Masterminds, a kooky heist comedy starring Zach Galifianakis, was originally scheduled for an August 19, 2015 release. Then it was scheduled for an October 9, 2015 release. Then its co-producer/distributor Relativity Media had a brush with bankruptcy, and fans began to wonder whether it would be released at all.
Now, it seems the Jared Hess-directed film is back on track after debuting its official trailer on Thursday. The chaotic spot comes in at a little over two minutes and features explosions, gunshots, car wrecks, and harrowing getaways. It also features quite a few moments that may just make you LOL.
At 0:32, Galifianakis “grazes” his “biscuits” with a bullet; at 1:13, Leslie Jones describes his mugshot using only musicians named Kenny; and we learn never to stand too close to someone breaking down a cheap door at 1:57.
The full trailer is embedded above and offers a mix of physical comedy, character comedy, and plain ol’ cringe comedy. Its tagline — “get stupid rich” — does a good job of describing the film in a nutshell, but here’s a snippet of the synopsis anyway:
“In this action comedy based on true events, directed by Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite; Nacho Libre), David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis) discovers the true meaning of adventure far beyond his wildest dreams. He is an uncomplicated man stuck in a monotonous life. Day in and day out, he drives an armored vehicle, transporting millions of other people’s money with no escape in sight. The only glimmer of excitement is his flirtatious work crush, Kelly Campbell (Kristen Wiig), who soon lures him into the scheme of a lifetime.”
Barring any unforeseen setbacks, Masterminds will hit theaters on September 30. But, given this film’s history, you may want to stay tuned for updates.
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?