While you may have thought that X-Men: Apocalypse had an air of finality, the franchise has plenty of story left to tell. The title of X-Men: Dark Phoenix presages a rise from the aforementioned end of the world and is beginning to take shape, with James McAvoy busting out the razor in preparation for his return as Professor X, and news of a new mutant hitting the interwebs.
According to Entertainment Weekly, superpowered pop star Dazzler will appear in the next installment of X-Men. In fact, rumors have even been swirling about the possibility of a real-life pop star stepping into the role.
Those rumors were likely spurred by this Instagram post (below) from Sophie Turner (Jean Grey) which includes a screenshot of a deleted scene from X-Men: Apocalypse. The snap features Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) holding a Dazzler record and references T Swift’s last album: 1989. For the time being, however, it appears there are no plans to cast the singer in the role, which will reportedly be limited.
That said, with the recent box-office success achieved by another comic book superheroine, and the undeniable awesomeness of Dazzler’s power (the ability to manipulate light), we wouldn’t be surprised to see the role expanded.
Otherwise known as Alison Blaire, the character is also a member of the all-female, Avengers-like superhero task force known as A-FORCE. If whoever ends up playing the character steals a few scenes, don’t be surprised if you hear talk about a franchise based on that storyline.
OK, now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Bottom line: You can start getting excited for the return of your favorite mutants, and it sounds like the new kid on the block should shake things up nicely.
As you can see above, Dazzler looks a bit like a more glamorous, less-frightening version of Kiss’ Gene Simmons and it will be interesting to see how director Simon Kinberg brings her to life.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix stars Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Michael Fassbender, among others. The film is set to hit theaters on November 2, 2018
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?