While gritty, serious, Bourne-style action flicks seem to be the flavor du jour, there’s something to be said for a good ol’ fashioned, ’90s-style camp-fest. Let’s face it, most of the genre’s films are inherently ridiculous, so there’s nothing wrong with taking a more tongue-in-cheek approach. That being said, the latest trailer for The Hitman’s Bodyguard, starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, may just make you want to yippee-kai-yay all the way to your local theater.
Here’s the gist: Ryan Reynolds is an elite bodyguard who is tasked with shepherding an infamous hitman (Samuel L. Jackson) to an international court, where he’s been summoned to testify. For his part, Jackson doesn’t seem too keen on being babysat, and tries to kill Reynolds upwards of 27 times (or maybe it’s 28). Despite the fraught nature of the partnership, a ruthless, Eastern European dictator (Gary Oldman) forces the pair to play nice.
Clocking in at just under two minutes long, the spot features a heady blend of fast-paced action and cheeky humor. Our favorite example of the latter has to be Samuel L. bopping along as a van full of nuns harmonizes in Italian (1:10), but his co-star’s calm, workmanlike extraction of a terrified “client” is a close second (0:01).
Also, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the number of Marvel alums taking part in this one. If you watched this trailer and thought: “Why is Deadpool/Green Lantern chasing Nick Fury around and what does Elektra (Elodie Yung) have to do with any of this?” you’re not alone.
Despite its distinctly B-movie feel, however, this film seems like it could be a lot of fun. You can check out the full trailer above, along with a hilarious poster which pays homage to The Bodyguard, the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston star vehicle that debuted in 1992 and lends this film at least part of its name.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard is set to hit theaters August 18, 2017.
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?