Emma Stefansky
Because We’re in the Future Now, A.I. Is Starting to Choose Our Movies for Us
Growing up means realizing that we don’t live in the Jetsons’ version of the future, with instant meals and flying cars, but one that’s run by data and analytics. Hollywood has been inching into the data game, as companies develop software that has the ability to use information from a screenplay or a trailer to predict box office ticket sales. In the future, robots might be choosing our movies for us. It’s already happening now.
Original ‘Batman’ TV Show Star Burt Ward’s First Day of Shooting Sent Him to the ER
Nowadays, actors are often straight-up forbidden from doing their own stunts so that they don’t suffer from any lasting injuries. Some, like Tom Cruise, have the star-power needed to convince a director he wants to be strapped to the side of a jetliner while it takes off, but most of the time it’s the stunt-doubles doing all the work. Not so for Burt Ward, who played sidekick Robin in the original 1960’s Batman TV show. He recounts a time during production during which he had to perform a stunt so dangerous he was sent to the emergency room.
‘Kong: Skull Island’ International Trailer: A Few Terrifying Monsters, and One Very Big Ape
This island may be big enough for Kong and a bunch of other creatures, but it ain’t big enough to fit all these pesky humans too. The new international trailer for Kong: Skull Island gives us more flames, more ape, and introduces a bunch of new creatures, each one huger than the last.
‘Star Wars: Episode 8’ Will Go Deeper Into Kylo Ren’s ‘Humanity’
Over the years, the Star Wars movies have gradually matured. We saw a shift from the original trilogy in how Darth Vader was personified — first a faceless villain, then a tragic former father — and then the prequels took us back to see the bad guy’s fall from grace. With this new trilogy, we’re given a new masked villain with a red lightsaber at the head of an evil organization, but Kylo Ren seems like the least bad of all the Star Wars villains, or, at least the one for whom you most want a redemption arc. There’s a reason for that.
Rumor: The ‘Han Solo’ Spinoff Might Be Headed to a New Holiday Release Date
The shift from summer to Christmas for The Force Awakens came as a bit of a shock to Star Wars fans, who were so used to seeing the earlier installments of the first two trilogies hit theaters in the warmer months. Summer releases for Star Wars movies had become something of an unspoken tradition, so the holiday release had some feeling a little perturbed. Disney and Lucasfilm sure weren’t, though, as The Force Awakens raked in that holiday box office cash, topping every Star Wars movie before it in less than twelve parsecs. Now, a rumor has surfaced that the Han Solo spinoff, which has so far been scheduled for May 2018, might get bumped forward to December.
‘Star Wars: Episode VIII’ Is Fandango’s Most Anticipated Movie of 2017
When it comes to online movie polls, which ones do you think the public is usually most excited for: little indie pictures or huge superhero/sci-fi/fantasy blockbusters? Spoiler alert— it’s the blockbusters. Shocking, I know. In Fandango’s year-end poll of the most anticipated movies of 2017, Star Wars: Episode VIII, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and the live-action Beauty and the Beast took the top spots.
Pennywise Floats Awkwardly Inside a Sewer Pipe in a New ‘It’ Remake Image
’Tis the season for images of movies that none of us will be able to see until months from now! The latest was a kind of Christmas present from the folks over at the remake of Stephen King’s It, but unfortunately it’s more awkward than scary. The image shows Pennywise — who else? — lurking inside a larger-than-life sewer pipe, seemingly floating somehow above the ground.
Gareth Edwards Says There Is a 4K Restoration of the Original ‘Star Wars’ Out There Somewhere
In this new age of ultra-hi-def-liquid-frame-3D-VR-cystal-lava-screen-immersion TVs that you and I can have in our own home theaters, the old classics just don’t look as good anymore. Movies that seemed like the height of technology back when televisions were still cube-shaped look jerky and unfocused now that we’re so used to seeing the highest-definition image possible, so 4K restorations are now on the rise. Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One, says that Lucasfilm is in possession of a 4K version of the original Star Wars, but has no idea when the rest of us will get to see it.