Hollywood Suddenly Embraces AI

In a complete 180-degree U-Turn from everything that Hollywood has said they oppose about AI and everything they spent years on strike fighting against, one studio (at least) is now fully embracing AI systems and programs.

Lionsgate, the studio behind blockbusters like "John Wick" and "The Hunger Games," is taking a giant leap into the world of AI-powered filmmaking. They've partnered with Runway, an AI research company, to develop a custom AI model trained on Lionsgate's massive library of films and TV shows.

What will this AI do, you may ask? Imagine a tool that can generate cinematic video, helping filmmakers visualize scenes and experiment with different creative options. This AI model will do just that, assisting with everything from pre-production (think storyboarding and concept art) to post-production (enhancing visual effects and more).

Why is this a big deal?

Aside from being a fundamental shift from everything Hollywood has said they were against, as well as being a fundamental shift in the creative process, the move will position Lionsgate at the front of a new era. Whether we like it or not, GenAI is going to be forced on us, and the creative process is going to be changed. This new partnership marks the first time a major Hollywood studio has teamed up with an AI company in this way. While it may be the first, I'm sure there will be plenty more, and I'm sure it signals a potential shift in how movies are made, with AI playing a larger role in the creative process.

Just a few short months ago Hollywood was trying to convince us that "Generative AI Won’t Be on the Big Screen Any Time Soon!" It looks like that has changed and changed rather abruptly! Music and movie studios have already shown they are willing to use a singer or actors voice and their likeness through overlays or 'de-aged' characters. With this move we may see a major shift!

What Comes Next For Studios and AI?

Lionsgate is distancing itself from using these new tools to fully re-create actors or generate new characters. The company has said it believes these tools will help filmmakers and other creatives “augment their work” to deliver “capital-efficient content creation opportunities.” AI, in other words, could help cobble together more movies and shows with lower investment costs for highly expense things like explosions or other background effects. This according to statements made by Lionsgate founder Vice Chairman Michael Burns during an interview with The Wall Street Journal,

So for now iIt looks like this particular model will steer clear of generating AI “clones” or replicas of actors. They want us to believe it will primarily be used as a tool to enhance and augment existing projects. I guess we'll have to wait and see how quickly that position changes!

See A Glimpse Inside Star Wars: The Force Awakens Thanks to New Character Posters

We've all seen the newest trailers hinting at the long awaited arrival of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, today however we get a little closer glimpse at some of our favorite characters of old as well as some of the new additions thanks to Disney and the new character posters.

The official character posters for Rey, Leia, Kylo Ren, Han Solo, and Finn were revealed today, you'll likely notice the continued absence of Luke Skywalker as he still hasn't made it into any of the  promotional material that has been released as of yet. According to J.J. Abrams and the rest of the cast, there’s a very good reason for that, though there has been very little hinted at beyond that. It looks like we’ll continue to be kept in the dark and forced to wait until the movie hit theaters in order to discover why the hero of the original trilogy is being kept in the shadows.

Hopefully for us not seeing it on the first few days we can avoid some of the spoilers!!

Here are all of the latest images we have and if you have been in hiding and haven't seen the official  trailer and teaser (how dare you) you can view it here and the teasers video 1 and video 2.


I know this geeks is dying to see the new movie, what about you guys? Did you get your pre-orders in for the release or one of the first few show times?

Star Wars: Episode VII Cast Features Mix of Old Favorites and New Faces

Big news in the geeky world of sci-fi today, as the cast for Star Wars: Episode VII has been officially announced. The latest installments with comprise a star studded cast featuring several of our log time favorites, alongside a plethora of new additions!

J.J. Abrams will helm the first installment in the third trilogy of Star Wars. Actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow will join the original stars of the saga. Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker will reprise their original roles in the all new film.

Director J.J. Abrams says, "We are so excited to finally share the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII. It is both thrilling and surreal to watch the beloved original cast and these brilliant new performers come together to bring this world to life, once again. We start shooting in a couple of weeks, and everyone is doing their best to make the fans proud."

The movie, is set to begin filming shortly and is expected to be released Dec. 18, 2015. While the storyline and plot has yet to be reviled what we do know is that it is set 30-35 years after the leave off from the1983's Return of the Jedi.

Source: StarWars.com

Comcast Xfinity App Now Offers Offline Viewing

There certainly isn't a shortage of apps that allow for the streaming of movies and TV shows to your tablet or smartphone. But even with this plethora of applications there are relatively few that allow you to download content for offline viewing. Enter the newly updated Comcast Xfinity TV Player app for Android and Apple's iOS.

The new app allows Comcast Xfinity subscribers to not only stream TV Shows and movies from your favorite networks, including premium channels like HBO, Starz, Showtime, Cinemax and cable channels like TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network and BBC America but it now allows you to download movies and TV shows from Encore, MoviePlex, Showtime, and Starz for offline viewing (and yes you need to be subscribed to those premium channels in your cable package to be able to download content).

You'll have the choice between "medium" and "highest" quality resolution with the later being the best visual quality however at a much larger file size. The difference in file size is quit large. For instance to get "21 Jump Street" at highest quality you'll need 2.4GB of free space. However, the medium-quality version consumes just 478MB. Something to take into consideration when adding movies!

The Comcast Xfinity TV Player app works on Android phone or tablet running Android 2.3 and higher. On the iOS side, it works with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and 4S, the third, fourth and fifth generation iPad touch devices, and iPads. The Xfinity TV Player version 1.2 requires Apple’s iOS 5.0 or later and is optimized for the iPhone 5.

Note that this is not the same app as the Xfinity TV app, so be sure you have the correct app installed before looking for downloads.

So far there has been no word from Comcast about the availability of downloadable content for other channels, though I suspect they will eventually add a few more. I know I'd like to see HBO on there so I can download Game of Thrones so I can fix going even when I'm on the go.

This Just In 'Avengers' Is A Hit, Breaks Records With $200M Debut

If like me you failed to see The Avengers over the weekend apparently you might be in the minority.

According to the film's distributor Disney and their weekend estimates "The Avengers" might well be the first movie ever to haul in $200 million in a single weekend. The number could still dip below $200 million by Monday when the actually numbers will be released, but Disney spent the weekend revising its forecasts upward.  Which means the movie could very well have done better than their estimates.

Disney has said the new Marvel Comics superhero movie had an amazing opening weekend with a gross of $80.5 million on Friday alone. If the numbers hold true the film will end the weekend smashing the domestic revenue record with a $200.3 million debut. Making it by in large the biggest opening ever, shooting past the previous record of $169.2 million for the debut of last year's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" finale.

In all the film has grossed a worldwide haul of nearly $641.8 million in barely a week and a half, more than all of its Marvel superhero forerunners "Iron Man," "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "Captain America" combined during their entire runs.

 I don't know about you but from the reviews I've seen and read I'm ready to go take a peek!

Official X-Men: First Class Trailer Released

X-Men: First Class, the latest addition to the X-Men film series, is slated to hit theaters June 3, 2011. This much anticipated prequel is set in 1962 and reportedly depicts the beginnings of the X-Men team.

From the looks of the trailer we not only get a good look at the origins of the team and early lives of our favorite characters but it looks like we'll be introduced to a few new characters as well. So far the reception has been mixed but from what I see it looks fairly decent.

Movie Studios Think We'll Pay $30 To Watch New Movie Releases At Home

Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co. are reportedly in talks with In Demand, Cox Communications, Comcast, and Time Warner to offer customers the option of watching newly released films in the comfort of their own homes for as much as $30 per showing. According to the reports the new releases would be available, via Video-On-Demand, shortly after hitting theaters and several weeks before being releases to DVD.

Testing for the new services has already begun with Sony Corp. testing the market with users of its Bravia TV by offering the Will Smith movie “Hancock” in 2008 and the animated film “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” in 2009 for $24.95. Time Warner Inc. Chief Financial Officer John Martin told the Goldman Sachs conference in New York last week that the company’s Warner Bros. studio expects to begin tests on the service later this year. He said he expected the offering to be priced at $20 to $30 per viewing.

The major question is why would consumers opt for such a high priced single viewing service option? Well for one, if you are a larger family (3 or more) and the movies are released within a shortened time frame the $30 cost could actually save you quite a bit over in theater costs. Ticket prices have been skyrocketing over the years with adult tickets costing well over $10/person and kids tickets averaging well over $6/child.

The National Association of Theatre Owners, a Washington-based industry group, is obviously opposed to the idea of offering the new VOD option stating “Any promotion, advertising, marketing or testing of premium VOD needs to be done within the existing in-home window time frame [of the exclusive 120-day theatrical “window” exhibitors have for a typical release]."

The NATO is concerned that any deviation from the 120-day theatrical window would not only affect ticket sales but also undercut the value of "theatrical exhibition".

I for one don't see this as being a very viable option. Personally rising ticket costs and expenditures have kept me out of theaters over the past few years and I don't see that changing anytime soon. So I don't think I'd be willing to shell out an additional $20-25 just to see a movie that has already been in theaters for a few weeks. I'd be perfectly willing to wait the extra time saving me my hard earned cash to see a new release on DVD or Blu-Ray as apposed to spending the extra money for thew VOD service.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Leaked

A DVD quality, full-length work print of the new action film, which isn't set for release until May 1, has been spreading through torrent sites today. According to several reports the video is an uncompleted version of the film.

AfterDawn.com has said the film, being a "workprint", is missing some of the wow factor. Specifically some of the special effects missing. Reportedly you also get the occasional view of wires still attached to actors during action scenes. Although unconfirmed, some are reporting that the leaked version is missing some of the director's re-shoots as well as a few new scenes. We probably won't know until next month however what is missing.

FOX released a statement confirming the leak and confirming the version of the film posted online was not complete. The company vowed that the source would be prosecuted stating the FBI and MPAA are investigating.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a prequel to the X-Men film trilogy. The film follows Wolverine and his time with Team X, at a time before his skeleton was bonded with adamantium.

IMDb Now Showing Free TV Shows & Movies

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), a subsidiary of Amazon.com, has begun showing more than 6,000 feature films and television shows on its site for free.

Col Needham, founder and managing director of IMDb.com, said in a statement that the move reflects IMDb's mission to be the world's most comprehensive source of movie, TV, and celebrity information, products, and services.

"We're excited to offer our users a simple online experience to watch full-length movies and TV episodes for free," he said. "Our goal is to show our users every movie and TV show on the Internet for free on IMDb.com."

IMDb is offering a wide array of content within the free streaming service. Current network TV shows such as "24," "The Office" and "The Simpsons" can be seen alongside classic programming such as "Beverly Hills, 90210," "Charlie's Angels" and "Star Trek." A handful of fall premieres will also be made available on the site prior to their broadcast debuts. "Knight Rider," "Lipstick Jungle," "Chuck," "Life" and "30 Rock" are all set to become available on IMDb within the next several weeks.

When it comes to movies, the list ranges from relatively recent titles -- "Bring It On" and "Fever Pitch," for example -- to classics such as "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Some Like It Hot." CBS, Hulu and Sony Pictures Television are all contributing content. The videos are all integrated with IMDb's informational services, letting users click to see facts about the shows and actors right from the screens.

Turning Great Video Games Into Ok Films

Hollywood has tried several times to turn some of our favorite games into good movies, however most of the time these turn into huge flops. Lets face it some games just aren't meant to be movies. Movie moguls see a widely popular game and dollar signs light up.

While some game to movie projects have turned out to be very successful the majority have not. In general video games aren't written to be live action movies. For the most part the plots, story lines and character development just aren't there. However its not the game producers fault when movies flop. Movie producers, who in my opinion have never played the games, have issues sticking to the very thin story lines and try to take development too far. Scripting/writing for many of the movies is atrocious and casting for many of the roles has been less than stellar.

“Few games have translated well to film,” says Michael Pachter, videogame analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities. “'Doom' was a flop, as were the second 'Mortal Kombat' and 'Super Mario Bros.' movies. 'Resident Evil' has done well, as have the Lara Croft films, so I’d say it’s hit and miss.”

The next great game to attack the big screen is "Max Payne" which supposedly will be released in Oct, with Mark Wahlberg in the starring role. The film will be directed by John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, Flight of the Phoenix, and The Omen). Fans have had a mixed reception of some of the casting as well as some of the behind the scenes calls.

John Moore is a less-than-acclaimed director and then there is first-time screenwriter Beau Thorne was hired to pen the script. Add to that the casting of Chris O'Donnell for a major role and the movie starts to slide a little.

MSNBC's article "Turning good video games into great films" explores some of the ins and out of transporting video games into live action films.

Some of the people behind the scenes of "Max Payne" are working hard to see that game to movie porting works out better than in the past.

In June 2007, Hollywood producer Scott Faye, owner of Depth Entertainment; Scott Miller, also head of game developer 3D Realms; and Jim Perkins, former CEO of game developer-publisher Arush Entertainment, formed Radar Group.

Rather than creating a game, then licensing it as a film, or vice versa, Radar will cultivate story lines—“storyverses” in company parlance—that transcend any one medium, whether linear or interactive. From there, they can spin out movies, videogames, comic books, and anything else that might emerge.

“I think that because we’re starting at the outset, both cultures will have an incredibly solid foundation for an ongoing evergreen franchise,” says Faye.

Usually, a movie based on a game gets green-lit only after the game has been released and built an audience. But Depth Entertainment is already shopping Radar’s stories around to studios—even though the games are still a few years away from hitting shelves. Merchandising and expanding an intellectual property from the get-go has been a long-standing Hollywood strategy, but the concept is still new in the game business, where all the focus generally remains on creating the game.

How to Speed Up Movie Downloads

Researchers have designed a new way to get the most out of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, decreasing the time it takes to download movies and music.

By Brendan Borrell TechReview.com

Let's face it: peer-to-peer file transfers on the Internet are slow. More than half of all downloads fail, and the average transfer time for a 100-megabyte file is more than 24 hours. But now, a team of computer scientists led by Himabindu Pucha at Purdue University, in Indiana, say that they can double the speed of these transfers by taking advantage of overlap in data chunks contained within nonidentical multimedia files posted on peer-to-peer distribution networks. This would improve the likelihood of success of these transfers.

Locating that file with just 10 percent similarity could speed up downloads by 8 percent. For music files with greater than 90 percent similarity, a five-minute download on BitTorrent would take just over two minutes with SET.

Peer-to-peer distribution networks such as BitTorrent and Kazaa allow people to download individual files from others' computers. These systems first locate the copies of the requested file in the network's global lookup table using its "hash"--a unique identifier computed from the file's data sequence. Then, the file is divided into chunks so that each user's computer only has to upload a small piece of it. This technique speeds up file transfers because home users typically have greater bandwidth allocated to downloads compared with uploads. Of course, the overall speed of the transfer will depend on the number of file sources and how much spare upload capacity they have. The more popular a file is, the faster it is to download and the greater the chance of success.

Computer scientist David Andersen, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, worked with the Purdue group to develop a way to increase the size of the pool of uploaders called similarity-enhanced transfer (SET). The approach takes advantage of multiple variants of the same music files, video clips, and software, which are often floating around file-distribution networks. "We hope that SET gives you access to a larger pool of people to download from," says Andersen. "And by doing so, we think you're more likely to find one of these people who have more spare capacity."

Before Andersen and his colleagues conducted their study, it was not at all clear how much redundancy existed in file-sharing networks and whether it could be exploited, says Cornell University computer scientist Emin Gün Sirer, who was not involved in the study. The SET team analyzed almost two terabytes of music and video files from file-sharing networks, and it discovered that similar files typically shared anywhere between 20 and 99 percent of their content. With music files, even misspellings in user-defined header labels that identify artist and song titles are enough to throw off BitTorrent, despite the fact that 99 percent of the file is the same. Similarly, multiple versions of the same video are often available with different language tracks.
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