Netflix’s stand-up comedy selection will get a high-profile addition. Chris Rock has agreed to a $40 million deal with Netflix for two specials, reports Variety. The comedian is set to finally end an eight-year hiatus.
The price tag on the specials was unusually high, but Netflix is clearly confident the comedian is worth it. Rock has had a high-profile career, from his Saturday Night Live days to his Oscar-hosting gig earlier in 2016, not to mention the Emmy and Grammy Award wins in between. His credentials had multiple contenders bidding for the specials, including Amazon, Hulu, and HBO.
“Chris Rock is a beloved actor and director, and his remarkable stand-up makes him comic royalty,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, in a statement. “There is no one like him, and Netflix offers the global platform and creative freedom that will serve as a perfect home for someone with his incredible talent.”
Netflix has worked with Rock in the past, so they know what a talent it is getting. He was one of the many celebrities who joined Bill Murray in the Netflix holiday special A Very Murray Christmas, along with Miley Cyrus, Amy Poehler, George Clooney, Rashida Jones, and Michael Cera, among others. His upcoming specials will put his work in Netflix’s growing comedy catalog, alongside shows from fellow stand-up stars Aziz Ansari, Chelsea Handler, Cedric the Entertainer, and more.
“I’m very excited to be working with Ted and [Netflix VP of original documentary and comedy] Lisa [Nishimura] and all the good people at Netflix,” Rock said. “I can’t wait to get back on stage.”
Rock’s fans can’t wait to see him either, whenever the stand-up specials premiere. The first will tape in 2017, after a world tour that is being planned, so prepare yourself for a wait.
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?