try to handle it with humor,” he says. “Roseanne said something very early in the process: ‘Just because we’re poor doesn’t make us stupid.’ And I think that has a lot to say for the series, but it’s a struggle that’s handled with humor.”
Goodman says there are not many shows that treat blue-collar families with that level of respect.
“The Righteous Gemstones” is another success, with some saying it is a worthy successor to “Succession” for HBO. Asked what its winning qualities are, Goodman says: “Its outrageousness and the bizarre characters that are somehow grounded in reality. The lust for money and power. The insecurities. You know everybody’s got insecurities, but for these people they’re blown up to Godzilla proportions.”
Asked whether he still enjoys working in comedies, Goodman says: “Oh, yes, very much so. I’m more of a straight man in ‘The Righteous Gemstones,’ so I get to sit back and watch a free show.”
Goodman doesn’t believe he’ll appear again on “Saturday Night Live.” “No. My time may have passed. Yeah, it might be a generational thing. I know Steve Martin still goes on and does things.” Does he have any desire maybe to play Donald Trump on the show, for example? “Oh, no, there’s too many Trumps out there. We’re over Trumped,” he says.
What are his views on the former President? “I’ve become weary of him,” Goodman says. “He is so corrosive and it’s just rotten from the inside out.”
He looks back at the period when he worked on several Coen Brothers films with fondness. “I used to hang around on the set on my days off just because I liked being there. They made me laugh,” he says. Asked why they kept casting him, he says maybe they shared “a Midwestern sensibility.”
John Goodman and Jeff Bridges in 1998’s “The Big Lebowski”
Courtesy of Gramercy Pictures/Everett Collection
Reflecting on what makes the Coen Brothers stand apart from other directors, he says: “They strike a more personal note with me. It’s just their writing is superior and their sense of humor and their vision. And maybe it’s the fact that we are Midwestern transplants to New York. Perhaps it has something to do with it. But I hit it off with them as soon as I met them. We had a grand old time at my audition for ‘Raising Arizona.’ Yeah, I feel like my tickets have run out on the Coen Brothers because I haven’t seen them for so long and haven’t worked with them.”
Having spent a week watching series from around the world, he judges the quality of the non-U.S. shows as “very good.” Does he see many differences between U.S. and foreign shows? “Not especially. I mean, both sides have mandatory fucking now,” he says.
He enjoys watching British series in particular, even when he’s not on a jury. “More than half the stuff I watch is British or British influence with British writers,” he says. After Monte-Carlo, he heads to London, but not for work. “Just to hang out. I love going to the theater there. For me it’s very special and I love… the British actors are just crackerjack, just top hole, and the theater is great. I just love being there and walking around.”
“Technically,” he says, New Orleans is his home, “but since I’m always either in L.A. or Charleston, South Carolina, I’m rarely there.” Has he considered retiring? “I did, a couple of years ago, but I really enjoy acting so much that, yeah, it wouldn’t kill me to do like one or two things a year. I’ve just been going nonstop.”
It’s no secret that House of the Dragon is an intense show to make. From brutal action sequences to explicit sex scenes to incredibly deep and profound drama that includes complex fantasy vocabulary the show can’t be easy to make, and it turns out it wasn’t easy to audition for either. Emma D’Arcy, who plays Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen opened up about their audition, and let’s just say this “three-month” process sounded like a lot.
Now that Season 1 of House of the Dragon has been out for a while and Season 2 of the Game of Thrones prequel is on its way, it’s hard to imagine D’Arcy having to audition, because they’re so magnificent in the show. However, while speaking about how scary it was to say yes to such a massive series, the actor also detailed their audition process, and just how intense it was, telling THR:
Then I auditioned [via self-tape] for three months during the pandemic after losing a year of work, so in some ways, I think my hands were tied. Halfway through the process, the then-showrunner, Miguel Sapochnik, called to ask me if I owned a wig. A proper person would’ve asked someone who does hair for advice.
They went on to say between them and their partner they stuck hair that they had from another job on their head, and then proceeded to do a self-tape. That audition process then lasted for three months and at the end, D’Arcy had a four-hour in-person audition as they said:
I auditioned for three months. At the end of that, I did a four-hour in-person audition. And then I didn’t hear anything.
Like most people I’d imagine, Jennifer Coolidge, who was part of the THR roundtable, couldn’t help but follow up about the four-hour audition. She asked D’Arcy what it was like, and the Rhaenyra actor went into detail about their entire experience saying:
I feel like, by the end of three months, I had taped every scene in the show. Because they took a punt on me, I guess, in that I couldn’t bring an audience. I just remember that it was good for a while and then it was awful. And then after a few hours, they said, ‘Great, you can go home and get drunk, we’ll be in touch.’ Then Miguel came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders and said, ‘Can we do one more?’
Among the principal House of the Dragon cast, D’Arcy was not the best-known actor of the bunch. It’s also commonly known that audition processes for massive projects of this scale can have secretive, long and intense tryouts. However, this feels like it was on another level, as the actor also had to tape themselves filming scenes they didn’t even do in the show because the first half of HOTD features younger actors as various characters, including Rhaenyra and Alicent.
However, the actor who plays the older version of Rhaenyra did the scenes, and said they ended up filming what felt like the entire show throughout the audition process. D’Arcy continued to speak about the experience, saying:
It was the virtuosic performance of my life. And they got me to tape [as the character] across the series, even though I’d only play the older character.
Talk about intense! I guess this is one way to really make sure you have the right actor for the part, and they 100% got the right person for Rhaenyra, because Emma D’Arcy is a true force.
I’d imagine that while it was intense, this process did help prepare them to shoot House of the Dragon. Matt Smith has said filming the show was a lot at times, and Paddy Considine explained that he actually was injured while shooting Viserys’ final scene. On top of that, this period drama features high-fantasy concepts, CGI dragons and the pressure of being the follow-up to Game of Thrones. In other words, this show has to be a real challenge to make. However, the cast and crew proved over their first season that they’re more than up for the challenge.
If you want to go back and watch Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen you can stream House of the Dragon with a Max subscription.
Veteran producer Arnon Milchan testified on Sunday in the long-running corruption trial against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, involving three separate charges of breach of trust and fraud.
Milchan gave his evidence via video-link to the Jerusalem District Court from a room in The Old Ship Hotel in the UK seaside resort of Brighton, close to his current home, in the presence of Netanyahu’s wife Sara Netanyahu.
Scores of Israeli demonstrators gathered outside the hotel to protest corruption in Israel as well as Netanyahu’s controversial overhaul of the judiciary.
Defend Israeli Democracy UK, the UK arm of the Israeli protest movement, is demonstrating outside a Brighton hotel this morning where Hollywood billionaire producer Arnon Milchan is giving testimony in the corruption trial of Benjamin Netanyahu via video link to Jerusalem pic.twitter.com/kuaX5WM4dj
Milchan told the hearing he had given gifts of champagne, cigars and jewellery to Netanyahu and his wife.
He said the gift-giving began of his own volition but that over time Netanyahu had started making requests and that it had become routine, with the politician using code words to indicate what he wanted such as “pink” for champagne “leaves” for cigars.
Milchan told the hearing that considered Netanyahu as a friend – even calling out “Hello Bibi” as the prime minister walked into the court room in Jerusalem on Sunday.
“I saw him as a close friend, between friends and comrades,” said the producer, who has freely admitted to acting as spy for Israel in the past.
Milchan has not been back to his native Israel since 2016, after he was grilled there by the prosecutors in the early days of corruption case, but he is witness and not a suspect.
Under the case known as “Case 1000”, Netanyahu is accused of having a conflict of interest after he intervened in the interest of Milchan’s business interests in return for lavish gifts from the producer and Australian billionaire James Packer.
The trial against Netanyahu began in Jerusalem in May 2020, with witness testimony from more than 300 witnesses beginning in April 2021.
Other well-known figures on the list of witnesses first announced in 2019 include U.S. casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, Oracle Corp co-founder Larry Ellison and UK-American billionaire Len Blavatnik.
Over a year after first teasing it on his radio show, Drake has released his debut book of poetry. Titles Ruin Everything: A Stream of Consciousness is out now via Phaidon. He co-wrote the collection with Kenza Samir, a longtime friend and songwriting collaborator who contributed to albums like Views and If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late. The publisher’s website describes Titles Ruin Everything as a 168-page collection of never-before-published poems about “fame, romance, and relationships.”
In newspaper ads promoting Titles Ruin Everything, Drake included a QR code that leads to a website with the following message: “I made an album to go with the book. They say they miss the old Drake girl don’t tempt me. FOR ALL THE DOGS.” No release date is mentioned.
It’s All a Blur Tour with 21 Savage is about to begin later this week on June 29. Drake recently added additional dates to the tour, including stops in new cities like Toronto, Austin, Milwaukee, and Denver as well as extra nights at some of the sold-out locations. In March, Drake fans filed a class-action lawsuit again Ticketmaster, alleging that seat prices for the original run of shows were artificially inflated.
Earlier this month, British rapper J Hus tapped Drake for his new song “Who Told You.” As for his own material, Drake released both Honestly, Nevermind and Her Loss, his collaborative LP with 21 Savage, last year.
So you’ve made a movie — now what? You might think that the hard part is over, but it’s not, not quite yet.
Even if you’ve already got your film lined up at festivals or theaters, you still need to promote it if you want to get people in the seats watching it. But viewers today are not as easily enticed, meaning you’ve sometimes got to get creative with your marketing if you really want to create a buzz for your film.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the more unique ways you can stir up interest in your film and hopefully sell out your screenings.
1. Write Your Own Movie Review
Before your film is even submitted, you need to stir up a buzz to get people interested. But how do you do that if no one has even seen the film yet?
This is how most people find out about films being shown at screenings — they read some blurb somewhere written by a movie critic, and then they decide whether it sounds good enough to go see. But there is no need to pay a film reviewer to critique your movie when you can just do it yourself.
You’re a filmmaker, after all, so you should know just what to say to get people interested. But the key to writing your own review is knowing where to post it. Social media is a great choice, as most people are active on social media every day. But you can also write an article for indie filmmaker websites and then slip a blurb in about your movie in a small section of the article.
2. Stand Outside the Theater With a Sandwich Sign
This one might seem a bit silly, but it works!
We’ve all seen those human directionals and sign twirlers standing outside businesses — and even if you snicker at them, they got your attention, didn’t they? As goofy or awkward as it might seem, people have been using this kind of marketing for years because it genuinely works.
Honestly, the humor in this type of marketing is why it works so well. It turns heads and makes people laugh, but in doing so, it gets them to pay attention.
So next time your film is showing, and you want to sell out your screening, go ahead and get crafty. Make yourself a sign to wear, maybe even carry some fun instruments in your hands to make some noise, put on a costume even, and start spreading the word about your film to everyone who passes by.
3. Tap Into the Power of Social Media
Social media is perhaps no longer a unique marketing tool, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention it. Everyone and their grandma uses social media today, so it really is one of the best places to market your movie and even boost your filmmaking career as a whole.
However, instead of just talking about the usual social media posts, we’re gonna talk about something a little different to keep in line with the unique marketing suggestions: running a social media contest.
People love to win free stuff, so what better way to promote your film than by turning it into a contest?
There are many different ways you could do this, but one option is to run a social media photo contest that is on theme with your film. Simply pick a theme that relates to your movie, have people submit photos along the lines of that theme, and then award the winner with free passes or tickets to see your film screening. It’s as simple as that.
And you can do this as many times as your heart desires. The more contests you run, the more buzz you will create surrounding your film.
4. Design Free Swag to Hand Out
Keeping in line with giving away free stuff, you can also design some fun swag to hand out to people to get them interested in your movie. These can be items you give away online, they could be included in the winnings for your social media contest, or you can simply hand them out to people in person, like when you’re wearing that sandwich sign and standing outside the theater.
You can print art for your film onto canvas bags — because who doesn’t love a free bag for carrying around all their stuff? You can make pins for your movie that people can wear. Or you can get really creative and have some fun custom temporary tattoos made. Items like these can also be a real hit at after-parties or other events where you are interacting with the public.
5. Commission a Wall Mural
This one is perhaps a bit of a pricier marketing investment, but if you really want to sell out your screening, this is an excellent way to go.
Studios and filmmakers have been using wall murals to promote their films for years now because they are effective. Nothing is more eye-catching than a beautiful work of art covering the side of a building or painted across a fence.
Of course, you’ll need to get permission from the property owner and find an artist to collaborate with. But as wall mural advertisements are all the rage these days, there are plenty of businesses and artists out there already that are willing to collaborate on these kinds of projects.
6. Take a Digital Marketing Class
If you’re still struggling to create a buzz for your film, you can always hit the books and learn a thing or two about film promotion by taking an online digital marketing class. Courses like these can teach you the skills that you need to run effective email campaigns, use Google Analytics to track the success of your social media posts and film-related ads and teach you how to design eye-catching posters and promotional materials.
With so many others out there already promoting their films or brands on the internet, things can get a bit crowded, meaning it’s difficult to stand out. But a digital marketing class can provide you with invaluable resources to help you master the online marketing landscape.
Final Thoughts
What are you waiting for? Get out there and start promoting!
The ideas above are just a few to get you started, but as a filmmaker, you should already have a creative mind. Don’t be afraid to dig deep into your innovative coffers to come up with some truly unique and creative promotion ideas.
When it comes to stirring up interest in a film, nothing is too out there these days. And remember, even silly marketing is still marketing that is going to get people’s attention.
Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.
A PERSON has been killed and several were injured in a horror rollercoaster crash in Stockholm.
The tragic accident at the Grona Lund amusement park happened when the park’s Jetline roller coaster partly derailed during a ride.
2
The crash at the amusement park left one dead and several injuredCredit: Reuters
2
The accident happened at the Grona Lund amusement parkCredit: Reuters
A spokesperson for the amusement park said that the crash left one dead and several people injured.
Eyewitnesses spoke of “chaotic” scenes as police cordoned off parts of the park while it appears the accident caused the ride’s wheels to come off.
A witness named Cecilia told Aftonbladet: “First we heard three, four loud bangs. People started screaming and then people started running.
“At first they thought it was a shooting. Then we saw how the wheels from the cart were on the ground.
“That was probably what sounded so loud. It’s terrible, this kind of thing can’t happen.”
Police said they were still investigating.
“We are emptying the park and we’ve started our investigation,” a police spokesperson said.
Grona Lund said in a statement the 140-year-old park was closed until further notice.
Jenny Lagerstedt, a journalist visiting the park with her family, told SVT she was nearby and heard a metallic noise and noticed the track structure was shaking at the time of the accident.
She said: “My husband saw a roller coaster car with people in it falling to the ground.
“My children were scared,” she added.
Head of information at the park Annika Troselius, said that several people are injured and that the extent of the damage is unclear.
She told Aftonbladet: “I have just arrived on site and will receive an update on the situation.
“The park has been evacuated and emergency services are on site. Now we focus on taking care of the affected and our staff.
“The reason for that is something that we must return to. Everyone is one hundred percent focused on helping the victims now.”
The steel-tracked Jetline roller coaster reaches a speed of up to 56 mph and a height of 98 feet, transporting more than one million visitors each year, the amusement park says on its website.
Tom Holland shared that his carpentry skills played a part in romancing Zendaya.
“Carpentry is something I just really enjoy,” the Crowded Room star, 27, said in an interview with Unilad that was published on Friday, June 23. “I made my mum’s kitchen table. I made my mum’s office. I built all the cupboards in my bedroom. I built a little birdhouse with my granddad. I fixed my girlfriend’s door once really early on in our relationship.”
Holland and Zendaya’s relationship went public in July 2021 when they were photographed kissing in a car in Los Angeles, confirming years of romance rumors that date back to the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017.
Though he didn’t say exactly when he impressed the Euphoria star, 26, with his handiwork, Holland explained that he was determined to show his girlfriend how helpful he was.
“I was hanging out at her house and her door was broken,” the England native recalled. “I was like, ‘I’m gonna fix that door for you.’ And now we’re in love.”
This wasn’t the first time Holland has said he’s “in love” with his Spider-Man costar. “I’m locked up, so I’m happy and in love. So, I’ve got no need for rizz,” he said in a June 14 video interview with BuzzFeed, referring to the slang term for “charisma” when it comes to flirting.
Holland added that Zendaya is the only person who thinks he has “rizz,” so he needs someone “to fall in love with me, really, for it to work,” noting that the easiest way to do so is by “making a movie with each other,” as he and Zendaya did. They starred in three Spider-Man movies together, released between 2017 and 2021.
“It definitely helps when the characters you’re playing are falling in love with one another,” he quipped. “You can sort of blur the lines a little bit.”
“Our relationship is something that we are incredibly protective of and we want to keep as sacred as possible,” Holland told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month. “We don’t think that we owe it to anyone, it’s our thing, and it has nothing to do with our careers.”
Sign up for Us Weekly’s free, daily newsletter and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more!
The two-time Emmy winner and her beau are “serious and permanent,” an insider exclusively told Us Weekly in November 2022. “They’re both in settling-down mode and are absolutely planning for a real future together,” the source shared at the time.
Shanghai was the venue for the launch of Chinese streaming firm iQiyi’s latest venture into Virtual Reality.
Its ‘Luoyang VR Project’ is an immersive experience that is one of the 12 zones within iQiyi’s ‘Chinese Historic City Universe’ and is set in a representation of the ancient city of Luoyang in Henan province. Requiring headsets and using a physical space of some 300 square metres, the set-up stimulates the physical experience of high winds, waterfalls and explosions.
IQiyi described the project as “the first attempt in the VR industry to integrate different elements from immersive theatre, VR, and original IP,” and said that it leverages “inside-out tracking” technology and other industry-leading, sensory-simulation techniques to build in cars, boats, carriages, and other props. “The upshot is a highly realistic environment that fully immerses the audience in the story,” the company said.
The project has attracted more than 5,000 users to date and will later relocate to Luoyang itself and then Beijing.
IQiyi made its first move into VR in 2018 when it established its Dreamverse studio and began developing its first offline project. In 2020, Dreamverse began curating VR projects and fully-immersive experiences.
“The Chinese content market provides a host of excellent IPs, but the industry is still at the beginning of harnessing the full potential of these Ips,” said Zhang Hang, senior VP of iQiyi. “The ‘Luoyang VR Project’ shows how incorporating technological innovations and a localized approach to exploring VR commercialization, original IP-based projects boost both the content market and cultural consumption at large.”
Hu Shihui, founder and CEO of metaverse-themed park X-META, iQiyi’s partner and offline operator of the project, pointed out in addition to a highly immersive “in-theatre” experience, the project also generates user interest by incorporating dining and opportunities for dressing up in costumes and photoshoots.
Building on the momentum of the Luoyang VR Project, iQiyi expects to launch three shorter interactive experience projects including “Mars Rescue,” “Kunlun Maze” and “Apocalyptic Adventure” at the end of June. These projects target particular audience segments—such as couples.
SPOILER ALERT: This video discusses the ending of HBO’s “Barry,” now streaming on Max.
Beloved “Barry” breakout Noho Hank, played by the delightful Anthony Carrigan, originally had a slightly different ending on the series that intertwined his final moments with co-star Sarah Goldberg. However, series co-creator and star Bill Hader, realized this was a “massive mistake.”
Hader, Carrigan, Stephen Root (who played Monroe Fuches), executive producer Aida Rodgers, assistant director Gavin Kleintop, cinematographer Carl Herse and stunt coordinator Wade Allen joined Variety’s “Making a Scene,” presented by HBO, to breakdown the epic standoff between Hank and Fuches in the series finale.
“I initially made a massive mistake in his death,” Hader told Variety. “I thought Sally and NoHo Hank meeting was this really big moment in the show,” Hader explained, but not without pausing several times to laugh at his own process. “It’s embarrassing even talking about it.” Earlier in the series finale, Hank and Sally (Goldberg) shared a much longer moment of connection over Barry. “You see that they kind of have this common bond, which is that they both love Barry and they’ve both been wronged by Barry. I thought, ‘Oh, they would connect,’” Hader said.
That connection would later resurface as Hank dies at the feet of his immortalized lover, a golden statue of Cristobal (Michael Irby.) “So he’s up against the statue and he is reaching up to Cristobal and then it was a close up of his hand. And then you saw Sally’s hand come into frame and she puts his hand into Cristobal’s hand and he looks up at her and Sally kind of looks at him and they have this kind of moment where she’s like, ‘We get each other.’ And then she walks away and he’s at peace and that’s how he dies.”
Immediately, Goldberg questioned this scene, why would she sympathize with a mobster who held her son hostage? “I had no answer,” Hader said. “I realized later the answers were fan service. I got insecure and I was like, ‘Oh, the fans will love this.’ Two, I was insecure and enough people had told me, ‘The show has gotten so bleak’ that I was like, ‘Oh, it should have a nice hopeful moment.’”
Hader eventually reshot the whole thing, laughingly revealing that his editors actually refused to edit his original vision together.
Carrigan was excited to re-shoot his character’s death. “One of the biggest things for actors is once you do something, especially on the drive home, you’re like, ‘Oh, I should have done it that way. Oh, wow. Yep. I should have… You know what? I should have used my left hand because…’ I really felt this relief that I was going to be able to do it again and focus on different things.”
Most importantly, this new death scene would show the repercussions of Hank’s actions this season, and omit him from getting a tidy (despite bloody) happy ending. “Hank kind of sees where he went wrong and sees just how everything has come to a head,” Carrigan said. “I think what was really beautiful about the second time we shot it is that it just felt like the stakes were much higher and it felt more in keeping with the show.” Hader agreed sitting Carrigan’s choices in the moment to recreate Barry’s own death and the void of nothingness that consumed them as a perfect decision for Hank’s end.
Also worth noting was that the second take went full circle for Hank. Carrigan had to shoot his final moments not clutching the metallic hand of his murdered lover, Cristobal, but Hader’s hand, who stood just slightly off camera to help with his eyeline. “That was just really, really meaningful and really kind of beautiful just to feel someone’s hand,” Carrigan said. “It was really special too because it was just the last day, and I appreciate Bill so much, and yeah, it was just a real beautiful moment of connection.”
Watch the full conversation about the entire scene above, including the difficulty of pulling off this elaborate stunt, what the significance of Barry’s son meant to Fuches and how the “Wizard of Oz” appeared in the final moments of Hank and Cristobal’s sad love story.
Texas forever! Friday Night Lights stole viewers’ hearts for five seasons on NBC — and the cast has just as much love for the series as their fans do.
The series was inspired by H.G. Bissinger’s nonfiction book, which was later adapted into the 2004 film of the same name. From 2006 to 2011, the show followed the journeys of high school athletes and their families in a rural Texas town, picking up a Peabody Award, a Television Critics Association Award and several Emmy Award nominations along the way.
Five years after the show went off the air, the cast reunited on the real-life Panther Field in Austin, Texas, at the 2016 ATX Television Festival.
“Being back here is amazing,” Scott Porter, who played revered athlete Jason Street, told Entertainment Weekly at the time. “We used to play flag football on this field and I think that, even more than shooting out here, means something to me in a special way and to be where those memories were made, where those friendships were really forged and ironed.”
Two years later, Porter opened up about the possibility of a revival of the sports drama — but emphasized that he thought the series gave each character the right amount of “closure” by the end. “There’s a lot of shows that end too early and the fanbase and those involved never get the closure that they really need,” he told Us Weekly. “I think a lot of us from Friday Night Lights all got the closure because it ended so well.”
Though fans have been holding out hope for a reboot, Adrianne Palicki, who played Tyra Collette, shut down all speculation in April 2020.
“I don’t know about you guys but I get this question every time I’m interviewed: Will there be a reunion episode or will there be a spinoff?” the actress asked her fellow costars, who reunited over Zoom for Global Citizen’s #TogetherAtHome special during the coronavirus pandemic. “The answer is no.”
While the cast have remained mum about the chances of a Friday Night Lights reboot, costars Porter and Zach Gilford teamed up with longtime FNL fan Mae Whitman (who worked with showrunner Jason Katims on NBC’s Parenthood) for a rewatch podcast in November 2022.
“I called Zach and said, ‘Yes, I have an opportunity for you,’ to which he initially balked but then very quickly went, ‘Oh dude, does that mean we get to hang out a couple of days a week?’” the Ginny & Georgiastar told Entertainment Tonightat the time. “We brought Mae in because we wanted this podcast to be more than just about Friday Night Lights. We wanted it to be about life and about friendship and community.”
Sign up for Us Weekly’s free, daily newsletter and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more!
Scroll down to learn more about where the cast of Friday Night Lights is today.
The actor, who is known for his friendly and approachable nature, took a moment to pose for a selfie with fans.
Varun Dhawan recently wrapped up shooting for his upcoming web series Citadel India in Serbia. The actor has finally returned to India and was spotted at the airport today. While coming out of the airport, the actor was seen surrounded by fans. The video has gone viral on social media.
The actor, who is known for his friendly and approachable nature, took a moment to pose for a selfie with fans. In the video, shared by Viral Bhayani, we can see a fan approaching him for a selfie. The actor was seated in the car but still obliged them with pictures. The video has been garnering a wave of positive reactions from fans and followers. Viewers were touched by the actor’s down-to-earth nature. One of the fans wrote, “Super star Varun Dhawan.” Another wrote, “I Love You VD.”
Watch the video here:
Citadel, a collaboration between the Russo brothers and Raj and DK, promises to be a gripping espionage thriller that transcends borders. The series combines the storytelling prowess of these acclaimed creators with the stellar performances of an exceptional cast, including Sikandar Kher and Samantha Prabhu.
On the work front, Varun will be next seen in Bawaal with Janhvi Kapoor. The makers have skipped theatrical release and opted for the digital route. The romantic drama is set to release on Prime Video next month. The date is yet to be announced. Apart from this his film Bawaal with Janhvi Kapoor is all set to release on OTT.
Prime Video took to its Instagram handle and shared the poster writing, “Badlega sabke dilon ka haal kyunki duniya bhar mein hone wala hai Bawaal. Iss July… banega mahaul as #BawaalGoesGlobal
Produced by #SajidNadiadwala and directed by @niteshtiwari22, #BawaalOnPrime to premiere worldwide in over 200 countries and territories only on @primevideoin.”
In the poster, Janhvi can be seen wearing a mauve colour kurta and Varun is seen wearing a brown colour shirt. They are holding each other. But we can also see war in the poster.
Authorities confirmed that human remains have been found near the search area where British actor Julian Sands went missing during a hike in January.
The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Dept. confirmed late on Saturday that civilian hikers discovered human remains in the Mt. Baldy wilderness earlier that day.
“Fontana Station deputies, along with the Sheriff’s Department’s Emergency Operations Division, responded to the scene,” sheriffs said in a news release. “The decedent was transported to the Coroner’s Office, pending positive identification. Identification should be completed next week at which time we will update this press release. No further details are available at this time.”
The search for Sands, an experienced hiker, resumed on June 17 after five months. The Mt. Baldy area experienced extreme weather conditions this winter, delaying the possibility of a new search until a warmer climate made it safer for authorities.
Although California weather has been warmer in recent months, “multiple areas include steep terrain and ravines, which still have 10 plus feet of ice and snow,” the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Dept. explained in an earlier release.
Over 80 search and rescue volunteers, deputies and staff conducted the June 17 search along with two helicopters and drone crews, according to authorities. Drones also searched inaccessible areas that ground crews couldn’t access.
Sands, known for his roles in “A Room With a View” and “Warlock,” was reported missing Jan. 13. He had been hiking in the Baldy Bowl hiking area, approximately 50 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
On Wednesday, his family released a statement via the sheriffs’ office, saying, “We are deeply grateful to the search teams and coordinators who have worked tirelessly to find Julian.
“We continue to hold Julian in our hearts with bright memories of him as a wonderful father, husband, explorer of the natural world and the arts, and as an original and collaborative performer,” the statement said.
So far, Emilia Clark has had nothing but great things to say about her time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the actress is a veteran of other popular franchises including “Game of Thrones”, “Star Wars”, and “Terminator”, she has made no secret of the fact that she has enjoyed Marvel the most.
Clarke joined the MCU for “Secret Invasion”, the Disney+ series that stars Samuel L. Jackson reprising his role as Nick Fury. In the show, Clarke plays the Skrull G’iah, a shape-shifting alien and daughter of Ben Medelsohn’s Talos.
Source: hypebeast.com
An Almost Disastrous Experience
While everything went well during the filming of the series, Clarke revealed that the shoot was almost disastrous.
“I nearly ran [Jackson] over,” she said.
Getty Images North America
“They put me in a Lada, which is like a very old Russian car,” Clarke continues. “And I got in and I was like, ‘Hey, what’s with the six [shift knobs] up in here? Which one am I using? Why does it have 10 pedals?’ It’s [like] a tractor… I know how to drive. I know how to drive stick. [But there wasn’t] enough time. They’re saying, ‘We’ve gotta go. We’re shooting. Come on honey. Just go. We’re gonna go.’
“So I’m like, ‘OK, I can do this. It’s just one stop.’ Get in there. We get up to it. The camera is right there. Sam is right there. And I pressed the wrong thing, I pressed the accelerator rather than the brake.”
Photo: Marvel
Luckily, Clarke found the brake just as quickly as she found the acceleration, and did not, in fact, mow down Jackson.
All’s Well That Ends Well
So, how did the Hollywood legend respond to the near-death experience?
“He was very gentlemanly and lovely and nice,” Clarke said.
Source: Marvel Studios
“Then I cried a little bit and someone else drove it for me.”
Secret Invasion is now streaming on Disney+.
Thanks for visiting MickeyBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below, and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond Level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon!
This is the first time the series has tackled fully functional four player co-op, with previous games having incorporated multiplayer co-op play with limited functions. With the four-player co-op some fans have compared Sonic Superstars to the New Super Mario Bros. games. Much like Nintendo’s platformers, Sonic Superstars has four different playable characters: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose. However, this is limited to drop-in local couch co-op, with Takashi Iizuka, the creative officer at Sonic Team, explaining why.
For more than two decades, the Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) has been a draw for genre filmmakers from across the globe and a pull for Swiss youth. Heading into its 22nd edition, which runs June 30 – July 8, the lakeside event will once again showcase the kind outré and audacious fare that Neuchatel’s reliable and devoted young public has come to expect, while continuing to bridge outward, welcoming more unfamiliar faces into the fold.
“By instinct, influence, and mutual attraction, genre cinema will always appeal to the young,” says NIFFF director Pierre-Yves Walder. “In fact, NIFFF attracts one of the youngest publics of any Swiss festival, but I’d like to convert different audiences of perhaps different ages as well. And not just for commercial reasons; I find it so interesting and essential to mix things up.”
Showcasing 124 films, including eight world premieres and seven international launches, this year’s selection should speak to Neuchatel’s increasingly diversified base. Of the 14 titles screening in the festival’s international competition, nearly half are feature debuts, with projects like Sofia Alaoui’s Sundance-acclaimed “Animalia,” Bishal Dutta’s SXSW-breakout “It Lives Inside” and Amanda Nell Eu’s Cannes Critics’ Week winner “Tiger Stripes” leading the vanguard for a new generation of fantastic auteurs.
Set in a future vision of Prague, the reanimation whodunit “Restore Point,” from director Robert Hloz, has the Neuchatel chief particularly excited. “The film is considered to be the first Czech science fiction film in 40 years,” Walder enthuses. “The film is aesthetically striking, with a thriller, investigation plot, and very philosophical elements as well. And it’s part of our mission to present these different propositions, which are accessible, if not necessarily easy to get out.”
“Restore Point”
Courtesy of NIFFF
Now going into his second year as NIFFF director, Walder has also made it his mission to expand his festival’s scope. He set his intentions last year by inviting Joyce Carol Oates to lead the jury, and clarified his more expansive view by offering this year’s president slot to French actor and director Josiane Balasko, a comedian best known for cult comedies like “French Twist” and the “French Fried Vacation” series.
“I like the idea of reaching out to other audiences,” Walder explains. “Josiane Balasko is obviously ultra-famous for her comedic work, but she’s also a prolific author and fan of science fiction and fantasy stories. [Celebrating Balasko] helps us show the fantastic from a more unexpected angle, spotlighting someone very much connected to the world, but with broader and more unexpected edge.”
Rounding out the Balasko-led jury are Austrian director Veronika Franz (“Goodnight Mommy”), French director Olivier Babinet (“Fishlove”), action auteur John McTiernan (“Die Hard”) and acclaimed graphic novelistic Charles Burns (“Black Hole”), a motely mix that underscores the festival’s strong cross-media and interdisciplinary interests. “We try to showcase genre from every style and angle,” Walder says. “That means making connections between cinema, literature and contemporary art.”
This year’s edition will host the first-ever career retrospective to Katsuhito Ishii, with the cult Japanese filmmaker – who was tapped by Quentin Tarantino for the animated sections of “Kill Bill Vol. 1” – on-hand to present his live-action and animated work, and to world premiere two projects finished decades ago and unscreened for as many years.
“He’s one of those unmissable guests we’re delighted to welcome,” says Walder. “He really represents something a little edgier, and represents Neuchatel’s huge commitment to Asian cinema and representation.”
Though an annual fixture and a summer rendezvous for thousands of guests, the fantasy festival is also looking to build a more perennial outpost. NIFFF recently partnered with the municipality and with local resident John Howe – the acclaimed Tolkien illustrator and chief conceptual designer for everything and anything “Lord of the Rings” – to rehabilitate and repurpose a former prison turret, and to rename it the Tower of the Fantastic.
Aiming for a 2025 open, the tower will offer Howe a permanent exhibition space and give NIFFF a fixed administrative home. Moreover, the project will also serve as an artistic incubator and embassy where screenwriters, authors, directors and inter-disciplinary fantasy fans can continue to find inspiration in Neuchatel throughout the year.
“Fantasy is always a place of possibility,” says Walder. “Nothing is off-limits in terms of the guests we receive or the themes we explore. We always manage to reinvent something; there’s constant renewal, and I find that very exciting.”
No matter how you feel about Hailey Bieber, it’s hard to deny her ability to set a trend—and end one.
On June 22, the 26-year-old Rhode Skin founder stepped out in her best slipdress and sneaker combo yet, styling a sheer white ankle-length dress with matching underwear and a pair of white and green sneakers. As for her beauty look, the influencer later showed off her diligently cropped chin-length bob, glowy skin, and rosy lips in a series of car selfies, captioned, “summer traffic.”
Instagram content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
“I can’t handle this cute face w this cute hair,” close friend Kylie Jennercommented on the post. I, however, would like to draw your attention to slide two of the carousel, in which Bieber debuted her latest manicure—the antithesis of the glazed donut nails she helped popularize in the spring of 2022. Instead of her signature neutral pearlescent mani, Hailey Bieber is currently rocking long, slightly chipped milky black nails that added a bit of nonchalant drama to her all-white ensemble.
James Mangold, Hugh Jackman, and Patrick Stewart at the Logan premiere in 2017Photo: Pascal Le Segretain (Getty Images)
James Mangold is an uncommon franchise film director, with a resumé (especially of late, where his stints in the blockbuster mines have included dips into the X-Men and Indiana Jones franchises, with Star Wars on its way) that screams “hired hand”—but a filmography that suggests a deep commitment to telling stories that make actual human beings out of the boxes of action figures he regularly gets handed. That’s especially clear in 2017’s Logan, which takes a very silly premise—what if Wolverine got old and sad and had to fight a younger, less sadversion of himself?—and made something genuinely poignant out of it.
This is per a profile on Mangold out in Variety today, which is mostly about Dial Of Destiny, which tasks the Cop Land director with playing pinch-hitter for Steven Spielberg. But he does field a question about Logan, and, yeah, not jazzed. Here’s the full, semi-bleak response:
I can’t say that there’s a part of me that doesn’t wish that we’d let it be. But there was always going to be another Wolverine. There could be a baby Wolverine and a cartoon Wolverine. As much liquid as they can squeeze out of that rag, they’re going to try to. I don’t measure my success on a movie like Logan with whether we ended the conversation.
I ended my conversation.
We are not psychologists, but we’re pretty sure that overjoyed directors don’t refer to franchise’s they’ve worked on as dripping rags being relentlessly squeezed out by the relentless hands of the studio. Still, it hasn’t stopped Mangold from continuing on his particular odd course of mindful franchise movie-making: He’s got a Swamp Thing movie on the books at DC Films, and a Star Wars movie, described as “a Ten Commandments about the dawning of the Force,” in the works at Disney, so those rags are just gonna keep getting squeezed, it seems.
The Magnum P.I. reboot is officially set to come to an end on NBC with the release of Season 5, Part 2 in 2024.
As broken by Deadline, NBC has opted not to order more episodes of Magnum P.I. beyond the 20-episode fifth season it picked up last year. The outlet reports that NBC is expected to “mount a sizable campaign” for what will be marketed as the show’s final chapter, consisting of the remaining 10 episodes.
Based on the 1980-1988 series of the same name, Magnum P.I. initially premiered on CBS in 2018. The series stars Jay Hernandez as Thomas Magnum, a role occupied by Tom Selleck in the original ’80s incarnation. Due to licensing fee disagreements with Universal, CBS canceled the Magnum P.I. reboot in 2022 after four seasons. Shortly after, NBC revived the show for a 20-episode fifth season, which would be split into two parts.
Why did NBC just cancel Magnum P.I.?
The 10 episodes that make up Magnum P.I. Season 5, Part 1 aired on NBC from February 2023 to April 2023. Season 5, Part 2 is currently expected to air as part of the 2024 midseason. However, Deadline reports that the new episodes could potentially arrive earlier, depending on the impact of the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike.
While Magnum P.I. Season 5, Part 2 isn’t slated to air until next year, the options on the cast expire in just a matter of days on June 30. According to Deadline, this “forced the issue now.” Evidently, NBC had three options: give the show an early Season 6 renewal, extend the options on the cast, or release the cast and end the show.
An early Season 6 renewal was unlikely, given the fact that networks are hesitant to hand out pickups during the aforementioned WGA strike. Meanwhile, extending the options would have imposed a long hold on the cast, since — in that scenario — NBC wouldn’t have to make a Season 6 renewal decision for another year. As such, the network ultimately went with option number three.
