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Federal prosecutors want to seize the Wu-Tang Clan album that Martin Shkreli paid $2 million for

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  • Federal prosecutors reportedly want to seize the former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli's one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album as part of an assets seizure.
  • Shkreli paid $2 million for the Wu-Tang album at an auction in 2015. 
  • He is currently imprisoned in a Brooklyn jail after he was convicted of securities fraud in August. 

 

Federal prosecutors have reportedly asked a Brooklyn Federal Court judge that the former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shrekli turn over his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album as part of an assets seizure. 

According to CNNMoney, Shkreli's prosecutors are seeking to seize $7.4 million in assets from Shkreli, who was convicted of securities fraud in August and later imprisoned. 

To collect the $7.4 million, the government has reportedly suggested it will keep the $5 million Shkreli paid in bail, and that the remaining money could be covered by Shkreli's other assets, including the Wu-Tang Clan album ("Once Upon a Time in Shaolin"), the Lil Wayne album "The Carter V," a Picasso painting, and an Enigma machine from World War II, according to court documents.

Shkreli paid $2 million for the only existing copy of the Wu-Tang album at an auction in 2015. 

In September, Shkreli listed the album on eBay, and bids reached as high as $1 million in the following weeks, though it appears he was unable to sell it. 

Shkreli's attorney told CNNMoney that they will "vigorously oppose the government motion."

Shkreli is currently imprisoned in a Brooklyn jail and is scheduled to be sentenced on January 16, 2018, where he faces up to 20 years in prison.

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The hottest product on Black Friday and Cyber Monday wasn't even on sale

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  • Nintendo's Switch game console was the #1 best-selling product online on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, according to Adobe Analytics.
  • The Switch has enjoyed a record-breaking year since its launch, Jefferies Analyst Atul Goyal said.
  • Strong sales now will help Nintendo in the future, as Switch owners will keep buying new games over the next several years, Goyal said.
  • Click here to view Nintendo's live stock price.


Nintendo dominated online sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday thanks to the company's wildly popular Switch game console, Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal said in a note to clients.

The Switch was the best-selling product online across all product categories among online retailers on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, according to Adobe's Digital Insights Initiatives. Nintendo offered no discounts during that time, although the console was already priced below $300.

Nintendo saw record sales in the Switch's launch month. The new console has also had several successful games, such as "Zelda," "Mario Kart," "Splatoon 2," and "Super Mario Odyssey," Goyal said.

"Even we had not expected such a record-breaking streak," Goyal wrote in a note. "This strong sales is going to create a robust installed base, which is where games software will monetize over the next 5-7 years."

Nintendo's Switch has performed better than any other competitor in its first few months, Goyal said. Rival Sony announced the PlayStation had its best ever Black Friday with the most sales in the console's 22-year history. Goyal noted that, unlike Nintendo, Sony offered steep discounts on its consoles. The 1 TB PS4 was priced down to $199 from $299 and the PS4 Pro was priced at $350 from $399.

Even though the PS4 is breaking company records, it was not enough to make it on the top of the charts with Nintendo. Goyal predicts that the Switch's popularity will not slow down anytime soon.

Nintendo's stock is trading at $414.50 (or 46,417.40 yen) and is up 88.85% for the year.

To read more about how Nintendo's Switch is surging to retail dominance, click here.

Nintendo stock price

SEE ALSO: JEFFERIES: Nintendo has another secret weapon besides the Switch

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THEN AND NOW: The cast of Titanic 20 years after it premiered

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We'll never let go.

It's been 20 years since one of Hollywood's most doomed love stories hit the screen and audiences fell in love with Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On."

To celebrate the momentous anniversary, "Titanic" is returning to theaters. Beginning on December 1, the film will be re-released at AMC theaters. The 20th anniversary re-release celebration will take place for one week.

The nearly 3.5-hour movie is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, dominated the 1998 award season, and continues to make lists of top movies to see in your lifetime.

Since its premiere in December 1997, the cast of "Titanic" has taken on several more award-winning roles, and Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio have maintained their friendship. 

Keep reading for a look at how the star-studded cast looked then, what they look like now, and what they've been up to in between.

SEE ALSO: THEN AND NOW: The cast of 'Love Actually' 14 years later

Leonardo DiCaprio played the adventurous vagabond artist, Jack Dawson.

Jack falls in love with Rose and eventually meets his demise in the chilly waters of the Atlantic floating on a door. 

Director James Cameron recently defended his movie ending saying Jack had to die despite years of fans insisting he and Rose both could have fit on the door.



Since "Titanic," Leonardo DiCaprio has starred in several critically acclaimed films including "The Departed," "Inception," "The Wolf of Wall Street," and "Revolutionary Road," which he played alongside Kate Winslet. He also finally won his first Oscar in 2016 for his work in "The Revenant" after years of jokes and memes.

DiCaprio is also active in education about climate change and most recently attended the 2017 People's Climate March in protest of President Trump.



Kate Winslet played the rebellious upper-class 17 year old, Rose DeWitt Bukater.

Rose falls in love with Jack despite her engagement to the arrogant Cal Hockley. 



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How Chris Gethard took his boundary-pushing talk show from public access to cable TV without losing its fun and spontaneous soul

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  • "The Chris Gethard Show" is a live weekly show hosted by comedian Chris Gethard.
  • Gethard's show allows its audience members and fans to be a part of the show.
  • Gethard purposefully chose not to stick to the traditional talk show format for his show.


Prior to taping "The Chris Gethard Show," host Chris Gethard can be found chatting with audience members in such a casual manner that you find yourself wondering if everyone in the audience is an old pal of his.

But Gethard just wants his guests to feel welcome, and like they're part of a "community." 

Gethard remains amiable with his guests even when the cameras start to roll, and often chats with them throughout the show. Large portions of the show are allocated for call-ins from fans, where they ask questions, tell stories, and sometimes just share a few seconds on air with Gethard.

It's not unusual, or rare even for hosts to engage with their guests. But "The Chris Gethard Show's" high level of audience inclusion, including spontaneous dancing, and the way Gethard interacts with his guests, challenges the very notion of what you can and cannot do on a talk show.

"The Chris Gethard Show" originally aired live on the New York City public access channel MNN in 2011. Gethard shot the talk show on a set that largely resembled a basement, where he would conduct interviews with friends from the local comedy circuit, give comedians a platform to do various character bits, and invite viewers to call into the show to answer a question, or tell a story. 

It wasn't until 2015, when "The Chris Gethard Show" got picked up by Fusion, that Gethard's show got a serious cable TV makeover. This included a stylized new set, and access to celebrity guests like Diddy and Will Ferrell. Gethard would interview his guests, and invite them to partake in unusual activities. In one episode, Gethard asked Ferrell to deliver a speech to a couple who got married on the show, and in another he held an underwater themed prom, which Lena Dunham came to in a full mermaid costume. 

But Fusion chose to pre-tape the talk show rather than shooting it live — something that Gethard felt left something to be desired. After a year on Fusion, "The Chris Gethard Show" moved to truTV in May 2017, and went back to live taping, gaining back its edge and the show's unpredictability factor.

Since then Gethard has continued to create strange new segments at his new home on truTV, and now delights in the idea of continuing to push the boundaries of what he can do on his talk show. This season Gethard spent an entire episode working out while interviewing "The Mindy Project" star Adam Pally, and invited circus performers to teach Seth Meyers how to balance a spinning plate. 

Gethard isn't trying to be a "rebel" or "change the talk show" by any means, he just doesn't want to feel bound to any particular way of making a talk show, he said. 

Gethard spoke to Business Insider about what inspired him to deviate from the traditional talk show format, and why he still wants things to "look messed up" on his show. 

Here's what Gethard had to say about "The Chris Gethard Show":

SEE ALSO: 7 new shows and movies you should binge-watch over Thanksgiving weekend on Netflix, Hulu, or HBO

"The Chris Gethard Show" is built on a sense of community.

Amanda Henning Santiago: I've never seen the host and cast of a show chat with guests before a show before. It really feels like the audience is such a big part of the show, and almost like another character on it. Did you know that you wanted to engage that much with your audience from the start?

Chris Gethard: I think I very quickly realized if this show is going to survive it was going to be because there would be a sense of community surrounding it. This show is admittedly pretty strange, and intentionally very different from things that people are used to, and you know a lot of times we walk away from the format. There's nothing that really resembles a talk show format on our talk show.

The [talk show] format is done for a reason. It's to make things palatable, and so you immediately understand it, and you can turn a show on midway and say, "Oh, I get what they're doing, I've seen that structure before." And, we don't have that. What we have instead is this show that kind of goes where it wants, and does what it wants. 



Gethard ignores the traditional talk show format, with the exception of two late night staples.

Henning Santiago: What elements of your show did you want to deviate from the traditional structure? Were there any elements of a traditional talk show structure that you wanted to keep?

Gethard: I don't really have much interest in being a rebel, like we've got to change the talk show, because at the end of the day who really cares about that. But I do feel like you just know what's coming. It's going to be the intro song, it's going to be the monologue jokes about politics, it's going to be a desk piece where they sit down and talk about a thing, and interview a celebrity, then there's going to be another desk piece, another celebrity, and then maybe it's a band, or maybe it's a comedian. It's at a level where that's locked in. Which to me is a little bit of a bummer.

And the monologues are never my favorite thing. So I thought, let's abandon that, that's not my favorite thing, and I bet there's a lot of talk show viewers who kind of feel the same way about these monologue jokes. And then that started getting me thinking, what if we just blow the whole thing up? I was always like, why does the audience sit up in those seats, that seems arbitrary to me, let's put them right here. Like, especially where we come from. Our show is so underground and so hidden that anytime someone wanders through the doors it's like, "Yes, welcome. Do you want to be on camera? Be on camera."

A lot of that started too, because our show just visually was so flat on public access we were like wear a costume, do something crazy, you're a part of the scenery now, be a part of the scenery. Be a part of it. 

And I think there's certain things from talk shows I really love. Like, I think one thing you see show up a lot in our show are remote pieces. Letterman and Conan, both of them did such fantastic remote pieces, and I'm always trying to mimic that. Just getting out of the studio, and bringing a camera out into the real world to see if we can make something happen. And then I think character stuff too. I think Conan in particular, when I came up in New York he would use people from UCB [Upright Citizen's Brigade] all the time in his character bits, and they always blew me away. 



Gethard fights against the slick live show format, and strives to make his show "still look messed up."

Henning Santiago: Did you know that you wanted this show to be live? Was the public access show live?

Gethard: The public access show was live, and that's one of the biggest reasons that we went to public access. We had been doing it ["The Chris Gethard Show"] at the UCB, and a friend of mine who took classes there. Who I actually taught for a long time. He told me, "You know I work at the New York public access station, and I think your show would be a great public access show."

And at first I was like, "Man, is public access still around?"

He was telling me, "Dude we have a four camera studio, you can do the whole thing live, we can stream it online, and you can take phone calls."

And the more he told me about it the more I was like, I think this might be the best kept secret in New York. The fact that we could do it live, and the fact that we could take phone calls, and put it out on the internet all really appealed to me. I just had this hunch that if you do something live, people really feel like they have to be there to see it. Live is the thing that defeats the idea that you can watch the best 45 seconds on Reddit the next morning. There's so much more power, it's live so you don't want to be there after the fact, you want to be there when it goes down.

And then the fact that it can be interactive, that we take phone calls, and that it was uncensored, that we could just throw it up there and see what happens, that was all the stuff that really appealed to me.

On our former network, on Fusion it wasn't live, and I think the show really lost something. I'm really proud of what we did but it felt like there was a certain life to it that had been diminished. I think truTV saw that, and they actually suggested doing it live again, which I was astounded by because it's not a safe thing to do on any show, let alone with us. We barely know what we're doing, so I really commend them for allowing this to happen.

Henning Santiago: Yeah, it's hard for me to think of any shows that are really live anymore. Save for like SNL, and some news?

Gethard: Yeah, it's news, its sports, and I think Andy Cohen, right? I think that's one of our big battles this year, and one of the things we've really been pushing for is that we've been doing this more and more, and we're better at it, and it made me realize, we have to work harder at it and make sure things still look messed up. That we have to get ambitious enough with our ideas that they fall apart and the edges fray on TV.

That's another thing I don't understand about live TV like "SNL." I have so many friends who worked there, I was a guest writer there, I really have so much respect - I don't want this to sound like I'm talking bad about it. But I feel like one of the things that astounds me is that that show doesn't feel live. I feel like one of the accomplishments of it is that it's so slick that things barely ever go wrong, and to me I'm like no I want to run in the opposite direction.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The powerful men accused of sexual harassment can't blame their behavior on sex addiction — here's the key difference

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  • The list of powerful men accused of sexual harassment has continued to grow since a bombshell report about Harvey Weinstein surfaced in October.
  • Most of them probably don't have a sex addiction, a certified sex addiction therapist told Business Insider.
  • Typically, sex addicts display clear red flags, such as repeatedly seeking help and displaying a deep sense of internal strife or despair.

As the list of men accused of sexually assaulting, abusing, and raping women continues to grow, some people have started to wonder: Are some of these men mentally ill?

It's possible that a few of them are. But the cause of most of their violent behavior is much simpler. They used their positions of power to manipulate and coerce people less powerful than themselves.

There are a few key ways to distinguish someone grappling with a real sex addiction from someone who is on a violent power trip, certified sex addiction therapist Jenner Bishop told Business Insider.

Most clients with real sex addiction repeatedly seek help and display a deep sense of internal strife or despair.

"Usually people who are sex addicts have made repeated attempts to stop," Bishop said. "Often they're disturbed by their own behaviors. They have an internal sense that they don't want to do this and they can’t control themselves."

For those reasons and many more, it's crucial to avoid throwing around the term "sex addict," Bishop said. This does a disservice to the thousands of Americans who actually grapple with sex addiction.

"There are men who come into my office for treatment throwing around sex addiction when really they're philanderers. They're serial womanizers. They're dogs. But because we don't have a real definition for it, someone — any other therapist — could supposedly treat them for that. That label is very seductive in terms of everybody having a mea culpa," Bishop said.

A lot of controversy surrounds the term "sex addiction" among psychologists and therapists. Some argue that it doesn't exist at all, pointing to the fact that the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM) — widely considered the psychiatrist's bible for identifying mental illnesses — doesn't include it on the grounds that there aren't enough large studies on the topic. But others say it is a real disorder that needs attention and treatment — and the fact that it gets thrown around among celebrities actually makes it tougher to do that.

Harvey Weinstein amfar GettyBishop said it's fairly easy to tell the difference between someone who has a real sex addiction and someone who is simply seeking a justification for bad behavior.

"There are people who end up in our office because they've been caught and all of a sudden they realize they need to do something," Bishop said. Those cases stand in sharp contrast to the patients she treats who really need help.

"Real sex addiction has a characteristic of inner conflict and stress and helplessness. Generally, it's people who have a much more serious understanding and a sense of internal conflict around this. These are people who have sworn repeatedly to themselves, — 'I'll never do this again,' — people who've tried putting up barriers to the behavior and find themselves running over them anyway and find themselves in despair," Jenner said.

When people presenting these characteristics come in, Jenner can say to them, "we have a treatment protocol that can actually help you because you have some sense of personal integrity and who you want to be and how you want to get there."

Other therapists agree that while sex addiction is real, the term is often used misused to the advantage of powerful or famous people.

"Personally, I believe that sex addiction is a reality, but that it affects a small minority of individuals," Mark Griffiths, a psychologist and professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, wrote in a blog post.

"One of the reasons why sex addiction may not be taken seriously is that the term is often used by high-profile celebrities as an excuse," he said.

Reports about many of the celebrities accused of sexual misconduct have chronicled consistent patterns: Less powerful people repeatedly accused the man of unwanted advances, alienation, and other inappropriate behavior, and the man and his lawyers paid to settle the cases quietly. Usually, it went on for decades.

But it's only after allegations receive a lot of press attention that these men seem to seek therapy for sex addiction.

In almost all of the cases, there are too many unanswered questions to say for sure what's going on. We don't know whether they had previously sought counseling. We don't know if they were ever diagnosed with sex addiction. All we know is that most of them have been charged — repeatedly — with accusations that suggest that they violated the rights of many people.

"They want an excuse for their behavior," Bishop said. "But even a reason is not an excuse."

SEE ALSO: The answer to treating drug and alcohol addiction may be far simpler than you think

DON'T MISS: 36 powerful men accused of sexual misconduct after Harvey Weinstein

Join the conversation about this story »

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Billy Bush will be a guest on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' on Monday

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  • Billy Bush will be on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Monday.
  • This marks the first time Bush has been granted a late night interview since being fired by NBC for being in the now infamous "Access Hollywood" footage that surfaced during the presidential election.


Billy Bush will be appearing on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Monday, CBS has confirmed to Business Insider.

This marks the first time the former TV host has agreed to be on a late night show since being fired by NBC after the now infamous "Access Hollywood" footage surfaced during the presidential election, which featured the host of the show, Bush, listening on as Donald Trump made disparaging comments about women.

The announcement that Bush will be taping an interview with Colbert comes on the heels of the "Access Hollywood" video coming back into public light after recent reports that Trump has denied the authenticity of the footage.

Bush's appearance on the show also comes as another NBC anchor has been fired over misconduct, "Today" co-host Matt Lauer.

Colbert will obviously have a lot to talk about.

SEE ALSO: Jimmy Kimmel spars with Roy Moore over "Christian values," and says he'd go to Alabama to fight him

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Matt Lauer's ex-wife comes to his defense amidst sexual misconduct allegations: 'He would give you the shirt off his back if you really needed it'

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  • Matt Lauer's ex-wife Nancy Alspaugh defended Lauer amidst sexual misconduct allegations against him.
  • Alspaugh said she was shocked to hear Lauer was fired, and sang his praises, calling him "selfless," "nice," and "charming."
  •  NBC fired Lauer from "Today" on Wednesday upon receiving a detailed complaint about him.


Matt Lauer's ex-wife Nancy Alspaugh has come to the former "Today" host's defense, calling him "incredibly nice, incredibly charming and incredibly willing to help anybody."

Alspaugh spoke to Entertainment Tonight about the recent allegations made against her ex-husband and said she was "shocked" when she heard NBC fired him. Alspaugh was married to Lauer from 1981 to 1988.

"I was shocked because he’s been such a stalwart at that network and in that job," Alspaugh said. "He’s been the best person that’s ever held that job and I couldn’t imagine that anything that he would have done — that would have been so out of character for him —  that would have caused that reaction."

Alspaugh also said that she didn't believe "he would abuse his position in any way." She continued to point out that Lauer has contributed to her nonprofit and helped her after her husband died.

"The selfless, giving part of him, which people tend to forget whenever this kind of a situation comes up," Alspaugh said. "He would give you the shirt off his back if you really needed it. He did that for everybody. From the lowest person on set to, you know, the highest powers."

Alspaugh also expressed concern that reports of Lauer's accusations could damage his family. 

"There are three children and that’s, I think it’s important to be aware that this can destroy a family. Reporting on accusations before they know whether they’re real or not."

Lauer, who hosted "Today" for two decades, was fired by NBC Wednesday due to "inappropriate sexual behavior," according to the network.

A report published by Variety Wednesday detailed a number of allegations made against Lauer. According to Variety, dozens of current and former "Today" employees were interviewed during their two-month long investigation into Lauer.

One female employee said Lauer gifted her with a sex toy, along with a note about how he wanted to use it on her. The report also said that Lauer exposed himself to another female employee after asking her into his office, and then scolding her for not engaging in a sexual act.

Lauer shared a statement regarding the allegations on Twitter Thursday.

"There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions," Lauer said.

Lauer said that some of the allegations are "untrue or mischaracterized," but enough of the allegations are true enough to make him feel "embarrassed and ashamed." He did not specify which allegations were true and which were not. 

You can read Lauer's full statement here:

Lauer did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. 

SEE ALSO: 36 powerful men accused of sexual misconduct after Harvey Weinstein

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Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle's fashion choices reveal how different the two women are

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  • With Prince Harry's engagement to Meghan Markle, Kate Middleton is preparing to welcome a sister-in-law into the royal family. 
  • The differences between the two are encapsulated in their fashion senses. 
  • While Middleton tends towards timeless British looks, Markle has trendier tastes. 

 

Kate Middleton is about to welcome a new sister-in-law into the royal family. 

On Monday, news broke that Prince Harry was engaged to marry American actress Meghan Markle. 

"William and I are absolutely thrilled," Kate Middleton, who is married to Harry's brother and heir to the throne Prince William, told reporters Tuesday."It’s such exciting news. It’s a really happy time for any couple and we wish them all the best and hope they enjoy this happy moment."

Middleton is probably the person who could best understand what exactly Markle is going through as she prepares to marry into the royal family. 

However, so far in life, the two have taken very different approaches to how they present themselves — and that's shone through in their fashion. Here's how Markle and Middleton measure up. 

SEE ALSO: Meghan Markle has more in common with Princess Diana than you might think — here's how Prince Harry's fiancée is following in his mother's footsteps

Middleton met and began dating Prince William while the pair attended University of St Andrews.

The couple graduated in 2005. In early photos, the pair looks like typical college students, with comfort trumping sophistication. 



From the start, Middleton's fashion has been decidedly British.

Her taste for fascinators — as seen here at a wedding with William in 2006 — is one that is far outside the comfort zone for most American fashionistas. 



Meghan Markle, meanwhile, seems to have caught Prince Harry's eye from afar.

Markle is best known for her role in the legal drama "Suits," but she has also acted in a long list of shows like "CSI: NY" and "Castle," as well as films including "Get Him To The Greek."

While the pair was reportedly introduced by a mutual friend, this fame may have helped pave the way to romance. 

"He had a crush on Rachel Zane two years before he met Meghan and the reason I know is because I was having drinks with one of his friends," according to royals expert Katie Nicholl. "She told me she’d been on a night out with Prince Harry. He was single at the time, so she said, 'Harry, who’s your ideal girl?' And he said 'Meghan Markle from Suits.'"



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Meet the 20 highest-paid celebrities in the world, who made a combined $1.7 billion in one year

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With fame comes a big, fat paycheck.

The 20 biggest earners in entertainment and sports — from Beyoncé and Howard Stern to LeBron James and Ellen DeGeneres — raked in more than $1.7 billion between June 1, 2016 to June 1, 2017.

That's according to the most recent Forbes' Celebrity 100 list, which ranked the world's top-earning front-of-camera entertainers by pre-tax income during that 12-month period. Their estimates are based on figures from Nielsen, NPD Bookscan, Pollstar, Box Office Mojo, Songkick, D'Marie and IMDB, and interviews with industry insiders and some of the celebrities themselves.

Below, find out what the biggest names in film, television, music, and sports did last year to become the highest-paid celebrities in the world.

SEE ALSO: From Beyoncé and Jay Z to Tom and Gisele — meet 7 of the world's richest power couples

DON'T MISS: Meet the 11 richest millennials in America, who have a combined fortune of $127 billion

20. Mark Wahlberg

Annual earnings: $68 million

Profession: Actor

Age: 46

Mark Wahlberg had his highest-earning year to date thanks to massive paychecks for starring roles in blockbusters "Daddy's Home 2" and "Transformers: The Last Knight." He also appears in the A&E reality show "Wahlburgers" with his brothers about running and expanding their family restaurant business. He's currently the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.



18 (TIE). Jerry Seinfeld

Annual earnings: $69 million

Profession: Comedian

Age: 63

Jerry Seinfeldthe world's highest-paid comedian, struck gold with Netflix this year. The streaming giant paid him millions for a new stand-up special, two more seasons of his hit show "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," and development credits. He's also still raking in cash from Hulu, which owns the rights to his 1990s self-titled sitcom.



18 (TIE). Adele

Annual earnings: $69 million

Profession: Musician

Age: 29

It was another banner year for Adele. The British singer embarked on a year-long world tour in 2016, which grossed a whopping $167.7 million at the halfway mark. In early 2017, Adele nabbed five Grammys, bringing her total to 15. Behind Beyoncé — whom she dedicated her Album of the Year Award to — Adele was the second highest-paid woman in music last year.



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A body double, CGI skull, and secret filming sessions: Inside the yearlong process to bring this beloved character to the 'Blade Runner' sequel

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  • John Nelson, the Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor on "Blade Runner 2049," walks through how he made a CGI version of the franchise's memorable Rachael character for the movie.
  • The process took a year of trial and error, which was all done under secret shooting sessions and a code name.
  • Sean Young, who played the character in the original movie, was also brought on to supervise.


With a total of 1,200 visual effects shots in “Blade Runner 2049” — that comes out to 1:45 of the movie’s total running time of 2:43 — Oscar-winning VFX supervisor John Nelson and his team logged in major hours to go a step beyond the 1982 original movie’s legendary sci-fi look.

But there was a particular scene in the movie that Nelson and director Denis Villeneuve paid special attention to.

Toward the end of the movie when Deckard (Harrison Ford) meets Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), he is offered something very near and dear to him in exchange for information on where Wallace can find the only known child replicant. From the shadows appears Rachael, played by actress Sean Young, the beautiful replicant who is also Deckard’s love interest in the original movie. For the “2049” scene, Rachael looks like she hasn’t aged a day from when we saw her in the original movie, and that’s because Nelson and his team pulled off a flawless CGI version of Young to bring back the character for the sequel.

This is just the latest example of recent major blockbuster movies using computer graphics to de-age an actor. We’ve seen it with Kurt Russell in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” Robert Downey Jr. in “Captain America: Civil War,” and Michael Douglas in “Ant-Man.” That's not even counting “Rogue One,” in which a younger version of deceased actress Carrie Fisher appears in her Princess Leia role and Peter Cushing, who had been dead for 22 years at the time of the movie’s release, shows up in CGI form reprising his Governor Tarkin role from “Star Wars: A New Hope.”

Nelson and Villeneuve were aware of most of these past VFX landmarks, but felt they could go a step beyond those. Nelson was tasked to make the best CGI human ever put on screen yet.

“I looked at all the digital human work and for the most part I could see where it all falls down,” Nelson told Business Insider. “We tried to build on the shoulders of everything that had been done before us.”

What Nelson found was that it’s not enough to use motion capture to create the face you want to portray. There are small details to include that can’t be ignored to pull off the task. But it took him a year of trial and error to realize that.

Here’s how CGI Rachael was achieved:

Creating the digital skull

Rachael was given the code name “Rita” during filming, and the scene was done often with a very small crew to ensure that what was being done would not get out to the public.

Nelson and his team started by creating a digital skull of the Rachael character. They scanned Young’s head and then were able to find a life cast of her that was done a few years after the original “Blade Runner." By combining both they created a CGI skull of her. Nelson and his team than began de-aging the CGI head using footage from the original “Blade Runner” as a guide.



Shooting the scene with a body double and Sean Young’s guidance

While all of that was going on, back on set Villeneuve shot the “Rita” scene with Ford and Leto. Actress Loren Peta was brought on as the Rachael body double. With Nelson and Young also on hand, the scene was done with dots all over Peta’s face, which would be needed when the footage went through the motion-capture phase. Peta’s face would be erased, and CGI Sean Young would be inserted.

“Sean would be sitting with Denis and they’d be talking about Loren’s performance as Rachael,” Nelson said. “She would advise him on the movements and the looks of Rachael. ‘I would have done it this way or that way,’ she would tell Denis.”



Back to the drawing board

At this point Nelson took the footage shot and inserted what they had done with CGI Rachael, and showed what they had to Villeneuve and the producers. But no one was that impressed.

“They were like, ‘Well, it really looks like a woman that looks a lot like Sean Young, but it doesn’t look like Sean Young,’” Nelson recalled. “So I went back to the drawing board.”

Nelson went even deeper, and that’s where he found pay dirt.

“What I found is it's her imperfections that make her beautiful,” he said. “Her eyes are not symmetrical, her eyes actually stick out of her head a little more than most people. We studied how makeup was done when 'Blade Runner' was made. In fact, we went to every woman on the crew and asked about how makeup was done in the 1980s. We learned about the right shade of lip stick. Just subtle things from the first movie that we could put into our Rachael.”

Nelson went back to Denis and the producers with four scenes from the original “Blade Runner” and inserted CGI Rachael into a single shot in each scene. But he didn’t tell them what he did.

“The producers and Denis were like, ‘John, this is great but why are we looking at the first movie?’ and I told them what I did and they couldn’t tell, they actually got upset,” Nelson said. “They were like, ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ And I was like, ‘Isn’t that the point? It’s supposed to be like the real thing.’”



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Here's why Snapchat's huge redesign could revive its business, or sink it (SNAP)

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Evan Spiegel

  • Snapchat's redesign separates conversations with friends from a feed of content from professional publishers and public figures.
  • The redesign is a bet that Snapchat users care enough to seek out news and entertainment in the app.
  • Depending on how users respond, the redesign will have an either negative or transformative effect on Snap's young business.


Snapchat has a problem: It's too confusing for many people to use. 

The solution: A major overhaul of the app's design that could prove to be either a stroke of brilliance or a misguided effort to placate Wall Street's hunger for growth.

With the redesign, which Snap said will be available to users over the coming days, all messages from friends will be shown to the left of Snapchat's main camera. To the right of the camera will be a so-called Discover feed of algorithmically-sorted content from media partners, celebrities, and other vetted public figures.

By separating all professional content from conversations with friends, Snap is betting that its 178 million daily users will seek out the new Discover section for news and entertainment. Since launching in 2015, Snapchat's Discover hub for media brands has been intertwined with disappearing posts shared by friends.

The risks and potential upsides of Snapchat's big redesign:

Snapchat redesign

The risks:

  • People may not swipe right. Discover partners have privately asked Snap in recent days whether users will be enticed to swipe right from the camera when all of their friends are visible to the left. Snap maintains that its more than 70 Discover partners will continue to produce compelling content that makes people swipe right. The company also hopes that showing celebrities and other public figures to the right of the camera will encourage people to swipe.
  • Snapchat has no track record with algorithms. The new friends and Discover sections will both use algorithms to surface relevant content, a system that Snap has no history implementing. Conversations with friends will be ordered by who Snap thinks you are "closest to," which is vague enough to possibly leave many wondering why some friends are shown above others. The Discover section will sort content based on what you've viewed in the past rather than Facebook's approach of also incorporating what your friends are viewing. But because Snapchat has never sorted content this way, the experience for users could be jarring and not well optimized.
  • If people stop looking at Discover, ads become less valuable. Media brands that produce content for Snapchat Discover rely on ads to fund their efforts. If Snapchat users spend more time chatting with friends on the app than viewing Discover content, the app's content business implodes. Snap said in May of this year that 100 million users viewed Discover per month on average.

The potential upsides:

  • Snap is better to able target users with Facebook-style ads. Until now, Snapchat has lacked the News Feed-style ads that Facebook pioneered. With the new Promoted Stories ad format, Snap could eventually run targeted ads in the Discover feed that look and feel similar to the kinds of ads that already exist on bigger platforms. Promoted Stories are currently screen "takeover" ads that Snap sells directly, charging a premium price for the ability to target all the users in a specific country.  According to a source close to the company, the ads will eventually be targetable and available at auction.
  • Advertisers are convinced to spend more on TV-style ads in Discover. Snapchat has long focused its ad business on the roughly $70 billion that's spent on traditional TV spots every year. By creating a siloed area for brands to advertise against more premium content and shows, Snap could open the door for more spending. “This isn’t the thing that’s necessarily going to spike user growth, "4C chief marketing officer Aaron Goldberg told Business Insider. "But what it should do is open the spigot to TV ad dollars." (4C is one of Snap's largest outside ad partners.)
  • More people eventually turn to Snapchat as a messaging app for communicating with close friends. The company's long-term bet with this redesign is that people will turn to Snapchat as a place to communicate with close friends, rather than with everyone they've ever met. Separating conversations with friends from publishers is a big step towards solidifying that difference. As Snap VP of Nick Bell recently told Business Insider: “We think that we’re going to be able to optimize the two experiences: One to focus on relationships, and one to focus on interests.”

SEE ALSO: Snap has spent $352 million on acquisitions this year — here are all of the startups it's bought so far

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Snapchat's VP of Content talks about the app's biggest redesign yet

A Wall Street analyst looked at which digital TV package was the best deal for customers — and found a winner

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directv now

  • Traditional pay-TV packages are in decline and new "digital" ones are trying to scoop up customers.
  • A wide variety of digital packages have sprouted up, from Hulu with Live TV, to Sling TV, to DirecTV Now.
  • Analysts at UBS made a chart to show how good a deal each service is, and the winner was a DirecTV Now package (especially if you're an AT&T customer).


As pay-TV subscribers drop their traditional cable or satellite packages at an accelerating rate, a new type of TV bundle is trying to catch those erstwhile consumers and bring them back into the fold.

These digital (“virtual,” “over-the-top”) packages have similar channels to old-fashioned bundles, but deliver their entertainment over internet data like Netflix does. You watch them using apps on your smart TV, streaming box (like Roku or Apple TV), smartphone, or laptop.

And they are poised to be a real force in the market, with UBS estimating they will have almost 5 million subscribers combined by the end of this year, and 15 million by the end of 2020.

One of the big advantages of these digital packages, in the early stages, has been that they have a wide variety of price points and channel selections. But that also makes it harder to understand which one is the best deal.

Personally, I’d recommend trying as many as you like, since they all have a free trial and are easy to install. If you already have a streaming box, you don't have to install any additional equipment. But it can still be hard to judge value.

To help, analysts at UBS led by John C. Hodulik tried to put the value proposition of these bundles into perspective with a handy chart distributed this week. On one axis, the chart shows the price of each bundle, and on the other axis, it shows the “desirability of included content.” (To assess “desirability,” UBS looked at what percentage of the past 12 months of general TV viewing was taken up by the channels included in the package.)

It basically looks at how many hours you spend watching TV versus how much you pay per month.

That’s not a perfect measurement, since not every hour you spend watching TV gives you equal enjoyment. For instance, if you’re a hardcore sports fan, the hours you spend watching your favorite team might give you much more enjoyment than the hours you spend watching two teams you don’t care about. Nonetheless, it’s a way better reference than just how many channels there are in a package.

So who won?

“On this metric, the DirecTV Now ‘Live a Little’ bundle appears to have the best mix for consumers … especially when bundled with AT&T wireless,” UBS wrote. AT&T customers rejoice, there's a great deal to be had thanks to the power of AT&T and DirecTV being part of the same company. Though again, I'd use the free trial to decide whether you like the interface and to test reliability.

Here is the full chart from UBS:

Screen Shot 2017 12 01 at 12.31.32 PM

SEE ALSO: A member of Facebook's founding team wants to sell you a sports-free TV package for $16 a month

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NOW WATCH: Fox News' Tucker Carlson — a registered Democrat — explains why he always votes for the most corrupt mayoral candidate

The new Kindle Oasis is the best e-reader you can buy (AMZN)

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Amazon Kindle Oasis

Using the new Kindle Oasis feels a little bit like stepping back in time. That might sound like a bad thing, but it's actually the opposite. The Oasis is a stylish, premium device that takes you back to simpler times, before apps and blue light kept us perpetually distracted and awake too late. 

The device costs $280 and is available to buy now on Amazon

I've been using the Oasis for a few weeks and comparing it to my other experiences using the Kindle app for iPhone and my practically ancient Kindle Fire from 2012. All of these options have their own strengths and weaknesses, but I wound up being pleasantly surprised by the Oasis. 

Here's what it's like:

SEE ALSO: I wanted to recommend Google's Pixel Buds, but I can't — they fall short on too many promises

What most surprised me about the Oasis was its shape and size.

The Oasis has an aluminum body, which somehow manages two seemingly opposite feats: It makes the device feel high-end and expensive, but it also ensures that the Oasis is shockingly lightweight.

At 6.8 ounces, it's only slightly heavier than an iPhone X, which weighs 6.14 ounces. 

The Oasis also has a funny little hump on its back just like the first generation device, which is likely intended to make it easier to grip one-handed. This is a nice feature — and one that's pretty unique to the Oasis — but is rendered useless if you put a case on it. The case snaps on magnetically to the back of the device, sitting flush next to the hump and creating an even back. The hump is nifty, but if you like having a case on your electronics like I do, you'll probably forget it's there altogether. 

Besides the hump, the Oasis is super, super thin at 3.4 millimeters. 



It has a big, beautiful screen too.

The new Oasis gained an extra inch on its display, making it the largest Kindle display on the market at seven inches. 

Amazon says you'll be able to read 30% more before turning the page, but it doesn't really matter the exact amount. What really matters is the fact that the screen size straddles the line of being small enough to hold one-handed, but large enough that you don't feel like you're constantly turning the page. 

This is where testing the Oasis side by side with the iPhone app made the difference really clear. When reading on my iPhone, I feel like I'm swiping to the next page every few seconds, and it makes reading while I eat or drink a coffee nearly impossible. The Kindle's larger screen size was perfect for me, and was my favorite feature of the device. 



I'd choose reading on the Oasis over a digital display any time.

The screen also comes in handy at the end of a long day at work. Staring at a computer screen for hours on end means I don't want to look at another screen when I get home at night. Having the Kindle's E-Ink display meant my eyes — and brain — got a break. My Kindle Fire also has a digital display, so using the Oasis was a wonderful and much-needed change of pace. 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

What 'Dilly Dilly' means — and how Bud Light came up with its viral campaign

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If you've seen or heard the phrase "Dilly Dilly" at your local pub or on social media in the last few weeks, you can thank Bud Light for turning the phrase into a cultural phenomenon. The company launched a series of ads created by the Wieden+Kennedy ad agency that has gone viral, thanks to their constant appearances during commercial breaks in NFL and college football games. 

Recently at Business Insider's IGNITION conference in New York, we got to chat with the man ultimately responsible for the "Dilly Dilly" campaign: Anheuser-Busch InBev Chief Marketing Officer Miguel Patricio. We asked him about the origin of the campaign and — with the Super Bowl looming — if the brand has any plans to make any new "Dilly Dilly" ads. Following is a transcript of the video.

Graham Flanagan: What the hell does "Dilly Dilly" mean?

Miguel Patricio: "Dilly Dilly" doesn't mean anything. That's the beauty of it. I think that we all need our moments of nonsense and fun. And I think that "Dilly Dilly," in a way, represents that. A lot of people asked me, "How did you approve that?"

[You can thank this man for the "Dilly Dilly" campaign. He's the Chief Marketing Officer of AB InBev]

To tell you the truth, we never expected this to be so successful. It didn't test that well. We did that ad, actually, because of – the new season of "Game of Thrones" coming, but when we tested, it didn't test that well. We said, "Consumers will get it."

And especially with repetition. We have a chance here for this to become big. So, we went against the research and we gave a chance to "Dilly Dilly" and we are so happy!

[The spot was created by the Wieden+Kennedy ad agency]

I think that one of the proofs of success,  nowadays, from a cultural standpoint, is when you go to Amazon and you don't do anything, there are people already selling t-shirts. Two weeks ago, I went on Amazon. There were like ten different types of "Dilly Dilly" t-shirts. I said "Yes! That's it!"

It becomes a cultural currency. 

Flanagan: You're suing all those people, right?

Patricio: No, no. We want everybody to "Dilly Dilly" in their life, so no problem. We are gonna bring more fun, more Dilly Dillys ... Super Bowl is pretty close. Maybe we'll surprise you with a Dilly Dilly soon. I don't know. Maybe!

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The best TV show of every year since 2000, according to critics

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breaking bad

Each year in television, one show stands out as the most critically acclaimed program of the year.

Since the turn of the century, the reviews aggregator Metacritic has compiled an annual list of the year's most well-received TV show seasons by assigning scores based on their composite critical reception.

We selected the top show from each year, starting with 2000. The resulting list includes repeated appearances from contemporary classics like "Breaking Bad," "The Wire," and "Mad Men" for their most notable seasons.

Check out the best TV show of every year since 2000, according to critics:

SEE ALSO: All 26 notable new Netflix original shows that debuted in 2017, ranked from worst to best

2000: "The Sopranos" (Season 2)

Critic score: 97/100

User score: 9.3/10

What critics said: "It's difficult to single out any particular aspect of the show: It's just plain brilliant." — Variety



2001: "The Office: UK" (Season 1)

Critic score: 98/100

User score: 8.6/10

What critics said: "It takes a little while to get into it (episode two clinched it for me), but once you get used to the accents and dry humor, you're hooked." — The Chicago Sun-Times



2002: "The Office: UK" (Season 2)

Critic score: 93/100

User score: 8.9/10

What critics said: "The pleasure to be taken from 'Office' isn't merely that of laughter — it's the pleasure of watching a piece of entertainment so perfectly made and so delicately acted." — Entertainment Weekly



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Sinking NFL viewership is threatening to crush ad sales

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cam newton nfl player sad crying

  • TV ratings for the National Football League have declined in each of the past two seasons.
  • RBC Capital Markets says that this is going to hurt ad sales as investors shy away in an increasingly competitive landscape.


When it comes to TV ratings, the National Football League needs a Hail Mary.

Average game viewership has fallen to 15 million this season, down from 16.5 million last year, and the lowest since 2008, according to data compiled by RBC Capital Markets.

The firm also finds that the league's audience is down on a year-over-year basis, and notes that it hasn't seen meaningful growth since 2013, when the measure climbed 5%. RBC says this has had an adverse effect on how advertisers view the prospect of buying time slots during NFL games.

"The sustained decline is what worries investors about media's willingness to offload the NFL's monetization risk," analyst Steven Cahall wrote in a client note.

Screen Shot 2017 12 01 at 4.05.49 PM

RBC says possible reasons for the ratings skid include player protests, the NFL's ongoing concussion controversy, competition from politics, increased offerings from cable and entertainment providers, and an oversaturation of games. And there's also what Cahall considers to be the most obvious explanation:

"When a Sunday or Monday Night game is 42-7 late in the 3rd quarter, the viewer may now opt to catch up on Stranger Things or Billions instead of watching through to the end," he said. " Five or ten years ago, an unexciting 4th quarter might still have been the best thing on TV."

SEE ALSO: A mystery trader keeps betting that the stock market will go crazy

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The Fed is trying to prepare for the next recession without causing it

'Coco' dominates a quiet weekend at the box office (DIS)

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Coco Disney Pixar

  • "Coco" wins the domestic box office for a second-straight weekend with $26 million.
  • A24 is capitalizing on the pre-"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" weekends by releasing award season contenders "Lady Bird" and "The Disaster Artist."


Disney/Pixar's "Coco" has followed up its Thanksgiving weekend dominance at the domestic box office with a repeat win.

The heartwarming tale of a boy's journey to the Land of the Dead took in an estimated $26 million its second weekend, according to Exhibitor Relations, easily beating "Justice League" once again. The Warner Bros./DC Comics movie is taking a nose-dive, dropping 60% from last weekend and only taking in $16.5 million.

But for the real highlights from this weekend you have to look beyond the top two performers.

The Julia Roberts drama "Wonder" continues to be the surprise success story of the season as it came in third place with $12.5 million. That gives the movie a domestic total of $88 million, a figure most in Hollywood didn't think the film would come close to after three weeks in theaters (its budget was $20 million).

The trick has been the flood to theaters with students at the matinee showings. Lionsgate really pushed the idea of teachers taking their kids to the movie for a field trip to highlight its anti-bullying message. It's paid off big time for Lionsgate.

Then there's the run distributor A24 is on. The company behind the best picture Oscar win for "Moonlight" is looking to take advantage of these few weeks before "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" opens. A24's releases "Lady Bird" and "The Disaster Artist" are hot tickets at arthouse theaters.

Lady Bird A24In its fifth week in theaters, the coming-of-age drama "Lady Bird" is now playing in over 1,000 screens and is using the long tail word of mouth approach — and news that the movie is now the best reviewed title of all time on Rotten Tomatoes — to build up a total domestic gross to date of $17 million (the movie was made for close to $10 million).

The movie's Oscar hopes will only increase its box office as the company slowly continues to expand the movie to other cities through the end of the year.

Then there's "The Disaster Artist", a very different movie from "Lady Bird", but A24 will use a similar model for its release. The retelling of Tommy Wiseau's stranger-than-fiction journey to make, "The Room," considered one of the worst movies ever made, stars James Franco who is also the director.

Opening on only 19 theaters this weekend ("Lady Bird" started its run on just four screens), the movie took in $1.2 million— that's $64,254 per screen. This is another title that will only increase in popularity as the weeks go on.

But when "The Last Jedi" opens, it might be game over in regards to any other wide release making big numbers for the rest of the year. When the latest "Star Wars" movie opens December 15, it won't just earn a lot of coin, but could cement Disney's dominance at the box office for the rest of 2017.

It's possible a Disney title will be the winner of the domestic box office from last weekend until the final weekend of December. It would be a combination of "Coco" wins up until "The Last Jedi" opens and then dominance by the space saga the rest of the year.

That would be six-straight weekends of Disney titles taking the No. 1 spot.

SEE ALSO: A body double, CGI skull, and secret filming sessions: Inside the yearlong process to bring this beloved character to the "Blade Runner" sequel

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 10 things you missed in the 'Avengers: Infinity War' trailer

RANKED: The 10 best Super Mario games of all time

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A mustachioed Italian plumber with a penchant for jumping on the heads of his enemies is, unbelievably, one of the most popular video game characters in the world. Hell, he's one of the most popular characters in the world period

Of course, I'm talking about your friend and mine, Super Mario:

Super Mario

It's been over 35 years since Mario first appeared in 1981 arcade classic "Donkey Kong," and, since then, he's been in, like, a lot of games (the Mario Wiki estimates somewhere in the neighborhood of 170). These range from classics like "Super Mario World" on the Super Nintendo, to more esoteric fare like "Hotel Mario" and "Mario's Time Machine."

And now, he's even on Apple's iPhone and iPad!

Super mario run

Perhaps you have young kids at home who are quickly falling in love with "Super Mario Odyssey"? Or maybe you are

Good news: That's a ton of history to dig through! That's where this list comes in: We put together the 10 best Mario games ever made and where to find them (excluding spin-offs like the "Mario Tennis" franchise, "Mario Kart," or "Mario Party" and "Paper Mario"). Let's begin!

SEE ALSO: Nintendo's new Mario game is a great argument for buying a Nintendo Switch

10. "Super Mario Bros. 2"

It may seem like an unlikely place to start, given that it's not a "real" Mario game, but "Super Mario Bros. 2" is fantastic. Notoriously, it's a re-branded, slightly altered version of a game that already existed at the time: "Doki Doki Panic." Whatever.

"Super Mario Bros. 2" is an excellent Mario game.

It's the first to allow you to play as Mario, Luigi, Toad or the Princess. Each of them has their own special attributes. Princess can float mid-jump for a moment or two. Luigi has a slightly higher jump than anyone else. More importantly, it's a surrealist adventure full of crazy landscapes, crazier enemies, and a bird that shoots eggs out of its mouth. It may not be the first Mario game you should start with, but it's one that you absolutely should not miss.

Where can I play this game?

"Super Mario Bros. 2" is available for purchase on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console. It's also one of the 30 games on the NES Classic Console.



9. "Super Mario Land"

The first mobile version of "Super Mario" came with "Super Mario Land," an excellent standalone Mario game that took the concept of the original NES game and created something entirely new. It's still a standard "platformer" game — you start on the left side of a level and traverse it by moving to the right, killing enemies and avoiding your own death along the way — but "Super Mario Land" is full of delightful additions, like an underwater vehicle you get to pilot. It's a bizarre, thrilling Mario game that, admittedly, was especially impactful on my very young brain when it was first released back in 1989.

Where can I play this game?

"Super Mario Land" is available for purchase on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.



8. "Super Mario 3D World"

"Super Mario 3D World," simply put, is the best Mario game that's been made in the last five years. It's gorgeous, fresh, and perfectly designed. Like the best "Super Mario" games of the modern era, it seamlessly blends nostalgia-laced gameplay with fresh twists. 

As a nod to "Super Mario Bros. 2," players can choose to play as Mario, Luigi, Peach, or Toad — each has the same special ability that they had in the original NES game. "Super Mario 3D World" also borrows the overworld map concept from "Super Mario World" (the SNES game) and evolves it to its next logical conclusion: as an explorable world unto itself, full of secrets. 

Each level in "Super Mario 3D World" feels like a gift waiting to be unwrapped, and playing it co-op with friends and family is a true delight. It may very well be the best game Nintendo made for the Wii U.

Where can I play this game?

"Super Mario 3D World" is available for purchase on the Wii U, digitally on the eShop and in-store on disc. Buy it on Amazon right here.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Dave Franco explains why he's done worrying about being in the shadow of his brother James

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Dave Franco Samantha Lee AP

  • "The Disaster Artist" was the first time Dave Franco and his brother James had a substantial amount of screen time together in a movie.
  • Franco shared how "in character" as Tommy Wiseau his brother was while directing the movie.
  • He also revealed how losing 20 pounds to play a role in his upcoming Netflix movie, "6 Balloons," led to some physical and emotional problems.


For most of his career Dave Franco has carefully navigated a path that stayed out of the very large wake left by his brother James. The younger Franco slowly found his niche through building credits doing zany comedies like “21 Jump Street” and “Neighbors.” But when his brother came to him about the two making a movie together about the cult classic “The Room,” it was an offer too good to pass up.

“The Disaster Artist” (opening in limited release on Friday and wider the following week) is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 2003 low budget movie, “The Room,” which is regarded as one of the worst movies ever made. James directs and also stars as Tommy Wiseau, the bizarre writer-director of “The Room,” while Dave plays Tommy’s best friend and fellow aspiring actor, Greg Sestero, who follows Wiseau on the journey to make “The Room.” Though hilarious at times, the movie’s backbone is the bond the two friends have and it's all pulled off perfectly by the brothers’ performances.

Dave sat down with Business Insider to talk about making this unique buddy comedy with his brother. He also clarified how far James took being "in character" as Wiseau while directing “The Disaster Artist,” and explained what drove him to lose 20 pounds for an upcoming Netflix movie.

Jason Guerrasio: What was it about "The Disaster Artist" that not only made you want to work with your brother but also start a production company with him, Ramona Films?

Dave Franco: When I first started acting I did make a conscious choice to distance myself from him work-wise just because I wanted to paint my own path, not be referred to as James Franco's little brother for the rest of my life. But after a while it just got to the point where I was like "he's my brother and I love him and I respect him," and with “The Disaster Artist” the dynamic between these characters just felt right. I understood these guys. I'm an actor, I understand the struggle of an actor starting out. And I can relate to the idea of how important it is to have an ally and someone who believes in you and encourages you.

In terms of the production company, my brother and I are very drawn toward projects that do feel slightly outside the box. And at the same time are accessible enough that they could draw a slightly wider audience.

the disaster artist

Guerrasio: Starting the production company, did the idea come during production?

Franco: It was during post production when he started to invite me to the edit room. I quickly realized we share a brain and we had this shorthand where we get each other. We really modeled the production around what Seth Rogen has been doing forever. What Judd Apatow does. They create these very collaborative environments where everyone has a say and no one is more powerful that anyone else and the best idea always wins. 

Guerrasio: Did you guys go as far as Seth and Judd go in videotaping the audience's reaction at early screenings to see if a joke didn't land right or something could be tweaked in the edit?

Franco: I don't think they videotaped. And the reason for that is that works best for a full-on comedy. This is very funny at points but in regards to tone it's most similar to something like "Boogie Nights." A bunch of crazy characters in strange circumstances but everyone is playing it as straight as possible and the humor comes from that. During our test screenings we were most concerned if the friendship between Tommy and Greg was playing. That's the core of our story. Because without the friendship it had the potential of just being an extended "SNL" skit. 

Guerrasio: Were you into "The Room" before all of this?

Franco: My brother and I were both pretty late to the game. He actually read Greg Sestero’s book before he even saw "The Room," and he's probably the only person on the planet who did it in that order. But then he reached out to me and said, "If you haven't seen 'The Room' watch it immediately, I think we need to make a movie about it." So at the time I was working in Boston so I watched "The Room" in a hotel room by myself, which is not the right way to watch that movie for the first time. There's so much coming at you need to turn to someone and say, "What the f--- is going on?" So I finished that viewing and just feeling very unsettled, to be honest. But soon after I went to one of the midnight screenings where the audience is throwing stuff at the screen, reciting every line. And I then immediately understood why "The Room" is such a cult movie. Since then I've seen the movie roughly 25 times, which is more than any movie I've seen in existence. [Laughs.]

The Room TPW Films

Guerrasio: I talked to your wife, Alison Brie, for "The Little Hours," and she said you also did the book on tape of Greg's book.

Franco: Yeah. And I would recommend the book on tape for this because it's Greg reading it and he has a great Tommy impersonation. I sat down with Greg a handful of times before we started filming and through production, and one of the things I asked him was during production of "The Room" if he ever thought it had a chance of being a good movie. And he claims that he did not but I don't fully believe him just because as a young actor all you care about is getting on a set. When you're on set you almost have to have this blind optimism and believe that whatever you're working on could be great. Even from the outside everyone can see it's objectively bad. I've been in those scenarios. I've been on set and everything is going smoothly to the point where people were talking about the movie being nominated for awards and I bought into the hype. Then the movie came out and not only was a it not good but it was a full-on piece of sh--. It was probably the worst thing I’ve ever done. It just makes you think about the fact you do anything creative you have to give all of yourself over to the process. There are going to be moments when you question whether or not what you're doing is brilliant or if it's a total disaster.

Guerrasio: Now I'm trying to think back on the movies you've done to figure out which one you think is the worst thing you've ever done.

Franco: [Laughs.]

Guerrasio: Anyway, how did you and James work on the characters? Did you want to rehearse with him before shooting?

Franco: We didn't really rehearse too much beforehand just because his style of filmmaking, like Seth's style, is very loose and improvisational. Yes, we had an incredible script to work off of but we always kept it loose. 

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Guerrasio: So going into shooting he gave you no head's up that he would be being in character as Tommy behind the camera as director?

Franco: I don't think he knew. I think he just fell into it and it was just easier to stay in character instead of bouncing back and forth between Tommy and James.

Guerrasio: On the first day was he just James on set?

Franco: No, from day one he was Tommy. There was definitely an adjustment period. He can articulate this better than me, but I do think a huge reason why he did this was because he didn't want to lose the Tommy voice. Yes, he stayed in character while he directed but that didn't mean he adopted Tommy's personality. He was still James but he was doing the Tommy voice. He wasn't a dictator on set. 

Guerrasio: Have you ever gotten into a role in your career where you're so into it it takes a while to snap out of it? 

Franco: I’ve never been the type of actor who comes home at the end of the day and goes, "I can't get rid of my part." But, I have a movie coming out early next year for Netflix called "6 Balloons" where I played a heroin addict and so I lost 20 pounds. 

Guerrasio: For you, that's kind of scary.

Franco: Yeah, I'm not a big guy. So when you lose that much weight it depresses you and I was full-on depressed. I remember at one point my wife saying, "You're not yourself, you're not fun to be around." And I was like, "I'm f---ing starving! What do you want from me?" But on set I also wasn't fun to be around. I wasn't really interacting with anyone. I was in the corner by myself, miserable. That was the most I ever got deep into a character. I'm glad I did it. It was the hardest role I've ever done and it scared the hell out of me but I think that's a good thing as an actor. To go into something that makes you uncomfortable.

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Guerrasio: Do you feel you could ever do that again?

Franco: Not for a long time. I almost really f---ed up my health. Not to get too dark, I was running all day every day to lose weight and I ended up messing up my knee to the point that when we finished production I had to go to physical therapy for a couple of months.

Guerrasio: I mean, we've heard the stories from Robert De Niro to Christian Bale, of the losing and gaining of weight for roles. I would think for every actor there’s a wonder if you can take it to that limit. 

Franco: I know. And it was very rewarding but I don't need to transform my body like that for a long time. While I was in it I do remember looking at a lot of pictures of Christian Bale throughout his career, he's losing weight or gaining weight, so that was inspiring. [Laughs.] "If he can do this 15 times I can do it once."

Guerrasio: So, back to "The Disaster Artist," what was Tommy and Greg's reaction to the movie when they first saw it?

Franco: They saw an early screening, even before the South by Southwest work-in-progress. We were more nervous about Tommy's reaction than Greg's. They both loved it but after Greg saw it he was so taken by it that he went off and for the next four days wrote an entire script for him and Tommy to star in. So since then they've filmed this new project, called "Best F(r)iends," and little did we know that "The Disaster Artist" is part two of "The Room" trilogy. [Laughs.] 

Guerrasio: Wow. So what's going forward for the production company? Are you going to produce? Direct?

Franco: I can't get into many details but all the projects are all over the place in genre and size of budget. But the unifying aspect of all of them is they do feel unique. I'm having so much fun. As much as I love acting and I hope to be doing it for a long time, it almost feels more natural for me to be a producer. I came into all of this because I'm a fan of movies and I wanted to find any way I could to be a part of it all. I happened to take the acting route but it could have been a million different ways in. Now that I'm producing it's just really fun for me to work with people that I really admire and put people together who I think will work well together. Just having a little more control.

SEE ALSO: "The Disaster Artist" is the most fun you'll have at the movies this year, and James Franco should get Oscar attention

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Billy Bush confirms it was Trump's voice on 'Access Hollywood' tape: 'Yes, Donald Trump, you said that'

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  • Billy Bush confirmed that Donald Trump was the voice featured in the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape from 2005.
  • Trump previously apologized for his vulgar comments in the tape, then dismissed them as "locker-room talk."
  • But Trump has also questioned the tape's authenticity in private conversations this year.


Former NBC host Billy Bush confirmed in a New York Times editorial on Sunday that President Donald Trump was indeed the voice behind the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape that surfaced in 2016.

In the 2005 video, Trump can be heard admitting to groping and kissing women without their consent in a hot-mic conversation with Bush, then the host of "Access Hollywood." At one point, Trump says his celebrity allows him to "grab 'em by the p---y" and that "when you're a star, they let you do it."

Trump initially apologized and dismissed his comments as "locker-room talk" when The Washington Post published the video in October 2016. However, The New York Times recently reported that Trump has changed his story, questioning the authenticity of the tape at least twice since January.

Bush, who was fired by NBC for making vulgar comments about women with Trump, recalled the incident for The Times.

"President Trump is currently indulging in some revisionist history, reportedly telling allies, including at least one United States senator, that the voice on the tape is not his. This has hit a raw nerve in me," Bush wrote.

"I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him, and did not receive enough attention. This country is currently trying to reconcile itself to years of power abuse and sexual misconduct. Its leader is wantonly poking the bear."

Arianne Zucker, an actress seen greeting Trump in the tape, told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the tape was authentic in an interview last week. 

Bush said that during his conversation with Trump, he assumed Trump's comments were "hypothetical hot air from America’s highest-rated bloviator." But he said he realized Trump wasn't exaggerating years later, after he read accounts from several of the women who accused Trump of sexual assault.

"To these women: I will never know the fear you felt or the frustration of being summarily dismissed and called a liar, but I do know a lot about the anguish of being inexorably linked to Donald Trump," Bush wrote. "You have my respect and admiration. You are culture warriors at the forefront of necessary change."

Bush also argued that his participation in the vulgar dialogue was part of NBC's practice of accommodating Trump at all costs. NBC was the network behind Trump's show "The Apprentice," which began airing in 2004.

"Was I acting out of self-interest? You bet I was. Was I alone? Far from it," Bush wrote. "With Mr. Trump's outsized viewership back in 2005, everybody from Billy Bush on up to the top brass on the 52nd floor had to stroke the ego of the big cash cow along the way to higher earnings."

"None of us were guilty of knowingly enabling our future president. But all of us were guilty of sacrificing a bit of ourselves in the name of success."

Read the New York Times editorial here »

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