"Solo: A Star Wars Story," the first of the Star Wars spin-offs to feature an existing character, is getting mixed reviews. 

But Lucasfilm is developing more movies featuring "a slew of characters," including fan favorites Obi-Wan Kenobi and Boba Fett, whose standalone movie was reported on this week.

But there are so many more possibilities, so we collected a list of Star Wars characters who should get their own movie, from R2-D2 to Captain Phasma. 

Here's the Star Wars characters that deserve their own spin-offs:

SEE ALSO: 'Solo' is the worst 'Star Wars' movie since 'Attack of the Clones,' according to critics

Lando Calrissian

Played by: Billy Dee Williams, Donald Glover

Appears in: "The Empire Strikes Back," "Return of the Jedi," "Solo"

Lando is one of the most beloved characters in the Star Wars universe, and Donald Glover proves he deserves his own movie with his incredible performance in "Solo." Give him a movie! Even if it's just Lando talking to the camera for three hours, it would be good. 

Poe Dameron

Played by: Oscar Isaac

Appears in: "The Force Awakens," "The Last Jedi"

Poe Dameron is one of the best new characters in the new trilogy. A buddy road (space) trip movie documenting the growth of Dameron and BB-8's undying bond with each other would be a treat for our eyes and our hearts. We're honestly shocked that this idea is not already in development. 

Mon Mothma

Played by: Caroline Blakiston, Genevieve O'Reilly 

Appears in: "Rogue One," "Revenge of the Sith," "Return of the Jedi"

Mothma worked with Bail Organa to form the Rebel Alliance, and has been fighting the Empire and later, the First Order for basically her entire life. She came to prominence in politics during the Separatist Crisis, when Palpatine really started to impact the senate. Mothma makes bold moves, like seeking out criminal Jyn Erso to steal the plans for the Death Star. Seeing her rise, or at least part of it, would be a fun addition to the franchise. 

• Jim Carrey called out Democrats on Twitter on Friday for their "calm reasonable manner" and told them "show some passion."
• Carrey tweeted a drawing of Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff with his pants down and a donkey preparing to kick him from behind.
• "If you can't win a PR war against this mobbed up, dirty, rotten Cheeto, then you need to get out of politics," the caption read.
• Carrey is most likely referring to President Trump's claims on Twitter this week that federal investigators planted a spy within his presidential campaign, which are not supported by any public evidence.

Jim Carrey has grown a reputation for his scathing attacks on President Trump and Republicans, but on Friday he delivered a rare rebuke of Democrats on Twitter.

Carrey, who regularly tweets political drawings, called out Democrats for their "calm, reasonable manner" with a slightly NSFW drawing of Democratic Congressman and House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff. In the drawing, Schiff's pants are down and a donkey is about to kick him from behind.

"If you can't win a PR war against this mobbed up, dirty, rotten Cheeto, then you need to get out of politics," Carrey tweeted. The entire tweet is below:

Carrey is likely referring to President Trump's claims this week on Twitter that federal investigators planted a spy within his presidential campaign, which he referred to as "Spygate." These claims have not been supported by any public evidence.

Schiff told reporters this week that Trump's claims have not "changed our view that there is no evidence to support any allegation that the FBI or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the Trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols."

Carrey's political artwork and activism has gained him a large Twitter following that keeps growing. He now has 18.5 million followers on Twitter and counting.

More on Jim Carrey:

• Jim Carrey continues to attack Sean Hannity with a drawing of him as 'Sean Manatee'
• Jim Carrey continues to attack Mark Zuckerberg with a drawing of him as an alien
• Jim Carrey goes after Sean Hannity with a drawing of him as a WWE wrestler
• Jim Carrey takes criticism of Trump to a new level with sexually explicit drawing

SEE ALSO: People are threatening to boycott Netflix after the Obamas signed a deal with the streaming service

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: I ate nothing but 'healthy' fast food for a week — here’s what happened

• The Victoria's Secret Angels are spending their week at Villa Victoria, a private Beverly Hills mansion.
• The week has involved parties, yoga, spa treatments, and lots of rosé.
• Celebrities and bloggers have dropped in throughout the week, while events have been hosted by the likes of VS models Sara Sampaio, Sadie Newman, Jasmine Tookes, and Martha Hunt.
• Take a look inside the stunning villa.

The Victoria's Secret Angels, the supermodels associated with the lingerie brand, visit some pretty incredible locations for photoshoots and events — and this past week has been no exception.

The Angels have been hanging out at what the brand has called its "private Beverly Hills hotspot" dubbed "Villa Victoria" — and it's pretty stunning.

For starters, the villa's grounds seem to be decked out with loads of flowers.

The video below shows the finishing touches being put on one of the flower displays.

While details from the brand have been minimal, so far, the week at the mansion appears to have been made up of brunches, parties, yoga, and plenty of rosé, with bloggers, influencers, and friends of the models all making appearances.

VS models Sara Sampaio and Sadie Newman (pictured above) hosted an event called "Logo-A-Gogo" at the villa on Tuesday, which appears to have been a big party.

Here's Sampaio mingling with guests.

The villa's pool was decked out with pink lights...

...and the "Bombshell" cocktails were also pink.

"13 Reasons Why" star Ajiona Alexus was one of the celebrities who made an appearance.

There was even a makeup room on site.

Villa guests were treated to a "Spa Day" on Wednesday — click the arrows below to see the luxurious setup.

They were dressed in white "Bombshell" robes and enjoyed poolside massages, facials, and manicures.

On Thursday, Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott, founders of multi-million dollar fitness brand Tone It Up, hosted a "Slay Then Rosé" workout alongside VS model Jasmin Tookes.

It looked primarily yoga-based.

The morning also involved an impressive-looking brunch spread by the pool...

...Featuring plenty of rosé, of course.

The table was adorned with pink roses in keeping with the theme.

The evening brought a "Summer Soiree" hosted by VS Angel Martha Hunt.

The dinner table looked incredible...

...and was certainly a hit on Instagram.

Personalised jean jackets were being made on site...

...And the party looked pretty lively.

Bachelorette star JoJo Fletcher made an appearance at the villa on Thursday...

...Alongside a number of other celebrities, Instagram stars, and bloggers who appeared throughout the week.

There was certainly no shortage of photo backdrops...

...Even inside the villa.

SEE ALSO: This 26-year-old quit her law degree to start a luxury concierge club for bloggers and students — and now has 500 members paying up to £400 a month

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why so many fast food logos are red

• Last week, an influencer analytics company threw an award ceremony honoring the top influencers in the cryptocurrency community as a part of New York's blockchain week.
• The event's disorganization led some in attendance to wonder whether it was all a scam, or just a way for the organizing company to promote itself.

"This is the sketchiest thing I've ever been a part of," says YouTuber Siraj Raval, midway through an awards ceremony billed as an event to honor both himself and other online influencers in the cryptocurrency space.  

We're at the Crypto Influencer Awards Summit, which is taking place as a part of New York's blockchain week in lower Manhattan. Some of the most influential cryptocurrency evangelists on the internet have flown in to the city to receive awards in categories like "Best Crypto Musician," "Most Relatable," "Best Video Production," and "Most Funny."

Influencers like writer and producer Taryn Southern, crypto rappers TeamHODL and Coin Daddy, and YouTubers like Crypto Blood, Crypto Bobby, Cryptonauts, and I Love Crypto are all being honored for their efforts in spreading the gospel of the blockchain online.

Everyone is kinda famous — even the people who aren't famous are treated like they might be. One man, who volunteered to help set up the event so that he wouldn't have to pay $600 for a ticket, is handed a medal honoring him for his work in "Best Miscellaneous Category." (Later, he said that the event's host asked him to return the medal because they needed it back.)

When a guest asks me to take his photo with Siraj Raval, I ask if he likes Raval's YouTube videos.

"I've never seen them," the man admits. He then explains that he wants a photo because Raval seems like he might be famous.

I am also momentarily mistaken for an internet celebrity. At one point, a would-be fan approaches me, seemingly star struck: "I absolutely love your channel," he says.

When I tell him that I've never posted a video to YouTube in my life, he shrugs.

"Hm," he says. "I could have sworn it was you."

In the lobby, a crowd of mostly men wearing t-shirts adorned with blockchain start-up logos are chatting excitedly about the technology. Everyone seems to know each other or have heard of each other from the internet. ("This is like a chatroom, but IRL," one influencer observes.)

A beautiful woman shyly approaches a crypto rap artist called Coin Daddy.

"Coin Daddy, I need to talk to you," she says, softly. "I need you to help me make money."

In the cryptocurrency community, online influencers are a sought-after commodity. 

During one panel that takes place early on, Siraj Raval, whose channel has close to 400,000 subscribers, says that he's repeatedly dogged with emails requesting him to feature tokens for upcoming initial coin offerings, or ICOs. Taryn Southern also says that she's constantly asked to promote tokens on her channel. 

For influencers, endorsing ICOs is a lucrative but dicey market. Raval says that he charges around $50,000 to post a 20-minute explainer video on his channel discussing a company's token offering. While marketing ICOs is a profitable business, Raval says he seldom endorses companies that approach him with unsolicited requests.

"There's a lot of fishy ICOs out there," one influencer says. "And if they're not outright scams, then at the very least they're sketchy."

An entire panel at the conference is dedicated to determining whether or not a token offering is a potential scam. 

"If Vitalik [Buterin, the founder of ethereum] is listed as an advisor, that's a white flag," one speaker advises.

Fraud is so endemic within the cryptocurrency community that counterfeit coin offerings are now commonly referred to as "pump and dump schemes," and often involve a few ringleaders who generate interest in a token. Once enough people have bought in, the organizers rapidly sell off their investment and evaporate from the internet with their newfound profits.

For anyone hosting an ICO — legitimate or otherwise — elevating public awareness is crucial. In the past few months, efforts to crowdsource cryptocurrency capital have ranged from ingenious to bizarre: Some companies have paid people to write token names on their bodies and share the photos online while others have seemingly absconded with their investors' cash, all in the name of raising awareness.

One of the most popular ways to attract public interest in an ICO is through online influencers. In the cryptocurrency community, influencers are regarded by many as having some of the most important opinions in the industry. As public figures, their leverage is considered so invaluable that several of the event's attendees told Business Insider that they paid $5,000 to pitch their company's token in front of the crowd for a few short minutes. (For comparison, a startup employee said that their company paid $10,000 to rent a booth for a full three days at New York's blockchain conference Consensus.)

Endorsement from an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers can elevate a token's public profile, even if that endorsement is only tacitly implied.

At the Crypto Influencer Awards Summit, one influencer told Business Insider that a fan asked to take her photo. When she agreed, she said that he positioned her in front of his company's logo so that it would appear as though she was a supporter of his product.

Antics like this are fairly common, another influencer said.

The influencer said that he's heard of people putting mining rigs with their company's logos in busy neighborhoods and asking bypassers to pick up the rig so they can guess how much it weighs. When the person complies, they snap a photo of them holding the rig, and use the photo to showcase outside interest in the company.

Midway through the Crypto Influencer Awards Summit, a strain of skepticism surrounding the event's legitimacy begins to emerge.

So far, the proceedings have been so disorganized that one of the influencers in attendance posted a video of the event entitled "Most Awkward Conference Start Ever" to YouTube.

For an event where the cheapest tickets cost as much as Hamilton seats, I'm not sure what I expected from the awards ceremony, but this certainly isn't it. 

Admittedly, everyone still seems to be having a good time, mostly because no one is really paying attention to the panels taking place at the front of the room. The YouTube stars in attendance have expansive and charismatic personalities, and the expectation that they sit quietly and listen is equal parts ridiculous and impossible. 

People are milling about and talking loudly. The host, wearing a foam Statue of Liberty crown, interrupts the panelists again and again to remind people, in increasingly strenuous tones, to please sit down and be quiet. For the most part, her pleas are ignored. 

But despite the amount of fun everyone seems to be having, people are beginning to remark that the event is, to say the least, very weird.

Small, strange incongruities are adding up: A few of the celebrated guests who haven't been alerted to a last-minute change in venue show up nearly an hour late. Even though the event cost hundreds of dollars to attend, no one seems to be checking tickets. (No one checked whether or not I had a press pass, and I simply walked in.)

Miscellaneous suitcases are scattered haphazardly throughout the venue's back rooms, where private meetings are taking place. A guest says that the event's organizer has spent the better part of the evening outside, arguing with the police. Drinks are covertly poured into red plastic SOLO cups from behind a fold-up table throughout most of the night. A hallway bathroom has no mirror, no toilet paper, no paper towels, and somewhat mysteriously, no toilet seat. 

 Adam Charles, the marketing manager of the host company Boosto, later said that the NYPD made four separate visits to the venue, the Hudson Club, due to issues with entertainment and alcohol permits. He said he wasn't aware that the venue may not have had the appropriate licenses to host an event with alcohol and music. 

When a man wearing a gold plastic crown takes to the stage midway through the proceedings, and shouts that everyone should buy bitcoin, and only bitcoin, he is roundly heckled by the crowd.

"If you don't have bitcoin, you should go," he shouts into the mic. "You should leave here."

He continues: "We organize everyone here, for what? Just so they can buy your coin." 

"Who is that guy?" I ask one heckler in the audience.

"Some Chinese bitcoin whale," he replies. (Later, the event's host, Heidi Yu, identified the man as the prolific Chinese bitcoin miner Chandler Guo, and said that his appearance on the stage was intended to be a joke. She also said that she regretted allowing him to speak. Guo himself did not respond to a request for comment.) 

Some of the influencers wonder aloud whether or not the event has been thrown for the express purpose of raising awareness for the host company's forthcoming ICO.

YouTuber Omar Bham tells me that skepticism surrounding the event began even before the evening's official proceedings kicked off. He points out a tweet posted by the influential entrepreneur and bitcoin advocate Andreas Antonopoulos who, weeks earlier, wrote that people should boycott the event because of its misleading advertising.

The Crypto Influencer Awards prominently displayed the logos of several top influencers on its site, even though they hadn't confirmed their attendance. Boosto also advertised media partnerships with various publications, including Business Insider, on the page's event invitation, even though such a partnership didn't exist. When asked why Boosto advertised Business Insider's logo on its site as a media partnership, the company's marketing manager, Adam Charles, said he thought that anyone attending the event would like what he called "free promotion." 

"If we give out media passes, we put a media partnership on the site," said Charles. "I guess we should maybe ask for clarification in writing in the future. We're still learning."

Online, other cryptocurrency thought leaders decried the event as "despicable and deceitful."

At one point in the evening, the host, Heidi Yu, took to the stage to address the murmurs within the crowd. With the microphone in hand, Yu announced that the event was not a scam. 

"Let me tell you guys, this is legitimate," she said. 

Phu Styles, founder of the Women in Blockchain Foundation and an active figure in the cryptocurrency community, said that it's not unusual for last-minute changes to take place at cryptocurrency conferences because the industry tends to be incredibly fast-paced. Bigger than expected crowds and changes in the lineup are all par for the course. 

Another influencer who received an award said that the event was weird, but that its strangeness was only to be expected.

"This is the blockchain," he said. "This is why it's called the Wild West, right?"

The frontman behind the crypto rap group TeamHODL, who performed at the event and goes by the nickname "Hashbrown," said he was pleased that Boosto had paid for his hotel room and plane ticket to New York. Many of the other crypto influencers who attended the event also said that Boosto compensated them for their airfare and lodging costs.

"They could have planned it better," said Hashbrown. "But I think they're genuine. At the heart of it, they're doing right by crypto."

A few days later, I called up Siraj Raval and asked him what he thought about the Crypto Influencer Awards Summit in retrospect.

"Yeah, I think they might have hosted the event just to promote their brand," he said. "If that's what they were doing, then it's a pretty smart idea. It worked, right? I came. You came. At the very least, we all showed up for it."

Omar Bham posted a video to his channel Cyrpt0 a few days later, saying that he thought the event was misleading. 

"[A lot of people] were saying that this whole conference was a scam," Bham says in the video. "I would argue, you know, you might be right. Some people paid $500 just so they could get into this room...It was an odd event."

He goes on: "It's the question of what do you get out of it? I think that's a lot of what could be a scam, which is something that's misleading in my opinion: Someone promising you something and then giving you something else. I think that's what you can call a scam."

When I asked Adam Charles what he thought about the fact that some at the event suspected it might have been a scam, he said that he was hurt by this assumption and that the event's issues were due to a last-minute change in venue that was beyond his control. He also said that he was actively reaching out to the influencers who attended to see how he might be able to improve Boosto's event participation in the future.

"The ironic thing is that I'm sick of people getting scammed," he said. "I made the cryptocurrency influencer website so that we could point out the influencers people can trust online so that they don't get scammed."

Charles said that many people interested in learning about cryptocurrencies rely exclusively on YouTube influencers for their information. 

"The thing is that crypto is so new, and all of these crypto influencers suddenly popped up out of nowhere and people don't know who to trust," he said. "I hate banks, and I hate scams. That's the whole reason I'm into crypto."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos reveals what it's like to build an empire and become the richest man in the world — and why he's willing to spend $1 billion a year to fund the most important mission of his life

One of my fondest teenage memories is the time I wound up at a mall Circuit City in Nyack, New York, right as it was opening. 

It was the day of the now-defunct electronics chain's massive video game clearance sale, where literally hundreds of older titles were getting marked down to $5. Someone, on some web forum, had somehow figured out which games would go on sale, and compiled a master list. I printed it out and took it with me.  

When the store opened, it was total chaos, as dozens of nerds like myself swarmed the store. But it was also pretty cool: Since there were so few games and so many gamers, we started swapping them around like Pokémon cards. I myself traded the last "Timesplitters 2" for a copy of all-time Xbox classic "Panzer Dragoon Orta" with a broken case.

Ultimately, I wound up with "Orta," "Gun Valkyrie," "Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance," and at least a half-dozen more games, coming in at about $50 total — the regular cost of a single brand-new game at the time.

Since then, video game deal hunting has become a hobby unto itself, for me. I have less time than ever to play video games, but I still spend my free cycles hunting down deals. There hasn't been a single huge event like the Circuit City sale, but I would dare say that I save hundreds of dollars on video games in an average year. 

Here's how I do it — and how you can be as neurotic as me when it comes to saving money on video games:

SEE ALSO: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are about to go head-to-head at the biggest gaming event of the year — here's what to expect

The first best way to save money on video games is ... patience.

It's not right for everyone, and I totally get that there are some games that you need to play on release day. But the single best way to save money on so, so many blockbuster games is just to wait a little bit. 

When I was in high school, I insisted on having every new game right on day one, so I could pick it up right after school and have it all finished by the weekend. 

Nowadays, as a thirtysomething, I don't have that luxury. I pick up a game, and I might not even take it out of the case for a week. It stinks, but it happens. 

This cloud has a silver lining, though: It's made me realize just how fast games go on sale these days. New and exciting games come out so often that old ones get discounted just to make way. 

For instance: "Far Cry 5," the gorgeous new blockbuster first-person shooter, cost $60 when it came out on March 27, 2018. As I write this, it's on sale at GameStop and Amazon for $45. Given my limited playing time, I'm not sure I would have made a dent in those two mere months, so I'd feel pretty silly if I'd gotten it at launch. 

It gets more dramatic as you go. "Assassin's Creed Origins," which came out on October 27th, and was one of the hottest games of the Christmas shopping season, has gone from $60 to $30 at many stores. 

So if you can wait, maybe wait. It makes so much difference.

Take full advantage of your platform.

Again, this may seem obvious, but it's good to take full advantage of the programs available to you. 

For instance: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo all run weekly game sales from their digital storefronts. Plus, if you're a member of the $60/year Xbox Live Gold program, you can get a discount on Xbox One digital games, and the same for PlayStation gamers on the $60/year PlayStation Plus plan.

Better yet, Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus offer their subscribers a selection of free games every month, which you can play on an unlimited basis for as long as your account is paid up.

Think of these plans like a Costco membership: It's a fee you pay up front to save later. 

On the PC side, Steam, the megapopular digital games store for Windows, Mac, and Linux gamers, has regular blowout sales several times a year — though they're rarely announced in advance. 

But if you're looking for a bargain...

The first and best site in the world of video game deal hunting is CheapAssGamer.com, run by David "CheapyD" Abrams. CAG was one of the first forums dedicated entirely to finding and discussing deals, and still one of the most active.

Week in and week out, you can expect CAG posters to find and list out all the video game sales at retailers like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart, with helpful commentary explaining if the price is a good deal or not. 

Beyond that, the CAG community is always on the ball, spotting flash sales at Amazon or Fry's Electronics, alerting you to discounts on iPhone and Android games, or surfacing a helpful 20% off coupon for the PlayStation Store. 

(Side-note: Back in 2005, it was my neurotic refreshing and triple-checking of CAG that enabled me to find my Nintendo Wii, back when that console was in extremely short supply.) 

As the summer TV season gets underway, several fan-favorite shows are returning with new seasons next month.

To find out which returning shows audiences are anticipating the most, the TV-tracking app TV Time analyzed data from its 2.1 million global users to see which upcoming TV shows viewers had followed the most frequently on its platform.

The list includes the upcoming seasons of the popular Netflix original shows "GLOW" and "Marvel's Luke Cage," along with the USA drama series "Shooter."

Here are the 5 returning TV shows that viewers are anticipating the most in June, according to TV Time:

SEE ALSO: 7 great movies you can watch on Netflix this weekend

5. "The Bold Type" (Season 2) — Premieres June 12 on Freeform

Summary: "Ladies working at a global women's magazine navigate life, love and friendship together. Inspired by the life of Cosmopolitan editor Joanna Coles."

4. "12 Monkeys" (Season 4) — Premieres June 15 on SyFy

Summary: "Two time travelers, Cole and Cassie, must journey throughout time to prevent the Army of the 12 Monkeys from destroying all reality."

3. "Shooter" (Season 3) — Premieres June 21 on USA Network

Summary: "A drama based on the best-selling Bob Lee Swagger novel by Stephen Hunter, Point of Impact, and the 2007 Paramount film starring Mark Wahlberg."

There are a lot of heroes in the Star Wars universe — almost too many to keep track of.

Some of them are among the most memorable characters in all of fiction, and some are memorable for being the absolute worse. (Meesa think probably you know exactly who we are talking about. How rude!) 

Some of the best characters fighting for the good side of the Force throughout the films have been in our lives for decades, like R2-D2 and Luke Skywalker. And some, like BB-8 or Rey, haven't been in the universe for long, but their impact is already powerful.

We ranked 34 of the most notable and memorable heroes in the Star Wars universe, from General Leia to Jar Jar Binks. 

Here's the Star Wars heroes, ranked from worst to best:

SEE ALSO: The 30 most important 'Star Wars' movie villains, ranked from worst to best

34. Jar Jar Binks

Do I even have to explain this? Jar Jar Binks, who voted to give Palpatine emergency powers while he was subbing for Padmé's role as senator, is honestly a villain. 

33. Padmé Amidala

It's unfortunate that Padmé was so poorly written. On paper, she's just as exciting as other female characters in the Star Wars universe like Leia and Rey: she's a leader who will do anything to fight for her people and the Republic. But her dialogue and characteristics were so bad that she isn't memorable. She doesn't need Anakin, and would be a part of the story despite their romantic relationship, but like most characters in the prequels, she just doesn't have any personality beyond what her job is. She was also dumb enough to select, of all beings, Jar Jar Binks to replace her in the senate. 

32. Rose Tico

There's isn't anything wrong with Rose, but her presence felt a little like a last-minute add-on. We do like her, but still don't feel like we know her well, beyond the fact that her sister died to save the Rebel Alliance. Hopefully we'll get to know her better in the next episode. 

Warning: MAJOR spoilers if you haven’t seen “Deadpool 2.”

After successfully bringing the complex Marvel character Deadpool to the big screen in 2016, screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick quickly became one of the top screenwriting teams currently working in Hollywood. And their stock in town is only going to rise after the box-office success of "Deadpool 2" over the weekend.

Thanks to the rule-breaking mentality Reese, Wernick, and franchise star Ryan Reynolds (who received a writing credit in the sequel) have always had about the character, “Deadpool 2” is more outlandish than the first. And because of all the Easter eggs, funny lines, and cameos buried throughout the movie, it needs to be seen more than once (to the glee of the studio behind the franchise, 20th Century Fox).

Reese and Wernick gave Business Insider insight on many of the big spoilers and Easter eggs scattered in the movie:

SEE ALSO: "Deadpool 2" director opens up about the pressures of jumping into a hit franchise and what working with Ryan Reynolds was like

Why this huge star decided to do the voice of Juggernaut.

The massive Juggernaut made a glorious return to the Marvel franchise (he was previously seen in 2006’s “X-Men: The Last Stand”) in “Deadpool 2.” There was no actor playing him on screen this time (he was CGI), but the voice was done by quite a big star.

Though in the credits Juggernaut is credited as only “Himself,” Reese and Wernick revealed that it was Ryan Reynolds who did the voice — thanks to some voice manipulation by the audio team.

Reese and Wernick said during post production, Reynolds was the one coming up with lines for the character.

“We just looked at him and were like, ‘You should just do the voice,’” Wernick said.

But what really sold Reynolds was when the sound department began modulating his voice to sound like the character. Reynolds fell in love with it. And then there was the ease with which Reynolds could do it.

“Ryan essentially recorded the lines into his iPhone, emailed it to the editor, and it gets plugged into the cut of the movie; it’s that quick,” Reese said, as opposed to Reynolds having to spend a day in an audio booth recording lines.

Reynolds also used the same method when new lines or jokes were added in post production for Deadpool.

How the movie nabbed all those great cameos.

From Brad Pitt as Vanisher, to Matt Damon as a redneck with a lot to say about toilet paper, “Deadpool 2” has some major cameos. And the screenwriters have a simple answer for why: once you’re making a successful franchise, everyone says "yes."

“We got a fair amount of people saying 'no' last movie,” Wernick said. “This one, it was 'yes' across the board. It was a real treat for us.”

And for the audience, too (if you caught them).

Pitt shows up in the blink of an eye when mutant Vanisher accidentally glides into power lines due to the rough winds, as X-Force does its skydive to rescue the young mutant Russell. “Deadpool 2” director David Leitch told Business Insider that getting Pitt was a combination of Pitt’s kids loving the first movie, an ask by Reynolds, and Pitt knowing Leitch from the days when he was the actor’s stunt double.

Damon is even harder to catch in the movie. He’s completely unrecognizable as one of the men Cable encounters when he shows up in the present day from the future. Damon is the redneck in back of the pickup truck talking to his friend about toilet paper. Reese and Wernick said it was a chance encounter with Reynolds that led to Damon getting in the movie.

“I think they were at some event together and Matt was telling Ryan how much he loves ‘Deadpool,’” Wernick said. “We were in the process of writing the script and around that time Rhett had written this fantastic diatribe about toilet paper. Ryan told Matt about it, Matt said to send him the pages and he just fell in love with it and told Ryan he would do it.”

And the yeses kept coming. Reese and Wernick said Hugh Jackman approved the footage used in the post credit sequence from “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and the footage of “Yentl” is in the movie thanks to Barbra Streisand — with an assist from her son-in-law Josh Brolin, who plays Cable in the movie (Brolin’s father, James Brolin, is married to Streisand).

“We actually wrote all the Streisand and ‘Yentl’ stuff before we cast Josh,” Wernick said. “So once Josh came aboard it became a lot easier. We said to him, ‘Hey, do you mind picking up the phone?’”

This Christopher Plummer joke is so buried even one of the screenwriters missed it.

When Deadpool decides to try and be part of the X-Men, his first assignment (as a trainee) is to stop Russell from wreaking havoc outside the orphanage he’s staying at. In the scene, a news crew shows up to cover the chaos and there’s a shot of news footage with a crawl at the bottom of the screen. If you look at the right moment, you’ll see the text in the crawl read: “Christopher Plummer turns down role in ‘Deadpool 2.’”

It’s a recognition of the #MeToo movement that was in full throttle toward the end of the movie’s post production. The Plummer joke also seems to reference one of the movie's stars, T.J. Miller, who has been accused of sexual misconduct (Reynolds said Miller will not be in the upcoming “X-Force” movie).

But Reese and Wernick are not taking ownership of the joke. In fact, Wernick didn’t even know about the Plummer line until Business Insider told him.

“I thought that was hilarious,” Reese said. “I don’t know who put that in, probably David Leitch or one of the editors.”

Daniel Fahlström is a Swedish artist who goes by the name Huge. He makes hyper-realistic mylar balloon art that will trick your eye into thinking you can reach out and grab them. We spoke with Fahlström about his work and how he is able to make the balloons in his murals look so real. You can see more of his work on his Instagram and YouTube pages. Videos courtesy Huge, Waller Gallery and FlyMotion Fastighet. Following is a transcript of the video.

Huge: I'm based in Stockholm, Sweden. And I've been painting graffiti since '87. Nowadays I paint photorealistic mylar balloons style. I was having an exhibition in Stockholm and I came up with the idea, why don't I change the traditional graffiti letters into balloons.

I take real balloons to the place where the wall is. And I put them up and take some photos of them. I use photos as a reference. So the reflections you see in the balloons is mostly at the area where the wall is in the background. When I take the pictures, it's a reflection of me there, so there's no hiding.

When I do walls I only use spray cans. I can paint some details with my fingers and stuff like that. And when I do smaller canvases and stuff like that, I sometimes use air brushes. The technique comes from a lot of practice I guess. I don't think about it that much, I just paint. Well, I think you have to focus on where you put the details in the paintings. You can trick your eye if you paint say the background more blurry, they stick out more and pop up. The wrinkles are extremely important to paint. I'm trying to do a lot of sculptures. So that includes the balloon style. So I try to make sculptures as balloons also.

I really like the photorealistic style. I try to manage to make them as photorealistic as possible. I'm pretty fast when I work, so I can do a mural say about, four times five meters in maybe in two days. Something like that. Say eight hour days. Time flies when you're painting. Like you're in a bubble or something.

I have my own firm where I do custom paint. Like painting motorcycles and helmets and tracks and stuff like that. So there's where I get most of my income. It's mostly commission work nowadays. I don't have any murals painted aboard yet, as one request from New York. And a lot from south of the states like Texas and Louisiana. Also Canada and Honduras and Australia.

Well, I've seen a lot of reactions from people and the funniest one was when this old lady that wasn't wearing her glasses she was trying to go up and touch the balloons. And a lot of people do that. They go by and, "Well, I have to check that out." That's good if they think that's real balloons. That's my mission, to make them believe that.

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• The fashion label of Harvey Weinstein's estranged wife is in jeopardy following accusations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein.
• Georgina Chapman is a co-founder of the fashion label Marchesa.
• Chapman's career at Marchesa is tightly tied to her husband's success. Stars of Weinstein-backed productions, including Renée Zellweger, Cate Blanchett, and Blake Lively, have worn Marchesa designs on the red carpet.
• Chapman and Marchesa kicked off an attempt at a comeback this month, with Scarlett Johansson wearing Marchesa to the Met Gala and Vogue publishing a sympathetic profile of the designer. 

Less than a year after scandals engulfed Harvey Weinstein, his wife is preparing to reenter the spotlight with her high-profile fashion label. 

Marchesa, a fashion label co-founded by Weinstein's estranged wife, Georgina Chapman, has struggled in the wake of sexual-misconduct accusations against Weinstein. According to the New York Post, Marchesa pulled out of New York Fashion Week after Chapman was too afraid to go through with the scheduled February show.

Chapman, who co-founded the fashion label Marchesa, reportedly left Weinstein in October and is set to receive $15-$20 million in a divorce settlement that has yet to be filed in court.

Chapman's career as the co-founder of Marchesa is tightly tied to her husband's success. Stars of Weinstein-backed productions, including Renée Zellweger, Cate Blanchett, and Blake Lively, have worn Marchesa on the red carpet, and rumors have floated for years that Weinstein pushed actresses to wear the fashion brand. With the allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein, many are wondering whether Marchesa will disappear from the red carpet altogether.

"No star is ever going to want to wear the brand again," The Hollywood Reporter quoted an unnamed New York fashion publicist as saying in October, after Weinstein was ousted from The Weinstein Company, the studio he founded.

However, Scarlett Johansson proved the publicist wrong at this year's Met Gala. The actress wore a Marchesa gown to the event — the first time a "major celebrity" has worn Marchesa on the red carpet since the allegations against Weinstein broke. 

Here's the story of how Chapman's Marchesa became a celebrity favorite — and how the label is trying to reclaim its place on the red carpet:

SEE ALSO: Gwyneth Paltrow says Brad Pitt threatened to kill Harvey Weinstein after she told him Weinstein sexually harassed her

Georgina Chapman founded Marchesa with Keren Craig in 2004. The same year, Chapman, then a 28-year-old former model from England, began dating Harvey Weinstein.

Source: Jezebel

A 2007 Teen Vogue article — spotted by Jezebel — says Marchesa caught on with Hollywood starlets after Renée Zellweger wore a gown from the line to the premiere of "Bridget Jones's Diary." "Bridget Jones" was distributed by Miramax, which Weinstein founded, and Zellweger thanked Weinstein during her Oscar speech in 2004.

"Maybe I helped, but just very, very little, with Renée Zellweger," Weinstein told Vogue in 2013.

Source: Vogue

• Amazon has renewed the acclaimed science-fiction series "The Expanse" for a fourth season, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced on Friday.
• After the Syfy network cancelled "The Expanse" earlier this month, over 130,000 fans of the series signed a Change.org petition asking either Netflix or Amazon to renew the show.
• Fans of the show took to social media on Friday to thank Bezos and Amazon for saving the series.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced on Friday that his company has renewed the critically acclaimed, science-fiction series "The Expanse," which the Syfy network cancelled earlier this month after three seasons. 

Bezos made the announcement at a panel at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles on Friday night, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

"I was talking to the cast [of 'The Expanse'] half an hour ago, before the break for dinner started," Bezos said at the conference. "I was telling them that we are working hard at Amazon to save 'The Expanse' but it wasn't a done deal yet. During dinner, ten minutes ago, I just got word that The Expanse is saved."

After Syfy cancelled "The Expanse" earlier this month, citing declining ratings, over 130,000 fans of the series signed a Change.org petition asking either Netflix or Amazon to renew the show. 

The Hollywood Reporter reported on Monday that Amazon Studios had entered talks to pick up the series. Amazon already owned the international streaming rights for "The Expanse," which made it a likely home for the show's renewal. 

Alcon Entertainment CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, who produce the series, said in a statement on Friday: "We couldn't be more excited that 'The Expanse' is going to continue on Amazon Prime! We are deeply grateful that Jeff Bezos, [new Amazon Studios head] Jen Salke, and their team at Amazon have shown such faith in our show."

After Bezos' announcement on Friday, fans of the show flooded social media to thank Amazon and its CEO for renewing the series:

SEE ALSO: The 5 most anticipated TV shows returning in June

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NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos on breaking up and regulating Amazon

The latest “Star Wars” release, “Solo” (opening Friday), looks at not just a young and idealistic Han Solo as he begins his path to becoming one of the most infamous pilots in the galaxy. It also shines a spotlight on the origin story of Han’s true love, the Millennium Falcon.

Before becoming one of the standout ships in the Rebel Alliance fleet against the Empire in the Skywalker “Star Wars” saga, it was the prize possession of card hustler Lando Calrissian. In “Solo,” the ship has a slightly different look (no gap in the front of the ship, and much cleaner), but shows the traits that will make it one of the most beloved aspects of the franchise. The ship’s main highlight in "Solo" happens when Lando teams with Han and Chewbacca and they use the ship to complete what will become one of the Falcon’s most legendary adventures: the Kessel Run.

With Han getting his origin story, we thought this would be the perfect time to recount just how the Millennium Falcon was born through the sweat and tears of a small group of designers who, under the guidance of George Lucas, made the iconic ship for the first movie in the “Star Wars” saga, “A New Hope.”

Business Insider spoke to Roger Christian — who was the set decorator on “A New Hope” (and won an Oscar for his work) — about the movies that inspired the space western style of the Falcon, the truckloads of airplane scraps he collected to create the interior sets of the ship, and how he crafted the famous dice that hung in the cockpit.

SEE ALSO: "Deadpool 2" screenwriters break down the movie's biggest Easter eggs and cameos

Creating references for a space western.

It was around 1975 that Roger Christian began work with production designer John Barry, and art directors Norman Reynolds and Leslie Dilley, at a small studio outside of London on designs for “Star Wars.” All of them worked for a small wage George Lucas paid them out of his own pocket, as no studio had greenlit the movie yet.

“The difficult thing, especially with science fiction in 1975 and 1976, is there’s nothing to reference,” Christian said. “Flash Gordon, ‘Barbarella,’ Robby the Robot, nothing was real at all. So all we had was a communication and it just happened that my DNA matched George’s.”

Christian said Lucas’ vision of “Star Wars” was a space movie that was also a “dusty western.” So for the Millennium Falcon specifically, Christian said he saw the ship having a worn-out look that was “always dripping oil and being repaired again and again.” Those thoughts would then be matched with references to the movies they would watch at night in the studio.

“We used to watch 16 millimeter prints and project them at the studio, we very much related to ‘Solaris,’” Christian said, referring to the classic Andrei Tarkovsky sci-fi epic.

This would all lead to sketches by Ralph McQuarrie that were the first visuals of what “Star Wars” could become.

“Ralph is the unsung hero of this whole process,” Christian said. “He was in the army and understood all of that and the mechanical reality of things. So when George arrived with six paintings from Ralph that included Tatooine, Darth Vader, and the Millennium Falcon, all of it showed exactly what we were all thinking.”

Building the Falcon out of junk.

By the end of 1976, “Star Wars” had found financing and the team moved to Elstree Studios in the UK to begin making the sets. Immediately they realized they didn’t have the space to build a full-scale set of the Millennium Falcon, so they built half of the exterior along with specific sections of the interior of the ship.

Christian’s idea of the Falcon having this look of, well, as Luke Skywalker famously said in the first movie, “a piece of junk,” led him to the junkyard.

“I had the idea that if I bought scrap junk airplanes I could break it down and build the sets,” Christian said. “That was key to making the Millennium Falcon.”

With an okay from Lucas, Christian set out to get the airplane scraps, which entailed him getting on a prop plane and flying to three different airfields that were basically airplane graveyards.

“I went in and found mountains of junk,” he said. “I could buy it for nothing. I bought 20 jet engines, a ton of cockpit gear, containers that they used to heat up food, anything I could get my hands on."

It was all sold by weight so most if was very cheap to purchase because it was light metal for airplanes.

“It would be 50 pounds for a whole load,” Christian said.

Back at Elstree, the prop room was completely cleared out and a giant 18-wheeler pulled right up and all the airplane scraps Christian bought were unloaded into the room. The prop department was then instructed to break it all down, as Christian would then use certain pieces for the interior Falcon sets.

“I had no clue if any of this would work,” Christian said. “But George loved it.”

Matching the work done in America — sometimes to a fault.

The team at Elstree weren’t the only ones working on making the Falcon. Back in the US, visual effects artist Joe Johnston (he would go on to direct “The Rocketeer,” “Jumanji,” and “Captain America: The First Avenger”) and his team were building a model of the ship, which would be be used for the exterior shots as well as a guide for the art team in the UK.

But this was the 1970s, and the process to see each team’s work took days and led to miscommunication at times.

“There weren’t any fax machines back then, we had a pouch that would be mailed every Tuesday to America and Thursday it would come back,” Christian said. “We were sent pictures of the model and John Barry and the draftsman had to match that. They would build it full scale and I would find scrap that I could match and stick to the sides. It was a brand new process. No one had done this before.”

When they were done with a section in the UK, they would then take pictures of the Falcon set and send them back in the pouch to the US so Johnston and his team made sure the model matched.

However, Christian pointed out that their pouch system wasn’t mistake free. There is one error to this day that’s on the Millennium Falcon, though it’s impossible to find.

Christian said one Thursday the pouch came back and Johnston wrote a note to the team, “You built in my mistake.”

Turns out the previous round of photos of the model sent to the UK were taken when Johnston was still working on it.

“Just before they photographed it, Joe didn’t like one piece and pulled it off, expecting to replace it,” Christian said. “They photographed it before he did that. The photo came back in the pouch and we built it. So somewhere on the Millennium Falcon there’s glue marks where a piece is missing that we built full-scale. Neither Joe or I can remember where it is exactly. It’s on there somewhere.”

• "Cobra Kai" creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald talk about how their YouTube Red hit show got off the ground.
• It included getting multiple rights holders to agree on the project and convincing Ralph Macchio to come back and play the role that made him a star.

It was around the time filmmakers Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald started seeing billboards of the lovable character from “Full House,” Kimmy Gibbler, around LA for the release of Netflix’s “Fuller House” series that they realized an update of “The Karate Kid” could be possible.

The three grew up on the iconic 1984 movie that follows Daniel (Ralph Macchio) overcoming the constant torment of fellow high schooler Johnny (William Zabka) by learning the ways of karate through Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita).

The movie wasn’t just the ultimate telling of a kid overcoming a bully, but also showed the importance of respect, hard work, and a killer 1980s soundtrack.

Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald were childhood friends and stayed in touch as they began careers in Hollywood. Hurwitz and Schlossberg launched the successful “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” franchise while Heald was the story creator and one of the screenwriters of the “Hot Tub Time Machine” franchise (the original even starred Zabka).

The idea of continuing to tell the story of the original characters from “Karate Kid” intrigued them, but with the franchise rights owned by Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment production company (which made a “Karate Kid” movie in 2010 starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan), they figured the guys behind “Harold & Kumar” and “Hot Tub Time Machine” wouldn’t get a fair shake to make a serious movie that looked at the original guys 30-plus years later.

But then streaming services began making original TV series and suddenly there was a new way of bringing back popular shows and movies that were beloved decades earlier.

“The changes and the evolution of TV led us to think it could work,” Schlossberg told Business Insider.

Two years ago, the guys decided to ditch the movie idea and seriously go for a “Karate Kid” reboot as a TV series. The result is YouTube Red’s first real hit show, “Cobra Kai,” which looks at Daniel and Johnny all grown up and living with the memories of what occurred back in high school and how it's affected them.

But the path to becoming the latest hit streaming series was a gargantuan task that included wooing the multiple rights holders and gaining the trust of Macchio, who for most of his adult life has tried to distance himself from the role that made him famous.

SEE ALSO: "Deadpool 2" screenwriters break down the movie's biggest Easter eggs and cameos

Chasing the movie rights.

The first hurdle to clear for the guys was to get the rights to “The Karate Kid.” It was not just owned by Smith’s Overbrook but also the estate of Jerry Weintraub, who produced the original movie, and the studio that released it, Sony.

Hurwitz and Schlossberg’s agent was able to get a meeting in the books with Caleeb Pinkett, head of creative at Overbrook. Now it was up to Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald to shine.

“We went into that meeting thinking that we would say to him you can still have the movie universe and if Jaden wants to do another ‘Karate Kid’ feature you can still do that, but like Marvel, there’s now a TV show and the movies,” Hurwitz said.

To their shock, Pinkett didn’t need much convincing. The 40-minute pitch turned into a strategy meeting of how to get the show off the ground.

“He said he was going to talk to Jerry Weintraub’s estate,” Hurwitz said. “He was like, ‘We’re doing the show!’”

Pinkett, who has an executive producer credit on “Cobra Kai” (along with Will Smith), became the show’s champion when the project went to Sony.

“He was the one fighting the fights in our meetings,” Hurwitz said.

A big reason for that, the guys assume, is because they brought a package to Pinkett and Overbrook for “Karate Kid” that they hadn’t thought of.

“I got the vibe that there was always talks of doing a sequel but it wasn’t clear where that was,” Schlossberg said. “But TV wasn’t even thought of.”

Getting Ralph Macchio on board.

With a green light to make the show, Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald then went to Zabka with the good news.

“It was just mind blowing to him,” Heald said of telling Zabka. “It took two or three times for him to understand that we were going to further the story of Johnny. He was in shock. There's not a day that's gone by that Billy hasn't thought about Johnny Lawrence because it's such an iconic role for him. The character never really left him.” 

With Zabka on board, the trio turned their attention to Macchio, which they knew right away was going to be a harder sell.

“None of us knew him but we had heard he was very hesitant to engage with anything ‘Karate Kid’ related over the years,” Heald said.

As the decades passed, “The Karate Kid” continued to grow a loyal fan base, but like many things from the 1980s, the movie became a punchline. The memorable scenes became fodder as YouTube grew in popularity and the song from the movie, “You’re the Best,” also became a staple in the comedy community. And it didn’t help that the movies made after 1986’s “The Karate Kid Part II” — “The Karate Kid Part III" (1989), “The Next Karate Kid” (1994) and Jaden Smith’s “The Karate Kid” (2010) — were nowhere as popular as the first two movies.

But Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald didn’t take "no" for an answer and finally got a lunch meeting with Macchio in New York.

“And that lunch turned into a four-hour lunch where we pitched him the whole show and that we were not trying to make a ‘Harold & Kumar’ or ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ experience with this show,” Heald said. “We told him it has this new way in because the guys are adults now. Ralph was not expecting any of that and a couple of days later we had a two-hour phone call with him, and a few days later another two-hour phone call, and by the end of that week Ralph was in.”

Looking back on the process Macchio went through with them to finally agree to do the role, they respect the time he took to finally say "yes."

“Because he knew if he came back as Daniel it would be a big deal to people, not just in this country but all over the world, and he wanted to make sure it was the right decision to do,” Hurwitz said.

“He wanted to make sure we had answers to the big questions that he had,” Schlossberg added. “He didn't want to hear, ‘That's a great question we'll figure that out.’ He wanted to make sure we thought about this beyond memorizing a pitch.”

What’s in store for season 2.

After “Cobra Kai” launched on YouTube Red in the beginning of May, the show was immediately praised by critics (it got a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and the hardcore fans, as the show reportedly performed better than many shows on Netflix and Hulu. 

The show didn’t just have strong character development for its leads Macchio and Zabka, but also introduced younger characters who are going through their own issues and will be influenced by both older characters — for better and worse.

Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald say season two, which YouTube Red has already renewed, will delve deeper into all the characters. And as the last episode teased, Johnny’s old sensei, Kreese (Martin Kove), is now in the mix.

“We knew from the beginning we wanted him to be on the show but we wanted to wait for the right moment,” Hurwitz said. “There was enough story to be told in season one and we thought it would be really fun for Martin to pop up at the end and be that curve ball for season two.”

When they approached Kove, the actor was immediately into the idea and assumed he would be in the storyline right away, seeing the title of the series is named after his character's dojo. But the guys had to make him understand that it wasn’t his time yet.

“We promised him when he does show up on screen it’s a huge moment and we’ll have more to do with him in the future,” Hurwitz said.

“We have said all along that there’s really no character that’s off limits from the movies,” Schlossberg said. “But we also want to make sure we are introducing the characters the right way. We want it to feel impactful and be connected to the stories we’re telling.”

Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald say season two will pick up right where season one left off and there will be new characters on the horizon, maybe even some from the old movies.

“We had a lot of thoughts about the second season before making the first,” Schlossberg said. “This is something that has a plan.”

• Netflix is dominating its competition in consumer perception of original programming, according to new research from Morgan Stanley.
• Thirty-nine percent of respondents in a Morgan Stanley survey said Netflix had the "best original programming" — more than double HBO's second-place tally of 14%.
• The subscriber count for HBO's premium streaming service, however, is surging.
• HBO Now is projected to rapidly expand its lead in domestic subscribers among premium over-the-top services by the end of 2018.

Netflix's original programming is blowing away its competition in the eyes of consumers, but the subscriber count for HBO's streaming service is surging, according to new research from Morgan Stanley and Alphawise.

Netflix will spend an estimated $8 billion on content this year. An increasing percentage of those funds will go toward the production of original shows and movies (with more than 1,000 originals projected this year), as Netflix moves away from licensing content from studios like Disney, which plans to introduce a Netflix competitor in 2019.

And Netflix's massive investment in its "Netflix Originals" appears to be increasingly paying off, as favorability for the service's original programming has grown in each year of Morgan Stanley's annual survey.

In the firm's 2018 survey, 39% of respondents said Netflix had the "best original programming" among all subscription services, a 6-point rise from 33% last year.

Netflix's figure more than doubled that of HBO, which came in second place this year with support from 14% of respondents, roughly the same figure it posted in 2017. Amazon Prime (5%), Hulu (4%), Showtime (3%), and Starz (2%) followed. Thirty-two percent of survey respondents answered "Don't know," while Cinemax, Encore, Epix, and "Other" rounded out the survey with 1% or less each.

Morgan Stanley wrote that the second season of Netflix's "Stranger Things," released in October, was most likely the "largest driver" of Netflix's increase in favorability for this year's survey.

The firm also projects a rapid expansion in the reach of HBO's premium streaming service, HBO Now, which is expected to build on its lead among so-called over-the-top services from traditional media outlets.

By the end of the year, HBO Now is projected to reach 7 million US subscribers — more than double the 3.1 million subscribers that Showtime and CBS All Access are projected to reach in 2018.

Overall, HBO's cable and premium subscriptions reached nearly 38 million US subscribers at the end of 2017, while Netflix reached nearly 53 million domestic subscribers, according to Morgan Stanley.

But it's not an "either/or" situation for the two entertainment giants. Morgan Stanley found that 53% of Netflix subscribers in 2018 were also subscribed to at least one premium network, with many holding an HBO subscription.

HBO Now's rapid growth in 2017 led a massive increase in OTT premium subscribers across all providers. Total OTT premium subscribers hit 10 million last year, which more than doubled 2016's year-end count.

SEE ALSO: All 65 of Netflix's notable original shows, ranked from worst to best

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• Movies like "Star Wars," "Ghostbusters," and "Clueless" are celebrated as classics.
• They also have made some surprising contributions to our vocabularies.
• Common words popularized by movies include "catfish," "my bad," and even "toast."

Movies have long influenced the way people talk, and sometimes, it's in ways we don't even realize.

Movies from "Star Wars" to "Clueless" have contributed words and phrases to our vocabularies that we use every day. Linguists are always keeping tabs on the subtle ways cinema has crept into our lexicons.

Take the word "toast" as a synonym for "dead," like when someone says, "I'm toast." Surprisingly, the first known use of "toast" in that way came from Bill Murray in "Ghostbusters" — and he came up with the line on the spot.

Read on to learn about some popular and words and phrases for which we can thank the movies.

SEE ALSO: 8 common words you probably didn't know came from TV shows

DON'T MISS: 27 fascinating maps that show how Americans speak English differently across the US

Toast

When Bill Murray uttered "All right, this chick is toast!" in 1984's "Ghostbusters," few knew he was making linguistic history.

But believe it or not, Murray's line — delivered right before the film's climactic showdown — is the first known instance of the word "toast" being used to mean dead, finished, or doomed.

That's according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which directly cited the film as the source of the slang term. Green's Dictionary of Slang also pegs the origins of "toast" to the 1980s.

Funnily enough, Murray's famous line wasn't even in the "Ghostbusters" script, which originally called for him to say, "I’m gonna turn this guy into toast." Murray was said to have ad-libbed the line that eventually appeared in the film, and the change was significant:

"In our opinion, Murray’s alteration made all the difference. There's a huge semantic gulf between 'I'm gonna turn you into toast' and 'You're toast,'" wrote the editors of the blog Grammarphobia.

Murray's coinage spread like wildfire, and is so widespread today that it's hard to believe it's less than 35 years old.

My bad

"Clueless" introduced millions of viewers to Valley Girl slang, including gems like "As if!" and "Whatever."

While both of those slang expressions enjoyed decades of documented use before "Clueless" came out in 1995, there's another popular phrase whose popularity is even more closely tied to the film: "My bad."

Despite its widespread popularity today, "my bad" was largely still a niche expression pre-"Clueless." The earliest print citations for "My bad" are from as recently as 1985, according to linguist Ben Zimmer, and it was used primarily in the world of playground basketball. By the end of the decade, the phrase was still uncommon enough that sportswriters felt the need to explain its meaning in newspaper columns.

"After making a bad pass, instead of saying 'my fault,' Manute Bol says, 'my bad.' Now all the other Warriors say it too," USA Today wrote in 1989.

While "Clueless" didn't invent "my bad," it was instrumental in bringing it into the mainstream, and provided many viewers with their first exposure to the phrase.

Bucket list

In 2007's "The Bucket List," two terminally ill strangers go to great lengths to fulfill each others' greatest wishes before they die, or "kick the bucket."

Many people incorrectly believe the phrase "bucket list" was in use before the film came out, but in reality, it was the film's screenwriter Justin Zackham who invented the term back in 1999, when he wrote up his own bucket list, according to linguist Ben Zimmer.

"The film’s release brought the phrase into common parlance, and, as a testament to how natural and idiomatic it sounds, many people assume the term must have long predated the movie," Zimmer wrote.

Once the phrase entered the English language, its meaning expanded to include a list of things to do before any deadline, such as the last day of school or the end of summer.

There are few things more rewarding in life than waking up in the middle of the night, rolling out of a bed, slapping on some hiking boots, and trekking up a mountain for a sunrise.

At least, I think so.

My girlfriend, not so much. She thinks it's more rewarding to skip the hike, sleep late into the morning, and then head to a local market for an early lunch (or late breakfast, depending on your view).

But, on a recent trip to Bali, I convinced her that it would be worth it to do a sunrise trek up Mount Batur(Gunung Batur), an active volcano that most recently erupted in 2000 and is one of the holiest sites on the island.

At 5,633 feet high at the summit, Batur isn't the highest point on the island — that would go to Mount Agung (Gunung Agung), which erupted earlier this year — but it is likely the island's most popular sunrise hike.

At 6 a.m., we found out why.

After traveling to 25+ countries and forcing myself up at the crack of dawn to catch the sunrise on countless beaches and mountains (not to mention New York City rooftops; hello all-night partiers), I'm confident saying the sunrise I saw on Mount Batur was the most beautiful I've ever seen.

Here's what it was like:

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The hike started early. The tour company picked us up at 2 a.m. and drove an hour to the base of the mountain (stopping for coffee along the way). We were far from the only ones hiking. The parking lot was full of minibuses and tour groups.

Here was our general itinerary:

• 2 a.m.: Pick up at hotel/hostel
• 3:45 a.m.: Arrive at base of the mountain
• 6 a.m.: Arrive at sunrise viewing platform near top of Mount Batur
• 7 a.m.: View volcanic steam crevasse
• 7:30 a.m.: Begin descent back to base of mountain
• 9:30 a.m.: Arrive at base of mountain and leave
• 11:15 a.m.: Return to hotel/hostel

We were put in a group of 16 with four tour guides. The hike up the mountain took about two hours in pitch black. The first hour was mostly on paved paths. The second hour was up narrow, volcanic rubble-strewn switchbacks.

The first hour of the hike goes through a forest on a paved path at a gentle incline. After about an hour, you get to a platform where the Balinese are building a temple. From there, you start the actual climb to the top.

The climb to the top goes over narrow, single-file switchbacks. It's easy to slip on the volcanic rubble. There is a fair amount of rock scrambling that requires you to climb up small rock ledges.

It's somewhat strenuous, but more in the panting, sweating, thighs-screaming way, rather than actually difficult to do.

There are a lot of people on the trail. As you go up, you can see a line of flashlights sprinkled along the spine of the mountain. It's an eerie view.

The stars in the dead of night were also spectacular.

The timing was pretty spot on. After two hours of moderate trekking, we were at a platform just below the summit and the sunrise was starting. Burnt oranges and yellows peeked out from behind a blanket of clouds and mist.

• "Solo: A Star Wars Story" earned an estimated $83 million over three days, $101 million by Memorial Day.
• That's $29 million under original industry low-end projections for the movie.
• This marks the lowest opening for a "Star Wars" movie since 2002's "Attack of the Clones" (not counting inflation).
  
• "Solo" is the latest victim of disappointing Memorial Day weekend releases.

It turns out "Star Wars" is not bulletproof.

The beloved franchise released its latest "A Star Wars Story" movie over Memorial Day weekend by telling the origin story of space scoundrel Han Solo, and it greatly underperformed.

"Solo: A Star Wars Story" earned an estimated $83 million domestically over the weekend and is projected to take in $101 million by Memorial Day, according to Exhibitor Relations. That's $29 million off what the industry had for the movie's low-end projection.

In the middle of last week, "Solo" was projected to earn between $130 million and $150 million on 4,381 screens. If that held, "Solo" would be set up to be the latest "Star Wars" movie having a record-breaking box office opening — taking the crown from current Memorial Day record holder, 2007's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" with $139.8 million.

But by the end of day Friday, Disney hinted that the weekend wouldn't go according to plan as it drastically adjusted that projection to between $105 million and $115 million over the four-day weekend.

The $101 million performance by Memorial Day for "Solo" would be strong for any other movie at any other studio — especially over a holiday weekend where audiences would rather be outside than in a theater — but for a "Star Wars" movie, this just doesn't cut it.

"Solo" went into the weekend on a strong note. The movie took in $14.1 million at Thursday night previews, a record for Memorial Day (beating "At World's End," which took in $13.2 million). But there were signs that the movie would not be a huge money maker like other "Star Wars" movies that have been released since Disney bought the franchise.

Even if "Solo" hit the high-end of its original industry projections, it wasn't likely to even have the opening weekend of 2016's "Rogue One," which took in $155 million, the lowest opening weekend for a "Star Wars" movie since "The Force Awakens."

The opening three-day performance by "Solo" is the lowest for a "Star Wars" movie since 2002's "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones," which took in $80 million. But back in 2002 that was quite a feat — counting inflation, that would be a $126.1 million opening in 2018.

"Solo" may have had in-production drama — the movie's original directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were fired over creative differences and replaced by Ron Howard — but you can't equate that with its poor box office.

"Rogue One" had its own drama, as director Gareth Edwards had to take a backseat to the more experienced helmer Tony Gilroy during the reshoots of the movie, and that went on to earn over $1 billion at the global box office.

The weak performance by "Solo" is due more to three big obstacles — opening over Memorial Day weekend, "Star Wars" fatigue, and the movie's lackluster reviews.

Opening over the Memorial Day weekend, "Star Wars" was thrown headfirst into the cutthroat summer movie season (hits "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Deadpool 2" being the main combatants). It's a much more competitive time at multiplexes than December, which has been the home for "Star Wars" movies since "The Force Awakens."

Also, over the last decade moviegoers have been less interested to go to the theater over Memorial Day weekend, which for most areas of the country is the first time to enjoy the nice weather outside.

Last year, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" opened over Memorial Day's four-day weekend and took in $78.4 million. That was just under its $80 million to $85 million projections, and the lowest opening for a "Pirates" movie since the first one, 2003's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" ($46.6 million).

Other movies that opened over Memorial Day weekend and were DOA include "Tomorrowland" ($33 million opening weekend), "Alice Through the Looking Glass" ($26.8 million), and "X-Men: Apocalypse" ($65.7 million).

In this field, the "Solo" opening doesn't look so bad. But the rules change when you talk about "Star Wars."

Yes, "Star Wars" fatigue is a thing. With "Solo" opening five months after "The Last Jedi," audiences just weren't motivated for another story from the saga that quickly, even one about one of its most legendary characters. You could make the argument that Marvel released "Avengers: Infinity Wars" two months after "Black Panther" and there certainly wasn't any MCU fatigue.

But in that instance, it went from releasing an origin story followed by an established Avengers movie. It also didn't hurt that "Infinity War" practically starred every character from the MCU. Audiences weren't exhausted; they were pumped up for it. Also, things are a lot easier when both movies close to one another are great.

If "Solo" was a better movie, this would all be moot. But with its 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest since "Attack of the Clones," it did not possess the have to see it first weekend hype that the other "Star Wars" movies had.

With all these factors combined, clearly for most, going to the beach or a barbecue was the better option this holiday weekend.

SEE ALSO: A creator of the original Millennium Falcon describes who the legendary "Star Wars" ship was made with airplane scraps and lots of imagination

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• A new documentary series premieres Sunday night that follows top political reporters and editors from The New York Times as they report in the first year of the increasingly press-opposed landscape of President Donald Trump's administration.
• Documentarian Liza Garbus sought out full access from Executive Editor Dean Baquet to capture the political reporting process at "Trump's hometown newspaper."

A new documentary series premieres Sunday night that follows The New York Times' coverage in the first year of the increasingly press-opposed landscape of President Donald Trump's administration.

"The Fourth Estate" is a four-episode series on Showtime that will feature top reporters, editors, and correspondents from the Times navigating covering a president that has labeled the media as "the enemy of the American people."

In an introductory video, producer Justin Wilkes described the series as a chance to shine a light on the processes of political reporters as individuals working for the public good.

"It's a look at the men and women who are on the front lines of getting the story and being able to inform the country and the world," Wilkes says.

Director Liz Garbus said in an interview with Politico the project was thanks to Executive Editor Dean Baquet's agreement for her to have full access to one of the oldest and most prominent American publications.

"The New York Times is Trump's hometown newspaper," Garbus says in a promotional video. "It felt like a really important place to be to document how the White House's relationship with the press would change."

Baquet said at a talk after the series premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival that he hoped the comprehensive series would give audiences a look into the pains reporters take to tell complete, nonpartisan stories.

"What I hope that people take away from this is that we work really, really hard to be fair, that we do not run around with anti-Trump signs on our desks, that our job is not to be the opposition but to cover him aggressively and fairly," Baquet said.

Trump and The Times have had a publicly tenuous relationship through his time in office, as his tweets have labeled the paper "failing" and targeted "third-rate reporter" White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, who is featured in the series and shown speaking to Trump in the trailer.

The Times reported it surpassed $1 billion in revenue in 2017.

The series title and historical phrase "Fourth Estate" refers to journalism as a critical ingredient of a functioning democracy, with equal weight and responsibility to American citizens as the three branches of the federal government.

Watch the series trailer below:

SEE ALSO: Trump muses about taking away press credentials from the 'Fake News' media

SEE ALSO: Tech companies are at a stalemate with fake news and conspiracy theories

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Have you ever wondered how actors cry in movies and on television? Some of the greatest scenes in history are largely thanks to the actor's ability to conjure real tears. However, sometimes they need help. That's where the makeup department comes in. Arielle Toelke, a Local 798 Makeup Artist who works in tv and film showed us four different methods that achieve four different crying results. Following is a transcript of the video.

Arielle Toelke: I'm Arielle Toelke, and I'm a makeup artist in Local 798. And I work on film and television.

There's a lot of actors that have a hard time crying when prompted. Some actors are really good at crying on cue. And some actors need a little bit of help. So we employ one method, two methods, sometimes a lot of different methods to sort of get them to where they need to be visually for the scene.

Abby Tang: I am ready to cry. I am always ready to cry.

Eye drops

Toelke: I feel like sometimes in a lot of comedy, you know, it'll be like one tear getting you going and running in with an eye drop. You know you're just standing right off of camera, and you can just run in and do that one drop. And you know get it ready before they roll like you know. So yes of course, there's a benefit to that.

Vaseline product

Toelke: In addition to the actor's natural tears, we might use like a Vaseline-based product in order for it to look like there's been a lot of crying. Sometimes even if an actor's getting there, sometimes this helps them get there faster. And the artist will always have some sort of Vaseline-based product in their kit, whether it's, you know, like Aquaphor or some sort of clear gloss.

Tear stick

Then there's the two menthol applications. One is the Kryolan Tear Stick, which looks like a lipstick with menthol in it, and that's applied under the eyes. And that also is like a little bit kinda shiny so it sort of does do that little bit of double duty that a Vaseline-based product will. With either of the menthol products, do not get that directly in somebody's eye. Nobody's gonna like lose an eye over it, but it's definitely very uncomfortable. So using the tear stick you want to be careful when applying it that you get it close but not in the eye. And that your actor doesn't rub their eye.

Tang: Okay, yeah. Here it comes. Yep. Yep.

Toelke: Yeah, try to keep your eyes open.

Tear blower

Toelke: And then there's the blower, which you literally blow menthol air into somebody's eye.

Tang: Oh yeah. Now there it is. Okay.

Toelke: Which totally irritates your eyes. And the benefit to using the menthol versions is that because it's literally irritating the eye, the eye will get red. So if you've ever seen yourself after you've cried, your eyes are puffy and red. It's because you're sort of like irritating and rubbing your eye and so that menthol application does that to your actor. You always want to blow into your hand first and make sure that the cotton is there, and that it didn't move. I've heard horror stories where “Oh, I didn't know. You know somebody borrowed it, and then I blew menthol crystals in somebody's eye” and then — nobody wants that. That would just be, you know, you've completely ruined the scene for everybody.

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• Though the major multiplexes say they can't stand MoviePass, independently owned movie theaters are willing to play ball.
• Chains like Landmark Theatres and Studio Movie Grill have partnered with the app.
• However, there are others that just tolerate MoviePass because their audiences use it.

When MoviePass announced a radical change to its business model last summer — offering monthly subscriptions for around $10 a month to see a single movie at a theater, once per day — the major multiplex chains instantly opposed it. AMC Theaters, the biggest chain in the world, even announced that it was consulting its lawyers to find a way to not accept MoviePass.

But for independent theater owners, and theaters run by non-profits, the reaction to MoviePass’ bold new endeavor has been a feeling of cautious optimism. 


Unlike the large chains, arthouse theaters are more willing to take chances to potentially get more people through the turnstiles, as they historically have constantly had to find ways to keep the doors open. This has led to some theater owners fully buying into MoviePass’ popularity, going as far as doing partnerships with the company. However, there are many also keeping an arm’s distance and waiting to see if the company can prove it can overcome its financial woes.

“We don’t promote it, we don’t oppose it, we want to make our customers happy and if they want to use MoviePass then we do it,” Dylan Skolnick, co-director of Cinema Arts Centre, an arthouse in Long Island, told Business Insider. 


And that’s the same sentiment made by most theaters owners and marketing heads Business Insider spoke to. Theaters are reimbursed the full ticket price from MoviePass for the tickets their customers purchase. Independent theaters are happy to take the money MoviePass is giving them and willing to take the grief from their customers when the MoviePass app doesn't work or there are claims of being overcharged — as long as MoviePass keeps sending the money. 

“My only concern is if this company does shut down that the customers who have gotten used to it and love it will go back to how they felt about movie tickets,” said David Huffman, director of marketing for Cleveland Cinemas, which operates 46 screens at 7 locations. “I fear the backlash will be on us.”

But then there’s the concern from some who wonder what happens if MoviePass can sustain itself and gets bigger. Some independently owned theaters offer memberships to theatergoers for discount tickets and other perks. MoviePass now puts a wrinkle in some of those offers. 


“That realization hit me a few weeks ago,” said John Ewing, cofounder and director of the non-profit Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. “I realized the main perk for being a member of ours is to save money on ticket prices and a number of regulars do have MoviePass. So we might be hurt when it comes time for membership renewal. Though I would like to think that these people are in our court enough that they would still support us.”

One option for some of these theaters would be to discontinue using MoviePass, but that comes with its own dilemma — as AMC's lawyers likely learned. Because MoviePass works through MasterCard that means theaters would have to discontinue accepting MasterCard as well. 


“You really don’t have any choice,” Skolnick said. “We already annoy people a little because we don’t accept American Express.”

Finding success in partnering with MoviePass


Then there are those theaters that have gone into a partnership with MoviePass.

In late March, MoviePass announced it was partnering with one of the country’s largest arthouse chains, Landmark Theatres. MoviePass is now integrated into the ticket system for the chain’s 255 screens in 53 theaters in 27 markets.

MoviePass members who use the service at a Landmark theater receive perks they don’t get at other theaters, like e-ticketing and advanced seat reservations through the app. In return, MoviePass receives a discount on the tickets it has to pay for.

It’s similar to a deal MoviePass has been doing with Studio Movie Grill. The in-theater dining chain that has 314 screens in 30 locations in 9 states agreed to a partnership with MoviePass in 2016, long before the app slashed its price to $9.95 last August.

Studio Movie Grill founder and CEO Brian Schultz has zero regrets. Because his chain was one of the few that partnered with MoviePass before the onslaught of new subscribers, he’s been able to track how it’s helped his company and it's striking.

“We’re seeing more exploration on the smaller indie films but we’re also seeing pretty high attendance on non-peak third and fourth week on the big movies,” Schultz said of MoviePass usage at Studio Movie Grill. “It’s driving us off-peak.”

Schultz said that attendance due to MoviePass for big opening weekends like “Avengers: Infinity War” or “Deadpool 2” was very low due to the high volume of presale orders for those movies. But where he's seen a spike in MoviePass usage is for those same titles when audiences return to see the movie again the following weeks.

The push of MoviePass during those low traffic periods helped Studio Movie Grill score record attendance in 2017.

Schultz did not go into specifics on what his partnership deal with MoviePass entails, only saying that on “incremental attendance” from MoviePass he pays them a fee.

“We don't want to share in the revenue, what we’ve asked exhibitors is to give us the same bulk rate discount they would give anyone who is going to buy $20,000 to $100,000 worth of tickets a month,” said MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe, who compared what they want to the 20%-25% discount Costco receives for selling AMC tickets in bulk. “The bottom line is it’s really in exchange for us driving a whole bunch of more people to your theater at our cost.”

Lowe said that currently MoviePass has partnered with independent theaters representing 2,000 screens and hopes to get to 5,000 screens by the end of the year.

However, even if MoviePass grows substantially in the coming years — it currently boasts that it accounts for 6% of the domestic box office — people who work in the movie theater space tell Business Insider it would be quite difficult for the company to make a deal where it would get a taste of box-office profits from exhibitors. That's mainly because theaters see so little already.

“The general percentage that the distributor gets is usually between 35% and 40% of the box office, it can be a little higher,” veteran movie booker Jessica Rosner said. “If you're the venue and MoviePass wants a percentage of what’s left? That’s crazy.”

Numerous theaters voiced a concern to Business Insider that MoviePass' next move may be to try and take a percentage of concessions made by theaters (which is the lifeblood of movie theaters). Lowe said currently MoviePass has no plans to propose a partnership where it would receive a percentage of concessions that were driven by MoviePass subscribers.

Despite the ongoing discussion of how a popular service like MoviePass can make money in a business where the pie has been divided so many ways for so many decades, everyone universally agrees that the service is good for theater attendance — which suffered a 25-year low in the US last year.

“The industry needs to have years where we have attendance increases or else we can't be a healthy business,” Schultz said. “We can talk about box office and other things, but we need to drive people through the door. MoviePass could be an important piece of driving that. Studios are trying to innovate, I think exhibitors should try to innovate and I like ideas that drive more people to the box office.”

Have a tip about MoviePass or anything else? Email jguerrasio@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: "It has become a bit of an obsession": Meet the MoviePass fanatics who go to the cinema a dozen times a month

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