Spotify is making moves to try to improve its artist relations.

The company announced that it will allow musicians to sell merchandise on their Spotify profile pages without losing any cash in commission or fees. 

Artists will be able to display their T-shirts, vinyl, posters, concert tickets, stickers, or whatever else on their pages, while linking back to the original site where the merch is up for sale. Spotify is partnering with music startup Topspin to launch this new initiative. 

By agreeing not to charge musicians any sort of fee or commission for their listings, Spotify is making itself more attractive to independent new artists who were wary of letting their music stream through the service.  

After all, earlier this year, Thom Yorke of Radiohead pulled the music of his side project, Atoms For Piece, off of Spotify, saying that the streaming service hurt new musicians .

Join the conversation about this story »

"Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" debuted over the weekend to $17.2 million.

The Tom Clancy adaptation follows CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) as he attempts to prevent a financial terrorist plot to take down the U.S. economy.

This is the fifth time the Jack Ryan series has been brought to the big screen.

If you haven't seen the film yet, Paramount shared an exclusive 30 second clip from the movie with us. Check it out below:

SEE ALSO: Movies you should see this year

Join the conversation about this story »

When Beyoncé released her self-titled visual album last month — a stunning array of 14 new songs and 17 music videos— it was explained as "a non-linear journey through the thoughts and visions of Beyoncé."

It was, quite simply, an experience, and since the early 1980s when MTV launched, the music video has continued to be just that — a new platform for artists' products, a revolutionary form of marketing, and a chance for listeners to have the total music experience.

Throughout the ages we've seen musicians try anything and everything in their videos — ferocious animals, death-defying heights, and crazy outfits — all in the name of innovation.

While some artists, like David Bowie, who spent $12.99 on his 2013 video for "Love Is Lost," choose a savvier home video route, others, like Michael Jackson and Madonna, spend millions of dollars and weeks of production on their work.

Think you know what music videos broke the bank? 

14. Backstreet Boys, "Larger Than Life" (1999) — $2.1 million

'90s boy band Backstreet Boys were thinking big when they put together a music video for their 1999 hit.

They joined together with director Joseph Kahn to set the scene for "Larger than Life" in outer space.

More than $2 million later, we get loads of special effects and animation — Brian Littrell is pictured doing flips on a flying surfboard, a scene that in itself cost around $90K.

Star Wars-esque images, elaborate robotic-looking costumes (think Transformers), and cryogenic chambers follow as each band member is featured in his own scene.

13. Michael Jackson, "Bad" (1987) — $2.2 million

At a time when MTV and music videos were bringing songs to the next level and musicians onto a more public platform, Michael Jackson made a name for himself with his lengthy, detailed, and pricey videos.

For 1987's "Bad," Jackson recruited an all-star team: famed film director Martin Scorsese and novelist Richard Price. The 18-minute short-film took the team a total of six weeks to shoot.

Compared to "West Side Story," the video featured Jackson as a teenager who returns to his urban hometown from preppy boarding school. Cue the leather-adorned Jackson street dancing with an impeccably choreographed possé in a Brooklyn subway station.

Price later spoke to New York Magazine about his role, saying:

"Think about it: Richard Price, Scorsese, Michael Jackson, who the hell is going to say no? Of course I was going do it. And everybody did their job. Jackson is not a bad actor, and Scorsese, well, he's great."

12. Celine Dion, "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (1996) — $2.3 million

Fire, ghosts, gusts of wind, and motorcycles — the 1996 video for Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" has it all.

The Nigel Dick-directed video was shot over the course of four days in various locations throughout the Czech Republic.

The video team used grandiose scenes of expansive hallways, staircases, and bedrooms, plus exterior images of the Ploskovice Castle, while the post-production team used extensive special effects to portray reflective, haunting images of Dion's character and her deceased lover.

Few fictional universes have captured as many imaginations as George Lucas' "Star Wars."

Lightsabers, the Force, jumping to hyperspace — all of these things have captivated audiences of children and adults alike for nearly four decades.

So when a friend told me that there was a museum exhibit in the heart of Silicon Valley featuring original props and models from the films, I knew I had to go.

Hosted at the Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose, "Star Wars: The Exhibition" is one of the coolest ways a sci-fi nerd can spend an afternoon. Fans can stand inches away from characters and gizmos that they've only ever dreamed of seeing in person, all for the price of a trip to the movies.

Walking up to the museum, everything is covered in "Star Wars" artwork.

Including this modified Nissan 350Z, retrofitted with its own R2-D2.

The first thing you see when walking into the exhibit itself is the original model of the X-Wing. The video that accompanied it showed how its look and sounds were based on fighter planes from World War 2.

The New York Times recently published a list of its most-read stories in 2013.

It's a fascinating mix of stuff — news, features, and celebrity editorials. As with many such lists, it shows what people actually want to read, as opposed to what other people think they want to (or should) read. Zach Seward of Quartz recently tweeted the whole list:

Also noteworthy:

The folks at Capital New York point out that the single most-read story in the entire publication last year was created not by one of the Times' many Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists but by an intern (who, wisely, has since been hired full-time):

Josh Katz who has a background in statistics created “How Yall, Youse and You Guys Talk,” with graphics editor Wilson Andrews. The final product was inspired by a study Katz created in grad school that was based on the Harvard Dialect Survey, and became a viral smash in December.. Now that his internship is over, he will start as a staff editor with the Times’ new data journalism project in the next few weeks.

For what it's worth, we published our own version of the "how different people say the same thing" story last summer. It too, was one of our most popular stories of the year. Check it out below:

22 Maps That Show How Americans Speak English Totally Different From One Another

ALSO WATCH: Maps That Show How Americans Speak In Different Regions

Join the conversation about this story »

NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Playboy magazine are suing Harper's Bazaar publisher Hearst Communications over its online use of photos of fashion model Kate Moss.

Court papers filed Friday in federal court in Manhattan say the magazine violated Playboy's exclusive right to publish the pictures taken by fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcos Piggott for the publication's 60th anniversary issue.

The suit alleges Harper's posted on its website a clothed photo of the 40-year-old supermodel from the Playboy shoot but added a hyperlink that took readers to another website showing the nude and partially nude photo spread.

The lawsuit seeks $150,000 per photo infringed.

Representatives for Harper's Bazaar didn't immediately return messages Friday.

Moss has been a star since she was discovered as a teenager in the late 1980s.

Join the conversation about this story »

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolas Maduro has a new villain as he campaigns to bring down Venezuela's spiraling crime: TV soap operas. He accuses the telenovelas of spreading "anti-values" to young people by glamorizing violence, guns and drugs.

The criticism follows attacks last year by Maduro on violent video games and the Hollywood movie "Spider-Man."

On Monday night, his vice president, Jorge Arreaza, met with broadcast and pay TV operators to review the prime time lineup, warning that they could be in violation of a 2004 law mandating "socially responsible" programming. The two sides will meet in a week with the aim of drafting an agreement on meeting those obligations.

It's unclear whether the government will take steps to restrict programming or impose harsher rules on telenovelas, which are hugely popular across Latin America.

Analysts say arm-twisting is unlikely to reduce Venezuela's high homicide rate, which the United Nations ranks as the fifth worst globally, and they warn that Maduro's campaign could be used as an excuse to further gag media criticism of the government.

"It's a smoke screen to distract attention away from the real causes" of violence and crime, said Roberto Briceno Leon of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, which estimates the country's murder rate has quadrupled in 15 years of socialist rule.

Pressure on the government to crack down on crime heated up this month after former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear and her ex-husband were shot to death by robbers, with their 5-year-old daughter looking on.

The double slaying shocked even Venezuelans hardened by rampant bloodshed and put the government on the defensive on an issue that surveys say is the biggest concern among voters.

In his state of the union speech last week, Maduro took aim at a popular soap opera, "De todas maneras Rosa," produced by Venevision.

He accused the nation's biggest broadcaster of profiting from violence by celebrating the crimes of one of the melodrama's lead characters, Andreina Vallejo, a psychopathic former beauty queen who fatally poisons her own mother to hide the paternity of her son.

"Mama, everybody in the world knows that the relationship between parents and their children is completely accidental," a smiling Vallejo says as her mother gasps for breath in her daughter's arms.

Alberto Barrera Tyszka, the creator of several soap operas, said television only reflects the alarming levels of violence present in society and is already tightly regulated for content deemed unsuitable for minors. He said Maduro should turn his attention to the root causes of crime instead.

"It's ridiculous to blame the violence on what's seen for one or two hours a night on television" said Barrera Tyszka, who also wrote a biography of Maduro's predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chavez.

Briceno Leon, whose group tracks Venezuela's violence, blamed the country's bloodshed on the proliferation of illegal firearms, between 9 million and 15 million by the government's count, as well as the lack of punishment for those who commit crimes. He said the government has neglected security, viewing it until recently as a concern mainly for its political enemies among Venezuela's upper classes.

His group estimates more the 24,000 people were slain last year in Venezuela, pushing the homicide rate to 79 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The government disputes those findings, but has blocked access to official crime statistics in recent years. Officials say the rate last year was 39 per 100,000 people, a level that's still the highest in South America and eight times the U.S. rate.

Reflecting high levels of impunity, Venezuela's criminal justice system was ranked the lowest in the world in a recently published study on the rule of law in 97 countries by the Washington-based World Justice Project.

Maduro may see putting the blame on television as an effective political strategy by focusing attention on the breakdown in societal and family values, a broader problem that can entangle all politicians, regardless of party affiliation, Briceno Leon said.

Barrera Tyszka, the soap opera creator, said the president's campaign also reinforces government control of the airwaves, providing it with another tool to bully channels whose news coverage it frequently attacks as part of a right-wing conspiracy to destabilize the nation. Media self-censorship is already high after several years of the government imposing multimillion-dollar fines and even taking channels off the air for allegedly slanted coverage.

"There are almost no guns in Venezuelan telenovelas," he said. "There are a number of things that aren't shown for fear of being fined."

___

Fabiola Sanchez on Twitter: @fisanchezn

___

Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman contributed to this report.

SEE ALSO: Here's The Argument For Sending The Teletubbies To North Korea

Join the conversation about this story »

Disney released a new trailer for "Maleficent," starring Angelina Jolie as the titular character, and she looks great. 

However, the live-action adaptation of animated film "Sleeping Beauty" won't continue the adventures of Disney's most heinous villain. Rather, we'll get the backstory on what happened to turn the sorceress dark.

Elle Fanning also stars as Princess Aurora while Brenton Thwaites will play Prince Phillip.

Here's the official synopsis from Disney: 

"Driven by revenge and a fierce desire to protect the moors over which she presides, Maleficent cruelly places an irrevocable curse upon the human king’s newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Aurora is caught in the middle of the seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic actions that will change both worlds forever."

The trailer reminds us of a parallel to Disney's prequel "Oz the Great and Powerful" last year which told the origin story of the Wicked Witch along with ABC's "Once Upon A Time" which showcases the beginnings of many Disney fairytale villains.

"Maleficent" comes to theaters May 30.

Here are more images of Jolie as the Disney villain:

SEE ALSO: What movies you should see this year

Join the conversation about this story »

OnCue, a reportedly revolutionary Internet TV service from Intel that was supposed to launch last year, has been sold to Verizon, the two companies announced today.

Intel first started teasing OnCue last year, but missed its window for launch and spun the division off in a sale to Verizon for about $200 million, according to Bloomberg.

The service had a bunch of people scratching their heads from the beginning. Why would Intel, a chip maker with very little experience in consumer electronics and media services, attempt to revolutionize TV?

Well, if early reports are to be believed, Intel was actually onto something with OnCue. And now Verizon TV customers should get excited.

Intel never showed OnCue in public, but AdAge spoke with a few insiders last year who did see it and were blown away by the service.

Here's a snapshot of what the product looked like at the time:

• All video would be delivered over the Internet, not through traditional cable services. Essentially, Intel would be your cable provider and you wouldn't have to deal with your cable company to watch stuff. That alone solves a huge gripe people have with cable.
• OnCue is powered by a beautifully designed box with a front-facing camera. The camera would be able to tell when someone is in the room watching TV. (Intel later said it would get rid of the camera though.)
• Recorded shows are saved in a virtual DVR that lets you stream them over the Internet whenever you want to watch. The virtual DVR would supposedly record every TV show.
• It has a simple remote without confusing buttons.
• There's integration with smartphones and tablets so you can watch TV on the go.

Verizon's purchase of OnCue has to go through the standard regulatory approval process before its official over the next few months, so it'll likely be some time before customers get to see it for themselves. Still, it at least sounds promising.

Join the conversation about this story »

Apartment search website Rentennajust came out with its NYC Celebrity Star Map for 2014. 

The updated list took into account last year's moves and break-ups, and added roughly 50 celeb addresses to the list.

Unsurprisingly, downtown neighborhoods like SoHo, Greenwich Village, TriBeCa, and the West Village were well-represented, as was the Upper West Side, with more than 80 celebrities living in the area.

And just like last year's map, Brooklyn locations were not included in detail on the infographic. Rentenna did provide a list, however, of all the A-list stars living across the bridge in the hip borough.

See the full infographic below, and check out a complete table of all the stars and their neighborhoods over at Rentenna.

SEE ALSO: Celebrities Are Flocking To New York's Hippest Borough — Take A Tour Of Their Homes

Join the conversation about this story »

Some may have wondered why Bill Murray agreed to voice the title character in 2004's animated film-version of "Garfield" during a career peek — just a year after his "Lost In Translation" Golden Globe win and Oscar nomination.

While "Garfield:" The Movie" went on to rake in $200 million worldwide, it was critically panned. The sequel, 2006’s “Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties,” went straight to DVD.

But thanks to a recent Reddit chat with Murray, we now know why he agreed to star in the cartoon franchise — he was confused.

You see, there are two directors in Hollywood with the same name except for one letter.

There is Joel Coen of the Coen Brothers who wrote and directed "Inside Llewyn Davis," "Burn After Reading," "Fargo," among many other critically acclaimed films. 

And then there is Joel Cohen who wrote "Cheaper By The Dozen," "Daddy Day Camp," "Monster Mash: The Movie," and other light comedies — including "Garfield: The Movie."

Murray confusedly thought the "Garfield" script was by the former and signed on to voice the famous cat in the movie series.

The 63-year-old actor explained what happened in a revealing response during the Reddit chat after a fan asked: "Will there be a 'Garfield' 3?"

I don't think so. I had a hilarious experience with Garfield. I only read a few pages of it, and I kind of wanted to do a cartoon movie, because I had looked at the screenplay and it said "Joel Cohen" on it.

And I wasn't thinking clearly, but it was spelled Cohen, not Coen.

I love the Coen brothers movies. I think that Joel Coen is a wonderful comedic mind.

So I didn't really bother to finish the script, I thought "he's great, I'll do it." So then it was months before i got around to actually doing it, and I remember i had to go to a screening room in somewhere, and watch the movie and start working. And because they had had trouble contacting me, they asked my friend Bobby to help corral the whole situation together. So Bobby was there, and you know when you're looping a movie you're rerecording to a picture?

So this was an odd movie because the live footage had been shot, but the cat was still this gray blob onscreen. So I start working with this script and I'm supposed to start re-recording and thinking "I can do a funnier line than that" so I would start changing the dialogue that was written for the cat. Which kind of works, it sort of generally works, but then you realize the cat's over here in a corner sitting on a counter, and I'm trying to think how I can make it make sense. So the other characters are already speaking these lines, and so I'm going "did he really say THAT?" and you're kind of in this endgame of "how do I chess piece myself out of this one?"

So I worked like that with this gray blob and these lines that were already written, trying to unpaint myself out of a corner. I think I worked 6 or 7 hours for one reel? No, 8 hours. And that was for 10 minutes. And we managed to change and affect a great deal.

The next day I came into work and the producer gave me a set of golf clubs, and I thought "that was kind of extreme, especially since I can't go play." And the second reel was even HARDER because the complications of the first ten minutes were triangulated. It was really hard to write my way out of that one. And there were all these people on the other side of the recording studio, and at the end of the reel I was SOAKED In perspiration. I had drunk as much coffee as any columbian ever drank, and I said "you better just show me the rest of the movie." And they showed me the rest of the movie, and there was just this long, 2 minute silence.

And I probably cursed a little, and I said "I can fix this, but I can't fix this today. Or this week. Who wrote this stuff?"

And it appeared that one of the people behind the screen was the misspelled Joel Cohen. And I said "how could you have THAT scene take place before this scene? This can't possibly happen? Who edited this thing?"

And another person behind the glass was the editor of the film. He quit the film that week to go work on another job, so that began a long process of working on the film. I worked the rest of the week on it, and I said "Bobby it is still nowhere near done. But I can't fix it all, we have to try to do this again."

It was sort of like Fantastic Mr Fox without the joy or the fun. We did it twice in California, and once in Italy when I was working on the life Aquatic, we were working on an INSANE place in Italy, with a woman who was a voice from above interrupting everything, I cursed again, and she left to take another job, and that was just the first once.

And we managed to fix it, sort of. It was a big financial success. And I said "just promise me, you'll never do that again." That you'll never shoot the footage without telling me.

And they proceeded to do it again. And the next time, they had been shooting for 5 weeks. And I cursed again. I said "I just asked for one little thing, letting me know." and that one was EVEN HARDER. The second one was beyond rescue, there were too many crazy people involved with it. And I thought I fixed the movie, but the insane director who had formerly done some Spongebob, he would leave me and say "I gotta go, I have a meeting" and he was going to the studio where someone was telling him what it should be, countermanding what I was doing.

They made a movie after that second miscarriage, that went directly to video. So they sort of shot themselves in the foot, the kidneys, the liver and the pancreas on the second one. If you had a finer mind working on them? The girl, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, she was sweet. In the second movie they dressed her like a homeless person. You knew it wasn't gonna go well.

SEE ALSO: Here's The Measly Amount Bill Murray Made For 'Rushmore' Because He's Awesome

Join the conversation about this story »

The real-life "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort got grilled on CNN by Piers Morgan last night when Morgan forced him to go through a list of people who had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of Belfort's dirty dealings.

Back in the 1990s, Belfort ran a boiler room on Long Island called Stratton Oakmont. Belfort and his stockbrokers pushed penny stocks and defrauded investors.

Belfort served 22 months in federal prison. He was also ordered to pay back $110 million to his victims. 

Belfort wrote a tell-all memoir chronicling his boozy, drug fueled, high-flying Wall Street lifestyle.  His book was adapted into a movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. (Read Linette Lopez's movie review here)

There's been a lot of criticism that the film glorified Belfort instead of focusing on the victims who lost money with Stratton Oakmont.   

On CNN last night, Morgan read off names of victims who suffered losses ($250,000 and $130,000) because of Belfort's boiler room. Things got a little tense when Morgan started asking Belfort about his victims and whether or not he's reached out to them personally. 

Morgan: "That's why I'm surprised you would then say that you didn't think thousands of people lost their money or ..."

Belfort: "You said life savings." 

Morgan: "Some of them did, right?"

Belfort: "I don't know anyone who lost their life savings ... Again, I'm not saying that makes it right. Let's just be accurate here." 

Morgan: "How do you feel about these people losing a lot of money and in some cases having their lives turned upside down?

Belfort: "I think it's awful. It's terrible. I think it's terrible."

Morgan: "On a human level, have you ever met any of them? Have you ever met one of your victims?"

Belfort: "Ummm, I have not."  

Morgan: "Why not?"

Belfort: "No one has sought me out."

Morgan: "Why haven't you sought them out?"

Belfort: "You know, I don't want to intrude on anyone's life and." 

Morgan: "Come on! That's a cop out." 

Belfort: "No, it's not. I don't think it's appropriate to seek my victims out." 

Morgan: "Wouldn't part of your self-redemption be to actually track some of these people down? We know some of their names. We know what they're saying about you. If you actually called them up and said, 'I'd actually like to talk to you. I would like to apologize personally to you for what happened." 

Belfort: [chuckles] "I've never really considered it before. But I think a better way for me is the next fifteen years to go around the world and continue to speak and do my stuff. All the money that flows in. I think actions speak louder than words. I think by doing what I'm doing here by turning over 100 percent of the profits is probably the most genuine thing I can do." 

Belfort said that he feels awful about what happened in the past and that he's trying actively to right the wrongs. 

Watch the rest of the interview below:  

Join the conversation about this story »

After starring in a Super Bowl ad for the Greek yogurt brand Oikos in 2012, actor John Stamos has now enlisted the help of his "Full House" co-stars, Dave Coulier and Bob Saget.

In a teaser for Oikos' upcoming Super Bowl ad released Monday, Stamos is seen watching television with a cup of Oikos yogurt. When Stamos turns off the television ("Now that was a good game!"), he looks over his shoulder to reveal Coulier and Saget sitting beside him in their pajamas.

That's when Saget delivers the video's punchline, which plays on the actors' experience playing characters who lived together in the long-running sitcom "Full House."

Saget asks his friends whether they think it's time they all get their own homes. After a pause, the trio responds in unison: "Nahhhhhh."

Like Oikos' 2012 commercial, the concept for the this year's Super Bowl ad was created in collaboration with a select group of talent from Poptent, a video production platform that connects brands and agencies with independent filmmakers. The ad itself will be created by Young & Rubicam's Barcelona office, Vinizius.

The Dannon-owned Oikos brand will see competition at this year's Super Bowl from Greek yogurt rival Chobani, which will debut a new campaign at the big game.

This year's Super Bowl will be played Feb. 2 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, with brands paying an average of $4 million for 30 seconds of advertising time.

SEE ALSO: Here's A Preview Of The Ads You'll See On Super Bowl Sunday

Join the conversation about this story »

Netflix appears to be killing HBO and its brethren in premium cable TV, according to new data from NPD Group, the big market research company.

The proportion of people subscribing to streaming video on demand services is now almost equal to the number of people who get premium cable TV channels like HBO and Showtime, NPD says.

Streaming video customers are 27% of the TV audience, and premium cable subscribers are now 32%, NPD says. In the last 18 months, the premium cable market share has declined by six percentage points while the streaming video folks have increased by four points.

If NPD's numbers are right, it means 15% of HBO's customer base just disappeared in the last few months.

NPD analyst Russ Crupnick told Variety he believed consumers are eliminating their premium-TV subscriptions in favor of Netflix, Roku, Aereo and other web video streaming services.

Netflix had 31.1 million U.S. streaming subscribers in Q3 2012, up 24% from the prior year.

SEE ALSO: TV Is Dying, And Here Are The Stats That Prove It

SEE ALSO: Business Insider's ongoing coverage of the Death of TV — all in one place

Join the conversation about this story »

It's not good news for "Batman / Superman" movie fans.

The "Man of Steel" sequel is being pushed back from its July 17, 2015 release date to summer 2016.

That's an entire 10 months you'll have to wait to see Batman and the son of Krypton on screen together for the first time.

CNN reports the "Batman / Superman" movie was pushed back in order to provide "filmmakers time to realize fully their vision, given the complex visual nature of the story."

That's not good news, hinting at troubles behind-the-scenes of the new film.

Forbes reports "creative differences" over the nature of the movie are a reason for the push. (Is it a "Man of Steel" sequel or a setup for a "Justice League" film?)

Joining Henry Cavill as Superman will be Ben Affleck as the new Caped Crusader. "Man of Steel" director Zack Snyder is back working on the film with screenwriter David S. Goyer who wrote "The Dark Knight" trilogy.

The DC superheroes will now go head-to-head with an untitled Marvel movie expected to open the same weekend May 6, 2016. While a Peter Pan film will take the coveted July release date next year in its place.

Before, the "Batman/Superman" film was set to open more than two months after the "Avengers" sequel, giving audiences some breathing room from a big superhero flick.

Is it a smart scheduling choice? Sure. Historically, blockbuster films don't come out until the beginning of the summer season and the studio doesn't want to make fanboys wait an entire year for the film.

Is it the best decision? Definitely not.

The third weekend of July has proven successful again and again Warner Bros. with the release of previous Batman installments from director Christopher Nolan.  

And now both Disney and Warner Bros.' films will be vying for the same audience come May 2016.

If one or the other film opened on any other weekend, each film would easily win the box-office weekend. Instead, in some cases, they'll be forcing fans to choose between team DC Comics and Marvel. Although this could lead to a record box-office weekend, it may also mean lower first-weekend grosses for both films.

We'd be surprised if both Disney and Warner Bros. released a big tentpole on the same day.

If anything, don't expect Disney to move their untitled film (at least if its a sequel to an already established franchise). That first weekend in May has worked for them with both "The Avengers" and "Iron Man 3" earning more than $1 billion at theaters.

Right now, Disney has nothing to worry about. In addition to the Marvel franchise they have Lucasfilm's "Star Wars" (debuting next year) and new Pixar films. In 2016, the "Finding Nemo" sequel is expected to hit the big screen in June.

It made sense to release the "Batman / Superman" movie next year when Disney has such a strong slate of films — the "Avengers" sequel along with the new "Star Wars" film will both be huge for the Mouse House.

This was supposed to be the big summer showdown between Disney and Marvel.

With Warner Bros. releasing a "Peter Pan" film in its place, it leaves a clear path for Disney to conquer at the box office next year.

SEE ALSO: Angelina Jolie looks delightfully wicked in new "Maleficent" trailer

Join the conversation about this story »

"The Wolf of Wall Street" may not have used special effects to the same scale as, say, "Life of Pi" or "The Hunger Games," but the Martin Scorsese-directed, Oscar nominated film subtly used VFX to add that extra pizzazz to Jordan Belfort's colorful life.

Brainstorm Digital recently released a video showing the before-and-after "of the more challenging shots we put together" from the film, so we broke it down below.

Remember that wild party scene in the Hamptons where Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, first met his future second wife?

Here's what it looked like in the final cut of the film audiences saw in theaters:

But here's what the house and surroundings looked like originally:

Special effects were used to replace the trees and parking lot...

... with a neighborhood of houses:

So that it ended up looking like this from afar:

Then there's this scene in which a real lion parades through the office:

No people were actually in the room at the same time as the lion, who was escorted on a leash by a trained professional during filming:

The people were placed in the shot in the editing room, and the lion trainer removed:

In the film, Jordan Belfort marries his second wife Naomi on a beautiful tropical island:

But here's what the property actually looked like during filming:

The wedding set-up was later cut out...

... And placed on a beach backdrop:

When Jordan goes to London to visit Aunt Emma, she greets him outside of her fancy apartment:

The scene was really shot at this small brick home:

And later edited through special effects:

The two later go have a chat in a picturesque London park:

This is what the park really looked like. Note the added sculpture to the left and greener grass above.

Jordan and Naomi later take a trip to Europe on his yacht:

Here's what it really looked like when Naomi was walking back to the boat:

Now watch even more before-and-after scenes in this video put together by "Wolf of Wall Street" special effects team, Brainstorm Digital.

SEE ALSO: This Is What Movies Would Look Like Without Visual Effects

Join the conversation about this story »

Like Darth Vader said, "The Empire has a legion of loyal soldiers that are in endless supply."

They've also got killer dance moves.

There's an incredible music video of "Star Wars" Stormtroopers twerking in the streets — an impressive feat considering those stifling suits — that's going viral on YouTube. In three days, it's snagged roughly half a million views.

Created by Scott Winn and Brenden Bytheway, the video shows Stormtroopers dancing to escape the stress of working under Darth Vader's brutal command.

Here's how it goes down.

Two Stormtroopers greet each other in the street. One is carrying a boombox. Nice.

Then they meet up with three others in a back alleyway.

Instead of salutes, they exchange daps and body-checks. Is that protocol?

Then they dance. According to one performer in the behind-the-scenes video, "The worst case scenario is that you pinch your crotch."

The infamous twerk happens. Making Miley proud.

The choreographer, Jason Celaya, said he wanted the routine to be not "too serious of hip-hop." So, he borrowed some moves from Beyoncé and Britney Spears. There's even a shout-out to "Single Ladies."

The best part is when all five Stormtroopers shoot imaginary E-11 blaster rifles.

The dance party is cut short, however, when an unexpected guest crashes.

It's Darth Vader! He uses the Force to float their boombox in the air and warns them, "Your twerking caused a great disturbance in the Force."

The behind-the-scenes video is almost as wonderful as the final product, and is worth checking out. It takes a look at the choreography and costuming, and reveals the filmmakers' greatest fears.

"If Luke flies in here and blows us up with the X-Wing, that's obviously the worst," producer Brenden Bytheway said.

Here's the video in its entirety:

SEE ALSO: Look Inside The Must-See 'Star Wars' Exhibit That Explores Tech In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Join the conversation about this story »

Jennifer Lawrence is a huge "Homeland" fan.

We know this because she freaked out like a teenage fan girl when meeting show star Damian Lewis at Sunday's SAG awards red carpet.

Turns out, Lawrence has watched seasons 1 and 2 of the Showtime show twice, and is currently waiting for season 3 to hit DVD.

So when "Access Hollywood" host Shaun Robertson spilled the beans about a huge spoiler in the latest season, Lawrence flipped.

After getting visibly upset, the actress told the host she was "a monster."

Watch it all go down below:

SEE ALSO: Cuba Gooding Jr. Rushes SAG Awards Stage During Ben Affleck Speech

Join the conversation about this story »

A man who went to the movies with his wife in Columbus, Ohio, was subjected to a terrifying hour-long interrogation by the FBI because employees at the AMC theater saw him wearing Google Glass.

They apparently thought he might be illegally taping the film and didn't believe him when he tried to explain that the glasses were prescription, and weren't even switched on.

The incident ought to make Glass wearers think twice about when and where they don their smart spectacles. (It also shows how feeble law enforcement's knowledge of the new device is, too — it took them an hour before they figured out how to download the device's content.)

AMC confirmed the incident in a statement to Business Insider:

Movie theft is something we take very seriously, and our theater managers contact the Motion Picture Association of America anytime it's suspected that someone may be illegally recording content on screen. While we're huge fans of technology and innovation, wearing a device that has the capability to record video is not appropriate at the movie theatre. At AMC Easton 30 last weekend, a guest was questioned for possible movie theft after he was identified wearing a recording device during a film. The presence of this recording device prompted an investigation by the MPAA, which was on site. The MPAA then contacted Homeland Security, which oversees movie theft. The investigation determined the guest was not recording content.

The incident began when the man, writing anonymously on The Gadgeteer, was watching "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" with his wife:

About an hour into the movie (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit), a guy comes near my seat, shoves a badge that had some sort of a shield on it, yanks the Google Glass off my face and says “follow me outside immediately”. It was quite embarrassing and outside of the theater there were about 5-10 cops and mall cops.

He was then detained and treated like a criminal for the next hour:

I was searched and more stuff was taken away from me (specifically my personal phone, my work phone – both of which were turned off, and my wallet). After an embarrassing 20-30 minutes outside the movie theater, me and my wife were conducted into two separate rooms in the “management” office of Easton Mall, where the guy with the badge introduced himself again and showed me a different ID.

... What followed was over an hour of the “feds” telling me I am not under arrest, and that this is a “voluntary interview”, but if I choose not to cooperate bad things may happen to me (is it legal for authorities to threaten people like that?). I kept telling them that Glass has a USB port and not only did I allow them, I actually insist they connect to it and see that there was nothing but personal photos with my wife and my dog on it. I also insisted they look at my phone too and clear things out, but they wanted to talk first. They wanted to know who I am, where I live, where I work, how much I’m making, how many computers I have at home, why am I recording the movie, who am I going to give the recording to, why don’t I just give up the guy up the chain, ’cause they are not interested in me. Over and over and over again.

The officers' questions could have been answered with a simple check of the device's content, and eventually the cops figured it out:

Eventually, after a long time somebody came with a laptop and an USB cable at which point he told me it was my last chance to come clean. I repeated for the hundredth time there is nothing to come clean about and this is a big misunderstanding so the FBI guy finally connected my Glass to the computer, downloaded all my personal photos and started going though them one by one (although they are dated and it was obvious there was nothing on my Glass that was from the time period they accused me of recording). Then they went through my phone, and 5 minutes later they concluded I had done nothing wrong.

The officer asking the questions identified himself as "Bob Hope" of the "movie association" — presumably the MPAA — and gave him four free passes to another movie at AMC. He didn't apologize: "All he said was AMC called him, and he called the FBI  ... I would have been fine with 'I’m sorry this happened, please accept our apologies.' Four free passes just infuriated me."

Join the conversation about this story »

Jessica Alba is a triple threat as an actress, mother, and entrepreneur. 

Alba appeared on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" to discuss motherhood, her new role in IFC's "The Spoils of Babylon," and her family company.

Now two years old, The Honest Company makes non-toxic baby products including diapers and household cleaners.

Fallon asked why the actress decided to start a baby company and the answer was simple for the young mom of two.

"I wanted clean, safe, effective products that were affordable and beautifully designed and I couldn't find that in the marketplace," said Alba. "... There wasn't really a family brand that spoke to me as a young mom."

In addition to diapers and baby products, the Honest Company started rolling out cribs this year which can be converted as a child grows from infant, to toddler, and then a full-size bed for children.

Alba says not everyone thought the family company was a smart move for the "Sin City" actress. 

"People thought I was nuts," said Alba. The actress says people's reactions ranged from, "'Can you just do a perfume or something?'" to "'Baby diapers, really?"" 

It turns out diapers were a good investment. Alba's start-up has taken off since January 2012, raising a total of $52 million.

Watch the interview below: 

After their chat, the duo played ping pong in a massive double turtleneck sweater against Late Night announcer Steve Higgins and James Poyser of "The Roots."

Check it out below: 

SEE ALSO: The Batman/Superman movie will be delayed almost a year

Join the conversation about this story »