- Nic Cage on his Flash cameo: “Glad I didn’t blink” The A.V. Club
- Nicolas Cage Savors ‘Superman’ Cameo, But Warns Viewers To Pay Close Attention Deadline
- Nicolas Cage ‘Glad’ He ‘Didn’t Blink’ At Superman Cameo In ‘The Flash’ UPROXX
- Nicolas Cage Finally Talked About His Cameo In The Flash, And I Totally Agree With His One Criticism Yahoo Entertainment
- “I’d love to, but they have to invite me”: Before ‘The Flash’ Cameo, Nicolas Cage Said WB Would Have to Beg Him to Play Superman Despite Naming His Own Son Kal-El FandomWire
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Blink
Nicolas Cage on Brief Surprise ‘The Flash’ Cameo: “Glad I Didn’t Blink” – Hollywood Reporter
- Nicolas Cage on Brief Surprise ‘The Flash’ Cameo: “Glad I Didn’t Blink” Hollywood Reporter
- Nicolas Cage Had One Big Issue With His “Satisfying” Superman Cameo in The Flash MovieWeb
- Nicolas Cage Finally Talked About His Cameo In The Flash, And I Totally Agree With His One Criticism CinemaBlend
- Nicolas Cage Says His ‘City of Angels’ Performance Is the Key to His Superman Movie That Never Was Yahoo Entertainment
- “I’m glad I didn’t blink”: Nicolas Cage is Still Upset About His Canceled Superman Movie Before Henry Cavill and Brandon Routh’s DC Debut FandomWire
- View Full Coverage on Google News
These Massive Neutron Stars Existed For Less Than The Blink of an Eye : ScienceAlert
Not much can be accomplished in a few hundred milliseconds. Yet for the neutron stars seen in the glints of two gamma-ray bursts, it’s more than enough time to teach us a thing or two about life, death, and the birth of black holes.
Sifting through an archive of high-energy flashes in the night sky, astronomers recently uncovered patterns in the oscillations of light left by two different sets of colliding stars, indicating a pause on their journey from super-dense object to infinite pit of darkness.
That pause – somewhere between 10 and 300 milliseconds – technically equates to two newly formed, mega-sized neutron stars, which researchers suspect were each spinning fast enough to briefly hold off their inevitable fates as black holes.
“We know that short GRBs form when orbiting neutron stars crash together, and we know they eventually collapse into a black hole, but the precise sequence of events is not well understood,” says Cole Miller, an astronomer at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) in the US.
“We found these gamma-ray patterns in two bursts observed by Compton in the early 1990s.”
For nearly 30 years, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory circled Earth and collected the shine of X-rays and gamma rays that spilled from distant cataclysmic events. That archive of high energy photons contains a trove of data on things like colliding neutron stars, which release powerful pulses of radiation known as gamma-ray bursts.
Neutron stars are true beasts of the cosmos. They pack double the mass of our Sun inside a volume of space roughly the size of a small city. Not only does this do weird things to matter, forcing electrons into protons to turn them into a heavy dusting of neutrons, it can generate magnetic fields unlike anything else in the Universe.
Spun into high rotation, these fields can accelerate particles to ridiculously high velocities, forming polar jets that appear to ‘pulse’ like supercharged lighthouses.
Neutron stars are formed as more ordinary stars (around 8 to 30 times the mass of our Sun) burn off the last of their fuel, leaving a core of around 1.1 to 2.3 solar masses, too cold to resist the squeeze of its own gravity.
Add a little more mass – such as by cramming two neutron stars together – and not even the lackluster jiggling of its own quantum fields can resist gravity’s urge to crush the living physics out of the dead star. From a dense blob of particles we get, well, whatever the unspeakable horror is that happens to be the heart of a black hole.
The basic theory on the process is pretty clear, setting general limits on just how heavy a neutron star can be before it collapses. For cold, non-rotating balls of matter, this upper boundary is just under three solar masses, but that also implies complications that just might make the journey from neutron star to black hole less than straightforward.
For example, earlier last year physicists announced the observation of a burst of gamma-rays dubbed GRB 180618A, detected back in 2018. In the afterglow of the burst they detected the signature of a magnetically-charged neutron star called a magnetar, one with a mass close to that of the two colliding stars.
Barely a day later this heavyweight neutron star was no more, no doubt succumbing to its extraordinary mass and transforming into something not even light can escape from.
How it managed to resist gravity for as long as it did is a mystery, though its magnetic fields may have played a role.
These two new discoveries could also provide a few clues.
The more accurate term for the pattern observed in the gamma-ray bursts recorded by Compton in the early 1990s is a quasiperiodic oscillation. The mix of frequencies that rise and fall in the signal can be deciphered to describe the final moments of massive objects as they circle one another and then collide.
From what the researchers can tell, the collisions each produced an object around 20 percent larger than the current record-holder heavyweight neutron star – a pulsar calculated at 2.14 times the mass of our Sun. They were also twice the diameter of a typical neutron star.
Interestingly, the objects were rotating at an extraordinary pace of nearly 78,000 times a minute, far faster than the record-holding pulsar J1748–2446ad, which manages a mere 707 turns a second.
The few rotations each neutron star managed to pull off in its brief lifetime of a fraction of a second could have been powered by just enough angular momentum to combat their gravitational implosion.
How this may apply to other neutron star mergers, further blurring the boundaries of stellar collapse and black hole generation, is a question for future research.
This research was published in Nature.
Putin thinks West will blink first in war of attrition with Russia
Putin “believes the West will become exhausted,” said one well-connected Russian billionaire, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Putin had not expected the West’s initially strong and united response, “but now he is trying to reshape the situation and he believes that in the longer term he will win,” the billionaire said. Western leaders are vulnerable to election cycles, and “he believes public opinion can flip in one day.”
The embargo on Russia’s seaborne oil exports announced by the European Union this week — hailed by Charles Michel, president of the European Council, as putting maximum “pressure on Russia to end the war” — would “have little influence over the short term,” said one Russian official close to Moscow diplomatic circles, also speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “The Kremlin mood is that we can’t lose — no matter what the price.”
The Kremlin has pointed out that the E.U.’s move has only provoked a further surge in global energy prices and says it will seek to divert supplies to other markets in Asia, despite a ban on insuring Russian shipments that was also imposed by the E.U. and Britain.
The populations of E.U. countries “are feeling the impact of these sanctions more than we are,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The West has made mistake after mistake, which has led to growing crises, and to say that this is all because of what is going on in Ukraine and what Putin is doing is incorrect.”
This posture suggests that the Kremlin believes it can outlast the West in weathering the impact of economic sanctions. Putin has little choice but to continue the war in hopes the Ukraine grain blockade will “lead to instability in the Middle East and provoke a new flood of refugees,” said Sergei Guriev, former chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
The Kremlin’s aggressive stance seems to reflect the thinking of Nikolai Patrushev, the hawkish head of Russia’s Security Council, who served with Putin in the Leningrad KGB and is increasingly seen as a hard-line ideologue driving Russia’s war in Ukraine. He is one of a handful of close security advisers believed by Moscow insiders to have access to Putin. In three vehemently anti-Western interviews given to Russian newspapers since the invasion, the previously publicity-shy Patrushev has declared Europe is on the brink of “a deep economic and political crisis” in which rising inflation and falling living standards were already impacting the mood of Europeans, while a fresh migrant crisis would create new security threats.
“The world is gradually falling into an unprecedented food crisis. Tens of millions of people in Africa or in the Middle East will turn out to be on the brink of starvation — because of the West. In order to survive, they will flee to Europe. I’m not sure Europe will survive the crisis,” Patrushev told Russian state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta in one of the interviews.
In another interview last week to the popular Argumenty and Fakty tabloid, Patrushev said Russia is “not rushing to meet deadlines” in its military campaign in Ukraine.
The Russian military has been gradually making gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, and rather than seeking an immediate and decisive battle, Putin believes time is on his side, the Russian billionaire said. Putin “is a very patient guy. He can afford to wait six to nine months,” the billionaire said. “He can control Russian society much more tightly than the West can control its society.”
The weeks-long diplomatic haggling over the terms of the E.U. oil embargo was seen by the Kremlin as a sign of faltering western resolve, economists and the Russian official said. Phones calls over the weekend by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s to Putin about ways to lift the blockade on Ukraine’s ports will have further bolstered that view. When Western leaders call Putin and seek to do a deal, “it means he thinks he has leverage,” a former U.S. government official said.
The Kremlin has insisted the blockade on Ukrainian grain exports is because of Ukrainian mining of the Black Sea — a claim denied by Kyiv — while Peskov said Western sanctions were also preventing grain shipments from being dispatched.
Russia’s potential losses due to the E.U. ban on its seaborne oil exports could be minimal, said Sergei Aleksashenko, a former deputy chairman of the Russian central bank, who now lives in exile in the United States. If Russia is able to divert the entire seaborne volume to India and China, Russian losses as a result of the ban could total only $10 billion, he said.
Putin’s economic advisers will “tell him what the estimated loss is from the embargo, and he will laugh quietly,” Aleksashenko said. “He is not changing his course.”
The E.U. embargo should be seen as “only a first step” in efforts to cut off the Kremlin’s hard currency earnings, said Edward Fishman, adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and a former official with the U.S. State Department.
Several current and former senior Western officials have been discussing proposals for the United States and E.U. to form a cartel and impose a price cap on Russian oil, possibly at $30 or $40 per barrel. This step could be more effective than the E.U. ban and help drive down global prices, Guriev and Fishman said. Under the proposal, the United States could impose secondary sanctions on anyone buying Russian oil at a price over the cap, they said.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi first floated the idea of creating a cartel of oil consumers at a meeting with President Biden, while the European Commission is now examining Draghi’s proposal for a potential gas price cap.
Putin has declared that “the economic blitzkrieg” against Russia has failed, and on the surface, the economy has been cushioned against the initial shock of Western sanctions by the inflow of nearly $1 billion in revenue per day from oil and gas exports to Europe before the E.U. embargo on seaborne oil. Thanks to capital controls and orders that Russian exporters sell half their hard currency earnings to the state, the ruble has strengthened to prewar highs.
But Russia’s Central Bank chief, Elvira Nabiullina, has warned that the full impact of Western sanctions is yet to be felt. A ban on high-tech imports is only just beginning to bite, while shortages of some goods are only now beginning to be seen. Inflation is set to exceed 20 percent, and Russia is facing its deepest recession in 30 years. Putin’s attempt to protect the population against inflation, estimated at 18 percent, by ordering a 10 percent hike in pensions and the minimum wage falls far short.
With risks growing for all sides, “it is going to be a war of attrition from the economic, political and moral point of view,” the Russian official said. “Everyone is waiting for autumn,” when the impact of sanctions will hit the hardest, he said.
So far, however, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimating Kyiv needs $7 billion in aid a month just to keep the country running, Putin appears to be betting on the West blinking first, the former U.S. government official said. Putin’s “goal of subjugating Ukraine and eventually placing a Russian flag in Kyiv has not changed.”
Amazon drops Echo Show 15, Astro robot plus Glow, View, Blink and Ring
With Amazon Astro, Alexa rolls.
Amazon
It’s been a busy last couple of months in tech product land. Today, Amazon held its big product event for the year, during which we usually get upgrades to popular devices. This year Amazon brought us the Nest competitor, Amazon’s Smart Thermostat; Echo Show 15 and Disney meets Alexa with Hey Disney.” Amazon Glow for kids combines video calling with activities and Halo View brings Amazon to your wrist. There are more Blink products and Ring Protect Pro lets a service monitor your home while you’re away. And Astro brings wheels to Alexa, for $1,000.
Read more: Ring’s police problem never went away. Here’s what you still need to know
But Amazon is also known for throwing wacky ideas at the wall, like adding Alexa smarts to a microwave or an analog clock. Amazon even created a mood ring, of sorts, that you can talk to. And don’t forget the floating guard drone announced from its Ring division.
Amazon’s announcements come after we’ve already had a torrent of releases from the industry’s biggest players. Samsung’s showed off its folding phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3, Apple has announced its iPhone 13 and new iPad Mini, and Microsoft introduced its second-generation Surface Duo phone and new Surface Studio laptop.
Watch this:
Amazon unveils Halo View
2:15
And that’s it
10:12 a.m. PT
Amazon’s event is officially done. Now, it’s time to start debating if you’d prefer a Sony Aibo, an Amazon Astro or a Tesla Bot in your home. (“No, thanks” is also an option, for those of you worried about a future Skynet).
Amazon creates a home robot — Astro
9:58 a.m. PT
Amazon’s created a home robot to help check in on your home, or send it to look for people or pets. It can actively patrol your home as well, using Ring’s subscription service.
Amazon’s David Limp said he sees Astro as a way to help give peace of mind for families, helping them interact and check in on older family members, for example.
It’s not just an Alexa on wheels, Limp said. It has eyes on the screen, and even cup holders because, why not.
Limp said it’s designed with “privacy at every turn,” with out-of-bounds zones, and you can turn on a “do not disturb” setting to minimize how much Astro moves day or night. Amazon also built the device to do as much computing in its body as possible, rather than relying on an internet connection.
Limp said the product took 4 years to make, and a lot of it was coming up with a way for the device to map a person’s home, understand what it sees, and still move autonomously.
Astro will be available for $1,000, and will require an invite to purchase at start.
Alexa together
9:55 a.m. PT
Amazon introduced a subscription emergency response feature. Users can ask Alexa to call for help to connect to emergency responders, and send an alert notifying a family member. It also lets multiple caregivers stay in the loop with the subscription service. Users can set up remote assist to let loved ones remotely help them resolve IT issues and set up programs like music streaming on their own devices.
The service costs $19.99 month and Amazon is providing a free year for Alexa Care Hub users.
Amazon announces Halo Fitness and Nutrition platforms to help you hit your health goals
More Blink products
9:48 a.m. PT
Amazon’s Blink camera division is expanding its product offerings too. The cheap stick-up cameras are expanding to include a video doorbell, Amazon said. So now you can buy a $49 video doorbell under the Blink brand that’s wired or wireless.
The company’s also going to start offering a floodlight.
Ring Protect Pro
9:47 a.m. PT
Amazon is going to combine home security with a secure and stable internet connection. Ring Protect Pro can manage a network of Ring cameras in a home, and it’s combined with an eero Wi-Fi 6 router that includes a stable internet connection that works around power outages, as well as a network monitoring service to watch for threats coming over the internet. The device is priced at $249.99.
With the optional Ring Edge feature, customers can also use a first-time feature for Ring. It’s on-device storage and processing, which keeps a Ring systems’s data off Amazon’s cloud. It’s possible with improved chips on the devices, which also speed up processing by skipping sending and receiving data over the internet.
Watch this:
Amazon’s new Fitbit competitor has a color screen and…
7:38
Ring’s drone set to fly through your home
9:42 a.m. PT
Ring’s mission, the company says, is to make neighborhoods safer. One of the ways it’s doing this is through the Ring Always Home Cam.
The Always Home Cam will fly around your home at a regular interval, or when it hears something. Privacy is built in, Ring said, by covering the camera when it’s docked for charging.
Amazon isn’t going to start full-on selling it immediately. Instead, it’s going to start with an invite-only beta. It’ll cost $250.
Ring Alarm Pro merges a router and a security system
Amazon
Halo View, Fitness, and Nutrition — health and wellness with a screen
9:40 a.m. PT
Amazon is adding a new product to its Halo line, which already includes its fitness tracking band and its app with fitness tracking features and premium workouts.
The devices show fitness stats and classes on the screen, has 7 days of battery life, is a swim-proof device, and comes with a variety of color and material options. It’s $79.99 with a full year of membership included.
It’s also offering Halo Fitness and Halo Nutrition, two services to help users track their health.
Amazon
Amazon Glow — a video chat device for kids
9:32 a.m. PT
Amazon’s idea for how to change video calls for kids is to make them more interactive. A new device, called Amazon Glow, projects computer images onto a table, where kids can interact with it. There’s an 8-inch LCD display so the kids can see their loved one as well.
So, the way it works is that there will be an app the adult on the other end of the call can use to interact with books, draw, play puzzles and more. On the kid’s side, the Amazon Glow projects what the adult sees on their tablet onto the surface in front of it. Courtney Holoszyc, who’s part of Amazon’s family tech efforts, said it’s designed to be interactive and to keep the kid’s attention.
She also noted that physical and digital products can interact with one another. And Amazon’s partnered with Disney, Mattel, Sesame Street and Nickelodeon for interactive books, puzzles and all sorts of other items.
To protect kids, Amazon said the $249 device will have a privacy shutter, and kids can only call people pre-approved by their parents.
Amazon
Disney characters on Alexa
9:25 a.m. PT
In a new partnership with Disney, you can use an Alexa device to interact with Disney, Pixar and Star Wars characters. Called “Hey Disney,” the feature gives you jokes, trivia, story readings, as well as “surprises” users will have to discover on their own. You can use it in Disney park hotels as well as on your own Alexa device with a purchase.
This will “integrate the best of Disney” with Alexa, said Dave Limp SVP Services and Devices, who called it, “one of the most imaginative uses of ambient technology I’ve seen.”
More for Amazon Kids Plus
9:21 a.m. PT
Amazon’s upgrading its subscription service for kids, that goes along with its Echo Show, Fire TV, Fire tablets and iOS or Android apps. Amazon said the service, which starts at $3 per month, will have new games and exclusive content including from the hit YouTube channel Blippi.
Amazon’s new Echo Show 15 wall-mounted smart display is the biggest yet
Echo Show 15
Amazon
Personalization in Echo Show
9:18 a.m. PT
Amazon is adding personalization features using its AZ2 Neural Edge processor. The juiced up chip can process much faster, which lets it run the personalization features on the device. As a result, features that use data about you won’t send that information to Amazon’s cloud.
One of these features uses your face. Alexa can recognize you when you’re in the Echo Show camera’s field of view. That means you can see your recently played music or “sticky notes” left behind for you by other members of your household. You can also personalize preferences like dietary restrictions or your favorite sports fans.
“Our goal is for you to be able to personalize your experiences,” said Miriam Daniel, EVP of Echo and Alexa.
New Amazon Smart Thermostat takes on Nest with low $60 price
Echo Show 15
9:13 a.m. PT
Amazon wants to change the way we think of tablets, creating a wall-mounted device designed to give us information and control over our smart homes. Miriam Daniel, EVP Echo and Alexa, said it comes with a new widget-based interface that’s meant to offer people access to information like the weather, shopping lists, sticky notes, and a shared family calendar.
You can also see which smart devices are on or off through the Echo Show, and it’ll show you feeds from the Ring video doorbell overlaid on what you’re seeing.
The Echo Show 15 can be mounted in portrait or landscape mode, Daniel added.
Oh, and of course you can watch TV on it. Because why not?
Amazon
Energy promise
9:10 a.m. PT
Amazon says it’s working hard to lower its carbon footprint and limit energy use by it’s own products. But it also wants to help users lower their own energy use and they’re focusing on the HVAC system as a big energy hog in many people’s homes. Amazon is introducing a certified smart energy thermostat powered by Alexa. It’ll work with most existing HVAC systems and is made in partnership with Honeywell.
Privacy promise
9:08 a.m. PT
While Amazon’s been criticized for its handling of people’s data, particularly its relationships with police departments. As CNET’s reported before, Amazon hasn’t been fully upfront about the way it handles people’s information caught on Ring. Limp said the company’s goal is to make privacy the center of what it does.
Making lives ‘better’ with ‘Ambient Intelligence’
9:06 a.m. PT
Amazon begins its event with David Limp, the company’s SVP for Devices and Services. He starts by talking about how despite how hard the last 18 months have been, Amazon’s been focused on “inventing on behalf of customers.”
“Our vision for how we can craft technology to make customers’ lives even better,” he says. “Our goal has been to not build gadgets but instead devices that are deeply integrated with services. When we’re at our best, those services the content, the interactions are front and center, and the device itself fades into the background.”
He notes that “ambient intelligence” is a key part of this, an AI that’s there when you need it but “recedes into the background,” when you don’t.
“What you’re going to see are examples of our next big leaps forward: science fiction becoming reality,” he adds.
Let the tech hype begin
9:00 a.m. PT
Tech events have a certain template they tend to follow, even during the pandemic. One of them is that they use upbeat and inspiring music to get you in the mood before they begin. Amazon is no different. Just before everything began, we heard The Head and the Heart’s All We Ever Knew, and now Coldplay and BTS are belting out My Universe — as in what Amazon wants Alexa to control. My universe.
Fire TV stuff we already know
8:30 a.m. PT
Amazon’s already announced several changes for its Fire TV division, including its Fire TV Omni and Fire TV 4-Series, the first Amazon-branded TVs, starting at $370. The new devices, announced a few weeks ago, are on preorder now, and are due to arrive in October. And before you ask, yes you can bark “Alexa!” orders at it hands-free.
The TVs are relatively basic, offering 4K resolution, HDR and Dolby Vision support, and they come in 65-inch and 75-inch models. Unlike the TCL 5-Series Roku TV or the Vizio M7Q series, which have similar initial pricing, the Fire TV Omni lacks full-array local dimming, quantum dot color and the latest gaming features, so our TV expert David Katzmaier said he doesn’t expect image quality “to be in the same league” as similar devices from TCL and Vizio.
Amazon also offers its software for other companies to power their TVs, such as Toshiba’s Fire TV Edition.
The Fire TV Omni
Amazon
Ringing in the holidays
8 a.m. PT
Today’s event will also likely include news from Ring, Amazon’s smart home security line. Amazon bought Ring three years ago, and more substantive integrations with Alexa and other Amazon devices and services might finally be coming down the pike.
There’s also some the Always Home Cam — the flying drone camera Amazon teased but didn’t release last year. Rumors suggest we could get an update on that today.
It’s important to remember that Ring has been contending with all sorts of privacy controversies over the past year, especially with regard to relationships with police. Amazon’s addressed some of them with increased privacy and security options, but more still needs to be done.
Making Alexa matter
7:46 a.m. PT
We already know some of the changes coming to Alexa, thanks to announcements made at the Alexa Live developers’ conference in July. Among the changes were the Amazon Custom Assistant Program that allows third parties to create their own assistants using Alexa’s blueprint. Verizon already jumped at the chance, announcing the Verizon Smart Display and the option to say, “Hi, Verizon.” (A lost opportunity for anyone hoping for “Verizon, can you hear me now?”)
What new Alexa features will be announced this Tuesday is tough to call, but there are almost certainly some new things up Alexa’s virtual sleeve.
The company also discussed Matter. Formerly known as Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP), Matter will be a single, IP-based, open-source standard that works over Wi-Fi and supports all major control platforms. It… ahem… matters because it’s supposed to act as a universal language that smart home devices from makers like Google, Apple and Amazon could use to connect with and understand each other.
At Alexa Live, Amazon announced plans to integrate Matter into nearly all Echo devices (excluding first-gen speakers) via an over-the-air update. Amazon had slated the software development kit for release late this year, but it has since been pushed to 2022.
Day 1 launches
7:30 a.m. PT
Amazon often announces a handful of “Day 1” products — experimental devices to measure market interest. They’ve ranged from microwaves and clocks to wearable rings and glasses — and they don’t always survive long. It’s tough to guess what Amazon will try out next, but our guess is as good as yours. How about an Alexa-enabled garbage can?
Speaking of Alexa, the assistant is also likely to see some updates. Last year the Echo Show got Netflix and support for group calling. A focus on features that support remote work, like teleconferencing and productivity management, would be timely and on brand.
Good morning
7 a.m. PT
And it begins. Amazon’s 2021 fall Echo event is happening today, Sept. 28, at 9 a.m. PT. Amazon won’t be livestreaming its invite-only presentation to the general public, but the company has promised attendees “news about our latest Amazon devices, features and services”, according to invitations that went out Sept. 20.
We’re anticipating news across all of Amazon’s device and services categories. In years past, Amazon has unleashed literally dozens of new devices at its events, big and small. From the Echo Auto to the rotating Echo Show 10 to that odd Echo Wall Clock. Of course, new Echo Dots and Echo speakers are often the centerpiece.
Watch this:
Amazon-branded TVs coming soon, Facebook’s smart glasses…
1:51
When
Amazon’s event will start Tuesday, Sept. 28, at 9 a.m. PT, noon ET, 5 p.m. BST, and Sept. 29 at 2 a.m. AEST. (Sorry, Australia.)
Where
Amazon’s event will be invite-only for the press, but we’ll be covering everything here on CNET, with a live blog, as well as news stories, analysis and reviews you can get only from us.
Will Studios Blink? – The Hollywood Reporter
Hopes were running relatively high on studio lots across Hollywood in June. A true box office recovery seemed within sight. Executives could feel some confidence about their fall releases after having to rearrange their entire calendars at the beginning of the pandemic in spring 2020 and then again during last winter’s surge of COVID-19 cases. But the sense of calm wasn’t to last.
The aggressive delta variant sparked a spike in COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles, some Southern states and now nationwide. Moviegoing comfort levels plummeted in a matter of weeks, according to polls conducted by the National Research Group, waylaying the recovery indefinitely. Overall comfort had been running at a pandemic-era record of 81 percent in early July before starting to fall-off noticeably day after day. As of Aug. 16, the comfort level stood at a worrisome 64 percent.
The response was swift as studios began to blink (again). Paramount announced at the end of July that it was taking the family film Clifford the Big Red Dog off the September calendar. Moms, followed by dads, are particularly nervous about taking their children to the multiplex because those under age 12 are not eligible to get vaccinated, polling shows. And all older females and males, who are a prized demo for fall awards fare, are anxious.
Sony was next, relocating sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage, starring Tom Hardy, from Sept. 24 to Oct. 15, and then, on Aug. 16, selling off Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania, which had been set to hit theaters Oct. 1, to Amazon in a windfall $100 million-plus deal. Regarding Venom, there’s buzz that it could move yet again. Either way, Sony has secured some breathing room.
Now, the often-asked question returns: How many other tentpole movies will relocate? Could the list include MGM and EON’s James Bond installment No Time to Die? (It is set to begin opening overseas toward the end of September before landing in the U.S. on Oct. 8.) The film is on the long list of 2020 event pics that have been delayed several times, a nightmare scenario. Sources say No Time to Die may not be able to push yet again at this point, as each restart costs many millions of dollars in marketing. Nor does MGM have a sister streaming service — at least not yet, pending regulatory approval of a deal to be acquired by Amazon.
Says one studio executive: “If I knew six weeks ago what I know now, I would have moved everything as far out as early next year.” A rival colleague adds that he would have said “no” to the chance of another major calendar migration six short weeks ago. “Now, it’s a maybe.”
Other big fall titles include Sony’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Paramount’s Tom Cruise actioner Top Gun: Maverick in November.
The impact of the decline in comfort levels throughout July and into August was almost immediate in terms of diminished box office grosses, which never had reached pre-pandemic levels in the first place. Put another way, the casual moviegoer has yet to make a permanent return to the multiplex.
“In traditional times, once a release date is ‘locked,’ then everything else keys off of that, and so studios would only move a film under the most dire or unimaginable scenarios lest the prospects for a solid run in theaters be derailed,” says box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore.
Disney and Marvel’s Black Widow debuted to $80.4 million domestically over the July 9-11 weekend, a pandemic-era record. Fellow Disney event pic Jungle Cruise opened to $35 million at the end of last month, followed a week later in early August by The Suicide Squad with just $26.2 million.
All three films were made available in the home immediately, a controversial release model employed by Disney and, to a greater degree, by Warner Bros. because of the pandemic and as both studios try to help grow their sister streaming services. Black Widow and Jungle Cruise could be viewed day-and-date in cinemas on Disney+ Premier Access for an additional $30. Warners’ entire 2021 slate is launching simultaneously on HBO Max, including The Suicide Squad, at no extra charge. (Warners titles have fallen more steeply than Disney’s, with Suicide Squad falling a huge 72 percent in its second weekend, the worst drop in recent memory for a DC superhero title.)
Both companies have made hundreds of talent deals trying to appease talent who would normally receive a piece of the box office backend. Jason Kilar, head of WarnerMedia, has acknowledged publicly that the conglomerate — which AT&T hopes to sell to Discovery — has paid at least $200 million to stars and filmmakers whose films went to HBO Max.
Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Chapek also weighed in on the topic of hybrid releases during an Aug. 12 earnings call. He said “hundreds of deals” have been struck. In a recent lawsuit, however, Black Widow actress Scarlett Johansson alleged that Disney breached her contract by sending the superhero pic to Disney+ Premier Access and didn’t adequately respond to attempts to negotiate.
Warners says it intends to end day-and-date releases in 2022, and will instead abide by a 45-day exclusive window.
Disney committed to giving both Free Guy, which opened in mid-August, and Marvel’s Shang-Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings, a 45-day exclusive theatrical release, although during an Aug. 12 earnings call, CEO Bob Chapek hinted that the delta variant clouds the landscape for fall releases such as Marvel’s Eternals. (He didn’t mention Eternals by name.) “We’ve said from the very beginning that we value flexibility in being able to make as many last-minute calls as we can, given what we see in the marketplace,” Chapek said. “Nothing is set in stone.”
The far-better-than-expected $28.4 million domestic opening of Free Guy over the Aug. 13-15 weekend did provide a huge boost for stressed-out executives. Many analysts note that an exclusive release on the big screen helped. Males under age 35 — a demo largely undeterred by delta — fueled Free Guy, meaning that movies relying on this group could still perform. (That’s good news for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, for example.)
“We’re at a stage in this long recovery period where I think studios are less intent on big sweeping changes to the release calendar and more focused on short-term adaptations to the market,” says Shawn Robbins of Boxoffice Pro.
“Not only is Free Guy representative of the kind of high-quality movie people are in the mood for and willing to see in cinemas right now, it again showcases demand for that theatrical experience and how important exclusive windows are for the industry’s ability to produce a genuine hit movie with a life cycle that doesn’t burn bright and die young,” Robbins continued. “Nothing is assured in the world we live in right now, and distribution strategies will probably be in flux for a little while, but Free Guy‘s performance so far offers reason for cautious optimism in several of this fall’s planned tentpole releases geared toward similar demographics.”
Overseas remains a hurdle, however, for a studio tentpole dependent on reaping most of its money from the foreign box office, particularly with China presently off-limits to Hollywood titles. Beijing film regulators’ usual blackout on foreign film releases during the peak summer moviegoing period has been stricter and longer than usual in deference to this year’s politically high-profile 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Delta also is causing issues in the Middle Kingdom. Beijing’s aggressive “zero COVID” policy means that the broad swaths of the country’s services sector, including cinemas, are at risk of total shutdown the moment a nearby local infection is discovered. “The impact of the ongoing pandemic cannot be understated,” says Rance Pow, president of Artisan Gateway, who notes that nearly 3,500 cinemas recently have been closed in China as a precautionary measure related to delta variant spread.
Many other countries also are being impacted. Both France and Italy now require vaccine passports to attend indoor public spaces, including theaters, which has driven down attendance dramatically. Some major Australian states are in lockdown, while Japan, Korea and Mexico are all reporting record-high COVID-19 cases. And across the international marketplace, there are capacity restrictions. Adds one top film financier, “It’s in everyone’s best interest to move big movies, especially considering where international stands.”
Source: Comscore; box office from Jan. 1 to Aug. 15 each listed year.
Patrick Brzeski contributed to this report.
A version of this story first appeared in the Aug. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Did Anthony Hopkins Blink During ‘The Silence of the Lambs’?
Anthony Hopkins is known for playing Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. Hopkins once said he didn’t blink during the film. Why did he try to keep from blinking? Was Hopkins able to keep his eyelids perfectly still? Here’s what Showbiz Cheat Sheet knows.
Anthony Hopkins’ rise to fame
One of Hopkins’ early acting roles was in a 1960 episode of the TV series A Matter of Degree. In 1965, he played Dr. Harding in an episode of The Man in Room 17 titled “A Minor Operation.” Hopkins made his film debut in the 1967 movie The White Bus.
The following year Hopkins got his big break when he played Richard in The Lion in the Winter. Some of Hopkins’ other acting roles include appearances in The Elephant Man (1980), Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Remains of the Day (1993), Shadowlands (1993), and Westworld (2016-2018).
Anthony Hopkins movies
As of this writing, Hopkins’ highest-grossing film is Thor: Ragnarok, with $850.4 million in worldwide box office earnings. This includes more than $315 million at the domestic box office and $535.4 million internationally.
Hopkins’ other high-grossing films include Hannibal (2001), with more than $350 million in worldwide box office earnings; Noah (2014), with $352.8 million in worldwide box office earnings; and Thor: The Dark World (2013), with $644.6 million in worldwide box office earnings.
Did Anthony Hopkins blink during ‘The Silence of the Lambs’?
During an interview on The Dick Cavett Show, Hopkins says he didn’t blink during the movie. Why would he try not to blink? The actor explained he once met a “madman” while he was in London. He described the situation as “pretty scary.”
One thing Hopkins says he noticed about the man was that he didn’t blink. He used his mannerisms as inspiration for his role as Hannibal Lecter. Although Hopkins says he didn’t blink, there are clips from the movie that show him blinking. For example, in the video below you can see him blink quickly during the 1:37 and 1:44 mark.
It’s possible Hopkins didn’t realize he was blinking during that scene. He was probably so caught up in remembering his lines and delivering a compelling dialogue.
Anthony Hopkins in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’
Hopkins’ acting talent did not go unnoticed. He won many awards for his role in The Silence of the Lambs. His awards include a BAFTA, New York Film Critics Circle Award, National Board of Review Award, Boston Society of Film Critics Award, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award, Saturn Award, an Oscar, and Chicago Film Critics Association Award.
The Silence of the Lambs earned $275.7 million in worldwide box office earnings. This includes $130.7 million at the domestic box office and $145 million internationally.
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