When Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson debuted the first poster for Disney’s Moana on Twitter last week, the actor also teased its teaser. According to Johnson, it was set to arrive on Sunday, and it sailed ashore right on schedule.
The spot (embedded above) begins with a narrator explaining the legend of the demigod Maui, who performed such feats as slowing down the sun and raising islands from deep beneath the sea — all with the benefit of his magical fish hook. As we quickly find out, our narrator is somewhat of an authority on Maui because, well, he is Maui.
As he tells the tale above to the titular heroine of the film, she seems, shall we say, less than impressed: “What’s a demigod gotta do?”
After the intro, we get a couple of clips of both Maui and Moana in action, a few gorgeous shots of the Polynesian paradise in which the film takes place, and then it’s over as soon as it began. Oh, well. Guess that’s why it’s called a teaser.
Still, this brief spot showcases some truly impressive animation and makes Maui seem like a fun and lovable character. The background music also helps evoke the epic/adventurous mood that the film seems to be going for. That’s not surprising considering the involvement of heralded Samoan singer/songwriter Opetaia Foa’i and Broadway’s beloved Lin-Manuel Miranda, but it certainly helps us feel immersed in Disney’s newest world.
We don’t know much more about Moana than we did last week but, if the point of a teaser is to leave you wanting more, then, mission accomplished.
In addition to Johnson, Moana features the vocal talents of Auli’i Cravalho (Moana), Phillipa Soo, and Alan Tudyk. The film hits theaters on November 23.
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?