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Elizabeth Olsen explains the 3-year process that led her intense new show, 'Sorry for Your Loss,' to Facebook Watch

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Sorry For Your Loss 2 Facebook Beck Media

  • "Sorry for Your Loss" is the latest series to hit Facebook Watch, and one of its most acclaimed with Elizabeth Olsen in the lead as a grieving widow.
  • Olsen, who is also an executive producer on the show, talked to Business Insider about the three-year process to get it made and why going with Facebook was the right choice.

 

Tuesday marks a major leap for Facebook Watch as it debuts one of its most high-profile TV series yet.

Starring Elizabeth Olsen, “Sorry for Your Loss” takes a look at one woman dealing with grief after her husband’s shocking death. Also starring Kelly Marie Tran (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) and Mamoudou Athie (“Patti Cake$”), the 10-episode half-hour series was able to get some incredible talent behind the camera as well with James Ponsoldt (“The Circle”), Allison Anders (“Sex and the City,” “The L Word”), Jamie Babbit (“But I’m a Cheerleader”), and Azazel Jacobs (“Mozart in the Jungle”) all directing episodes. 

But in many ways Olsen is the face of the project. Along with playing the grieving widow, Leigh, she jumped on as an executive producer after being given the script to the pilot three years ago. She said she was involved in every facet of production, from sitting in on the edits to going over to the composer’s house to check in on the show’s score. 

“I am a micromanager, so it’s really hard for me to be so involved with something for it not to be [completely] my own creation, because it’s not,” due to its collaborative nature, Olsen told Business Insider over the phone. “It was draining because you’re exhausted being on set and then go home for the weekend and give notes on past edits and future episodes. It was really an intense amount of time.”

The work paid off, however. “Sorry for Your Loss” is as well-crafted a show as anything the major networks put out, and Olsen delivers a performance that is raw and at times shockingly comedic that keeps you sucked in. 

It was toeing that line between drama and dark comedy that drew Olsen in, as well as the challenge of being involved as a producer for the first time in her career (on her first-ever series). And she certainly learned a lot. 

Sorry For Your Loss Facebook Beck Media copyOlsen was involved with the pitch of the show around Hollywood, and was deep in the development process with the show’s creator, playwright Kit Steinkellner, and Big Beach, the production company behind it, when it was at Showtime for a brief period.

The big revelation Olsen found in the pitch process was how much they had to explain the cycle of grief beyond just the story they wanted to tell on the show. She said reading multiple times Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” an account of the year following the death of the author’s husband, helped in making executives understand what they wanted to do with the show.

“Sorry for Your Loss” finally found a home at Facebook Watch in January, leading to a breakneck production with post wrapping just a week and a half before it had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Looking back, Olsen couldn’t be happier with the show being on Facebook, she said. The social community aspect makes it easier for people to instantly continue the conversation on topics like grief and loss after watching episodes (though Olsen admits, for her own good, she will not be reading the comments section).

And Olsen said she’s definitely caught the producing bug after doing this.

In many ways she sees the business right now as “the Wild West,” as she put it, because with streaming there are now so many avenues to get content out. But she said it still comes down to finding projects that have the right stories and great characters.

But in regards to the nuts-and-bolts of being a producer, Olsen said doing the show cemented the importance of being on set.

“This really was a learning process,” Olsen said. “Doing TV and having rotating writers and directors, it was really nice to be the most consistent person on the set. You really need a leader, and that to me is the most important thing going forward.”

See “Sorry For Your Loss” episodes every Tuesday at 6PM and 9PM ET.

SEE ALSO: Kanye West announces the release of a new album, an apparent follow up to his 2013 album "Yeezus"

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NOW WATCH: A top movie actor reveals how he learns different accents


New downloads of MoviePass have plummeted as the service has introduced unpopular features

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MoviePass

  • Mobile-data insight company SensorTower found that first-time downloads of the MoviePass app have dropped 76% since June.
  • Sharp declines correspond with the introduction of unpopular features, such as surge pricing and limiting movies.
  • The decrease also corresponded with the plummeting stock of MoviePass' parent company, Helios & Matheson Analytics (HMNY). 

 

Movie-theater subscription service MoviePass saw a sudden and dramatic surge in subscribers when it decreased its price to $9.95 a month last year. But this year has been a serious test for the company, and it hasn't exactly passed with flying colors.

New data from mobile-data insight company SensorTower found that first-time downloads of the MoviePass app had decreased a whopping 76% since June — from 330,000 then to 80,000 in August — as the service has undergone numerous unpopular changes in an effort to stay afloat. SensorTower said it generated the figures through its proprietary models of the App Store and Google Play, "which are able to accurately estimate the downloads of any app based on their daily rankings on the stores."

Here is the chart from SensorTower:

moviepass timeline

Sharp declines corresponded with changes to the service (seen above). Downloads dropped from 330,000 in June to about 240,000 in July after MoviePass announced its unpopular surge pricing feature, in which users would have to pay extra for popular movies during busy showtimes.

Downloads then dropped to 80,000 in August after MoviePass announced it would be increasing the monthly price of the service and limiting blockbuster movies. It quickly rolled back these changes, and introduced a new plan last month at $9.95 for three movies a month. As the company has been slowly implementing this plan, though, it's limited the movies that users can see in theaters. 

The only period of monthly growth was from April to May when MoviePass brought back its one-ticket-a-day plan. The service had briefly capped the number of movies a month to four for new subscribers in a $29.95 three-month promotional plan that included a free trial of iHeartRadio All-Access.

moviepass daily installs stock price

App downloads also correspond with MoviePass owner Helios & Matheson Analytics' (HMNY) plummeting stock over recent months (seen above). 

Next month, HMNY will attempt to convince shareholders to approve a one-time reverse stock split of up to 1-for-500 shares. The company already tried to stabilize the stock price with a 1-for-250 split last month.

On Monday, HMNY stock was trading at around $0.02.

MoviePass did not respond to a request for comment.

SEE ALSO: Netflix is getting mocked for tweeting 'Regina King deserves the world' for her Emmy win, after it canceled her show 'Seven Seconds'

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The first tourist to fly around the moon on SpaceX's new rocket ship bought all the seats for artists — and Elon Musk said it restored his faith in humanity

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yasuka maezawa lunar moon space tourist japanese billionaire spacex bfr big falcon rocket moon mission lunar event AP_18261106589733

  • On Monday, Elon Musk announced the first passenger for SpaceX's first tourist flight around the moon: Japanese billionaire and art collector Yusaku Maezawa.
  • Maezawa bought all the seats on the flight — which will use SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket launch system — in order to invite artists to accompany him on the journey.
  • He wants these artists, who will come from a variety of fields but haven't been selected yet, to create art that will inspire humanity after the trip.
  • Maezawa is calling the project #dearMoon.

For inspiration, humanity has always looked up.

We've gazed at the moon and stars, and created poems, epics, paintings, and songs based on the sky.

Now, if the construction of SpaceX's next rocket ship proceeds according to Elon Musk's plans, a group of artists will get to experience an up-close view of the moon and see Earth from space on the first tourist flight around the moon.

And they'll do it all for free, thanks to Japanese billionaire and art collector Yusaku Maezawa.

On Monday evening, Musk announced that Maezawa will be the first private passenger to travel to space on SpaceX's BFR (short for Big Falcon Rocket or Big F---ing Rocket, as Musk sometimes calls it).

"Finally I can tell you that I choose to go to the moon!" Maezawa said during the announcement. But he didn't buy just one seat on the BFR's inaugural journey. He bought all of them.

His plan is to give a lucky group of creators the opportunity to gain a completely unique perspective on our world and use that experience to create art for the rest of us.

The BFR is still a long way from being fully built or tested, but the design calls for a 387-foot-tall launch system with two parts: a booster and a spaceship. If all goes as planned, Maezawa's lunar mission will happen in 2023.

That will be the first time this rocket ship — or any in history — will transport civilians out 240,000 miles around the moon. 

The view from space

Astronauts describe the feeling of peering at Earth from space as so transformative that the experience has earned its own name: the overview effect. It's the moment when your perspective shifts as you recognize that all of human existence is tied to this one tiny blue marble — a small world hurtling through the vastness of space.

Here's what Carl Sagan wrote about one of the most famous images of Earth from space — a photo by Voyager 1 taken in 1990:

That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The photo Sagan is referring to (below) shows Earth as a tiny, almost invisible dot of light.

voyager 1 earth pale blue dot 1990 nasa jpl

The path that Maezawa and the eight artists he'll select will take around the moon is expected to be similar to the one Apollo 8 astronauts took in December 1968.  

In a forthcoming documentary about Apollo 8 called Earthrise, mission leader Frank Borman is asked about what it felt like to be one of the first humans to see the Earth from that distance.

"What they should've sent was poets because I don't think we captured, in its entirety, the grandeur of what we had seen," Borman says in the documentary. 

That's what Maezawa seems to want to accomplish with his trip. In yesterday's announcement, he said that he's thought a lot about what masterpieces artists might create if they were given a chance to see that kind of view and have their own overview effect.

"What if Basquiat had gone to space and seen the moon up close or seen the Earth in full view?" Maezawa said during the announcement. "Just thinking about it now gets my heart rushing. But once I got started, I could not stop thinking about who else."

#dearMoon

yusaku maezawa

"Many of you may be wondering why do I want to go to the moon? What do I want to do there? And most of all, why did I purchase the entire BFR?" Maezawa said at the announcement.

His answer was that he's always loved the moon, but also wants to give art to the world — something he believes could contribute to world peace. 

Maezawa was a skateboarder and musician before founding several companies, including the custom fashion company Zozo. The billionaire is now best known as an art collector; last year, he purchased Jean-Michel Basquiat's stunning 1982 painting "Untitled" for $110.5 million.

To foster the creation of artwork that might inspire humanity, Maezawa said he plans to invite six to eight artists on the moon mission with him. That group might include a film director, painter, dancer, novelist, musician, fashion designer, photographer, sculptor, and architect. Upon return they'd be asked to create something.

dearmoon spacex bfr trip around moon

Musk said Maezawa's willingness to invest so much money into the initiative and gift the experience of spaceflight to artists helped restore Musk's own faith in humanity.

No one knows how much Maezawa paid for the seats, but it's a significant sum.

"He's paying a lot of money that would help with the ship and its booster," Musk said on Monday. "He's ultimately paying for the average citizen to travel to other planets."

Maezawa is calling the project #dearMoon, and a dearMoon website with a video explains the initiative.

There's still a lot that Maezawa and Musk said they couldn't share yet about the project. The artists have not been chosen, and even the process of selecting them is a mystery.

But it sounded like Maezawa may have some names in mind already.

"If you should hear from me, please say yes and accept my invitation," he said. "Please don't say no!"

Read more about SpaceX's recent announcement:

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk just revealed the 'final iteration' of SpaceX's biggest and most powerful rocket ship — take a look

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NOW WATCH: Elon Musk unveils plans to use SpaceX's mega-rocket to travel anywhere on Earth in under an hour

Lowballing Arnold Schwarzenegger hurt 'The Predator' at the box office

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predator

  • "The Predator" may have topped the box office over the weekend, but it only made $24 million — far from a smash.
  • Exhibitor Relations senior box-office analyst Jeff Bock told Business Insider that the movie would have made more money if Arnold Schwarzenegger had reprised his role from the 1987 original "Predator."
  • "It could be sh-- but it would be enough where people would go see it," Bock said. 
  • Director Shane Black said that Schwarzenegger turned down a role in the film because it was "too small."
  • Bock said the upcoming "Halloween" capitalized on the nostalgia factor that "The Predator" failed to do by bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis.

 

"The Predator" may have dethroned "The Nun" at the box office over the weekend, breaking Warner Bros.' five-week streak at the top in the process, but it was far from a smash.

"The Predator" made just $24 million in its opening weekend. According to Box Office Mojo, that's the worst for a live-action film opening in over 4,000 locations, a title previously held by last year's "The Mummy." 

The film was shrouded in controversy in the week leading up to its release, as it was revealed that the studio Fox had deleted a scene that featured a registered sex offender and friend of director Shane Black's, who was included without the cast's knowledge.

It's unknown how this controversy affected audiences' interest in the movie. But Exhibitor Relations senior box-office analyst Jeff Bock told Business Insider that "The Predator" could have made more money if it had capitalized on the franchise's nostalgia, specifically if it brought back Arnold Schwarzenegger, who starred in the original 1987 "Predator."

"If Arnold was the lead, we’d be talking about a $50 million opening," Bock said. "It could be sh-- but it would be enough where people would go see it."

But Schwarzenegger turned down a role in the movie because he was offered too small of a part, according to Black. Black told Yahoo Movies UK that Fox wanted "something a bit fresh, that didn’t rely solely on Arnold’s reemergence, but they were open to the idea to the notion of having him in, in a smaller role."

When Black approached Schwarzenegger about the idea, Black said that Schwarzenegger told him "if I was featured more, yeah, but what you’re suggesting is that you’re creating this new thing and just using me to bless it. Look, I wish you luck, but that’s too small a role for me."

Bock contrasted "The Predator" with the upcoming "Halloween," which he predicted will make a solid $50-60 million in its opening weekend.

"No doubt about it, because it's not only a franchise but then you add in [the studio] Blumhouse which knows how to construct a film and market it," Bock said. "And you’re reaching into the past with Jamie Lee Curtis, it’s the nostalgia factor that 'The Predator' completely missed."

SEE ALSO: How 'The Nun' overcame bad reviews to be a box-office hit

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NOW WATCH: A top movie actor reveals how he learns different accents

Eminem's new diss track had the biggest debut of a hip-hop song in YouTube's history

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eminem

  • Eminem's diss track "Killshot" had the largest debut of a hip-hop song in YouTube's history, the company said.
  • The song, directed at the rapper Machine Gun Kelly, earned a record 38.1 million views on YouTube in its first 24 hours.

Eminem's recently released single "Killshot" — a diss track directed at the rapper Machine Gun Kelly — had the largest debut of any hip-hop song in the history of YouTube, the company said Tuesday.

The official audio of "Killshot" earned a record 38.1 million views on YouTube in the first 24 hours of its release on Friday. It now has over 72 million views on the site.

YouTube said "Killshot" also had the third-highest debut of any song in the site's history, and the track is on top of the site's US trending chart.

Eminem threw the first overt punch in his beef with Kelly by calling the rapper out on the song "Not Alike" from his new album, "Kamikaze," which topped the Billboard 200 album chart after its release on August 31.

"I'm talkin' to you, but you already know who the f--- you are, Kelly / I don't use sublims and sure as f--- don't sneak-diss / But keep commenting on my daughter Hailie," Eminem rapped on "Not Alike," in reference to a 2012 tweet Kelly wrote, calling Eminem's daughter, Hailie, who was then 16 years old, "hot as f---."

Eminem released "Killshot" 11 days after Kelly dissed him in the song "Rap Devil," in which Kelly accused the Detroit rapper of trying to hinder his career by barring him from the Sirius XM channel Shade 45, which Eminem owns.

Kelly's "Rap Devil," released on September 3 on WorldStarHipHop's YouTube page, has over 95 million views.

Eminem explained last week why he dissed Kelly with "Killshot" in an interview with Sway Calloway:

"The reason that I dissed him is because he got on—first he said, ‘I’m the greatest rapper alive since my favorite rapper banned me from Shade 45,’ or whatever he said, right? Like I’m trying to hinder his career.' I don’t give a f--- about your career. You think I actually f---in’ think about you? You know how many f---in’ rappers that are better than you? You’re not even in the f---in’ conversation."

Listen to "Killshot" below:

SEE ALSO: Kanye West announces the release of a new album, an apparent follow-up to his 2013 album 'Yeezus'

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'Sega Genesis Classics' will bring more than 50 retro games to the Nintendo Switch

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Sega Genesis Classics

  • "Sega Genesis Classics" will bring fan favorites like "Sonic the Hedgehog 2," "Streets of Rage" and "Golden Axe" to the Nintendo Switch this winter.
  • These classic titles have been enhanced with save states, rewind, and online multiplayer.
  • Switch players can play with a single joycon, making it easy for friends to join in on the fun.
  • "Sega Genesis Classics" was also released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in May 2018.

With the announcement of "Sega Genesis Classics" for the Nintendo Switch, a huge collection of retro games will soon be playable on the go. The collection features more than 50 titles from the Sega Genesis, a console that helped define gaming in the '90s.

These old games will come with new features, including online multiplayer, mirror mode, a rewind function, and save states to allow players to pick up their games wherever they left off. The collection organizes the available games in a virtual hub where players can select which title they want to play, and what backgrounds they prefer as they play in the Genesis's 4:3 aspect ratio.

Sega Genesis Classics

Nintendo Switch owners will be able to play offline multiplayer with individual Joy-Cons on a single screen, whether the console is in portable mode or docked. With so many games titles into a single package, the collection is perfect for retro gamers looking to bring their favorite games on the go. 

Some of the more memorable titles include "Sonic the Hedgehog" "Streets of Rage, "Golden Axe" and "Gunstar Heroes," but the collection has a few lesser known gems as well.

"Sega Genesis Classics" will have both a digital and physical release for the Switch, and pre-orders are now available, though the final release date hasn't been set. To see the full list of games included in the collection, visit the "Sega Genesis Classics" website.

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NOW WATCH: Apple took another subtle jab at Facebook during its iPhone XS event

The makers of 'Sesame Street' issued an official statement regarding Bert and Ernie's sexuality, after a former writer said he viewed them as a gay couple

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bert and ernie sesame street

  • Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind "Sesame Street," issued a statement Tuesday regarding Bert and Ernie's sexuality.
  • "As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends," Sesame Workshop said. "They remain puppets, and have no sexual orientation."
  • The statement comes after former "Sesame Street" writer Mark Saltzman said in a recent interview that he viewed Bert and Ernie as a gay couple. 

 

The non-profit organization behind "Sesame Street," Sesame Workshop, and former "Sesame Street" writer, Mark Saltzman, have very different thoughts on Bert and Ernie's sexuality.

Sesame Workshop issued a statement Tuesday regarding Saltzman's comments in a recent interview, where he said that he viewed Bert and Ernie, "Sesame Street's" inseparable best buds, as a gay couple.

"As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends," Sesame Workshop said. "They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves," the statement continued. "Even though they are identifiable as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most 'Sesame Street' Muppets do), they remain puppets, and have no sexual orientation."

Saltzman made his comments in an interview with Queerty that was published Sunday, and has since made the rounds on the internet.

"I remember one time that a column from The San Francisco Chronicle, a preschooler in the city turned to mom and asked ‘Are Bert and Ernie lovers?’," he said. "That coming from a preschooler was fun, and that got passed around, and everyone had their chuckle and went back to it."

He added: "I always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert and Ernie, they were. I didn’t have any other way to contextualize them."

Bert performer Frank Oz even weighed in on the debate with a Tuesday tweet, saying "They're not, of course [a gay couple]. But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There's much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness."

He added, in response to a reply, "I created Bert. I know what and who he is."

 

SEE ALSO: New downloads of MoviePass have plummeted as the service has introduced unpopular features

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NOW WATCH: A top movie actor reveals how he learns different accents

'Fortnite' streamer Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins says he once received a $40,000 donation while playing the game

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Ninja, tyler blevins, twitch streamer, fortnite, streamer,

  • Tyler "Ninja" Blevins will be the first professional gamer to appear on the cover of ESPN the Magazine, gracing the front of the October issue.
  • Ninja enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of the video game world, earning more than 18 million subscribers on YouTube and another 11 million followers on Twitch.
  • Most of Ninja's massive following comes from streaming "Fortnite: Battle Royale", but Ninja has recently shown interest in "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4."
  • While streaming, Ninja receives donations from viewers and can earn more than $500,000 per month. The largest single donation he remembers is $40,000.

Tyler "Ninja" Blevins has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of the gaming world, becoming the most watched video game streamer in the world playing "Fortnite: Battle Royale" and doubling as the game's most successful esports competitor.

Ninja now has a new achievement to add to his growing list: becoming the first professional gamer to appear on the cover of ESPN the Magazine.

In the ESPN cover story, Elaine Teng explores Ninja's roots in competitive Halo, his relationship with his wife/manager Jess, and how he maintains his six-figure-a-month career. Ninja's primary income comes from streaming; he spends about 12 hours a day playing for his Twitch audience and brings in $500,000 or more a month through subscribers and donations.

Ninja told ESPN the largest single donation he can remember is $40,000.

While playing "Fortnite: Battle Royale" alongside superstar artists like Drake and Travis Scott and winning major tournaments helped Ninja gain a celebrity profile during the last year, he began competitive gaming with "Halo 3" in 2009. Though his success seems directly tied to the rise of "Fortnite" as the most popular video game in the world, Ninja has shown that he is willing to branch out to other games.

Ninja recently participated in the beta for Blackout, the game mode in "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4" that mimics the battle royale genre, and he'll soon be competing in the game as well. He will be the leader of Team Ninja during the Doritos Bowl, a four team tournament scheduled for October 27 at TwitchCon 2018.

SEE ALSO: Meet Jessica Blevins, the 26-year-old wife and manager of the most popular video-game player in the world right now

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NOW WATCH: Everything we know about Samsung’s foldable phone


13 rules to help your business survive a game-changing tech threat, by an exec who went through it firsthand

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To hear the experts tell it, if your business is connected to healthcare, energy, financial services manufacturing or call centers, then there's a chance you'll soon be toast.

A group of companies, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and Intel are investing big money to develop artificial intelligence and other game-changing technology. These new AI superpowers are expected to pay your industry a visit in the not-so-distant future, leaving key parts of your product obsolete and the economics of your business in tatters.

The good news is that some people have faced the dramatic changes brought on by a technological tsunami  and seen their sectors not only survive, but eventually flourish again.

Cary Sherman, CEO and Chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, the lobbying group for the three top music labels, is one of those survivors. 

The advent of digital music files and online sharing that started in the late 1990s plunged the music industry into its darkest period — in 2009, at the low point, US annual music sales fell to $6.3 billion, less than half of the $14.6 billion posted for 1999.

Now, nearly a decade later, annual music sales are growing again and consumers are paying for streaming services that provide access to an unprecedented trove of music. 

It wasn't easy. Sherman and the record labels endured numerous false starts, surprises and setbacks. They erred. The number of labels fell from five to three. They laid off hundreds of workers and alienated fans. They were mocked and vilified by the tech press

What follows is the story of how recorded music clawed its way back. Sherman's account is a playbook of tips for other industries that may soon find themselves in the fight of their lives:

SEE ALSO: EU lawmakers vote for new online copyright rules

1. Remember, it may take time to grasp the nature of the threat

Napster, the file-sharing service cofounded by Shawn Fanning, launched in June of 1999.

Sherman and his staff immediately recognized it as a threat but didn't appreciate how big of a threat it was.

"I think everybody underestimated the speed at which it would grow and the size that it would grow to," Sherman tells Business Insider. 

Before a court ordered Napster shut down in 2001, the service had enabled maybe as many as  8o million people around the world to share countless numbers of songs, free of charge. 

If a 19-year-old college kid with minimum resources could create a worldwide phenomenon and flip the music industry on its head, what might be accomplished by seasoned technologists who were backed by big bucks? 

 



2. Accept that the competitive threat may evolve, morph and quickly adapt

Napster was a centralized peer-to-peer service. A central server indexed the users and their libraries of MP3 song files so others could access them. The music industry had seen earlier, clunkier, and far less popular versions, called File Transfer Protocol technology. 

"We started with FTP sites," Sherman said. "Napster was the next form of piracy in 1999 and then a couple of years later came a decentralized form of piracy. Then, came cyber lockers and so on… each generation of formed piracy had a completely different scale beyond anything we had seen before. And so we saw very quickly that things were spinning out of control." 



3. Expect your entry barriers and moats to be breached

The year before Fanning invented Napster, the big recording companies thought they had piracy-proofed their business thanks in large part to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which outlawed the cracking of anti-piracy protections on CDs and the distribution of pirated songs by Internet services. 

But the new breed of services let users store music files on their computers, rather than on centralized servers owned by internet providers. That meant that internet service providers weren't liable for the pirated music and it left the record labels with no effective way to stop the problem. 

The DMCA, the record industry's main bastion of defense against piracy, was "obsolete within eight months," says Sherman.

 

 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The $100,000 stocks that Kanye West bought Kim Kardashian for Christmas are up by 40% (DE000A1EWW, US02313510)

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Kim Kardashian

  • Kim Kardashian West might have a future on Wall Street.
  • The reality TV star was gifted shares in five major companies for Christmas last year by her husband Kanye West.
  • The stocks have since soared 40% on average, according to data from Markets Insider.
  • The companies include Netflix, Adidas, Disney, Apple and Amazon.
  • Top performers were Netflix and Amazon, who rocketed 61% and 74% respectively since Kim was given shares.
  • It is understood that Kanye bought his wife around $100,000 worth of stock in both Adidas and Disney.


You may remember that Kim Kardashian West received some slightly odd Christmas presents from her husband Kanye West last year.

Kanye surprised his wife with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in major companies, including Netflix, Disney, Adidas, Apple, and Amazon.

It turns out the rapper's investments on Kardashian's behalf were sound ones — at the time of writing, Kim's stocks are up an average of 40%, according to the most recent figures from Markets Insider.

It's not clear how much stock Kanye invested in all the companies. However, we do know from Kardashian's Instagram stories at the time that she was given 995 Adidas shares and 920 Disney shares, which would both have been valued at around $100,000 at the time.

kanye west kim kardashian

If Kanye bought the equivalent value in shares for the other companies as he did for Adidas and Disney, then Kim's overall profits would be $185,000 — not bad for less than a year.

Kanye's investments extoll the virtues of a diversified portfolio — even though Kim's Disney shares are down 2% since she was given them, they've been more than offset by her other stocks.

Amazon and Netflix were the standout investments. Both companies saw their share prices soar 64% and 84% respectively since Kim got a slice of the action.

Mark Ackred, CEO and Founder of app-only stockbroker dabbl, told Business Insider: "What this shows us is the importance of buying shares in the brands you know, love, and trust rather than trying to pick the next high performing stock, as the former has more longevity."

SEE ALSO: I visited the coffee chain that Coca-Cola just bought for $5.1 billion — and I have no idea why anyone goes there

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Anthony Joshua says his strict training regime was inspired by Cristiano Ronaldo, who 'has the body of a 21-year-old'

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Anthony Joshua and Cristiano Ronaldo

  • Anthony Joshua might channel soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo in his heavyweight bout against Alexander Povetkin on Saturday.
  • The boxer visited Under Armour's research centre to find out how Ronaldo, who is 33 years old, stays in such incredible shape.
  • Joshua said he's changed his training regime after looking at the routines of other boxing greats like Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.
  • He now wakes up naturally instead of rising early for a morning run.

Cristiano Ronaldo is arguably one of the most influential players in world football — but it's not only soccer stars who look up to him.

Heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua has revealed that he finds inspiration in the Juventus forward, who is in extraordinary shape.

In the lead-up to his fight with Alexander Povetkin on Saturday, Joshua said he visited Under Armour research laboratories to analyse his fitness and find out how he could improve his regime.

"I could go in there and knock out Povetkin in a round or two but then there is the eight weeks of intense sparring, doing 200 rounds, you have to protect your body," the fighter said, according to The Telegraph.

Talking about his motivation to get better, he said: "Cristiano Ronaldo did a body test. He is 33 but has the body of a 21-year-old. You have to preserve your body."

Joshua also said he was inspired by other boxing greats like Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.

Manny Pacquiao

It was apparently these fighters that convinced him to ditch the early morning runs and wake up naturally instead.

"When I watched a Manny Pacquiao documentary he does the same thing... I saw 10.34 a.m. on a clock when he was waking up and I was like: 'What? I'm here getting up at the crack of dawn?'"

Joshua added: "It looks lazy but you're still getting the same amount of work done and in a better way."

The Telegraph also reported that boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said Joshua is constantly looking for ways to improve.

"When he went to Under Armour for a body analysis, it blew his mind. For a British fighter, Anthony is by far the most advanced in terms of training facilities or what he does... He is obsessed with improvements.

"He has brought all these people into camp. The only thing that is on his mind is performance and improving. Not cars, not women, not jewellery, just improving. He won't do anything that affects his ability to prepare."

Joshua's strict training regime has been taking its toll on his body, the fighter admitted.

"It has been tough, I am not going to lie," Joshua said. "My body is in pain. I've done 15 rounds, 13 rounds, 12 rounds, back to back but one thing I do know is I have got a deep well, a lot of fire.

"I have got enough heart to slug it out with Povetkin, same with Wladimir Klitschko. Even though some people may be more skilled, have longer arms or be taller, sometimes it is about what is in your heart. And I know I have got that for sure."

SEE ALSO: This is the one type of exercise that will help you build muscle fastest, according to YouTube fitness stars The Lean Machines

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The star of Netflix's 'American Vandal' talks about becoming obsessed with true crime, and how the show changed the way he uses social media

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  • Business Insider spoke to Tyler Alvarez, the 20-year-old actor who plays Peter Maldanado, the documentarian on "American Vandal."
  • Alvarez told us how being on "American Vandal" has made him rethink the way he uses social media.  
  • Alvarez, who got into true crime because of the show, also discussed what other parts of American culture and society he'd love to see in another season.


"American Vandal" season two dropped on Netflix Friday.

Season two gets even more serious than season one as it tackles forced confessions, classism within schools, and (again) the relationship teens have with social media. But at the same time, it's about poop. 

In season two, documentarians Peter Maldanado and Sam Ecklund travel from Oceanside, CA, to Bellevue, WA, to solve the case of The Turd Burglar. The Turd Burglar is a prankster at St. Bernadine's Catholic High School who has committed several poop-related crimes, including poisoning the cafeteria's lemonade with laxatives.

Season two is clever, sharp, and even funnier than the first season. Before season two's release, Business Insider spoke to 20-year-old actor Tyler Alvarez, who plays Peter Maldonado, the high-school documentarian who turned his classmate's accusation into a gripping documentary that was so successful he got to make one in another state. 

Alvarez told us about the challenges of playing a documentarian who is rarely depicted on camera (save for voiceover), how the show got him obsessed with true crime, and how being on "American Vandal" has made him rethink the way he uses social media.  

Carrie Wittmer: What made you want to do this show in particular?

Tyler Alvarez: What made me want to do it was the satire element. It was very realistic and not like we we were laughing at it. That's what hooked me into it.

Wittmer: Are there any true-crime documentary series that you really like?

Alvarez: Oh, my God. Well, I loved "Making a Murderer." After booking the show, they had us watch it. But besides that, I love "Serial." Oh, my God. Sarah Koenig is my biggest ... Oh, God. I love her to death. I think she's freaking brilliant and I'm such a fan. I'm dying to meet her one day. 

Wittmer: So did the showrunners have everyone watch "Making a Murderer," and that's how you got into true crime?

Alvarez: Yeah. Well, suggested. And of course, I did my homework.

Wittmer: Season one pretty deliberately satirizes "Making a Murderer." So that definitely makes sense.

Alvarez: I think that the show, in both seasons, captures the intensity in "Making a Murderer" and "The Jinx." But it's about …

Wittmer:  D**ks and poop?

Alvarez: Yeah. This time we tackle false confessions. When we were going over season two, I was watching a bunch of the stuff on "Shadow Truth," all the ones with false confessions. It didn't make sense to me that people would confess to a crime that they wouldn't commit. But after watching those documentaries, I was like, “Oh, that's actually a thing.” 

Wittmer: Your role is a little bit more of a challenge than a lot of people might think, because your character, Peter, is a true documentarian. So we know he loves movies and filmmaking, and he's best friends with Sam. But his personality isn't really shown in any other ways. Do you have some sort of vision of what he's like outside of this documentary he's making?

Alvarez: 100% I do. And as much as I would love for us to show more of Peter, it would break our whole mold of sticking so true to true crime, and these documentaries that are never about the documentarian. It's always about the story they're telling. If we went into Peter's story, then we would kind of become a "show." And our whole thing is that we're not a show, quote unquote. Thinking about him from the first season, he wasn't a nerd or anything like that. But he was a bit of an outcast. He wasn't really popular, didn't have much friends besides Sam. And they would hang out and whatnot.

Wittmer: Yeah. And now he has a Netflix deal.

Alvarez: Even in season one, Peter really kept to himself and stayed under the radar. But now he feels like he has something to offer to the world, where before he didn't really feel noticed. The really important lesson for me and for Peter is that none of this changes you. Peter felt like he had more to offer as a human being at the end of season one, because he'd shared this documentary. But Peter hadn't changed at all. It taught me that you don't need anything to feel good about yourself. I'm trying to find the right words but pretty much I'm saying that you don't need anything to be somebody. Who you are is enough. It's sort of like me. Before being an actor and now being an actor, I'm still the same person. I still am just as valid as I was before I was an actor. Does that make sense?

Wittmer: Yes.

Alvarez: I hope I'm making sense.

Wittmer: You are. Success can change you, but you were always that person all along. 

Alvarez: Right? For real, though. For real. It was important for me as an artist to realize that I'm still the same person underneath that I was when I first started, and that none of this changes me. And it doesn't necessarily give me any more credit or credibility at all. And you don't need the credibility. You are enough as you are.

Wittmer: I do get a sense from season two that while Peter and Sam are comfortable and confident, they are still wondering how they even made this happen. They’re a little more anxious to solve the case and get it done right and objectively.

Alvarez: There's so much work that I have to do as an actor to really sink into the person that we will never know.  There are so many things about Peter that you guys will never know, but I will know. It makes him feel real to me and gives him a life that's not on the page. 

Wittmer: You said Peter is the same person, but do you think that there's anything about him that has changed since he got a Netflix deal?

Alvarez: Well, he's definitely got a lot more money now. He can definitely afford college, I'll say that. He'll be all right for a little bit. But you know how this business goes. So hopefully Peter will get another doc.

Wittmer: And those things that you talked about that you know about Peter, that will never be in the show, are those things you've also talked to the writers about?

Alvarez: Some things, yeah. Certain actors, they could tell you everything about the character: What's their favorite food, what's this, what's that. And a majority of it's not even discussed in the script. It's just more about adding a life to the character. I do talk about some things with the directors and stuff like that. But Peter, outside of documentarian, as a human being outside of that is up to me. 

Wittmer: That's fun.

Alvarez: I mean, it doesn't matter. Because none of it will ever be talked about. But that's one of the most fun parts. That's where I get my creative freedom, in a way.

Wittmer: Is there anything else in true crime that would be something you'd like to see "American Vandal" satirize in another season?

Alvarez: That's a good question. Anything else? I mean, there's just so much in true crime to tackle. It might be too big of shoes for Peter to fill, but government corruption. And maybe the justice system, in terms of the courts and prisons. Stuff like that. That's something that really sticks out to me and something that I would really like to shine the light on and to satirize in a fun way.

Wittmer: Both of the seasons explore corruption within schools, but it doesn’t get too elaborate. How Dylan and Kevin got accused is kind of similar to bias in the justice system, just very different settings and very different crimes. 

Alvarez: Yeah it is.

Wittmer: You're 20, right?

Alvarez: I'm turning 21 next month. Oh my God! I’m so excited.

Wittmer: So you grew up with the internet and social media, which is so different for high schoolers now than it was for you, and very different from when I was in high school. I got Facebook, I think, my senior year. I was mostly on MySpace. When I was in college, Instagram didn't exist yet. Twitter did, but it was a very different Twitter. Do you think that "American Vandal" captures teens and the way they use social media accurately?

Alvarez: Oh, 100%. We especially capture that this season with Jenna Hawthorne posting cute photos and showing people what you want them to see. It’s a false reality of who we are and what we experience. Because nobody ever puts the bad. You rarely go on social media and find someone saying, "Oh, I'm upset today or oh, this crappy thing happened." It's mostly like, “Oh, look at me on this yacht or look at me in this cool store or look at me on vacation!” We really do capture that precisely. In my ending monologue in the second season, I'm saying, "Maybe we're not the worst generation, we're just the most exposed." And I believe that. Social media creates these expectations. It enforces social standards and status and things like that that we're supposed to live under. But at the same time, our generation is moving more toward love and acceptance. And I think that's something we tackle.

Wittmer: Has the show influenced how you use social media?

Alvarez: It has! Because I'm trying to be a lot more honest. I'll give you an example: I have a photo that I'm going to post soon that is cropped from my chest up. I was working out on the beach and my caption is going to be like, “Don't let me fool you. I cropped out my snack pack.” Just posting this photo, it would look like I'm buff from my waist up. No. I got a little snack pack, hence why I cropped it all the way up here. You know?

Wittmer: Absolutely. I think people are starting to want more honesty on social media, especially Instagram, because these filtered, perfect lives are getting a bit tired and feel very forced, because they are.

Alvarez: I want to be more honest with social media. It's also really important to also connect with people and for people to see the real versions of you. That's what people are drawn to: things that are real. And not things that feel like someone told me to post or something like that.

SEE ALSO: Netflix's 'American Vandal' season 2 is even better than the first, and unravels the mystery of 'The Turd Burglar'

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Melissa McCarthy's 'The Happytime Murders' has been a disaster at the box office, and made less than every single Muppet movie

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  • "The Happytime Murders" has only taken in $20.6 million domestically. That's less than any of the Muppet movies that were released theatrically (counting inflation).
  • The Jim Henson Company, which produced all the Muppet movies, also produced "Happytime Murders."
  • We look back on the domestic performance of all the Muppet movies.

 

“The Happytime Murders” had Melissa McCarthy starring, the son of Jim Henson at the helm, and a hilarious trailer — but none of that seemed to matter.

The really raunchy puppet movie was slaughtered by critics (it has a 22% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and has only earned $20.6 million in the US since its August 24 opening ($24.5 million worldwide).

The weak box-office coin makes it one of the lowest-earning wide releases of the 2018 summer. But that's not all. It also didn’t make close to what any of the Muppet movies that had a theatrical release took in domestically (even “Muppets Most Wanted”).

It’s a real black eye for the movie’s production company, The Jim Henson Company (“Happytime Murders” director Brian Henson, son of Jim, is its chairman), which decided to take a risk and make a puppet movie without its cash-cow Muppet characters, and paid the price.

“Great trailer, disappointing film,” Jeff Bock, senior box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations, said to Business Insider summing up the movie’s performance. “‘Happytime Murders’ would have been better off mimicking the Muppets we know and love.”

Here’s a look at the box office performance (counting inflation) of all eight Muppet movies that were released theatrically:

Note: All box office figures below are from Box Office Mojo.

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8. "Muppets From Space" (1999) — $30.3 million

Unadjusted: $16.6 million



7. "Muppets Most Wanted" (2014) — $58 million

Unadjusted: $51.1 million



6. "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992) — $61 million

Unadjusted: $27.2 million



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A 'Shark Tank' entrepreneur practiced his answer to the question he knew the Sharks would ask, but he bombed it anyway — and still landed a $250,000 deal

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shaan patel

  • "Shark Tank" contestant Shaan Patel bombed his answer to a question he knew the Sharks were going to ask him.
  • The question was whether Patel, a medical student, wanted to be an entrepreneur or a doctor.
  • Despite stammering through his answer, Patel secured a $250,000 deal from Mark Cuban.


No matter how much you practice a big business pitch, nothing compares to the pressure of actually delivering it.

For Shaan Patel, that lesson was made painfully clear on a 2016 episode of "Shark Tank."

Patel went on the show to pitch his SAT tutoring company Prep Expert to a panel of celebrity investors. Although the investors were impressed by Patel's credentials — he scored a perfect 2400 on his SAT in high school — he nearly blew his chance at a lucrative deal when he flubbed the answer to a question he knew they were going to ask him.

The question was whether Patel, who at the time was earning a medical degree in dermatology from the University of Southern California, wanted to be an entrepreneur or a doctor. 

Patel told Business Insider he had prepared for that very question on the flight to Los Angeles for filming of the show. In fact, when producers of the show asked him to write down 25 potential questions he might face from the panel, that was the first one he wrote.

But when it came time to answer the question in real life, Patel stammered his way through an answer that left the Sharks unconvinced about his commitment to his business.

"It was so funny because on 'Shark Tank' when they asked me that question, I totally stumbled," Patel said. "I could not give them a clear answer and I looked like a total goofball. Like, how did you not think they were going to ask you that?"

The Sharks didn't spare Patel their criticism.

"Your biggest problem, Shaan, is that you're not 110% committed," Kevin O'Leary said.

"I give my money to people that will die for their business," he continued. "They'll give up their lives for it. That's the kind of general I want to back. You're not that kind of general."

"I'm not sure that you know the direction you want to be," Lori Greiner said, with Robert Herjavec adding, "I can't invest in a part-time entrepreneur."

Despite the harsh words, Patel managed to come out on top when he accepted a $250,000 offer from Mark Cuban for 20% of his company and any of Patel's future business ventures.

In the two years since the show aired, Prep Expert has grown tenfold, with sales increasing from $1 million to $10 million and the company expanding from one full-time employee to 10. Prep Expert now offers live classes in five US cities, and between live and online courses, has tutored 30,000 students, a couple of whom have gone on to score perfect scores on the SAT.

shark tank shaan patel prep expertPatel and Cuban have even co-authored a book, "Kid Start-Up," about how parents can teach their children to become entrepreneurs. 

At the same time, Patel finished medical school, earned an MBA from Yale, and is now in residency to become a dermatologist. 

"If I could go back to the show and answer that question, I would have said I'd like to do both," Patel told Business Insider.

Ideally, he said, he would be able to have a career as a dermatologist and as a business leader, possibly only practicing medicine "a couple times a week."

"All of the Sharks wear multiple hats. None of them are just Sharks on 'Shark Tank,'" he said.

"They do all kinds of different things, and they don't just hold one career. I think lots of people do that. I don't know why necessarily it was so astounding for them."

He continued: "But I can understand that if you're going to invest in someone you want them to be fully 100% dedicated to it. Hopefully I've been able to show the Sharks, now being one of Mark Cuban's most successful investments on the show, that I was able to grow the company and continue my education at the same time."

SEE ALSO: A 'Shark Tank' entrepreneur who won $300,000 realized previous contestants were doomed by the same type of question

DON'T MISS: A perfect SAT couldn't get this guy into the Ivy League — now he's running a successful business with Mark Cuban

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Disney is reportedly developing Marvel TV shows for its upcoming streaming service starring Loki, Scarlet Witch, and more

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  • According to Variety, Disney is developing TV shows for its upcoming streaming service spinning off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • The limited series, at six to eight episodes each, would star Loki, Scarlet Witch, and characters that haven't been introduced yet, and recruit original actors like Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen to reprise their roles.
  • The shows reportedly have a hefty price tag that rivals a studio production, and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige will have a hands-on role.
  • Loki died in "Avengers: Infinity War," so the series would either be a prequel or signal that Loki isn't actually dead. And there's a chance that a Scarlet Witch series could explore her relationship to the X-Men now that Disney will own Fox.

 

Disney is expected to launch its streaming service in 2019, and is assembling the Avengers to give it an edge in the streaming wars against Netflix.

According to Variety, which cited anonymous sources close to the production, Disney is developing big-budget TV shows spinning off of the MCU for its upcoming streaming service, that would star Tom Hiddleston's Loki, Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch, and characters that haven't even been introduced to the MCU yet.

Variety reported that the shows would be limited series, at 6 to 8 episodes each, and that the original actors, like Hiddleston and Olsen, would reprise their roles. The shows would also have a hefty price tag that Variety described as "rivaling those of major studio productions."

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who has been instrumental in the MCU's success, is also expected to have a "hands-on role in their development."

Disney did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.

Loki and Scarlet Witch reportedly being the frontrunners for their own series is intriguing for a number of reasons, most notably that Loki died in "Avengers: Infinity War." There's the possibility that a Loki series would be a prequel, or even take place in between "Thor" movies — but there's also a popular fan theory that suggests that Loki didn't actually die in "Infinity War," and instead faked his death as he did in "Thor: The Dark World."

Expanding on Scarlet Witch's storyline suggests that Disney is considering the possibilities of its merger with Fox. Disney will now own Fox's Marvel superhero properties like the X-Men and Fantastic Four, meaning those characters can be included in the MCU if Disney chooses to do so. In the comic books, Scarlet Witch is the daughter of X-Men villain Magneto, so there's a good chance that a scarlet Witch series could introduce and explore that history.

Marvel has already made the jump to the small screen with its Netflix series like "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones," "Luke Cage," "Iron Fist," "The Punisher," and "The Defenders." It's unclear how Disney's streaming service will affect these shows, and they are only loosely connected to the MCU — what Variety reports is an entirely different, far-more ambitious beast.

SEE ALSO: The first 'Captain Marvel' trailer introduces Brie Larson as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's newest superhero, and she punches an old lady

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Sony just announced a $100 mini version of the original PlayStation — here's everything we know about the PlayStation Classic

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Nearly 25 years after Sony first introduced the world to a new game console, the PlayStation, the Japanese electronics giant is on the verge of a re-introduction.

Behold, the PlayStation Classic.

PlayStation Classic

This December, Sony is re-releasing the original PlayStation console in miniaturized format — a la Nintendo's NES and Super NES Classic consoles. It comes with 20 games built in, two controllers, and it costs just $100.

Here's everything we know about PlayStation Classic thus far:

SEE ALSO: The 5 best games on Nintendo's new $80 mini Super Nintendo

First things first: You've seen the console already, so what games are in it? We only know about five thus far:

There are 20 games inside the PlayStation Classic, pre-loaded by Sony. Only five of those 20 are announced thus far. They are:

1. "Final Fantasy VII"

2. "Jumping Flash"

3. "Ridge Racer Type 4"

4. "Tekken 3"

5. "Wild Arms"

You might be asking, "Where's 'Resident Evil,' and 'Metal Gear Solid,' and 'Crash Bandicoot,' and 'PaRappa the Rapper'? WHERE?!" 

Though none of those have been announced as coming to the PlayStation Classic, it'd be a surprise if none of them ended up on the upcoming mini console.



The PlayStation Classic looks almost exactly like the original PlayStation console — except much smaller.



The differences between the PlayStation Classic (left) and the PlayStation One (right) largely come down to one thing: Size.



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The 100 best crime movies of all time, according to critics

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The old media adage, "If it bleeds, it leads," also describes a common narrative approach in cinema.

Because criminality and violence make for inherently compelling cinematic material, both are featured prominently in many of the greatest films of all time.

The Metacritic data we compiled here to track the most critically acclaimed crime movies in history traces a lineage of great films from contemporary thrillers like "No Country for Old Men" and "Hell or High Water," to classics like "The Godfather" (Parts I and II) and "On the Waterfront."

The list includes all of the highest-rated movies that feature a "crime" tag on the site, which turned out to be a wide-ranging categorization, encompassing feature films and documentaries. That said, we did exclude several movies from Metacritic's list that had no clear relation to crime. 

Here are the 100 best crime movies of all time, according to critics:

SEE ALSO: The 100 best science fiction movies of all time, according to critics

100. "Animal Kingdom" (2010)

Critic score: 83/100

User score: 7.8/10

What critics said: "Don't be fooled: In this unpeaceable kingdom, the den mama is also ready to eat her young." — Entertainment Weekly



99. "Paranoid Park" (2007)

Critic score: 83/100

User score: 6.6/10

What critics said: "Youth and death meet again in Gus Van Sant’s 'Paranoid Park,' a gorgeously stark, mesmerizingly elliptical story told in the same lyrical-prosaic style that has characterized his latest films." — Los Angeles Times



98. "Bus 174" (2002)

Critic score: 83/100

User score: 7.5/10

What critics said: "Tense, engrossing, and superbly structured, 'Bus 174' is not just unforgettable drama but a skillfully developed argument." —Village Voice



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The best part of the 'Captain Marvel' trailer has now become a hilarious meme

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  • We still can't get enough of the "Captain Marvel" trailer. 
  • Especially the part when she punches an old lady.
  • And the memes of it are hilarious.

 

It was only a matter of time: Carol Danvers putting the smackdown on an old lady on the subway has now become a meme.

Though the long-awaited first trailer of "Captain Marvel" (in theaters March 8, 2019) has the superhero crashing through a Blockbuster Video store and features a young, two-eyed, Nick Fury, the major highlight is a quick clip of Danvers (played by Brie Larson) on a Los Angeles subway line punching a little old lady. Don't worry, that grandma is probably an evil Skrull in disguise (we hope).

But the moment instantly became the trailer's most shareable moment as comments and gifs about it spread online. And then there were the memes. 

Below is a collection of some of our favorites (so far):

A post shared by @goofy.is on

A post shared by Random.MCU (@random.mcu) on

A post shared by Toxin (@toxin_films) on

 

SEE ALSO: Melissa McCarthy's "The Happytime Murders" has been a disaster at the box office, and made less than every single Muppet movie

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Disney's Scarlet Witch TV show could finally introduce the X-Men to the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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  • Disney is reportedly developing a Scarlet Witch TV series spinning off from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Elizabeth Olsen is expected to reprise the role.
  • The series could signal that Disney is considering the possibilities of its merger with Fox, which owned the X-Men characters.
  • In the comic books, Scarlet Witch is the daughter of X-Men villain Magneto.
  • Her current MCU origin is that she was experimented on with the Mind Stone — but what if that only unlocked powers that were already there?

 

Elizabeth Olsen will reportedly reprise her role as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Scarlet Witch in a limited series for Disney's upcoming streaming service, and it could finally signal the introduction of the X-Men to the MCU.

Variety reported on Tuesday that Disney is developing multiple TV shows spinning off of the MCU for the service, which is expected to drop in 2019. Among them would be series starring Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Olsen's Scarlet Witch, who has been a mysterious supporting character during her time in the MCU since she was introduced in 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron."

But shining a spotlight on Scarlet Witch could signal that Disney is considering the possibilities of its merger with Fox, which owned Marvel superheroes the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Now that Disney will own Fox, those characters could be included in the MCU if Disney chooses to do so.

In the comic books, Scarlet Witch, a.k.a. Wanda Maximoff, and her brother Pietro (who was played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in "Age of Ultron" and died) are the children of X-Men villain Magneto. Of course, comic book reboots throughout the years have muddled this backstory quite a bit, but it provides an easy way for the MCU to introduce the X-Men or, at the very least, mutants.

Marvel hasn't been able to refer to Scarlet Witch as a mutant on the big screen because Fox owned the X-Men characters. The current origin of her powers in the MCU is that she and Pietro were experimented on with the Mind Stone by the terrorist organization HYDRA. 

But what if the stone only unlocked powers that were already there? Mutants, both in the comic books and Fox's "X-Men" movies, are people born with powers. That's what separates them from the likes of Captain America, Spider-Man, and others. Scarlet Witch's TV series could explore her hidden past and unlock memories she may have forgotten, including her upbringing.

While the X-Men franchise has been popular for nearly two decades under Fox, it has hit a slump. The next two movies, "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" and "The New Mutants," are both undergoing extensive reshoots after their release dates were pushed back. The franchise's timeline is a convoluted mess at this point, and only works when the movies ignore it completely ("Logan," "Deadpool"). 

As the X-Men are in need of new life, the MCU will be in need of new faces once veteran actors like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. depart, as they're expected to after the "Avengers: Infinity War" sequel next year.

It seems like a perfect time for the Disney/Fox pairing.

SEE ALSO: The Marvel Cinematic Universe needs to save the 'X-Men' franchise and start it from scratch

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12 of the most extraordinary, never-before-seen photos from the past 10 years of Burning Man

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Burning Man is arguably the most captivating festival in the world.

The annual "counterculture" event sees around 70,000 people visit Black Rock City, Nevada each year and form a giant semi-circle for a weekend of self-expression, civic responsibility, music, and art — and some pretty crazy fashion choices.

Founded in 1986, the festival has been home to some pretty incredible scenes over the years.

Burning Man photographer and "anthropological enthusiast" Phillip Volker has compiled the most extraordinary, never-before-seen images from the past decade of the festival in his new book, "Dust to Dawn."

He shared a selection of the photos, from what he calls "a haven for enquiring minds," with Business Insider.

Scroll down to see his 12 most bizarre and intriguing photos from the last 10 years of Burning Man.

SEE ALSO: Surreal photos from Burning Man take you deep inside the madness

'Equatorial Encounter,' 2007 — Artist: Matt Evans



'Watching a Burn,' 2012



'Coyote,' 2013 — Artist: Bryan Tedrick



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