It’s not often you see a sci-fi blockbuster centered on linguistics. Thankfully, "Arrival" is fairly accurate in its portrayal of the field, according to professor Jessica Coon, who consulted on the movie.

"Early on before they started filming, I read a few drafts of the screenplay, and I was asked to give feedback on some of the more linguistically relevant parts," Coon, who teaches linguistics at McGill University, recently told Business Insider. "A lot of the comments they took into account. Some of them they said, 'Linguists in the end are not Hollywood's main audience, it'll be all right if some of these don't make it in.' In the end, it turned out great, I think."

"Arrival," based on the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, focuses on humans trying to communicate with mysterious aliens, called heptapods, who appear around the world. It stars Amy Adams as linguist Louise Banks.

The production, filmed in Montreal, turned to McGill professor Morgan Sonderegger for help creating a strange spoken language, splicing whale songs, big cat purring, and more.

Production designer Patrice Vermette and his wife, artist Martine Bertrand, took the lead in visualizing the written language, creating around 100 swirly circular symbols. Stephen Wolfram, founder of Mathematica coding software, and his son, Christopher Wolfram, helped analyze the symbols. And then Coon got involved.

"I worked a lot with the set crew, helping get the visual aspect of being a linguist and doing linguistics right," Coon said. "They came to the office, they took pictures of everything, they borrowed books off the shelf, they had me go in and write on the white board in Amy Adams' office. They brought me to the military cryptography tent and wanted to know what's going to be on the white boards here where they're deciphering the language, what's their to-do list look like? How would somebody annotate these logograms? So they sent me a stack of these logogram printouts and said, well, you're a linguist, figure it out."

In the movie, Banks and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) focus on cracking the written language, which is portrayed in the smoke-like symbols.

"The way a linguist would approach this is the same way a linguist would approach understanding the grammar of a human language, which is looking for patterns," Coon said. "In the movie, one of the scenes they show is Ian walking and they're trying to get the heptapod equivalent of 'Ian walks' or 'Ian is walking.' Then maybe they would ask for 'Louise is walking' and look at these two symbols and say what do they have in common?"

The idea is that you have to figure out those basics before you can build up to complex questions.

"What the film gets exactly right is both the interactive nature but also that you really have to start small," Coon said.

Aside from looking and sounding strange, the heptapod language has some unique features. One is the disconnect between the spoken and the written versions.

"A really interesting thing about this heptapod language is it doesn’t have any relationship to the spoken heptapod language," Coon said. "As far as I’m aware, human written languages are always based on human spoken language... A heptapod might wonder why did we waste this medium just writing down the same thing that we would say."

Analyzing the languages, of course, took creative license.

"[The creators] are the first to admit that it’s not a full language, this is not the next Klingon," Coon said.

Indeed, it would not have been possible to create an alien language that lived up to its description in the book, since understanding the timeless language supposedly unlocked the ability to see into the future.

"It’s an artistic idea of how complex a language could be, how different a language could be," Coon said, "but, no, this is art."

Coon says consulting for a sci-fi film was a rare treat.

"It’s never happened, and I’m not sure it will ever happen again, but that’s something that’s so great and unusual about this movie," she said. "Here we have a movie where an academic is the protagonist, and not just an academic, an academic linguist, the hero of a sci-fi movie."

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A representative has confirmed that Kanye West is canceling the rest of his Saint Pablo tour, according to Pitchfork.

The decision comes after the rapper ended his set in Sacramento, California, on Saturday early. He performed only three songs and delivered an extended rant about politics, Jay Z, and Beyoncé.

"The Saint Pablo tour is the most relevant thing happening. If your old a-- keeps following old models, your a-- is going to get Hillary Clintoned. You might not like it, but you need to hear it," West said in the meandering rant, in which he also declared he was "on my Trump s--- tonight."

West had told another audience that he would've voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election if he had voted at all, which sparked a lot of backlash.

"He's just exhausted," a source told TMZ of West's reasoning for canceling his concert dates. "He's been working around the clock on fashion design, both his own line and the Adidas line."

He had 21 more Saint Pablo tour dates scheduled after the Sacramento show. Tickets for the shows will be refunded, according to Pitchfork.

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VH1's new celebrity cooking show, "Martha and Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party," has been renewed for a second season after just two episodes.

"It's early, but Martha and Snoop deserve it," the show's creator SallyAnn Salsano told Business Insider on Monday.

"I feel like it's the right thing to do," she added. "The show is working. Why not get rocking?"

Salsano's excitement over the show's renewal is shared by its stars, who broke the news to their followers Monday afternoon on Twitter.

"The hardest thing in the world is to do a season one," Salsano said of what she's learning from shooting the first season of the cooking show. "Getting to do season two is always like the exhale moment of OK, now, let's perfect it. You can look back and see things that you love, what the audience loved."

And Snoop and Stewart have no shortage of recipes.

"To be honest, it was hard to come up with just 10 things they wanted to make," the executive producer told us. "It was like Russian Roulette. They would tell me that they don't want to get rid of this or that, and I would say, 'Guys, we can only make 10 things.'"

For now, there are no details on when the show will return for its second season. 

The show's premiere episode debuted to three million viewers, winning its time slot and becoming 2016's highest-rated new unscripted show on cable for 2016.

"Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party” features the rapper and the domestic diva cooking their favorite recipes for their famous guests and a live studio audience. Season one's episodes include guests Ice Cube, Seth Rogen, Wiz Khalifa, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Naya Rivera, Jason Derulo, 50 Cent, Fat Joe, Mike Epps, Kathy Griffin, Robin Thicke, and Bella Thorne.

Season one's episodes currently air Mondays at 10 p.m. on VH1.

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With the holidays upon us, this is the perfect time to dive into some great movies on Netflix. But make sure to watch these before they're gone in December. 

Memorable titles on the chopping block include "American Beauty," "Top Gun," "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood," "Valley of the Dolls," "Just Friends," "Spy Kids," and the very tolerable Adam Sandler comedy "50 First Dates."

Here's the full list of everything leaving Netflix in December. We've highlighted in bold some of the titles you should check out before they disappear.

SEE ALSO: 50 movies that critics really hate but normal people love

Leaving December 1

“50 First Dates”
“American Beauty”
“Black Ops” (Series 2)
“Camp Takota”
“Carmen Jones”
“Cats & Dogs”
“Curious George: Swings Into Spring”
“Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood”
“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
“Event Horizon”
“Frequencies”
“McConkey”
“Medora”
“Monkey Business”
“Myth Hunters” (Season 1-2)
“Neil Young: Heart of Gold”
“Paycheck”
“Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie”
“River of No Return”
“Sling Blade”
“Thor: Hammer of the Gods”
“The Great War Diary” (Season 1)
“The In-Laws”
“The Out-of-Towners”
“Top Gun”
“Valley of the Dolls”
“World Trade Center”

Leaving December 2

“Legends of the Knight”
“The Red Baron”

Leaving December 3

“The Best of Me”

Jillian Rose Reed, one of the stars of the recently wrapped MTV comedy "Awkward," will be guest-starring on VH1's buzzy upcoming drama series, "Daytime Divas," Business Insider learned exclusively.

"Daytime Divas" is based on the 2011 novel "Satan's Sisters" by Star Jones, who was inspired to write the book by her nine years on ABC's "The View."

Coproduced with Sony Pictures Television, the hourlong drama series revolves around a similar daytime talk show with an all-female panel of cohosts.

According to a source, Reed will guest star as a young social media star with millions of followers named Kali T on episode eight. The network brings her on to the show to attract younger viewers, which rubs the other cohosts the wrong way.

Fans of "Awkward" know Reed as the precocious and resourceful Tamara, the lead character's best friend. Since the show wrapped its fifth and final season last May, Reed has been voicing Naomi on Disney Channel's "Sofia the First" and "Elena of Avalor" animated series. In addition to guest-starring on NBC's "Community," ABC's "The Middle," and HBO's "Hung," Reed played the recurring role of Simone on Showtime's "Weeds."

Reed's casting reunites her with "Awkward" showrunners Chris Alberghini and Mike Chessler, who are currently serving as the showrunners for "Daytime Divas."

Represented by Don Buchwald & Associates and Discover Management, Reed joins a growing list of previously announced guest stars for the show's first season, including Patti LaBelle, Kelly Osbourne, Debby Ryan, Janet Mock, and Eve.

"Daytime Divas" stars Vanessa Williams, Tichina Arnold, Chloe Bridges, Camille Guaty, and Fiona Gubelmann. It's set to premiere in 2017 on VH1.

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Amazon is rumored to have paid about $250 million for "The Grand Tour," a new series featuring Jeremy Clarkson and his former team that produced BBC's "Top Gear."

And based on early results, that investment is already starting to pay off.

According to Amazon, The Grand Tour's debut episode last Friday was the biggest premiere ever on Amazon Prime Video. The company declined to share specific numbers, only saying it attracted "millions" of viewers, but said it broke the previous record held by "The Man in The High Castle."

It's also become the top rated TV show or movie on IMDb, withan overall rating of 9.6 and over 10,000 votes, while getting a 4.9 out of 5 rating on Amazon and a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

But perhaps what Amazon is most happy about is The Grand Tour's ability to draw in new Prime members. Amazon said it saw the second most number of new Prime member sign-ups on the day of the show's debut — after Prime Day, its big annual sales holiday that draws tens of millions of shoppers to its site.

Amazon doesn't disclose the actual number of new sign-ups from either Prime Day or last Friday, so it's hard to tell how big an impact it had on the total number of Prime members. Still, it's an important development because it proves Amazon's investment in Prime Video is having a direct impact on the growth of its Prime members, who tend to spend more on Amazon than non-Prime members.

Amazon has previously said that it's doubling its spending on video content in the second half of this year, compared with last year. The last time Amazon disclosed its investment amount on video content was back in 2014, when it said it spent $1.3 billion.

Prime is Amazon's paid membership program that costs $99/year or $10.99/month. Members get access to free two-day shipping, a bunch of streaming video and music content, and online storage space. 

Prime members purchased $123 billion worth of goods from Amazon last year, accounting for nearly 60% of the company's total GMV (gross merchandise value), according to Deutsche Bank. They also spend about 4.6-times more money on Amazon than non-Prime members, Morgan Stanley said.

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Kanye West was hospitalized for exhaustion on Monday shortly after canceling the remaining shows for his tour, a representative confirmed to The New York Times.

NBC News first reported that West was under observation at a Los Angeles-area hospital, according to several sources familiar with the case.

Police responded to a medical emergency at West's home at 1:20 p.m. PT, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson told Business Insider. Police did not identify the person taken from the home at the time.

Earlier on Monday, West canceled the rest of his Saint Pablo tour, following a series of bizarre rants at his shows.

"He's just exhausted," a source told TMZ of West's reasoning for the cancellation.

The artist went on a political rant on stage in San Jose last week, in which he said he didn't vote in the presidential election, but that he would have voted for President-elect Donald Trump. The admission garnered mixed reactions from West's fans.

West then turned his attention to racism: "If people are racist and they feel more inspired to say how they feel, then they're exposing themselves, bro," he added. "This is what I'm saying. It's already the beginning of change. Sometimes things that you might think are bad might have to happen in order for change to f---ing happen."

On Saturday, West abruptly ended his concert in Sacramento after performing just three songs.  

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Though her comedic impression of future First Lady Melania Trump was meant in "good humor," Gigi Hadid has recognized the backlash she faced for it online.

Hadid, a model, cohosted the American Music Awards on Sunday, where she did the impression, changing her voice and facial expression and referring to her "husband" as President Barack Obama. The moment sparked outrage online, with some even calling it racist.

On Monday night, Hadid posted a photo of a handwritten note to her Twitter, explaining that while she had no "bad intent," she apologizes to "anyone that I offended." Here are her full words:

"I was honored to host the AMAs last night and to work with some of the most respected writers in the business. I removed or changed anything in the script that I felt took the joke too far, and whether or not you choose to see it, what remained was done in good humor and with no bad intent. I too have been the center of a nationally televised comedy skit that poked fun at my actions and was able to find the humor in it. I believe Melania understands show business and the way shows are written and run. I apologize to anyone that I offended and have only the best wishes for our country."

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Tim Allen went on Fox News' "The Kelly File" on Monday night and brought a different perspective to the election of Donald Trump than most in Hollywood.

The star of ABC's "Last Man Standing" (still best known for hit '90s sitcom "Home Improvement") touched on what he calls the "hypocritical" talk that comes out of the entertainment world about the president-elect.

“What I find odd in Hollywood is that they didn’t like Trump because he was a bully," Allen said. "But if you had any kind of inkling that you were for Trump, you got bullied for doing that. And it gets a little bit hypocritical to me."

Allen noted to "Kelly File" host Megyn Kelly that he's not a spokesman for Hollywood, he's a comedian, and being a comic he's "really an anarchist."

"As a comedian, I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do. Period,” he said.

Allen, who plays a conservative on his show and is one in real life (he told Kelly back in February he was supporting John Kasich), did point out that though he wasn't for people being bullied for supporting Trump, he also isn't "defending the guy."

"To me, he acts like a new talent comedian," Allen said of Trump. "These are guys that have great material that have very bad comedy timing. And he's got terrible timing."

Watch Allen on "The Kelly File" below:

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Seth Meyers warned his viewers that President-elect Donald Trump's feud with Broadway's "Hamilton" cast is meant to divert us from other damaging news.

"If you live in New York City, you would've bet everything you own on Friday morning that it was impossible for people to talk about the musical 'Hamilton' more," Meyers began the latest "A Closer Look" segment on Monday's "Late Night." "And by Saturday morning, you'd be broke."

Last Friday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended "Hamilton" and was greeted by boos from the audience and later a prepared statement from the cast, which urged Pence and Trump to embrace minorities and work to represent them in the White House.

In response, Trump posted a demand for the cast to apologize, even though Pence says he wasn't bothered by the experience.

"So [Trump] spent the weekend in a Twitter fight with a Broadway musical," Meyers said. "But once he's done with that, it's on to you, ISIS!"

Meyers then listed the other news surrounding Trump this week, including his settling the Trump University fraud suit; the fact that Ivanka Trump sat in on a meeting with the Japanese prime minister; Trump's hotel in DC is openly marketing itself to diplomats, who say they're staying at Trump hotels to win favor with the president-elect; and the fact that Trump has yet to follow through with a blind trust for his businesses. Much of this news presents potential conflicts of interest for the president-elect.

"So Twitter feuds may be fun," Meyers said, "but we need to pay attention to what Team Trump is really up to, because they want us to be distracted."

Watch the whole segment below:

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Though you may have only recently realized the talents of Michael Shannon thanks to his work on “Boardwalk Empire” and in mainstream movies like “Premium Rush” and “Man of Steel,” he has been acting for over two decades with some of his best work only being seen by small arthouse crowds.

Shannon will be the first to admit he doesn’t have a problem with that. “I’m not primarily profit-driven, necessarily,” he recently told Business Insider in New York City before the presidential election, though he also says there are some movies he will now stop doing.

Counting movies that were shown at film festivals this year, Shannon will have appeared in 10 movies before 2016 is over, a handful of them independent projects that will receive (or received) limited release.

One of them is “Frank & Lola” (opening December 9). A dark and twisted love story set in Las Vegas in which Shannon plays a guy who uncovers the troubled past of his girlfriend (Imogen Poots), it’s the kind of low-budget film the actor has built his career on, but he admits the effort is greater than the pay.

Shannon is never shy to speak his mind (look at what he said after Trump won the election), and in his conversation with us, he revealed why he's come to his career decision and why one day he might just stop acting completely.

Jason Guerrasio: What interested you in “Frank & Lola”?

Michael Shannon: When I went out to LA for the Oscars the year I was nominated [for 2008's "Revolutionary Road"] I met with [director] Matt [Ross]. He got a hold of me through my agent and we talked about "Frank & Lola." That was a long time ago. I thought maybe that had fallen by the wayside but finally through great perseverance by Matt he managed to get it together and I just have a huge admiration for people that are that tenacious. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm usually more drawn to the people involved. I mean, the story is fine. I like the story. I wanted to do something that I considered romantic. I felt this was a very romantic picture and not in a silly way. A lot of people ask me why I don't make romantic comedies and I personally have never had a comedic experience in romance. It's not funny. So I guess that's why I don't do it. 

Guerrasio: You say you were impressed by Matt's hustle to get the movie made. You were in a few movies this year that either just played on the festival circuit or won’t get very wide releases. In some way do you do these movies because your name now can get them made?

Shannon: Maybe. I don't really think it does to that extent. There are some people who say, "I'll see anything you do." So if that's honestly the truth then yeah, maybe so. But directors insist, they say, "You really need to do this, I can't think of anybody else." And I think, "I can. I can think of somebody else. But okay, whatever you say."

Guerrasio: I feel that is a testament to you being a working actor, constantly on the grind. You aren’t going to get studio movie paychecks regularly. Do you have a number in your head of the movies you have to make a year to be financially stable?

Shannon: No. No. Honestly, I would prefer to work less than I do. I finally reached the tipping point. It's bizarre because for so many actors there's a real hunger to work and so many actors don't get opportunities. I try to always remember that and be mindful of that, but at a certain point. I mean, I didn't make any money making "Frank & Lola" or "Wolves" [which played at this year's Tribeca Film Festival]. And I told myself basically when I did "Wolves," I'm not doing this anymore. I'm done. From now on the conditions are going to be different. 

Guerrasio: Because for you and your family, you have to make money. 

Shannon: Yeah.

Guerrasio: You're at a point now where you can actually make some money in this business, is that the thinking?

Shannon: I’m not primarily profit-driven, necessarily. But what I'm angry about, and I've gone on record saying this, is I think that financiers get away with murder. They realize they can get something for nothing and they won't settle for anything else. There's something called a Schedule F. If I work for a Schedule F contract that basically means I'm doing the movie for free because by the time I pay all my commissions and taxes there's barely anything left for me to live on. This whole notion that you do work that you love for very little money and then you go out and do something you hate to make money —

Guerrasio: One for you, one for them —

Shannon: I find that disgusting. I'm not going to do that. Because honestly I could very easily just not do this anymore and not miss it. So I just started making demands, because why not, I don't have anything to lose. [Laughs] And then there's the film thing versus the theater thing. I'll do the theater for free any time. I still go back to Chicago and work at my little theater company there and it's on the house. But with movies, movies are a grind, man. 

Guerrasio: Especially the lower-budget movies you work on.

Shannon: Yeah. When we were shooting "Frank & Lola" we'd be in a casino. There was one week where we were shooting in a casino all night long. It was in the Wynn. We had to shoot at night because that's when it was slow and quiet. And you get to the point where you're so tired and things just get sketchy and most of the time a day on the film set you're not acting. I'd say maybe 10 percent of your day is spent acting. The 90 percent is spent trying to figure out how you're not going to lose your goddamn mind.

Guerrasio: So when you say you don't have any issue walking away from acting, how serious are you about that?

Shannon: There are certain people I will always respond to, but I certainly don't need more names in my Rolodex. If I just did whatever Jeff Nichols ("Loving") told me to do and Ramin Bahrani ("99 Homes"), Liz Johnson ("Elvis & Nixon"), I would be fine with that. And if Paul Thomas Anderson and David Lynch happened to call once in a while. I always drop what I'm doing for Werner Herzog. But I need to keep it contained now. 

Guerrasio: I’ll ask actors sometimes what else they would do if they didn't act and many don't have an answer because they say they don't know how to do anything else. 

Shannon: I have other interests. I've always had other interests. I've always been interested in music and frankly I have a lot of concerns about the world and sometimes I think that acting is not contributing in a meaningful way. I can't say exactly what I would do instead but something more helpful.

Guerrasio: Like what?

Shannon: Well, Greenland is melting. The fact that it's not the most talked-about issue, period, it really blows my mind. But I live in Red Hook and we had Hurricane Sandy there and it's bounced back and everyone's feeling good and there's even more business but I'm like that's going to happen again. There's no way that's not going to happen again. 

Guerrasio: Let's end on a fun one. Which role did you enjoy doing more, the Mr. Green character in "The Night Before" or Elvis in "Elvis & Nixon"?

Shannon: They were different kinds of fun. Mr. Green, it was a lot of fun to showcase my improv. Because I did a lot of improv in Chicago. I took Elvis dead serious. I worked my butt off. It got fun after it stopped being scary. It was scary for a while. 

Guerrasio: Does the fear end during shooting or not until after?

Shannon: During shooting. It's about repetition. Show up enough days in a row and put on a costume, you just stop worrying about whether you're pulling it off or not, it just doesn't matter anymore. You go, "Well, in this particular movie I am Elvis Presley and there's not much anybody can do about it right now." [Laughs]

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It's no joke how much Dave Chappelle is reportedly making on his new comedy special deal with Netflix.

According to The New York Post's Page Six column, the comedian is making a total of $60 million for delivering three comedy specials to the streaming company in 2017. 

"Dave was offered $20 million a special," Page Six's anonymous source said. "Netflix basically has a war chest for this kind of content. Whether it’s a loss or not, Dave Chappelle’s specials will get a lot of press and bring in new subscribers."

At $20 million per special, that would place Chappelle's deal on par with the reported $40 million deal Chris Rock secured with Netflix last month for two comedy specials.

A Netflix representative told Business Insider it doesn't comment on the financial details of its deals.

The concert specials are Chappelle’s first in 12 years. Two of the specials have already been shot, but were never released. The third one will be produced specifically for Netflix. All three are set to release simultaneously in 2017.

The deal follows Chappelle's hosting debut November 12 on "Saturday Night Live," which delivered the season's highest overnight ratings and the best 18-to-49 ratings for the show since 2013.

Chappelle made a huge name for himself while starring on "Chappelle's Show," a racially charged sketch show that ran on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006. Most recently,he's been trying out new material in an intimate venue tour.

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A fantasy movie that's filled with magical creatures and adventures is nothing without the music to sell it, and the "Harry Potter" spin-off movie "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" certainly has that going for it.

Below listen to an exclusive premiere of a reel of music from "Fantastic Beasts." The score is by Grammy winner James Newton Howard, and J.K. Rowling wrote the words for the song "The Blind Pig," performed by singer Emmi.

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Google is launching a music festival called Good Fest later this month, which it is describing as a "a first-of-its-kind livestream festival for good," according to the event's website.

The first concert will see English indie band Glass Animals perform at BAM Cafe in New York City on November 29. A further four shows will follow across four different cities in the US, all livestreamed on YouTube.

The concerts will raise money for non-profits through ticket sales and online donations. 100% of the ticket sales for the Glass Animals gig, for example, will go to DonorsChoose.org.

The Good Fest website describes the event as "a celebration of progress, positivity, and the power of people to push the world forward."

Google is using the event to promote its new Pixel smartphone, which will be used to record backstage footage and will be heavily referenced at the events and their promotional material.

Good Fest has been launched in partnership with Good Media, a company that produces its own website and quarterly magazine and forms media partnerships designed to create social impact. Essence, Google's digital agency, is also helping produce and promote the event.

While the Good Fest website makes no reference to the current political climate, the timing of the launch is likely not coincidental. 

Future events as part of the festival are being billed as played for "humanity," "earth,"equality," and "love." Upcoming concerts will include artists such as Gogol Bordello and D.R.A.M.

Google was not immediately available to comment.

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Disney is looking to repeat the opening-weekend success of "The Force Awakens" with its first ever "Star Wars" standalone movie, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."

The movie, opening December 16, is projected to earn over $130 million at the domestic box office its first weekend, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

If it holds, that would be the second-highest opening of all time in December, with 2015's "The Force Awakens" still comfortably topping the list with its $247.9 million first weekend. 

If everything goes as planned, Disney will have shown that its strategy to release "Star Wars" movies before Christmas Day, typically the day when all the major releases have opened in the past, was an ingenious move.

In a weekend long thought to be when audiences are too concerned with holiday shopping, "The Force Awakens" pre-Christmas Day rollout led to incredible word of mouth (not to mention the millions in marketing) that helped the film become a global record-breaking box-office titan. The movie ended its theatrical run earlier this year with over $2 billion globally.   

Though Disney has stuck to its talking point that it doesn't expect "Rogue One" to do the business of "The Force Awakens," the projections show the movie will still make a loud bang.

Disney is expected to break last year's industry global box-office record, $6.89 billion for Universal, and earn over $7 billion in worldwide ticket sales by the end of 2016.

SEE ALSO: Dave Chappelle is reportedly making $60 million for his Netflix comedy specials

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"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" is less than a month away, which means Disney/Lucasfilm are close to releasing the first ever feature-length spin-off of the "Star Wars" saga. 

But Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is looking beyond that. According to Variety, she's made it a priority to hire a female director to take on an upcoming "Star Wars" movie.

But there's a challenge — she hasn't found one yet who can take on the enormity of the franchise. 

“We want to make sure that when we bring a female director in to do 'Star Wars,' they’re set up for success,” Kennedy said. “They’re gigantic films, and you can’t come into them with essentially no experience.”

According to Variety, Kennedy and her team are in the midst of identifying female directors who are currently in the early stages of their careers.

“We want to really start to focus in on people we would love to work with and see what kinds of things they’re doing to progress up that ladder now, and then pull them in when the time is right,” she said.

The argument could be made that there are very qualified female directors who are ready for the heavy load that is making a "Star Wars" movie right now. 

Patty Jenkins is directing the much-anticipated "Wonder Woman" movie, which could have more at stake than any "Star Wars" movie, since it's being touted as the project that can "save" the DC Comics movie studio. Though previous DC titles have made huge box-office coin, both critics and fans have been negative about how movies like "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "Suicide Squad" were handled.

Ava DuVernay has moved from her success making "Selma" to currently directing Disney's "A Wrinkle in Time." 

Those are examples of directors who will be locked into projects for years. But there are some who could be ready to be nabbed now.

Over the summer, Indiewire pointed out filmmakers like Lake Bell ("In a World..."), Amy Seimetz (Starz' "The Girlfriend Experience"), and Lynn Shelton (Fox's "New Girl," ABC's "Fresh Off the Boat") as a few of the female directors who have said they are up for the challenge.

Hopefully they will be getting a call from Kennedy.

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Great music can be found all across these United States. And every state has a famous band that hails from it.

To determine the most famous band from every state, Business Insider looked at reputation, record sales, and awards, considering each band within its own era, so just because a band is popular now doesn't mean it's nudged out the biggest band from another decade.

We stuck to bands only — no solo artists here — but used the term "band" loosely, including any musical act consisting of more than one person. We focused mostly on the state where each band originally formed, but also considered where their music was popularized, as well as artists' hometowns.

Check out which band is making your state proud.

Christi Danner contributed to a previous version of this article. 

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ALABAMA: Alabama

One of the most successful bands of all time, Alabama has sold over 73 million records and has seven multiplatinum albums and two Grammys. The band sold more records during the '80s than any other band. Not only is their success impressive by any measure, but they also did a lot to make country music popular in the mainstream.

ALASKA: Portugal. The Man

Portugal. The Man released their debut album, "Waiter: You Vultures!" in 2006 and booked their first headlining tour the next year. The rock band released three more albums — including breakout record "The Satanic Satanist" — before signing with Atlantic Records in 2009. Danger Mouse, known for working with artists like Beck and The Black Keys, produced Portugal. The Man's 2013 album, "Evil Friends."

ARIZONA: Alice Cooper

The first of the many shock-rock bands of the '70s, Alice Cooper kept fans entranced with their gender-bending outfits and dark onstage theatrics — concert-goers could expect performances to include stunts like Cooper's faux-beheading via guillotine. But it's the music that kept fans coming back for more, and their riff-heavy brand of hard rock produced a string of hits including "School's Out" and "Be My Lover." Alice Cooper was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the sixth season of HBO's "Game of Thrones."

One of the biggest moments to come out of the sixth season of "Game of Thrones" was Hodor's death. Not only was it a heart-wrenching moment for fans, but it became a viral internet meme.

Hodor, played by Kristian Nairn, was torn apart by wights while Bran Stark and Meera Reed escaped. And as he repeatedly said "hold the door," it started coming together to form his name, or what was believed to be the mute character's name.

Ellie Kendrick – who plays Meera Reed, Bran Stark's traveling partner and protector on the HBO hit – said that she couldn't have predicted how just how big the scene would be for fans.

"When I first read the ‘hold the door’ scene, I knew it was going to be big and people were going to get pretty excited about it," Kendrick told Business Insider while promoting the show's newly released season-six Blu-ray/DVD set. "But I didn’t know that it was going to get quite the reaction that it did. People were putting stickers on elevator doors with Kristian’s face, which was hilarious."

The running joke became so popular that the show's cocreators even saw fit to apologize for the annoying use of the phrase their show let loose unto the world. Kendrick didn't get off scot-free either.

“I did get a couple of people yell ‘hold the door’ sometimes when I’m running for the train," she said. "It’s happened once or twice. I think fair enough, pretty good one."

All joking aside, Kendrick was happy to see that Hodor and the actor who played the silent giant got the sendoff that was due them.

"It was really gratifying and pleasing to see just how well people were responding to that scene," Kendrick told us. "The Hodor character is such a brilliant one and Kristian Nairn did it with such love. It was great to see him get a real moment there and a sad one. It was brilliant to see the reaction everyone had. When you’re filming something over a period of a few days, there’s a lot of CGI with bits of the scene missing, and maybe you shoot it in 15-second chunks, it gets all sewn together later, and all the special effects get added on top. So it’s ace when you finally see the realized thing. In this case, it was so much better than it was in my head."

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"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" will be the first ever standalone "Star Wars" movie when it's released in December. And to show just how different this movie will be from the seven-film (and counting) saga we've seen so far, look no further than how "Rogue One" will begin.

Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy told Entertainment Weekly that there will "more than likely" not be an opening crawl in the beginning of the movie. 

“We feel that that is proprietary with the saga films," Kennedy said. "But how this evolves... ? We haven’t fully decided, and [traditional 'Star Wars' elements] may be pretty spare for this first one.”

The standalone movies will also include a young Han Solo vehicle that is already in production.

The opening crawl is perhaps one of the most recognizable elements of the "Star Wars" saga. It's used as a prologue to each film.

This looks to be the first sign of how "Rogue One" will have a different feel than any other "Star Wars" movie we've seen yet.

Kennedy described the film to Variety as a "World War II-style adventure." 

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The "Star Wars" franchise will have its first ever standalone movie when "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" opens in theaters on December 16, as another focusing on Han Solo is in production.

But standalone movies within the saga aren't a new idea that came together when Disney bought the franchise along with Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4 billion. 

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy revealed to Entertainment Weekly that "Star Wars" creator George Lucas was already toying with the idea when she joined the company around the time of the Disney purchase.

“He had often thought about doing it and he had actually written down three or four thoughts and ideas, directions you could go," Kennedy said. "Obviously inside the mythology there were lots of opportunities. So that was the first conversation I had.”

Kennedy said that the already announced standalone movies — "Rogue One" and the untitled Han Solo movie — were not Lucas' ideas, however.

“We talked a lot about the Jedi and the foundational ideas that George had thought about when he created the mythology," Kennedy said. "It was sort of spitballing ideas.”

It will be interesting to see if any of the ideas Lucas had written down on paper will one day become movies. 

Plans for more standalone movies have been kept mum with everyone at Disney/Lucasfilm taking a wait-and-see approach to how "Rogue One" does (or so they are saying in public). 

Early projections have "Rogue One" taking in over $130 million its opening weekend.

SEE ALSO: The Lucasfilm head explains why it's hard to hire a female "Star Wars" director

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