Raising Arizona. Raising Hope. Raising the Bar. Raising Helen … you get it. Hollywood has long had a thing for “raising” stuff, and according to Variety, that trend will continue. Netflix ordered 10 episodes of Raising Dion, a family drama about a single mother whose young son exhibits superpowers.
The series, based on a comic book and short film by writer Dennis Liu, is in the capable hands of veteran showrunner Carol Barbee (Jericho, Falling Skies), with Michael B. Jordan (Creed) on board as an executive producer. Jordan, 30, is a grizzled super-veteran at this point, having portrayed Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm in the most recent Fantastic Four film in addition to an upcoming heel turn where he will play the villainous Erik Killmonger in Black Panther, set for a February release.
In Raising Dion, recently widowed Nicole struggles to cope with varied abilities exhibited by 7-year-old Dion, including telekinesis, invisibility, and some kind of pyrokinesis. In the comics (and the short film, which you can view below), Nicole recruits the best friend of her late husband to help out with Dion, and to film his extraordinary exploits. As you might expect, some nefarious government agents squeeze their way into the picture, ostensibly looking to take advantage of Dion, or maybe to dissect him — for science!
We don’t yet know how close the series will stick to the source material and no casting decisions have been made as of yet (though we do know that Jordan will appear in a limited role as Nicole’s late husband). The show is a unique take on a superhero story and it should provide a respite from the color-by-numbers Marvel and DC projects with which we’ve become inundated.
Liu himself is Taiwanese-American, having graduated from the Taft School and New York Universtiy’s film program. His professional portfolio is varied including advertising work for big names — like Starbucks, Microsoft, Google, and Pepsi — in addition to having directed several music videos for artists like Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and Mariah Carey. His career was jumpstarted with the 2008 release of his Apple Mac music video, which quickly went viral and has since amassed nearly 2 million views.
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.