The evil Count Olaf of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events has come to the screen before, but he’ll get a new spin with Neil Patrick Harris portraying him in the latest adaptation. Netflix has released a new teaser for the upcoming series, and the minute-long preview centers on the diabolical character.
The series, which is based on Daniel Handler’s beloved books, centers on three young orphans — Violet, Kalus, and Sunny — who are left in the care of the cruel count. Olaf is determined to gain control of their inheritance, and they have to do their best to stop him as they try to figure out how their parents died. The new teaser shows just how dangerous their enemy is, labeling him as “horrible,” “awful,” a “villain,” a “wretch,” and worse — just in case there was any doubt.
Based on the teaser (and what we know from the books and previous adaptations), we’ll see Count Olaf attempt all kinds of manipulative tricks to get his hands on the kids’ fortune. “He’s in disguise and he’s trying to take us away,” we hear Violet (Malina Weissman) say at one point.
Harris is best known for comedic roles, including Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother (not to mention the title character in Dougie Howser, M.D.), but he has taken on dark roles in the past. He appeared in the 2014 psychological thriller Gone Girl, for example. A Series of Unfortunate Events will give him another chance to play a troubling character.
In addition to Harris and Weissman, the adaptation stars Joan Cusack, Patrick Warburton, and Louis Haynes. The series is executive produced by Handler himself alongside Barry Sonnenfeld.
All eight episodes of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events will premiere on Netflix on Friday, January 13.
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.