Some Netflix members are discovering a new time-saving option that could improve binge-watching on the streaming service.

For viewers who are binge-watching a show, it can be annoying to have to watch the opening credits and hear the theme song numerous times, so Netflix is testing an option that allows viewers to skip the intro altogether.

As we've seen with Netflix when it comes to show ratings numbers, the company is keeping details of the feature close to the vest.

A Netflix spokesperson told CNN that the feature is one of "hundreds" of tests that the company conducts each year.

"We're looking at what does or doesn't enhance the viewing experience," said the rep, who declined to comment further on the "skip intro" button and when testing on it began.

The "skip intro" option doesn't appear for all members. If you do have it, it can be found in the lower-right corner of your screen at the beginning of episodes. For those who don't have access to the button, keep in mind that Netflix already automatically skips the intro to TV shows when it recognizes that you're watching multiple episodes in a row — this new method just takes that feature and turns it into a button.

It's not clear whether it's available for all shows. So far, users have said that it's available on "Orange Is the New Black," "House of Cards," "Iron Fist," "The Office," and "Mad Men."

Some folks who do have it are flaunting it on social media:

The "skip intro" option may not be the cat's pajamas for every viewer, especially for those binge-watching "The Office."

As we said before, the option is being tested.

SEE ALSO: Critics are throwing daggers at Netflix's 'hammy' and 'uninspired' new show 'Iron Fist'

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NOW WATCH: Animated map shows the most popular show on Netflix in every state

As part of a marketing stunt for the newly-released movie "Kong: Skull Island," people can now find the fictional land on Google Maps.

The island located in the South Pacific, but it's impossible to come across randomly. People have to search "skull island" for it to appear.

The location, labeled as an archaeological site, has more 200 photos and nearly 8,000 reviews.

One review from "Amos Vivancos Leon" – whose previous reviews were all in the Vancouver, Canada area – gave the island one star and said: "With the excitement, Kong killed a few of our group, but he also protected the rest of us from the monsters under one condition, that we leave a young female behind with him. Some people had an issue with that and stayed behind to rescue her. I on the other hand took the earliest plane out of there. I have kids at home, I hope you understand. It was traumatizing and I feel for the people left behind. Good luck."

Another one-star review complained of a lost child at the end of the trip: "Update: been 2 months. Resort staff still hasn't responded to our inquiries about our missing child. Guess we will chalk it up as a "lost baggage" kind of thing."

Higher rated reviews also made a joke out of the location: "Lovely holiday. Would have been 5 stars had the helicopter tour gone smoother. Wife swallowed whole by an oversized ape; wouldn't have been a problem but she had the passports. Would go again."

But some users decided to take advantage of the Google search result to complain about the stunt and the movie.

One user, Johnny Greenman, took the opportunity to review the film: "Kong looks like he grew another 200 feet. Bad story line and as always the crazy dumb ass general (Samuel Jackson) wants to go retrieve a soldier even though they know its a suicide mission. Very predictable story line. Thank god I only paid matinee price."

Another user, Shapla Choudhury, used the space to voice her frustration about the stunt: "Google Maps corporate group, I do not want to receive advertising in my email about mass market films in the guise of map information. Google maps is a useful resource and I am happy to serve as a local guide, but please stop the ads. Thanks."

This isn't the first promotional stunt launched as part of the movie's release. In early March giant footprints of Kong appeared on a Los Angeles beach.

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YouTube and Netflix are battling over the attention of viewers, especially younger ones, but they can still recognize when each other are doing good work.

In a Vanity Fair op-ed this week about gender diversity in the tech industry, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki praised Netflix CEO Reed Hastings for making the issue a priority.

"Human Resources departments and diversity leads play a critical role, but they need the commitment and attention of the C.E.O. to succeed," she wrote. 

"A great example of a C.E.O. taking this issue seriously is Reed Hastings of Netflix. In an effort to build a more flexible work culture, he took a strong stand on paid family leave. That policy led to a cascade effect, with companies like Microsoft and Amazon soon providing better family leave options, helping to limit the adverse effects that having children can have on a woman’s career."

And it's good for the business as well. Wojcicki said that increasing family leave has helped Google retain female employees.

"When we increased paid maternity leave from 12 to 18 weeks, the rate at which new moms left dropped by 50 percent," she wrote.

A commitment to gender diversity isn't the only interesting piece of Netflix's work culture. Netflix is famous for not tolerating either failing employees or brilliant jerks, and it's culture was outlined in an iconic 2009 slide deck by CEO Reed Hastings.

If you want to take a look at Reed Hastings' 2009 slide deck, scroll down:

SEE ALSO: The CBS March Madness bracket site went down at the worst possible time — and people were furious

You don’t know him by name, but you probably have every song he wrote ingrained in your brain. 

Howard Ashman, the songwriter for “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid,” and “Aladdin” was a huge inspiration for Bill Condon, director of the live-action "Beauty and the Beast."

In the April issue of Attitude, Condon explains how Ashman’s story inspired him to include Disney’s first openly gay character, LeFou (Josh Gad), in the film. 

Ashman was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 while working on “The Little Mermaid.” And he kept his diagnosis a secret until he told his songwriting partner, composer Alan Menken, after they won the best original song Oscar for "Under the Sea."

At the time, Disney was developing the story for 1991's “Beauty and the Beast.” Condon told Attitude that it was actually Ashman’s idea to make the Beast a more humanized character and more central to the story. In previous re-tellings, Belle was usually the primary focus. 

“And specifically for him [Ashman], it was a metaphor for AIDS,” Condon said. “He was cursed and this curse had brought sorrow on all those people who loved him and maybe there was a chance for a miracle and a way for the curse to be lifted. It was a very concrete thing that he was doing.”

Ashman wrote all of the lyrics for the movie while he was sick and dying in his home. According to Vice, Disney studio chief Jeff Katzenberg paid for the private nurse who attended to him. 

Ashman, age 40, passed away on March 14, 1991 — that’s 26 years ago this week, and eight months before the animated version came out. In his honor, the 1991 film has a touching tribute at the end credits:

SEE ALSO: Every HBO show ranked from worst to best, according to critics

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NOW WATCH: Oscar nominees receive a $100,000+ swag bag — here's what's inside

In 1993, a German producer teamed up with legendary "King of the B-Movies" Roger Corman to produce a low-budget, feature-length adaptation of the popular Marvel comic book "The Fantastic Four." The movie was never officially released. 

Producer Bernd Eichinger owned the film rights to the comic, but a clause in his contract stated that he would lose the rights if he didn't go into production on a "Fantastic Four" movie by December 31, 1992. Up to that point, Eichinger had failed to convince a Hollywood studio to commit to a big-budget version of the story. 

The producer crafted a clever way to hold onto the rights so that he could later make a big-budget version of "The Fantastic Four." He called on Roger Corman, a legendary producer famous for his ability to crank out movies with low budgets and short schedules. 

It turns out that Eichinger never had any intention of releasing this low-budget version of the comic — a fact that he withheld for the movie's cast and crew. After Corman announced plans to release the film theatrically, Eichinger paid Corman $1 million to stand down, and all available prints were reportedly destroyed by then-Marvel chief Avi Arad. 

Arad didn't respond to our request for a comment for this story. 

Thanks to bootlegged copies that surfaced online, the unreleased "Fantastic Four" movie has become a cult classic.

Business Insider recently sat down with Corman at his office in Los Angeles to talk about his most recent project, "Death Race 2050,"  a sequel to the cult hit "Death Race 2000," which Corman produced in 1975. 

We also talked to the director of "The Fantastic Four," Oley Sassone. Corman and Sassone give an enlightening account of one of the most bizarre Hollywood tales you'll ever hear. 

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With Disney and Lucasfilm hard at work making anthology films from the “Star Wars” saga, the next of which will be a young Han Solo movie, we all continue to patiently wait on one for Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi. And that includes the person who played him on screen last.

Speaking to Business Insider recently about reprising another known character from his past, Renton in “Trainspotting” (“T2 Trainspotting” is currently in theaters), we couldn’t help but ask about his thoughts on grabbing the lightsaber once more to play ‘ol Ben.

“Listen, I have been asked about it a lot, to the point where it looks a bit like I'm sort of touting for work,” said McGregor. “I’ve been very open to say I'd be happy to do it, if they want to do it.”

McGregor did lend his Kenobi voice for the Rey dream sequence in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” and there are theories that perhaps he will get screen time as Kenobi in “The Last Jedi” or “Episode IX.” But if that’s the case, McGregor has a really good poker face, because it sounds like he hasn’t been approached to do anything.

"I think they are set going into the 2030s with their movies, but it would be fun to do, of course I'd be happy to do it,” he said.

Though he hopes if they ever do call he’s not “older than Alec Guinness was” when he played the character in “Star Wars: A New Hope.”

Looking at what Kenobi did on Tatooine before “A New Hope” has been chronicled in comic-book form with Marvel’s one-off “Star Wars #7.”

The comic delves into the journals that Luke Skywalker finds after returning to Tatooine following the events in “A New Hope.” Kenobi’s writings give us a glimpse of what he did for years on the planet while he was in hiding from the Empire.

That looks to have great potential as a starting point for a Kenobi standalone movie.

SEE ALSO: Ewan McGregor and Danny Boyle look back on "Trainspotting" and their up-and-down friendship

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Once again, Amazon Prime Video wants to know what you think of its new pilots.

On Friday, the company kicked off its newest pilot season with two one-hour drama pilots and three half-hour comedy pilots.

Instead of a bunch of suits debating what to greenlight, viewers can watch the pilot episodes and review them in order to help Amazon choose which ones it will order to series.

The stakes are pretty high for Amazon. According to estimates, it's investing more than $3 billion this year on original projects. And that means it's going to need to make more than a tiny dent into Netflix's streaming dominance and get a bigger share of Hollywood's Emmy awards bounty.

We watched Amazon's new batch of pilots. Here's our take:

SEE ALSO: Critics are throwing daggers at Netflix's 'hammy' and 'uninspired' new show 'Iron Fist'

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Drama: "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"

From Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, the husband-and-wife team behind "Gilmore Girls," drama pilot "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" follows Miriam “Midge” Maisel's (Rachel Brosnahan) downfall from her perfect life as a 1950s Manhattan wife and mother to becoming immersed in the seedy downtown stand-up comedy scene.

The pilot's excellent cast includes Michael Zegen ("Boardwalk Empire"), Alex Borstein ("MADtv"), Tony Shalhoub ("Monk"), and Marin Hinkle ("Two and a Half Men").

Our take: The pilot is immensely entertaining, with crisp dialogue and smart pacing. Plus, it really captures some very unique cultural aspects of 1958 New York City, such as the Jewish upper-crust and especially the burgeoning careers of comedy iconoclasts such as Lennie Bruce.

Drama: "Oasis"

Based on the cult-hit novel "The Book of Strange New Things" by Michel Faber, drama pilot "Oasis" stars "Game of Thrones" actor Richard Madden, an ecumenical priest who is sent into space to help establish a colony on a distant planet. But once he arrives, he finds morale is low among the settlement team and there's an inexplicable force that makes the planet very deadly.

It also stars Anil Kapoor ("24"), Mark Addy ("Game of Thrones"), and a grown-up Haley Joel Osment, who played the young boy on "The Sixth Sense."

Our take: There's some very good acting on "Oasis," but the dialogue and plot can feel very predictable. There's a real urge here to show off the arid, yet beautiful surroundings of the planet, but a pilot is limited in the amount of character exploration that it can cover. It really only scratches the surface there while setting up what feels like the show's important plot twist.

Comedy: "The Legend of Master Legend"

This dark comedy pilot revolves around Frank Lafount (John Hawkes), who hits the streets of Las Vegas as low-budget superhero Master Legend. Charmingly delusional, Frank has to balance his deep sense of justice with the burdens of actual life and disapproval from his family.

The pilot also stars Dawnn Lewis ("Major Crimes"), Shea Whigham ("Boardwalk Empire"), and newcomer Anjelika Washington.

Our take: This pilot makes it tough not to love and conversely feel sorry for its homemade superhero. Its eclectic characters give the comedy so many directions to go, which makes this pilot a pretty good bet for a surprising full season. This definitely lives up to the expectations of a show that's produced and written by a team whose credits between them include "Argo" and "Transparent."

With more A-list stars, directors, and producers creating television than ever before, many are calling this the next golden age of TV. But regardless of who's involved, there are bound to be some shows that don't shine quite as brightly.

More outlets are creating TV content, from streaming companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu to cable networks increasingly getting into the scripted-show game, like Bravo, E!, and Spike.

But what's worth your time and what isn't? In times like these, you should let the experts watch so you don't have to.

Metacritic keeps track of a curated group of critics, assigns each review a number according to how positive or negative it was, and then creates a weighted average score for each show.

CBS, NBC, and Fox tied with four shows each among the shows least liked by critics. But some of the newer companies also produced stinkers. Netflix, for example, netted itself a zero instead of a superhero. Which other networks had the misfortune of landing shows on the list?

Here are the 18 worst-reviewed TV shows of 2017 so far, using Metacritic scores:

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18. "Time After Time" (ABC)

Metacritic score: 59

A remake of the 1979 movie of the same name, "Time After Time" mirrors the film's centuries-spanning chase of the charismatic Dr. John Stevenson, aka Jack the Ripper (Josh Bowman), by a dashing H.G. Wells (Freddie Stroma), the author of "The Time Machine" and "The War of the Worlds," among many other notable novels. The famous 19th-century serial killer has stolen the author's time machine and escaped to modern-day New York City. Wells ventures after him to bring him back to the past.

17. "Doubt" (CBS)

Metacritic score: 58

"Doubt," which has already been canceled, follows Katherine Heigl's character, defense attorney Sadie Ellis, and her colleagues at a boutique law firm. Sadie is defending a wealthy client, but things get complicated when she begins to fall in love with him. Laverne Cox and Dule Hill also starred on the legal drama.

16. "Chicago Justice" (NBC)

Metacritic score: 57

The latest in NBC's "Chicago" franchise, "Chicago Justice" follows the members of the state attorney's team of prosecutors and investigators who must balance the public opinion and city politics with their execution of the law.

At first glance, the latest sci-fi movie coming to the multiplex, "Life" (opening March 24), looks like a thriller with the same kind of "in space no one can hear you scream" DNA that made the first "Alien" movie back in 1979 a cultural phenomenon. And you would be right.

"Life" is not the first movie in the past 30-plus years set in space that wants to scare the heck out of you. And basing the scares around a creepy organism that we gullible humans find on another planet is tried-and-true. But there are little tweaks to the formula that director Daniel Espinosa and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (of "Deadpool" fame) do that makes this particular movie very fun to experience.

What I respect a lot about this movie is, for a big budget blockbuster from a major studio such as Sony, it doesn't look to cater to all audiences. That's evident in its opening, which is a single shot that goes on for around five minutes or so — a very ambitious move.

But Espinosa does this to cleverly kill two birds with one stone: the single shot gives us the layout of the international space station, where we will be spending most of our time throughout the movie; and also shows a major moment in the movie, the crew retrieving a probe back from Mars with a sample from the planet.

We find out that the sample is the first proof of life on Mars.

Then we’re given the usual beats of the space thriller: getting to know the crew, including the wise ass Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds); the person in charge of the mission's risk management, Miranda Bragg (Rebecca Ferguson); Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare), who will be doing the experimenting on the Mars life form, and Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has recently broken the record for most time in space.

Jokes are constant and we’re shown that back down on Earth, where everyone is celebrating the news of the discovery on Mars, a school has been rewarded with the honor of naming the Martian — calling it Calvin.

But, as you would imagine (or if you've seen the trailer), something goes terribly wrong. Calvin turns out not to be the cute little thing it first looked to be and soon is crawling throughout the ship looking to kill the whole crew.

Oh, and it's growing in size, by the way.

From then on, the jump scares are constant, as well as homages to "Alien" (even Calvin having a tracking device on it so the crew knows where it is on the ship and Ferguson doing voice over diary logs a la Sigourney Weaver's Ripley character).

And I would be the first to say that this is a total rip-off of "Alien" if it weren't for the last five minutes of the movie, which makes the entire film worth the watch. I'm not going to give it away — all I'll say is Ferguson is certainly not this movie's Ripley and the story turns out to be nothing like "Alien."

"Life" is the perfect buy-the-ticket-take-the-ride Saturday night movie. If you’re looking to cuddle up and squeeze your partner’s arm for 100 minutes, this is for you. It’s a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time and has an ending you will never see coming.

But if Sony is smart it will make this movie a one-and-done.

If it's not made into a franchise, I could see “Life” becoming a cult classic. With a disregard to pander to its audience (and the huge movie stars that inhabit it), “Life” has the potential of building a loyal fan base, and if Sony goes long tail with this, I would not be shocked if the next generation of movie lovers see this as a landmark title in the sci-fi genre.

In the meantime, just ignore everyone who calls it an “Alien” rip-off.

SEE ALSO: 30 movies to watch in your 20s

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The original Nintendo Game Boy was the size of a hotel bible, required four AA batteries, and only played games in black and white.

Beautiful, isn't it? 

But one ambitious gentleman thought he could make it even more beautiful. Behold: The updated Nintendo Game Boy, with the ability to play games from the original Nintendo through to the Game Boy Advance, including Sega's consoles, the Super Nintendo, and some old arcade games!

Not a bad look, right? Being able to play "Super Mario World" — arguably the best "Super Mario" game ever made— on the go is fantastic. So what makes this thing tick? Check it out.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best video games of all time, according to critics on Metacritic

This magically updated Game Boy started life as a standard Game Boy. Here it is after having two holes drilled out of its face:

The drilling was to make space for two new buttons, acting as the X and Y buttons like the Super Nintendo gamepad:

They were culled from an original NES gamepad, thus the fire-engine red:

Disney has proven once more that audiences have a thirst for live-action remakes of its animated classics.

Following the live-action version of "The Jungle Book" earning close to $1 billion worldwide last year, the studio looks to have another cash cow in the making with "Beauty and the Beast" breaking the record for the biggest opening weekend ever for March with an estimated $170 million, according to Variety.

That jumps the previous record holder, "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," which opened to $166 million last year.

It's also the biggest opening ever for a PG-rated movie (passing last year's "Finding Dory," $135 million) and is seventh place in all-time opening weekend grosses (moving past "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," $169.1 million).

"Beauty and the Beast," which stars Emma Watson in the Belle role and Dan Stevens as the Beast, had the year's biggest Thursday preview of the year with $16.3 million, which added to its $64.1 million Friday earning. That's the largest opening day for a PG movie, passing 2009's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." The movie then took in $64.8 million on Saturday (the fourth-best Saturday take ever, beating the $62.2 million earned by "Iron Man 3" in 2013).

It's $170 million weekend exceeds the industry's expectations of a $165 million opening and also makes back the film's production budget, which was at $160 million.

Outside of a few scenes, the movie is an almost exact remake of the classic 1991 Disney animated feature, which went on to win Oscars for best original score and best original song.

SEE ALSO: The tragic true story of the man who wrote all your favorite songs in "Beauty and the Beast"

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It’s been 21 years since Ewan McGregor became an overnight star after his standout performance as a heroin addict in Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting.” Now, after two decades in which both became big players in Hollywood (McGregor taking on “Moulin Rouge!” and young Obi-Wan Kenobi; Boyle directing “28 Days Later” and winning an Oscar for “Slumdog Millionaire”), they have reunited to make a sequel to their cult classic, “T2 Trainspotting.”

The movie, out on Friday, catches up with Renton (McGregor) as he returns to Edinburgh 20 years after walking out on his friends — Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) — with the bag of cash the guys got after making a drug deal. Needless to say his mates are not happy at first to see him. But being middle-aged and in different phases in their lives, Renton also gives them a welcome glimpse at their past. Using snippets of footage from the original movie, Boyle gives “T2” a nostalgic feel that fans of the original will love while still delivering an original story about guys who can’t get on the straight and narrow, however hard they try.

McGregor and Boyle talked to Business Insider about the challenges of making a sequel to a classic, the movie Boyle really wanted McGregor to star in if it weren’t for their decade-long feud, and if McGregor wants to play Obi-Wan Kenobi again.

Jason Guerrasio: Danny, what's the biggest thing you have to stay away from when not just making a sequel, but for a movie that's a beloved classic?

Danny Boyle: You have to work at the relationship with the original film. And the initial premise is very complex because there's a lot of expectation and you don't want to let people down, but you are determined to return to it because you have a good reason. And we had a good reason because this story is more personal and confessional I think than we all thought it might be. So me and the screenwriter, John Hodge, worked on it and then we passed it onto the actors and it becomes theirs as well. They delve into it for you. And in order to process that you need to have a clear relationship with the first film, and our relationship is we wanted to be able to work it out as we went along rather than it be prescribed beforehand. So in the script there was very little of the original film in it. There was one scene I think, which was Spud coming out of the boxing gym and literally bumps into that now famous scene of he and Renton running down the street. He bumps right into his past. That was the only one in the script, other than that we worked it out as we went along. And you also get muscle memories from the actors that remind you of the other film. Like Ewan coming out of the rafters being chased by Bagbie in "T2," he said to me "This feels like coming out of the toilet in the first one. Should I make it look like that?"

[Ewan McGregor laughs.]

Boyle: And I said, "If you can." And he did and people mention it. So that's the biggest thing, I think. You have that positive relationship with the original film which may exclude it. We wanted to use it when we could and we decided organically when to use it and when not to.

Guerrasio: The glimpses of the original movie are really cleverly done. Were any of those outtakes from the first movie?

Boyle: No. We tried to find the outtakes but they were really sh---y. They were in terrible condition. No one could find the original negatives.

Ewan McGregor: Did you use a profile shot of Bobby for the train-station scene?

Boyle: Yeah, that's from the first film. That's a good point. When young Renton and Begbie come to that train station in a flashback, the two silhouette profiles are taken from the cigarette-smoking scene in the original movie, where he says, "Hey, Renton, bring me a cigarette." And he blows smoke in your face —

McGregor: Oh, yeah.

Boyle: That's where we took the silhouettes of your faces and put that in the train-station scene.

McGregor: Wow, I didn't know that.

Guerrasio: Ewan, when did you see the movie for the first time?

McGregor: I saw it at the British premiere in Scotland, in Edinburgh, but Danny did show me a very early cut in London and I watched it entirely alone. [Laughs] I was there all by myself. I was so excited to see it because, what, it's been 20 years in the waiting, I suppose. So it was a thrill to see it. But it was so different than the cut I saw in Edinburgh. I was blown away by it in Edinburgh, I was moved by it. I was weeping by the end of it. I think it all hit me quite heavily what the film evokes in you, looking back on your life and then trying to look forward to what's next. It hit me like a ton of bricks. For me, maybe it's obviously so because it's literally my face going from my 23-year-old self to my 45-year-old self in the blink of an eye, which is quite shocking.

Guerrasio: Was watching the movie a different feeling than making it?

McGregor: No, because the feeling is the same. I don't ever worry about what it looks like. I don't like to look at the monitor when I'm working, so I have a vague idea of what the shots are. And with Anthony Dod Mantle, who shot our film, he often employs several cameras at once and you don't necessarily know what will be used. So I didn't know visually how it would feel but the feeling of the scene is the same.

Guerrasio: So, Danny, you and John Hodge tried to write a sequel in 2002 but it didn't get off the ground.

Boyle: Right.

Guerrasio: Hypothetically, if that went forward, did you think at all about how you would get Ewan in the film because at that time you two weren't talking?

[McGregor laughs.]

Boyle: I don't remember thinking, "Oh my God, how am I going to send this to Ewan?" But memory is such a strange thing, isn't it?

McGregor: We have this mismemory of when I go down the toilet in the first movie and my feet turn around as if I'm going around the U bend —

Boyle: Oh, that's right —

McGregor: I totally remember that being my idea. [Laughs] Danny remembers it being [cinematographer] Brian Tufano's idea.

Boyle: Anyway, we did try to write a sequel back then and it wasn't any good. So I do remember back then thinking, "They will all say f--- off." And when we did the script for what eventually became "T2," John wasn't finished with it yet, but soon as I read it I said we should send it to the guys straight away. I knew they would do it. It's just an instinct just knowing them as actors and seeing the quality of the script. It would intrigue them and they would "Matrix" in their own experiences. I just felt we need to include them in this because we're going to make this and I know they will do it.

Guerrasio: So Ewan, was the script all you needed to say yes or did you need some selling?

McGregor: No, not at all. I had bumped into Danny here and there and we discussed it. The possibility of it became more of a reality before the script arrived. He knew I was up to do it as an idea. And then I phoned into something, I think it was the BFI, you were onstage with Bobby and Ewen —

Boyle: Oh, yes!

McGregor: I was at my kid's school on the playground on my phone and I couldn't quite hear what was being said. But they were in front of an audience who had just watched "Trainspotting," the original, and I was asked at that, really for the first time ever, in front of Danny, if I would ever do a sequel and I said, "Yeah." But when the script arrived there was no doubt. The writing was so beautiful and moving. It was everything I experienced reading the novel the first time around in the '90s, in fact.

Guerrasio: Ewan, I've heard you say in interviews that it was easy to get back into Renton's skin. Why was that?

McGregor: [Pause] I've always thought what it would be like to go back and play some of the other characters I've played and I don't know if there's any character I've played that people feel they know him. That the characters in this movie are people that they know. Danny has said, how many character names do you remember from movies? It's really rare. But people not only know their names but they know them. So I feel being Renton again, he was just waiting inside me to come out. I worried about if I couldn't find him and worried about having not lived in Scotland since I was 17 years old and Renton is such a Scottish character, but then Renton hasn't been in Scotland either. For 20 years. And it all has to do with John Hodge's writing and Danny's direction, and suddenly you're there. It all felt right.

Guerrasio: You two have done a lot of traveling together doing press for this film. In that time have you two talked about working again? Bringing up a project, Danny, that you would have loved to have done with Ewan in that time you two weren't talking?

Boyle: We joke, but I would love to do a play with Ewan because he does them now and again. So put in a good word for me. But I did work on a script that we could never crack. A wonderful thing that you would have loved, Ewan. It's called "Ingenious Pain," an amazing novel and it's about a doctor in the early days of surgery.

Guerrasio: Like Steven Soderbergh's "The Knick"?

Boyle: Earlier than "The Knick." A century earlier, actually. And this guy doesn't feel pain, that's the conceit of it. And it makes him the most extraordinary surgeon because he doesn't have any empathy. It was written by a guy named Andrew Miller, a fantastic novelist, and I tried to adapt it and I was thinking of Ewan for it but I could never get it — the third act was always terrible.

McGregor: And I would have said it was terrible.

Boyle: [Laughs] Yeah, he would have said, "It's interesting, but that third act."

McGregor: How many books can you say that about? [Laughs]

Guerrasio: Ewan, you recently made your feature directing debut with "American Pastoral." Did you have Danny look at it while you were making it?

McGregor: Yeah, Danny came to the edit room and watched it. I was very lucky to have that input, and it's funny he gave me good advice about the third act. [Laughs] No, seriously. I was told early on by Ben Affleck, in fact, I went to talk to him because he's directed himself and his advice was to be careful you don't undercover yourself. The temptation is not to get enough shots of yourself because you'll be embarrassed in front of the other actors and, you know, "One more for me," and that. So I heeded that advice on set and I didn't find myself in the edit room without shots of me but what I didn't do was sort of use enough of them in the last reel of the movie. It was kind of that same embarrassment, "another close-up of me." So my character wasn't present enough at the end and that was Danny's note and we found some more shots and we pulled my character in a little more at the end.

Guerrasio: So Ewan, like the Renton character waiting dormant inside you until it could come out in "T2," do you feel that way at all about Obi-Wan Kenobi?

McGregor: I could see that question coming before you even opened your mouth. Listen, I have been asked about it a lot to the point where it looks a bit like I'm sort of touting for work —

[Boyle laughs.]

McGregor: I've been very open to say I'd be happy to do it if they want to do it. I think they are set going into the 2030s with their movies, but it would be fun to do, of course I'd be happy to do it.

Guerrasio: By the time they get to a standalone Obi-Wan movie you'll be aged perfectly to play him.

McGregor: I'd be older than Alec Guinness was. [Laughs]  

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Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton paid tribute to musician Chuck Berry, who died Saturday at his home in Missouri at the age of 90.

"Chuck Berry rolled over everyone who came before him – and turned up everyone who came after," Obama tweeted from his personal Twitter account. "We'll miss you, Chuck. Be good."

The 44th president got in a few references to some of Berry's biggest tunes — "Roll Over Beethoven" and "Johnny B. Goode."

"Hillary and I loved Chuck Berry for as long as we can remember. The man was inseparable from his music – both were utterly original and distinctly American," said a statement released by Bill Clinton through the Clinton Foundation. "And along the way he changed our country and the history of popular music."

It continued: "Chuck played at both my inaugurations and at the White House for my 25th Georgetown reunion, and he never slowed down, which is why his legend grew every time he stepped on stage. His life was a treasure and a triumph, and he’ll never be forgotten. Our hearts go out to his family and his countless friends and fans."

Here is Berry with Clinton receiving a Kennedy Center Award in 2000:

SEE ALSO: Rock 'n' roll icon Chuck Berry dead at age 90 in Missouri

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It's really appropriate that "Into the Badlands" returns on St. Patrick's Day weekend as the AMC martial arts drama gives a lot of credit to Ireland for helping to enlarge the scope of its second season.

"We always try to make the show epic and big and grand," Daniel Wu, who's an executive producer on the show and stars as trained warrior Sunny, told Business Insider recently.

"But it was very difficult when we were shooting in New Orleans just because the geographical location was very limiting. If you go to New Orleans, it's just swamp. And more swamp. And more swamp. And more swamp. It's very flat and there's not much to see. We pretty much shot everything you possibly shoot there with the look of our show."

Over last summer, the production packed up for Ireland to shoot its sophomore year in and around the cities of Dublin and Wicklow. The result of the move makes quite a visual impact on the show's second season, which premieres Sunday at 10 p.m.

"Going to Ireland really opened it up for us," Wu said. "Because what you get within half an hour of Dublin city center are mountains, oceans, rivers, forests. You get all this great stuff that adds to the epic grandness of the show."

On the show's first season, we met Wu's Sunny, a trained assassin in service of the land baron, Quinn (Marton Csokas). In the midst of an illegal romance with Quinn's doctor, Veil (Madeleine Mantock), Sunny realizes they can't totally be free unless he leaves Quinn's army. Enter M.K. (Aramis Knight), an orphaned boy with a powerful gift whose tales of his mystical homeland, Azra, could mean freedom for Sunny and the now-pregnant Veil. But that freedom will be hard-fought, especially as Quinn and another powerful baron realize M.K. can be used as a weapon.

In its second season, Sunny and M.K. find themselves alone and separated by miles of diverse terrain as each one tries to find their purpose – something influenced by the possibilities that shooting in Ireland gave the production.

"On top of the move to Ireland, the writers stepped up this season and really went at character development and developing the story and really focusing on what the show is about," Wu said. "On two levels: visually and artistically, we've stepped up. But also in the writing as well. Combined together, those are our two weaknesses from last season. And I think we stepped up on those issues and made it so much better this season."

For those fans who liked having all the characters clashing with one another, don't despair. Wu teases that a reunion is the ultimate goal for the characters.

"Everyone's been separated and blown apart, but it gives everyone a common path," he told us. "Even though they're going through different things, they're all trying to focus on the one thing: trying to get back together. Sunny is trying to get back to Veil and the baby, as well as find M.K. M.K. is also looking for Sunny. Veil is also hoping that Sunny appears somewhere. She doesn't know where he is, and he might be dead. Then you have the issues with the barons and their story, and trying to control the Badlands. So everyone is converging back into the Badlands from last season."

Watch a trailer for the second season of AMC's "Into the Badlands" below:

SEE ALSO: How 'Into the Badlands' pulls off its incredible martial arts fighting scenes

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NOW WATCH: We're already sold on AMC's insane-looking kung fu western 'Into the Badlands'

There are so many great podcasts out now that you're guaranteed to find some you'll get addicted to.

And though there are plenty of entertaining options to check out, you can make the most of your next commute, workout, or laundry run by listening to one guaranteed to teach you something.

We've given you a few to get going, but it's by no means a definitive list.

From Terry Gross' intimate conversations on "Fresh Air" to the "Radiolab" team's clear but in-depth explorations of science, these are our top picks for expanding your listening diet.

SEE ALSO: An inside look at the life of T-Mobile's eccentric CEO, who wears only magenta and has a live cooking show

'This American Life' provides a deep look into American society.

Since 1995, Ira Glass and his team have been telling moving and sometimes hilarious stories from people across the United States. 

In more recent years, the team has beefed up its news reporting, from making the financial crisis understandable to speaking to people affected by this year's immigration ban.

Find it here »

'Reply All' immerses you in the weird world of the internet.

You probably use the internet every day, but Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt will give you more insight into its effects on our culture than you were ever aware of.

They've covered great stories like the ways ISIS uses social media and how an Orthodox Jew ultimately left his family behind because of the world he discovered online.

And Goldman and Vogt's goofy rapport will keep you hooked episode to episode.

Find it here »

'Fresh Air' will give you an intimate look at your favorite writers, celebrities, and journalists.

NPR's "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross has been on the air for more than four decades, and her interviewing skills have earned her accolades like the Peabody Award, the Columbia Journalism Award, and a spot in the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Gross may have a smooth, relaxed speaking style, but the way she digs deep into her interview subjects will keep you engaged throughout the conversation, whether it's about Jake Gyllenhaal's acting process or what a writer learned from covering Mexican drug cartels.

Find it here »

Leonardo Nam says he wasn't totally prepared for the immense amount of nudity in HBO's "Westworld."

Nam — who plays Felix Lutz, one of Westworld's technicians who repair damaged hosts to return them to the theme park or mark them as unsalvageable and retire them to cold storage — shared many of his scenes with Thandie Newton, who plays Maeve, one of the hosts and the owner of the theme park's brothel. And that meant he had to work with not only a naked Newton in an early scene in which Maeve is repaired, but also the nudity of other costars and the show's background players.

"I remember thinking the scene was just going to be in a medical-like room — no windows or anything like that," Nam told Business Insider in a recent interview. "Just the other actor, myself, and Thandie. And then I go on the set and everything was glass. And I thought, 'Wow, you can see it all, you can see into the other rooms,' and then I saw the other extras and other bodies that were there."

HBO kept a tight lid on details about "Westworld" during the nearly two years of production on the show's first season. But the public got an early peek into the show when a contract for extras leaked and showed that sex and nudity would play big roles in the show.

Nam said he had to quickly collect himself after the initial shock.

"I started to think, 'Oh, OK, there's like 100, 200 extras, and they're all naked,'" he said. "And once you start to understand what it is that the show is doing, you really do put on the hat of a professional on the set, and you just go with that."

Newton, who is an outspoken advocate of women's rights and a victim of sexual abuse, said she welcomed her role's nudity and the thoughtful use of sex on the series.

"Maeve was a bit more challenging to me, personally, with the nudity and so on," Newton previously told Business Insider of deciding to take the role. "It was also very important because, ironically, the use of my body has not been my choice in a number of situations."

That would go a long way toward helping Nam get past his original shock.

"Thandie is an absolute professional," Nam said. "Along with that, she is a wonderful and lovely person. That combination really was what made everyone comfortable on set. For me to be acting with her was a blessing. Not only is she in the scene and really present and so giving as an actor, which is gold for me because it makes the experience so rich and so wonderful, but what also helped once the cameras were turned off — we found our own natural rapport and friendship. And she really did take me under her wing.

"What I really enjoyed about this project is that, yes, it does show nudity, but we kind of showed nudity in a new way," Nam continued. "And it really makes us rethink and resee things such as gender and pleasure, along with nudity. It was a new experience."

SEE ALSO: 'Westworld' star Leonardo Nam talks about fearing his character's death 'all the time'

DON'T MISS: 'Westworld' star Jeffrey Wright weighs in on a bold new fan theory: 'There's a lot of fertile ground'

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NOW WATCH: Here's everything we know so far about season 2 of 'Westworld'

Kim Kardashian feared she'd be killed and "mentally prepped" herself to be raped during the 2016 robbery in Paris, which resulted in nearly $10 million in stolen jewelry.

Kardashian recounted the robbery during Sunday's episode of E!'s "Keeping Up with the Kardashians." In previous teasers for the episode, Kardashian tells her sisters, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian, how she thought the robbers knew when to attack while her sisters were out at a club and and how she realized that they had a gun.

On Sunday's episode, she explained how the robbers forced the concierge at the property she was renting to open her door and then held him captive, as well. He also played the translator between Kardashian and the robbers, who didn't speak English.

"I remember looking at the concierge," Kardashian tearfully recounted. "And I just said, 'Are we going to die? What's happening to us? I have babies. Please tell them. They can't understand, but please tell them. I have babies at home. Please, I have a family. Let me live.'"

The reality star, who has two young children with husband, rapper Kanye West, also said she believed she would be raped.

"Then [one of the robbers] duct tapes my face, my mouth, to get me to not yell or anything and then he grabs my legs and I wasn't, I had no clothes on under [my robe] and he pulled me towards him at the front of the bed and I thought, 'OK, this is the moment. They are going to rape me.'" Kardashian said. "And I fully mentally prepped myself and then he didn't and he duct taped my legs together."

Afterward, she said one robber placed the gun to her head and she was sure he would kill her.

"I just knew that was the moment they are just totally going to shoot me in the head," she said. "I just prayed Kourtney was going to have a normal life after she sees my dead body on the bed."

But the robbers, who were dressed in police uniforms during the October 2016 crime, spared her life. Instead, they left Kim in the bathroom of her Paris rental and escaped with her engagement ring from West, and other jewels totaling $9.5 million.

"It's all replaceable," Kardashian concluded about the losses. "None of it matters."

In January, Paris police said they were investigating at least three suspects in the crime.

In the wake of the incident, gossip site MediaTakeout.com claimed that Kardashian had faked the robbery and filed a fraudulent insurance claim for millions of dollars. She then sued the site for libel.

Watch the video from "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" below:

SEE ALSO: Kim Kardashian has a theory about how robbers tied her up and stole $10 million in jewelry

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The R-rated "Logan," Hugh Jackman's final Wolverine blockbuster, really pushes the emotional boundaries of what a Hollywood superhero movie can be, so it shouldn't be too surprising that its director, James Mangold, isn't a huge fan of cookie-cutter flicks.

Still, his send-up of tentpole movies on a recent episode of the podcast "The Business" is notable because it deftly distills the problem many see with big-budget films these days, especially superhero ones.

"Tentpole movies in general, they are not movies, generally — they are bloated exercises in two-hour trailers for another movie they are going to sell you in two years," Mangold said. "There are so many characters that each character gets an arch of about 6 1/2 minutes at best, and I'm not exaggerating. You take 120 minutes, you take 45 of it for action, what are you left with, divide it by six characters, you have the character arc of Elmer Fudd in a Warner Brothers cartoon. That formula is empty for me."

And Mangold isn't just talking about the studios trying to mimic Marvel's success with lesser material. "If I'm going to insult other movies, I'm going to do it with a big broom," he said. "I'm going to say that this is endemic. I'd say if you're just going to look at Marvel's grosses and somehow make their movies free of this kind of criticism, that's not fair."

He did mention "Guardians of the Galaxy" and the first "Iron Man" as examples of good filmmaking, but he said the collective world of superhero movies was repetitive.

Mangold is certainly in a position to criticize.

"Logan" is remarkable in balancing big-budget action with a human drama that has some critics calling it the best superhero movie ever. It took huge risks and ultimately landed with audiences in a palpable way.

Here's a rundown of what critics are saying about the film.

SEE ALSO: The guy who wrote 'Logan' explains how Hollywood has fundamentally changed in the last few years

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John Oliver examined the series of events that followed President Donald Trump's allegation that former President Barack Obama had Trump's telephones tapped during the election campaign.

After multiple American and international intelligence agencies, as well as fellow Republicans, have said that there's no evidence Obama ordered surveillance of Trump, HBO's "Last Week Tonight" host slammed the president for saying he got his information from Fox News Channel contributor Judge Andrew Napolitano.

"He only said it because he heard it on television is barely an acceptable excuse for why your parrot said a racial slur. 'No, no, no, we've been watching 'The Wire,'" Oliver joked, referring to the strong language on the HBO cop drama from the early 2000s.

In response to Trump's claim, Fox News issued its own statement saying that there was "no evidence" that Obama wiretapped Trump. After all that, Oliver mocked the president by pointing to CNN's Fareed Zakaria, who said Trump's M.O. is "bulls----ting."

"Yeah, Donald Trump is a bulls--- artist," Oliver said. "I know Trump might want to refute that. But to be fair, someone on TV did say it and I am repeating it. So therefore, it must be true."

You can watch the full episode over on HBO's website, or watch the segment on Trump's wiretapping claims in the clip below:

SEE ALSO: Seth Meyers: Trump's proposed budget cuts show just how 'dead inside' he is

DON'T MISS: CNN's Van Jones: Why Oprah could beat Trump in 2020

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Movies go though a lot of changes, but any changes made to a "Star Wars" movie are always fun to delve into, and "Rogue One" has a lot of them.

Leading up to its release and following it, the changes that were made during the film's reshoots were reported at a rapid pace.  

Now, with its Blu-ray release on April 4, there's been another press tour by the creatives behind the movie, and Entertainment Weekly got one of the screenwriters to dish a little about one of its endings in the early days of developing "Rogue One," specifically how it would have ended if Disney wouldn't have let them kill off the entire cast.

The ending that director Gareth Edwards, Disney, and Lucasfilm decided on was one where Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), K-2SO (Alan Tudky) and the rest of their rag-tag group steal the plans for the Death Star while on the tropical planet Scarif, eventually relaying the blueprints to the Rebel Alliance but ultimately perishing in the process.

“The original instinct was that they should all die,” screenwriter Gary Whitta told EW. “It’s worth it. If you’re going to give your life for anything, give your life for this, to destroy a weapon that's going to kill you all anyway. That’s what we always wanted to do. But we never explored it because we were afraid that Disney might not let us do it, that Disney might think it’s too dark for a Star Wars movie or for their brand.”

So before Whitta and John Knoll — another "Rogue One" screenwriter in the early days — talked to Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy about the need for an ending where no one survived, they came up with a "happy ending."

According to Whitt, in an early version, the ending had Jyn and Cassian escape Scarif with the Death Star plans as a rebel ship picks them up while they are on the beach. As the ship carrying Jyn and Cassian is being chased by Darth Vader's Star Destroyer, the plans are transferred to Princess Leia's ship. Vader eventually destroys the Jyn/Cassian ship and then chases Leia's ship, which is where "Star Wars: A New Hope" opens.

But then we discover that Jyn and Cassian were able to get away in an escape pod just before Vader destroyed the ship they were on.

However, no one liked this ending.

“The fact that we had to jump through so many hoops to keep them alive was the writing gods telling us that if they were meant to live it wouldn’t be this difficult,” said Whitta. “We decided they should die on the surface [of Scarif,] and that was the way it ended. We were constantly trying to make all the pieces fit together. We tried every single idea. Eventually, through endless development you get through an evolutionary process where the best version rises to the top.”

And if the "happy ending" was used, we would have never gotten that great Darth Vader fight scene at the end.

SEE ALSO: Every HBO show ranked from worst to best, according to critics

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