Turning Red, Pixar’s latest feature film, will premiere exclusively on Disney+, the studio announced on Friday. It follows Soul and Lucaas the third Pixar movie to skip a theatrical release. Disney had planned to debut Turning Red in theaters, but likely due to the recent surge in COVID-19 cases across the US and much of the world, that won’t happen. What hasn’t changed is the release date: the film will still debut on March 11th as originally planned.
“Given the delayed box office recovery, particularly for family films, flexibility remains at the core of our distribution decisions as we prioritize delivering the unparalleled content of The Walt Disney Company to audiences around the world,” said Kareem Daniel, chairman of media and entertainment distribution for Disney.
The fact Turning Red won’t premiere on the silver screen is a shame because it marks the full-length directorial debut of one of Pixar’s most promising young talents, Domee Shi. She won an Academy Award in 2019 for her work on the short film Bao, which was shown alongside Incredibles 2 in theaters. Like Bao, Turning Red is set in Shi’s hometown of Toronto, Canada. It tells the story of Mei Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), a teen who finds out she turns into a red panda when she gets too excited. Naturally, all sorts of hijinks ensue as a result. Did we mention the fabulous Sandra Oh is also in the movie? Yeah, it will be great.
The fact Turning Red won’t have a theatrical run is likely to significantly affect its earning potential. In turn, that could make Disney less willing to invest in diverse productions like Turning Red. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that families will at least have the opportunity to see the film from the safety of their homes.
Tinder is working on a new feature called Swipe Party that will let you invite friends online to help you vet dates, TechCrunch has reported. The feature was first spotted in the app's code by the Dutch site Gratisdatingtips and has yet to be announced, but Tinder confirmed that it's in in the works.
The feature would be not unlike Apple's SharePlay, which lets you do watch parties with friends via FaceTime on supported apps like Disney+ and Hulu. With Tinder, you could similarly invite friends to your swiping sessions so they could help you pick a match. A lot of folks already do that in person, so the new feature bring that online — handy in the time of COVID-19.
Code snippets show that Swipe Party would let you invite friends to join a session by providing their phone number, confirming it with a code, then entering their name and date of birth. If you want their help, however, you'd need to give them access to your phone's camera and microphone.
Tinder recently let users add videos to their dating profiles, and parent Match recently promised to introduce other audio and chat features to its dating apps. While Tinder confirmed to TechCrunch that the feature was in development, it didn't provide any additional details.
The Fallout streaming TV series based on the Bethesda's post-apocalyptic game from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's Kilter Films is moving along smartly, Deadline has reported. Production is set to start this year with Nolan directing the series premiere. Amazon Studios also revealed that Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel) and Graham Wagner (Silicon Valley) have been hired as showrunners.
"Fallout is one of the greatest game series of all time," Joy and Nolan said last year. "Each chapter of this insanely imaginative story has cost us countless hours we could have spent with family and friends. So we’re incredibly excited to partner with Todd Howard and the rest of the brilliant lunatics at Bethesda to bring this massive, subversive, and darkly funny universe to life with Amazon Studios."
Fallout (the game) takes place in a wasteland caused by a 2077 nuclear war. While that has the makings of a pretty grim series, it'll reportedly feature plenty of ironic humor and callbacks to B-movie nuclear fantasies as well. The series is part of a big overall deal inked by Nolan and Joy with Amazon Studios, which licensed the rights to Fallout back in 2020. So far, there are no details on the plot or who might star in the series.
The surviving sister of Dave Patrick Underwood, a federal security guard who was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2020, has filed a lawsuit against Meta, the parent organization of Facebook. The suit seeks to hold the company accountable for connecting the two men charged in the murder plot and giving them a space online to plan the attack.
Underwood was shot outside a federal building in Oakland, California in May of 2020. The two men charged inn the case were later linked to so-called “boogaloo” anti-government movement, which Facebook banned from its platform in June of 2020 citing the group's history of "actively promoting violence against civilians, law enforcement and government officials and institutions."
“The shooting was not a random act of violence,” the lawsuit states. “It was the culmination of an extremist plot hatched and planned on Facebook by two men who Meta connected through Facebook’s groups infrastructure and its use of algorithms designed and intended to increase user engagement and, correspondingly, Meta’s profits.” The lawsuit alleges the two men would never have met if not for Facebook’s recommendations, which pushed them both to join groups that “openly advocated for violence.”
A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement to The New York Timesthat the “claims are without legal basis,” and pointed to the company’s work to ban “militarized social movements.”
The lawsuit is hardly the first time Meta has been implicated over its role in fueling extremism and violence. Facebook’s own researchers warned that group recommendations were pushing users toward extremism in 2016, according to internal company documents first reported by The Wall Street Journal. And documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen have raised questions about Facebook’s role in inciting violence around the world. Meta was also recently sued by a group of Rohingya refugees over Facebook's role in amplifying hate speech that incited a genocide in the country.
In a statement to ABC, Ted Leopold, who is representing Underwood’s sister, referenced Haugen’s disclosures about Facebook. “We believe and intend to show that Facebook’s conduct has led to a rise in extremism throughout the world and acts of real-world violence, including the murder of Officer Underwood,” Leopold said.
The late David Bowie's music is already immersive on many levels, but that's now reflected in the mixes themselves. All of Bowie's post-2000 studio albums (Heathen, Reality, The Next Day and Blackstar) plus a live album (A Reality Tour) have been remixed in Sony's 360 Reality Audio for release on Amazon Music Unlimited, Deezer and Tidal on January 21st. You can also listen to four of the A Reality Tour songs today (January 6th) at 7PM Eastern through Sony Square and YouTube, and through the Artist Connection mobile app afterward.
Importantly, longtime Bowie producer Tony Visconti was responsible for the mixes. This is as close as you'll get to a Bowie-approved mix in 2022, in other words, and it's a fitting tribute for the rock legend's imminent 75th birthday. You can use any headphones to listen in 360 Reality Audio, although Sony would clearly prefer you use its products.
This won't satisfy fans who want 360-degree mixes of full classic albums like Hunky Dory or Low (really, the album with "Sound and Vision" didn't get a rework?). You likewise won't be thrilled if you prefer services like Apple Music or Spotify. Only a handful of Bowie songs have received the spatial audio treatment to date, though — this is still a treat for enthusiasts eager for some audio bliss.
In 2020, Spotify revealed that it was testing an ad setup that would make promo codes and special URLs during podcast ads a thing of the past. Starting today, those in-app advertisements are starting to roll out. The company says its call-to-action (CTA) cards will begin showing up on its original and exclusive shows when the corresponding ad or offer is mentioned during an episode.
The new CTA cards will show up in the Spotify app as soon as the ad plays during a podcast on the player interface as well as on the show and episode pages. If you leave any of those places to do something else — like stream music, for example — the ads will display when you return back to that podcast in those three locations. Essentially, Spotify sees this as a way to not only relieve you have having to remember a promo code or specific URL, but it also argues you'll be able to interact with ads or brands you're interested in when you have the time to do so. There's no doubt a simple tap, if you're interested in what you've just heard, is much more convenient than manually typing in the usual info. Of course, the downside is you'll now see ads in the app when listening to certain podcasts — even if you're a paid subscriber.
Spotify doesn't see this as a potential issue, since even paid users hear ads on podcasts when listening to shows through its app. The advertisements keep podcasts afloat after all, and have turned the medium into a lucrative tool for businesses to promote goods and services. However, some might argue seeing an ad in the app and listening to one during a show are two very different things. Brands will probably be willing to jump on board quickly though since Spotify says the clickable ads have generated twice as many site visits during the early adoption phase than the "traditional" ad reads for companies like Ulta Beauty, Athletic Greens and Squarespace.
The CTA cards are powered by Spotify's Streaming Ad Insertion, a powerful analytics platform for podcast ads that automatically slots in pre-recorded promotional reads in the ideal spot for each listener. This is how the app knows when to begin showing the corresponding card for the ad when you hear it during a show. Of course, Spotify is promoting the CTA method as the first "interactive" podcast ads, and there's no doubt brands will be excited to have a more visible and, most importantly, clickable way to reach audiences. But it will be interesting to see how listeners respond to visual ads in their streaming app, especially those who pay a monthly premium so they don't have to hear them on non-podcast content.
Follow all of the latest news from CES 2022 right here!
The following contains minor spoilers for episode six of 'Star Trek: Prodigy.'
Star Trek: Discovery may have gone on an unexpected hiatus, but the new year does mean the return of its franchise stablemate Prodigy. When we last left the young crew of the USS Protostar, they had just left the Murder Planet and successfully fled the Diviner’s ship thanks to the activation of the ship’s secret experimental engine. Episode six, Kobayashi, picks up this thread, pushing the story… and possibly the timeline forward in some significant ways this week.
The title is a dead giveaway to one of the threads running through the episode, at least: “Kobayashi” is the name of the ship from the infamous “Kobayashi Maru” test (“Maru” means ship in Japanese). It’s basically a no-win scenario that cadets at Starfleet Academy are run through to test their readiness for command, except this time it’s self-proclaimed captain Dal in the big chair via a holodeck simulation.
Nickelodeon
That plot in itself is a fairly predictable set of circumstances, as Dal refuses to accept failure and tackles the holographic test again and again… and again. Aside from the absolute hilarity as Dal’s frustration mounts, it’s a pretty standard character study, designed to flesh out Dal and craft him more into the leader he wants to be.
There’s also some fan service here thanks to cameos from some favorite characters brought to life thanks to the wonders of CGI and well-chosen sound clips. As with Janeway, the show being animated keeps the older characters from having that creepy Rogue One Princess Leia look, but the audio samples could have used a lot more processing to have them match up. And why a show designed for newcomers needed this much fan service, I don’t know, but at least it’s not Rise of Skywalker bad.
Nickelodeon
The real progress in the episode occurs in the B-plot, where Gwyn is sulking after her father’s betrayal and she and Zero try to learn more about the protostar engine at the heart of their ship. Janeway has the files, except they’re classified and it’s up to Gwyn and Zero to try to open them up. And, though the initial reveal from them is a bit of a shocker (to be delved into next week), it’s the flashback sequence early in the episode that yielded the juiciest info for now.
We’re shown the Diviner 17 years earlier, in horrible health and already looking for the USS Protostar. He decides to create a “progeny,” in the hopes of continuing his race, even though it is against the rules. (Whose rules? That’s another unanswered question.) But the interesting reveal here is that the Diviner was already looking for the Protostar 17 years ago, suggesting that this series may not occupy the 2383 time frame we were given in press materials (though never mentioned on-screen).
Nickelodeon
Star Trek: Voyager returned from its Delta Quadrant trip in 2378, meaning that in order for a holographic recreation of Kathryn Janeway to exist (and the captain of the Protostar to be who it is) the earliest the Protostar could have disappeared is 2379. Even assuming the Protostar is built and launched in a year (which I doubt), Prodigy can’t take place any earlier than 2396, placing it firmly around the time of Picard, which is set in 2399. It’s possible that Prodigy is actually a few years later, however, making it the first Star Trek series set in the 25th century. Or the Protostar traveled through time, complicating things even further.
But assuming the time period is, in fact, the 25th century, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the future of the Federation or Starfleet: Discovery is now set in the 32nd century, after all. But being much closer to the time period of earlier shows like The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and, of course, Voyager makes Prodigy more of a direct continuation of that era. The inclusion of Janeway as a training hologram already gave us a peek as the vaunted status the Voyager crew holds after their Delta Quadrant sojourn, but now the advanced tech seen in episode three “Starstruck” suddenly makes a lot more sense knowing it might be a few years… or decades since Voyager.
With the exception of Picard, the live-action shows have largely stayed away from the immediate future of the TNG-DS9-Voyager era, choosing instead to retread the 23rd century or even jump forward nearly a thousand years. It’s certainly odd given the popularity of those shows, but in leaving it be Paramount+ has left a lot of room for Prodigy and Lower Decks to do something interesting there, experimenting with new genres while still appeasing hard-core fans. This may be the future we’ve been waiting to see on Star Trek.
The Sundance Film Festival was gearing up for an ambitious hybrid event later this month, but those plans are now squashed thanks to the Omicron COVID-19 surge. Sundance is instead planning for a completely virtual event starting on January 20th, along with a handful of screenings in local markets. While disappointing, the festival's investment in a better digital platform last year puts it in a better position than other major events. (Looking at you, CES.) And of course, you'll still be able to check out the Sundance New Frontiers experiences in VR. Based on our experience last year, it'll be well worth it.
"While it is a deep loss to not have the in-person experience in Utah, we do not believe it is safe nor feasible to gather thousands of artists, audiences, employees, volunteers, and partners from around the world, for an eleven-day festival while overwhelmed communities are already struggling to provide essential services," Sundance Film Festival director Tabitha Jackson wrote in an e-mail to attendees.
After a give or take a decade in development hell, the film adaptation of the Uncharted series is slated to arrive in theaters next month. And during CES, Tom Holland introduced a small, action-heavy segment of the film in which he is flung from a plane, repeatedly shot at and then hit by a car.
If it looks at all familiar, that's probably because this plane scene was heavily featured in the film's first trailer — an apparent nod to the third game in the series. For better or worse it certainly has all the trappings of a quicktime event.
The release date for Uncharted has been pushed back a few times, but it's slated to hit theaters on February 18 now.
NPR's podcast efforts have increasingly revolved around its paid, ad-free NPR+ service, and now it's offering stronger incentives to spend money. Axiosreports the organization will offer content available solely to NPR+ subscribers. The new show The Limits with Jay Williams, for instance, will offer a separate content release in its feed. NPR VP Joel Sucherman also said NPR might test perks like unedited interviews and member-only events.
You'll also have extra motivation to support local stations. NPR will launch a subscription podcast bundle in the second half of 2022 that gives station members wider access to an on-demand podcast library and other content. It's similar to PBS Passport, Sucherman said. The company is also adding more shows to NPR+.
The public broadcaster isn't ditching free, ad-supported podcasts any time soon. However, the shift isn't surprising. Podcasts help bring in a younger, more diverse audience than conventional radio, Axios said. A subscription drive like this could maintain listenership and funding even if fewer people tune into live programming.
