The upcoming live-action remake of Disney’s beloved 1992 animated classic, Aladdin, has snatched up Guy Ritchie as its director.
Ritchie has directed a number of cult-favorite action flicks like Snatch, RocknRolla, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, as well as more recent films like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Robert Downey Jr.-led Sherlock Holmes films. His next film is King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, slated for release in 2017.
In a way, the pairing of a live-action Aladdin with the directorial styling of Guy Ritchie makes sense. Titular hero Aladdin begins the original tale as a thief in the city of Agrabah, stealing food to survive and living in abandoned buildings with his monkey pal, Abu. Aladdin finds himself in possession of a magic lamp, which houses a genie who grants anyone three wishes. Of course, there are are some unsavory characters who want to get their hands on the lamp, and some romance sprinkled in, too. There seems to be plenty of opportunity for Ritchie’s signature heists gone wrong played to humorous effect in a plot like that.
It also makes sense that Disney would want to return to this particular creative well. The original Aladdin won several Oscars and did phenomenally well at the box office. That success spawned an entire franchise comprising sequel films, animated TV series, books, video games, and even theatrical productions.
It’s impossible to foretell what the film will ultimately be like, but John August, who wrote the script, says the musical aspects of the original will be present in the live-action film, and coupled with Guy Ritchie’s singular directorial style, it’s not hard to get at least some sense of what the studio might ultimately be going for in the final film.
Aladdin joins the rapidly growing list of animated Disney classics getting the live action and/or CG treatment in the wake of Jon Favreau’s successful live-action Jungle Book remake, including Mulan and The Lion King. There is currently no official title, casting announcement, or release date for the Aladdin remake, but it’s only a matter of time.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?