Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale once made serious waves in the world of literature, and Hulu’s adaptation of the novel is now causing similar swells in the world of television. As is the case with the sea, however, volatile surf can bring unexpected consequences.
Extended oceanic metaphors aside, Atwood was recently interviewed by the Boston Review, and had a surprising casting suggestion for season 2 of everyone’s favorite new dystopian drama. As reported by ScreenCrush, Atwood would love to see hip-hop superstar Drake make a cameo in the show, and she even has a role in mind.
Before you start scratching your head, let us provide a bit of context:
Getting back to the interview, while you may have assumed that Atwood was asked about the possibility of Drake appearing in the show, she actually suggested it during a conversation about her and Drake being two of the country’s global celebrities. Without further ado, here’s what she had to say:
“Wouldn’t it be fun for him to have a cameo in season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale? … I’ll drop that notion into the ear of Bruce Miller, the showrunner, and see what he can do with that, because of course the show is filmed in Toronto. Maybe Drake could help smuggle someone?”
This now has to happen. If only so we can watch the internet explode.
In all seriousness, though, this makes more sense than it would seem on the surface. Drake certainly has the chops for it. In addition to logging 145 episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation, he voiced Ethan in Ice Age: Continental Drift and appeared in shows like Soul Food and The Border. Then, of course, there’s the Toronto connection and the buzz that such a cameo would undoubtedly create.
Was Atwood most likely just having a bit of fun? Sure. But keep an eye on this going forward, as it may just be crazy enough to work.
The Handmaid’s Tale stars Elisabeth Moss, Joseph Fiennes, and Yvonne Strahovski. Season 2 is currently slated for 2018, but Hulu has yet to set a premiere date. We’ll keep you updated as news breaks and we’ll be sure to let you know if/when this proposed cameo comes to fruition.
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?