In case you missed the memo, people like Star Wars … a lot.
Some people even like the franchise enough to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for props that — without their sentimental or nostalgic value — would be worth next to nothing.
According to ScreenRant, Luke Skywalker’s DL-44 blaster — which Mark Hamill gave to an eight-year-old fan on the set of the BBC show Jim’ll Fix It and is now part of a private collection — is set to be auctioned off at Nate D. Sanders in Los Angeles and it’s expected to fetch six figures. The weapon first appeared in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strike Back. Despite the fact that the “blaster” is basically just a non-functional hunk of fiberglass, auctioneers estimate that it will sell for around $300,000.
Absurd as that may sound, there’s plenty of precedent for this in the Star Wars universe. In 2013, Han Solo’s blaster from Episodes V and VI brought back $200,000 and Luke’s lightsaber hauled in an astounding $240,000 back in 2008.
Assuming it sells for the estimated price, Luke’s DL-44 would become the most expensive piece of movie weaponry ever sold. “Luke Skywalker is one of the most beloved cinematic characters of all-time,” said auction house rep Sam Heller, “Collectors will cherish Skywalker’s Blaster Gun, which was used in the Rebel Alliance’s battle against the evil Galactic Empire.”
That may be true, but what’s tripping us up here is the fact that Luke’s blaster is expected to sell for more than his lightsaber. As any respectable Star Wars fan knows, lightsaber > blaster. Period. End of story.
All kidding aside, this is yet another example of the financial might of Disney and Lucasfilm’s franchise, which is as healthy as ever and is sure to be part of the zeitgeist for generations to come.
For those already itching for more Star Wars, you’ll be able to catch Rogue One on December 16, 2016 and Star Wars: Episode VIII on May 26, 2017.
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?