While Creed didn’t quite make the cut when it came to Best Picture nominees, the latest installment from the Rocky family tree has our vote for most surprising film of the year. While some rolled their eyes when the spinoff was announced, no one could scoff at the final product, which received almost unanimously positive reviews from critics and solidified director Ryan Coogler as a rising star.
Fast-forward a few months and, not only is Coogler directing Marvel’s Black Panther movie, he’s developing a new TV series centered around the juvenile detention system. Destin Daniel Cretton is co-developing the series, which is currently being shopped to potential buyers. Cretton, of course, is best known for directing the immensely powerful Indie Short Term 12, which stars Brie Larson (Room) and tells the story of counselors at a foster care facility and the at-risk teens they support.
This latest project is dubbed Minors, and THR reports that the series inspired by the real-life experiences Coogler, Cretton, and writer Chinaka Hodge. Coogler was raised in Oakland, California, and worked in the juvenile detention system; Cretton worked in residential foster care; and Hodge has experience teaching disadvantaged youths. The series will reportedly center around children growing up in juvenile detention facilities and will examine how their lives are shaped by the experience.
Clearly, this is a heavy and difficult subject to take on, but it sounds as if Coogler has got a very capable team at his side. His work on Fruitvale Station should also help to dispel any doubts about his ability to handle sensitive and/or complicated issues.
We’ll update you when and if a buyer for the series emerges, but as of right now, the only project on Coogler’s official directorial slate is Black Panther, which is due in theaters February 16, 2018. Stay tuned.
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?