Joe Russo, alongside his brother, Anthony, has made some of the most successful movies ever made. Now, he’s offering his theory as to why those blockbuster films don’t do better with awards bodies.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Russo explained that he thought Harvey Weinstein is part of the reason blockbusters are now overlooked at the Oscars.
“He vilified mainstream movies to champion the art films he pushed for Oscar campaigns,” Russo said. “Popular films were winning Oscars before the mid ’90s, then Weinstein started mudslinging campaigns…It affected how audiences view the Oscars, because they’ve not seen most of the movies. We’re in a complicated place. Things we should all be enjoying collectively we instead punch each other in the face over.”
Russo added, “Like this argument that Marvel movies were killing cinema. Well, Marvel movies seemed to be keeping cinemas open for quite a long time.”
This comes just a year after Oppenheimer, which earned almost $1 billion at the box office, won Best Picture. Wicked may not have won Best Picture this year, but it too was a populist hit that earned plenty of awards contention.
It’s true, though, that Marvel movies have been largely ignored by the Oscars, with the almost sole exception of Black Panther. Russo and his co-director brother, who helmed Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, and are set to return to the Marvel universe to direct the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars and Avengers: Doomsday.
The Russos have earned plenty of money, though, and surely that’s its own reward.
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?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.