Ridley Scott’s The Martian has dropped promo spots, featurettes, and trailers galore in advance of its Oct. 2 release, but perhaps the most in-depth look at the upcoming film will hit HBO and HBO NOW this Monday, Sept. 28, at 9:45 p.m. Eastern time.
HBO First Look: The Martian will take audiences behind the scenes for an exclusive look at the making of the film, including exclusive interviews with Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, and Kate Mara, as well as gigantic fans creating artificial dust storms by blowing hurricane-force, 200 kph (124 mph) winds at the cast. Yikes!
It seems like this production went to great lengths to ensure that the experience felt authentic for audiences — which means that it needed to go to great lengths to make it feel authentic for the actors too.
A promo for the promo is embedded above, and Matt Damon reminds you as the video opens that “when things are really happening practically around you, it’s no acting required.” Jeff Daniels adds, “you follow your instincts, you react instead of act.” From the looks of things, director Ridley Scott kept the cast on its toes throughout filming and his use of practical effects looks like it could pay off big time.
This is sure to be a slow week for those who’ve been feverishly anticipating this film, but at least you’ll have this feature to look forward to. HBO’s First Look series typically runs for 15-20 minutes, so this should be a pretty meaty preview.
In case you missed it you can also check out the first teaser trailer, the first official trailer, and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos promo covering the movie, here, here, and here.
Have no fear, however, you will get to see the actual movie eventually. The Martian hits theaters Oct. 2.
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?