Tag: release

Categories
Business

‘A Quiet Place II’ delayed once more, units sights on September launch

'A Quiet Place II' delayed again, sets sights on September release

Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe star in “A Quiet Place Part II”.

Paramount Pictures

“A Quiet Place Part II” is the latest Hollywood movie to advance to box office release worldwide as the coronavirus pandemic rages on in the US. This is the third time the movie has been postponed due to the outbreak.

Paramount’s post-apocalyptic thriller will now premiere on September 17th. The film should last in theaters on April 23.

The film is the highly anticipated sequel to John Krasinski’s directorial debut, “A Quiet Place,” which introduced moviegoers to a world where deadly but blind creatures hunt based on sound only. The film starred actress Emily Blunt alongside teenage deaf actress Millicent Simmonds and a young English actor named Noah Jupe. All three are returning for the sequel.

The first A Quiet Place, on a budget of just $ 17 million, grossed more than $ 340 million at the global box office as moviegoers flocked to theaters to watch the exciting film on the big screen and in large groups experience.

This is a likely reason why Paramount, which has been actively selling a number of theatrical titles to streaming services over the past year, decided to postpone the release of the sequel.

In the past, Studio Aaron Sorkins sold “The Trial of the Chicago 7” to Netflix and “Coming 2 America” ​​and “Without Remorse” to Amazon.

The commercial success of “A Quiet Place” and Krasinski’s desire to have the film play on the big screen could keep the film out of the streaming market for the time being.

This is what the 2021 calendar looks like after “A Quiet Place II” has been postponed.

Categories
Politics

Biden nationwide safety advisor requires Russia to launch Navalny

Biden national security advisor calls for Russia to release Navalny

A file photo dated September 29, 2019 shows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a rally in support of political prisoners on Prospekt Sakharova Street in Moscow, Russia. Alexei Navalny is passed out in hospital after allegedly being poisoned, according to his press secretary.

Sefa Karacan | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan called for the immediate release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was arrested at a Moscow airport on Sunday after his arrival.

The previous Sunday, Navalny flew from Berlin to Russia, where he had recovered for almost six months since being poisoned last summer. He was arrested at passport control.

Last week, Russian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Navalny alleging that he had violated the three and a half year suspended sentence he received in 2014 for embezzlement.

“Mr. Navalny should be released immediately and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be brought to justice,” Sullivan wrote on Twitter.

The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Sullivan’s call for Navalny to be released comes days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Biden’s new government is expected to increase pressure on Russia.

After the poisoning of Navalny last year, Biden vowed “to work with our allies and partners to hold the Putin regime accountable for its crimes,” and accused President Donald Trump of not being tough enough.

A non-partisan group of US senators had urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions on Russia in response to the poisoning of Navalny. Trump, who is leaving office on Wednesday, did not do so.

The United Kingdom and the European Union, close allies of the United States, swiftly imposed targeted sanctions on six Russians and a government research center in October.

On the return flight to Moscow, Navalny told reporters that he was feeling great and that the trip home was “the best moment in five months.”

“I feel great. I’m finally going back to my hometown,” he said, according to a Reuters report.

Last year, Navalny was medically evacuated to Germany from a Russian hospital after falling ill after reports that something had been added to his tea. Russian doctors treating Navalny denied that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned, blaming his comatose condition for low blood sugar levels.

In September, the German government announced that the 44-year-old Russian dissident had been poisoned by a chemical agent on nerves and described the toxicological report as “clear evidence”. The nerve agent was in the Novichok family, which was developed by the Soviet Union.

Following the test results, the White House said it was “deeply concerned” by the matter and called the poisoning “utterly reprehensible.”

“The United States is deeply concerned about the results released today,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said in a written statement at the time. “The poisoning of Alexei Navalny is completely reprehensible. Russia has used the chemical nerve agent novichok in the past,” he said, referring to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied a role in the poisoning of Navalny and Skripal.

Navalny’s arrest Sunday faces another strain on relations between European leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin and comes while the Kremlin works to secure a gas pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, to Germany.

Categories
Business

launch of fourth quarter, full-year 2020 GDP

release of fourth quarter, full-year 2020 GDP

Employees working on a dry-type transformer production line at a power generation factory in Haian, east China’s Jiangsu Province, Jan. 4, 2021.

Stringer | AFP | Getty Images

BEIJING – China reported GDP rose 2.3% over the past year as the world battled to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Chinese consumers continued to be reluctant to spend as retail sales fell 3.9% over the year. Retail sales increased 4.6% year over year in the fourth quarter.

The gross domestic product grew by 6.5% in the fourth quarter compared to the previous year.

Economists expected China to be the only major economy to have grown over the past year and forecast GDP growth of just over 2%.

Covid-19 first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. To control the virus, Chinese authorities closed more than half the country and the economy contracted 6.8% in the first three months of 2020.

However, China returned to growth in the second quarter. Economists polled by Reuters forecast GDP to grow 6.1% in the fourth quarter, faster than the 4.9% pace in the previous quarter.

China’s GDP growth this year is expected to come from a lower base.

In late December, the National Bureau of Statistics cut China’s official growth rate for 2019 to 6.0% from the 6.1% previously reported. The cut came mostly in manufacturing as factories dealt with new US tariffs on Chinese goods valued at billions of dollars.

Categories
Entertainment

Bobby Shmurda Eligible for Launch From Jail in February

Bobby Shmurda Eligible for Release From Prison in February

Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, whose rapid rise in the music industry was interrupted when he was arrested in 2014 for conspiracy and gang arrest, will be released from prison next month, the New York State Department of Corrections said on Monday.

Shmurda, 26, whose legal name is Ackquille Pollard, was sentenced to seven years in prison in October 2016 after pleading guilty to conspiracy and gun possession in connection with his leading role in the GS9 gang, an offshoot of the Crips in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Shmurda was denied parole in September, partly due to disciplinary action against him while he was incarcerated, and he was then ordered to serve his maximum sentence until December 11, 2021. Following a review by the Corrections Department, Shmurda’s recognition for good institutional behavior was restored, making him eligible for a conditional release from February 23, provided no further incidents occurred. The remainder of his sentence was to be served on parole.

“I’m glad he comes home,” said Alex Spiro, a lawyer who represented Shmurda in the criminal case.

Before his arrest at a Manhattan recording studio in December 2014, Shmurda went viral thanks to a hit single known in its edited version as “Hot Boy” and a related meme taken from the social media app Vine Rise in hip-hop that showed him throwing his hat in the air and doing his trademark “Shmoney Dance”. Mimicked by Beyoncé and in NFL touchdown dances, the move helped send “Hot Boy” to # 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The then 19-year-old Shmurda signed a seven-digit contract with Epic Records for several albums. However, while waiting for the trial and unable to pay his $ 2 million bail, he complained that the label had abandoned him. “When I was locked up, I thought they would come pick me up,” he told the New York Times in an interview, “but they never came.”

In the years since, Shmurda, despite only releasing a handful of songs, has become something of a folk hero in rap; His release from prison was eagerly awaited by fans and fellow artists. His close associate, Rowdy Rebel, who was convicted of the same case, was released on parole last month.

While behind bars, Shmurda was disciplined for numerous violations of fighting and possession of contraband, which damaged his reputation with the probation authority. In a partial transcript of the probation hearing published by New York magazine, Shmurda said he “tried to learn how to defend himself” while detained on Rikers Island and called the prison “just a crazy place”.

Shmurda is currently being held in the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY, according to the Department of Corrections inmate database.

He told the parole board last year that he hoped to get back to rap and the entertainment business while also advising children from areas similar to those he grew up in. “I was young, I was just a follower,” he said, “and then I got older, I started making music and then I saw my life start on a different path, but my past just caught up with me . ”

In a recent interview with NPR’s Louder Than a Riot podcast, Shmurda suggested that he should have started rapping sooner. “I would never have been on the street, you know what I mean?” he said. “My biggest regret is not to follow my dreams sooner.”

Categories
Business

Studios experiment with launch fashions what meaning for movie piracy

Studios experiment with release models what that means for film piracy

A photographic illustration of pirated copies being illegally downloaded with the legal music service iTunes in the background in London, England.

Matthew Lloyd | Getty Images

2021 will be a completely different year for the cinema business. Hoping to find ways to make a profit from big budget blockbusters, new methods of film publishing have turned.

For Warner Bros., the pandemic led parent company AT&T to decide to release all films in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day. Universal, owned by Comcast, has chosen to sign contracts with individual theaters to reduce the time their films have to stay in theaters before they switch to premium video-on-demand.

Then there are those like Disney, who have largely postponed the majority of their films to 2021 and put a handful on their own streaming service.

But box office analysts won’t be the only ones watching closely how these films perform over the next year. Piracy experts are excited to see how these new publishing methods will affect illegal streaming.

“As a data science researcher, this is a dream,” said Brett Danaher, professor of entertainment analysis and data science at Chapman University. “It’s such a great experiment.”

Heading into 2021, piracy experts told CNBC that they have theories about how pirates will react to these different models, but aren’t entirely sure what will happen.

What we know about piracy

For one thing, piracy is difficult to track. Experts can track some downloads from major piracy websites, but once this file is downloaded it can be privately distributed and streamed to thousands of other viewers.

It’s also why experts make a range of claims that piracy could cost the US economy, rather than a fixed number. Last year, the Global Innovation Policy Center estimated that global online piracy cost the US economy between $ 29.9 billion and $ 71 billion in lost revenue each year.

But you can learn a lot from people who are pirates. Looking at the data, experts like Andy Chatterley, CEO and co-founder of MUSO, a global authority on digital piracy, can provide insights to media companies around the world.

For one thing, Chatterley noted that the bigger the buzz around a blockbuster, the more piracy it will see. Films with large marketing campaigns, pent-up inquiries from enthusiastic fans and a lot of media exposure lead to more illegal online downloads.

MUSO’s data also suggests that piracy will increase as higher quality versions of films become available on piracy sites. For example, “Bad Boys for Life” came out in theaters in January and saw a “pretty mild” amount of piracy, Chatterley said. However, when it became available on video-on-demand in mid-March, there was a huge surge in online piracy.

Conversely, Disney’s “Mulan,” which immediately went streaming, saw a massive spike and then a fall in overtime on its release day.

“The piracy was front loaded,” Chatterley said. “But the piracy wasn’t necessarily bigger or smaller.”

How to prevent illegal downloads

For companies like AT&T that release high quality versions of films on day one, there are a few ways to prevent piracy. For example, the film was released in theaters and on HBO Max internationally two weeks before the North American debut of “Wonder Woman 1984”.

This allowed audiences to see the film in theaters first before a high quality copy was released on piracy websites. This is especially important as HBO Max is currently only a domestic product.

“Of course there are people who always become pirates,” said Michael Smith, professor of information technology and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University. “The people you worry about are the people who would have legally bought your content but found it [piracy] is more convenient. “

People wearing masks walk past a billboard for the film ‘Wonder Woman 1984’. Photo taken on December 26th, 2020.

Simon Shin | SOPA pictures | LightRocket via Getty Images

Smith said the majority of pirates do this because they have no other legal way to consume a product. Had these viewers been given an easier legal route, they would have paid to watch the film.

While online piracy can have a negative financial impact on media companies, the data experts gathered can also help those companies determine what their audiences want to see. Data from groups like MUSO can tell companies which films or TV shows to buy or license domestically or in international locations.

For example, the European Union Intellectual Property Office found that “The Mummy” was disproportionately pirated in Spain and the TV show “South Park” was a popular illegal download in Finland.

This information tells Universal that “The Mummy” may be made more widely available in Spain and Viacom in order to sign a contract with a Finnish streaming service.

What could happen in 2021

As Danaher said, 2021 will be a big experiment for the industry when it comes to piracy. It is the first time that several different release strategies are carried out simultaneously and over a longer period of time.

While some titles are more popular than others, the data should include trends that show how people are consuming their entertainment.

As in the previous year, it will be difficult for experts to pinpoint a clear financial impact, especially since the pandemic is likely to have an impact on how people watch certain films. Those who cannot go to the theaters may opt for legal streaming when available, but choose illegal methods for big movies instead.

With premium video-on-demand becoming an option to buy sooner than usual, it may not be immediately clear whether on-demand buying or piracy is cannibalizing theater revenue.

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you who will win the horse race,” said Danaher.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

Categories
Business

Taylor Swift to launch ninth studio album ‘Evermore’ at midnight

Taylor Swift to release ninth studio album ‘Evermore’ at midnight

Taylor Swift performs on stage during the 55th Academy of Country Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry on September 16, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee.

ACMA2020 | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Taylor Swift was inspired and productive during the pandemic. The superstar singer announced on Twitter on Thursday that she was releasing a new album entitled “Evermore” at midnight. It’s a “sister record” to Swift’s “Folklore” album, which was released in July.

“To be clear, we just couldn’t stop writing songs,” wrote Swift. “To put it more poetically, it feels like we are standing on the edge of the folkloric forest with a choice: to turn around and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We decided to wander deeper into it.”

The album will contain 15 songs and will cost $ 9.99 for a digital copy of the record. “Evermore” is Swift’s ninth studio album and has two bonus tracks as part of its Deluxe Edition.

Additionally, a music video for a new track called “Willow” will be released at midnight. Like the music video for “Cardigan,” “Willow” was shot during the pandemic and “every precaution” was taken to ensure the safety of Swift and the crew who shot the video.

“I’ve never done this before,” said Swift, an artist with Universal Music Group. “In the past, I’ve always treated albums as one-time epochs and planned the next one after an album was released. Folklore was different. When I made it, I felt less like leaving and more like coming back.”

Like “Folklore”, “Evermore” was written and co-produced by Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from National. Bon Iver returns for the title track “Evermore”, the National is on “Coney Island” and Haim appears in a song called “No Body, No Crime”.

“Folklore” was the first music album to sell a million copies in the US in 2020. It was also their ninth album that reached this milestone.

Categories
Business

Warner Bros. CEO defends 2021 movie launch mannequin, in talks with expertise

Warner Bros. CEO defends 2021 film release model, in talks with talent

Last week, AT & T’s Warner Bros. announced that all films set to release in 2021 will be released on HBO Max as soon as they hit theaters. Ann Sarnoff, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment, defended the decision on Tuesday.

“We have been trying to find the best way forward for the last eight months since we were first suspended,” Sarnoff told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on Squawk Alley. “We have a lot of movies that are ready and they’re on the shelves, so we thought this was the most creative and win-win situation to get them not only in theaters but also on HBO Max for 31 days at the same time . “

Like many film studios, Warner Bros. has been forced to postpone blockbuster features due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now they are looking for a way to get theatrical releases but also improve the HBO Max streaming service.

However, the company’s decision was not well received by many filmmakers or cinema chains. Warner Bros. has not consulted with the actors, agents, or directors of the 17 films that make up the 2021 film, and has not entered into distribution agreements with cinemas that have traditionally opposed simultaneous theatrical and streaming releases.

Indeed, some media reports suggest that filmmakers and cinema owners were only informed of the announcement less than two hours before it was released.

In addition, the New York Times reported that “Wonder Woman 1984” star Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins were each rewarded with a check for $ 10 million when Warner Bros. decided to send that film to HBO Max if it came to Christmas is coming to theaters. This was seen as minor to other talents who had worked with the company.

“It’s a unilateral decision that the studio made,” Christopher Nolan, a notable filmmaker and contributor to Warner Bros., told the Associated Press on Monday. “You didn’t even tell anyone involved. You have these great filmmakers who have worked passionately and diligently for years on projects that are supposed to be feature films with fantastic movie stars. And everyone has now been told it is a loss leader for a boy Streaming service. “

Nolan is known to pressure Warner Bros. to release his movie “Tenet” on the big screen instead of offering it for purchase as a premium video upon request. As of August, Tenet has had domestic sales of $ 57.6 million and $ 302.1 million from international markets.

“We work through the system with our talent and their agents,” said Sarnoff. “I think the more they see how well they’re getting paid, the more we find that people understand the economy. And that’s unprecedented. So it’s always a bit difficult to work something new through for the first time.”

Sarnoff did not disclose details of financial dealings with parties, but said filmmakers and talent “have access to some additional economic aspects of HBO Max.”

“We are in the process of having a lot of conversations with the talent, agents and exhibitors to see how this can work and be good for everyone,” she said.

Currently, that same-day movie release strategy in theaters and on HBO Max only appears to apply for 2021. Sarnoff called it a “workaround” but said the company needs to see how 2022 plays out before making any decisions about future sales models.

Jason Kilar, CEO of WarnerMedia, made similar comments in an interview with CNBC last week.

“Everyone should take a breather,” said Kilar. “Let’s play for the next six, eight, ten months. And then let’s check in again.”

AT&T CEO John Stankey said earlier Tuesday that the streaming service had added subscribers even before the new content hit the service. HBO Max has approximately 12.6 million subscribers, up from 8.6 million activated accounts at the end of the third quarter.