If you’re not ready for the rip-roaring, raid-filled saga that is History’s Vikings to be over, we’ve got some good news for you. ScreenCrush reports that the show was recently confirmed to be returning for Season 5, and as an added bonus, it will be adding another scene-stealing actor to its cast.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers — famous for dramatic roles like Dracula and Henry VIII — will journey back to join the world of Vikings, though we don’t yet have any details on what role he’ll play. History offered the following statement on the high-profile addition to the cast:
“The brilliant writing and depth of historical research and authenticity brought to the screen by Michael Hirst paired with our talented cast and crew, has made this series one of the most compelling, visually stunning historical dramas on television. Vikings has raided the hearts of audiences and we are thrilled that Jonathan Rhys Meyers will become a bigger part of the HISTORY family after his incredible performance in our upcoming production of Roots.”
As noted above, Rhys Meyers is fresh off his turn as Tom Lea in History’s adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots, the sweeping tale of one African slave and his family in America. Of course, the actor also journeyed back to 16th Century England for Showtime’s The Tudors and has shown a chameleonic ability to blend in to most any time and place. That said, we’re sure he’ll feel right at home in 9th century Scandinavia.
As for the upcoming season 5, filming is set to begin this summer with an eye towards a 2017 premiere. Like season 4 it will include 20 hour-long episodes (minus commercial breaks). By Vikings’ standards, that’s essentially two seasons in one, as seasons 1, 2, and 3 checked in at nine, 10, and 10 episodes respectively.
Long saga short: Vikings is sailing smoothly along and will continue to invade living rooms for the foreseeable future.
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?