Disney’s $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox’s deep and eclectic catalog is beginning to bear fruit. In a press release, Disney announced that Avatar, James Cameron’s high-tech, sci-fi adventure film, will be available on Disney+ in the United States, Canada, and The Netherlands on November 12, which just happens to be the streaming service’s debut day.
Avatar wasn’t one of the 600 or so titles originally unveiled as part of the Disney+ launch lineup, and wasn’t featured in Disney’s three-plus hour preview of (almost) every movie and TV show hitting Disney+ on the 12th. However, it’s clear why Disney would want to reintroduce audiences to the world of Pandora as soon as possible: James Cameron is currently working on not one, not two, not three, but four Avatar sequels, all of which will debut under the Disney brand. The first Avatar sequel is scheduled to arrive in 2021.
On its release in 2009, Avatar blew audiences away with its groundbreaking special effects and best-in-class 3D picture. The film earned $2.789 billion at the global box office, making it the highest-grossing film of all time until Avengers: Endgame (which is headed to Disney+ this December) took the record earlier this year.
Avatar tells the story of a human who joins a race of aliens known as the Na’vi through futuristic body-swapping technology, ultimately helping Pandora’s native population fight off the planet’s greedy human settlers. The film was directed by James Cameron and stars Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Giovanni Ribisi.
Avatar isn’t the only Fox film that’s part of the Disney+ lineup, although it’s arguably the highest-profile one. Other Fox productions in the Disney+ catalog include Miracle on 34th Street, The Sandlot, The Sound of Music, and Rookie of the Year. Disney+ will also host every single season of Fox’s The Simpsons.
Disney+ launches on November 12, and will cost $7 a month, or $70 for an annual subscription. In addition to a huge library of Disney classics, Disney+ will also be the exclusive home to a host of TV shows set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and live-action Star Wars spin-offs like The Mandalorian.
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?