Star Wars: The Force Awakens is coming out tomorrow and, while there is no short of excitement about the release, tensions are running high behind the scenes. Theater operators nationwide have added extra security measures for the opening, according to Deadline, as record ticket sales indicate the premiere may become one of the biggest entertainment events of the year.
With the film opening on 4,134 screens in the U.S. and Star Wars‘ dominant media presence, many theaters have brought in extra security staff for Friday, with some opting to heighten security over the weekend or even through the holiday season.
As one might expect, some theater owners are taking more steps than others, but those investing in security are reportedly hiring 2-3 times the number of guards they would need for a normal weekend. In addition to hiring additional staff, many venues will be checking bags and even using metal-detecting wands on patrons before they enter the theater.
In addition to the sheer number of people, a security expert suggested that the larger-than-average number of attendees in costume also represents a potential security concern.
Theater owners are wary in light of recent mass shootings in San Bernadino, California, Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as the coordinated ISIS attacks in Paris, which targeted an Eagles of Death Metal concert and a soccer match.
While there has been no official threat or warning from federal law enforcement, the National Association of Theater Operators have cited a pair of incidents at movie theaters in the last week as signs of a potential security issue. Two men approached a ticket booth at a southern California theater and asked a series of “suspicious” questions, like “How crowded is it going to be this weekend?” In Tempe, Arizona, two men walked into a theater without tickets and were recording the theater’s interior when they were caught by security.
Bottom line: You may want to get to the theater a little earlier than normal if you’re going to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it opens to the public which begins tonight.
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?