Unfortunately, by the end, we found ourselves asking: who is this show for, and who is it even about? Wade and Knuckles are supposed to be on this journey together but are often separated and don’t experience defining moments together. Knuckles being a target never really pays off or builds to the next boss in, say, the upcoming film. And there’s too much focus on Wade’s story, which is not as interesting as Knuckles’ and too flimsy to be the A-plot; his family gets dragged along for a resolution that doesn’t feel quite earned. The show is called Knuckles but it just ends up feeling like a random road trip with a few redeeming moments.
Just before the weekend started, the animation space lit up when someone suddenly leaked a lot of never-before-seen internal material from Disney. We won’t link to it, but included in that material is a sizable amount of stuff from the company’s TV animation slate across its Disney Channel and Disney XD networks that goes as far back as the mid-2000s. Gravity Falls, Owl House, you name it: if it’s got a sizable fanbase (and isn’t a Marvel cartoon), then it’s probably featured here in some fashion.
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Included in the leak were over 20 pilots, some of which were shows that’d been pitched, but ultimately never went anywhere. Similarly, there were also 40 show bibles—documents creators use to pitch their show, from the tone and characters to breakdowns for potential future seasons. Disney’s animated slate didn’t have quite the highs of Cartoon Network or even Nickelodeon, but what’s here may have you thinking about some shows you haven’t thought about in a while. (Case in point, they’ve got the bibles for Super Monkey Team HyperForce Go! and American Dragon: Jake Long in here, which may take you waaaaaaaay back.)
Setting aside how surprising it is that all this got leaked—and what’s more, whoever did it hasn’t stated why or who they are—what’s out there is admittedly interesting to go through. Fans of particular shows are going to get a lot out of those pilots and bibles, if only to see how these series evolved over time, particularly in terms of their art style. Even more interesting is to see what episodes these creators were pitching: in Gravity Falls’ case, most of these weren’t made, but you can see how parts of them—like Dipper getting into a golf war with Lil’ Gideon—were retooled into actual episodes.
For the creatively inclined, the show bibles are probably going to be the most worthwhile things to sift through. In reading through some of these, they’re quite extensive and can be a good guide to help you figure out how TV works, or even do a similar bible of your own for whatever you’re making. The Ducktales bible, for example, devotes multiple pages to each principle character’s interests, special skills, and core relationships with each other…along with how they’d react to a mummy.
Again, various websites and Twitters have gone through this stuff and put it out there for you to watch or read—and if you like any of these shows, or just animation in general, it’d be worth searching for. io9’s reached out to Disney for comment on the leak, and will update when a response is given.
Since it debuted back in 2021, Kyle Higgins and Marcelo Costa’s Radiant Blackhas become one of Image Comics’ biggest books. Now that it’s got an entire universe of its own full of equally colorful characters headling their own books, it’s just a question of what’s next for the series that started it all. The answer to that is to bring in new fans by taking it to a new format.
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During the C2E2 panel for the Massive-Verse, Higgins revealed the series’ first six issues are getting brought over to audiobook format. He’ll be writing and directing the first volume in what’s expected to be a series of adaptations from Image and Higgins’ Black Market Collective imprint. And here’s something fun for 90s heads: the two leads, Nathan Burnett and Marshall Ward, are being respectively voiced by Boy Meets World alums Rider Strong and Will Friedle.
Friedle previously voiced Marshall in a Radiant Black short film in 2022, and he was excited to come back to reprise the role another time. As for Strong, he said joining the audiobook was easy once he learned how focused on Nathan and Marshall’s journey it’d be. In the video, they’re both a tad competitive about which one of them is the real Radiant Black, which is just as well, since that conflict is still playing out across two timelines in the comics.
“We love finding new ways to connect with readers and audiences,” added Higgins, “especially in mediums that can help us bring a new level of immersion to Radiant Black and the Massive-Verse. As a director, a former sound editor, and an all-around huge audio nerd, the idea of building Radiant Black with a full voice cast and taking advantage of all the possibilities that an audio book affords has made this one of the most exciting projects that I’ve ever been a part of. And just wait until you see the rest of this cast!”
Black Market said to expect the Radiant Black: Volume One audiobook later this year. The rest of its reveals at C2E2, including a collection for the first dozen Radiant Black issues, can be seen here.
The original Happy Death Dayin 2017 was one of those “why hasn’t this done before?” horror movies, wherein college girl Tree (played by Jessica Rothe) got stuck in a time loop that always ended with her getting murdered. That first movie did really well, and its sequel Happy Death Day 2Ualso did pretty good! Over the past few years, it hasn’t been clear if a sequel would ever happen, but good news: it’s apparently still in the cards.
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While doing promo for her newest film Boy Kills World, Rothe revealed to ScreenGeek that director Christopher Landon “has the whole thing figured out. We just need to wait for Blumhouse and Universal to get their ducks in a row.” As far as she’s concerned, Tree “deserves her third and final chapter to bring that incredible character and franchise to a close or a new beginning. But my fingers are so crossed.”
Presumably, she’s referring to how busy the two studios have been and where it can fit on their schedules. Setting aside COVID and last year’s strikes, they’ve partnered on a lot of horror flicks in the last five years: some have been reimaginings of the Universal Monsters, others have been original movies or reboots of Universal’s horror stable. Most of them have done pretty well at the box office, and in some cases, have (or will lead) to franchises all their own. Separately, Blumhouse merged with James Wan’s Atomic Monster earlier this year, and now has its sights set on video games, while Universal’s focused on big flicks like Fall Guy, the How to Train Your Dragon remake, and now the Mariomovies.
Back in 2020, Landon revealed his planned title for the threequel was Happy Death Day to Us, though by that point, it was shelved. At that time, he teased the flm would be set on an entirely different day, which would help keep the presssure off doing the same exact thing a third time. With luck, it’ll get made and released fairly soon—if Now You See Me can come back with a third movie nearly a decade later, then so can this.
There are plenty of apps you can turn to to generate pictures using artificial intelligence. Still, Midjourney remains one of the best and one of the most popular options, having launched in beta form in July 2022.
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It’s not free to use: The price of admission starts at $10 a month or $96 a year, which gives you 3.3 hours of image generation time per month (images usually take around a minute to render). However, the quality of the end result may well tempt you into a subscription if you need a lot of AI art.
Assuming you’re ready to sign up (for a month at least), here’s how to get started with Midjourney—the commands you need to know, how to save and browse your images, and some of the capabilities of the generative AI tool.
Getting started
Midjourney works through Discord: You can join the Midjourney channel here, and you’ll need to sign up for a (free) Discord account if you don’t already have one. The next steps involve two bits of admin—agreeing to the Midjourney terms of service and signing up for one of the Midjourney subscription tiers. You’ll get a neat little table outlining the differences between each tier.
Midjourney does a decent job of explaining how everything works with all that out of the way. Unless you’re on one of the more expensive plans, you’ll be writing your prompts and getting your images through a channel that’s open to other users, so don’t be shy—it actually works well for getting inspiration from what other people are doing, and seeing what’s possible with the AI engine.
The on-boarding process is straightforward.Screenshot: Midjourney
To begin with, you’ll need to get involved in one of the #newbie channels, which are clearly linked on the left of the web interface. Click to jump to any one of them and see what’s happening—look at how different art styles are described to get different results, from “abstract expressive” to “hyper-realistic” and everything in between.
The other online location you need to know about is the official Midjourney website. While all of your image generation is done on Discord, this website is where you can find an archive of all the pictures you’ve made and browse through some of the other artwork that’s proving popular on the Midjourney network. From here you’re also able to read about updates to Midjourney.
Writing prompts
Head to a #newbie channel, type “/imagine” followed by a space, and you’re ready to start prompting. If you’ve never used an AI image generator before, describe what you want to see: You can be as creative as possible, putting any kind of person or object in any kind of setting and using any kind of artwork style.
As usual with generative AI tools, the more specific and precise you can be, the better. However, you can be vague if you want to (it’s just less likely you’ll get something close to what you were imagining). See a watercolor of an elephant in a boat, or a photo of an apple on a table, it’s up to you.
Type your prompts into one of the newbie channels.Screenshot: Midjourney
After a few moments of thinking, you’ll get four generated images based on your prompt—if you want Midjourney to try again, click the re-roll button (the blue-and-white circle of arrows). If you like one of the images more than the others, you can click one of the V1–V4 buttons to see four variations on it (the images are numbered from left to right and from top to bottom).
Click on any of the U1–U4 buttons to take a closer look. Here, you get access to some editing features: You’re able to create new variations on all or just part of the image, zoom out on the image (and have AI fill out the canvas), or extend the image in any direction using the four arrow buttons. Click on any image to see it in full-size mode, then right-click to save it somewhere else.
Going further
You can add a variety of parameters to your prompts, and there’s a full list here. They can be used to change an image’s aspect ratio, create images that will tile, or create more varied results, for example. So, if you need a wide rather than square picture, you might append “—aspect 16:9″ to the end of your prompt.
Also worth knowing about are the parameters “—cref” and “—sref”, both of which can be followed by a URL pointing at an image. Use the former (character reference) to show Midjourney a character you want to use in your pictures and the latter (style reference) to show Midjourney the style that you’d like your pictures to look like.
The Midjourney website collects all of your images.Screenshot: Midjourney
There are also a couple of other commands that you can use instead of “/imagine” on Discord. Use “/describe” to get Midjourney to return a text prompt based on an image you supply or “/blend” to have Midjourney combine up to five different images into something new. You can point to images on the web or upload them from your device.
Head to the Midjourney website to find all of your pictures and to download them whenever necessary—eventually, you’ll be able to generate images from here too, but the feature hasn’t been fully launched yet. You can use the filters on the right to sift through the artwork you’ve created, and it’s also possible to download multiple images at the same time or sort them into custom folders if required.
Fallout’s a pretty good show, and one of the big reasons why is the ever-reliable Walton Goggins. As the Ghoul—or Cooper Howard, once upon a time—he’s a menace to Lucy and everyone else throughout the season, while being enjoyable to watch both in the irradiated present and the pre-nuclear past. Creating him and others like him took some time, partially because they are and aren’t like anything else you’ve seen before on TV.
Will the Fallout TV Series Radiate the Tone of the Video Games?
Talking to Polygon, associate costume designer Amy Westcot explained how the costuming team concepted different “ghoulness” stages, of which there are “so many different degrees.” In the games, ghouls can exist as an average person with the right meds, otherwise they become Feral and attack basically anything that moves. They’re that world’s zombie equivalent, just in two different flavors where one is “kind of on their way out” and considerably deadlier. But watching ghouls go from normal to Feral isn’t a pleasant experience, one the show’s creators clearly wanted to make as clear as possible.
For the show, keeping the ghouls in a mostly human state was “super important,” particularly as it pertains to their humanity. Westcott revealed the costuming department worked hard with the textile team to make sure they looked right for their age while still garnering sympathy from the audience. “These were people once, and that was important to remember—even the Feral ghouls,” she noted. “They were supposed to be in rags, but…you get some remnant that they were a person once, and I think that we all empathize with them as well.”
In the case of the Ghoul, Westcott said that he couldn’t help but be the least grotesque of the bunch we see. Throughout the season, we see him guzzle down those aforementioned meds, which enable him to “still [have] his wits about him” and stand out from the other ghouls. He’s not fully one way or the other, but it was vital to have him seem like a regular (albeit irradiated) person while also “at a stage of ghoulness, [he just] couldn’t be Feral.” With a second season in the cards, it may be that he ends up sliding closer into Feral territory.
The first season of Fallout is fully available to watch over on Prime Video.
If you thought that Excel spreadsheets were just for mind-numbing office work, think again. A gaming hobbyist has created an Excel-based RPG game that he based on the popular post-apocalyptic game Fallout. It’s the end of the world, all over again.
Will the Fallout TV Series Radiate the Tone of the Video Games?
How do you turn spreadsheet software into a video game? Don’t ask me because I have less than zero idea. That said, the game’s creator, YouTuber “Dynamic Pear,” has offered a quick tutorial on how to use his weird, makeshift game that was developed via everybody’s least favorite office software.
On his website, “Pear” gives a brief description of the game’s story like so:
It is the 145th year of the second age. Life in Mercer is unrecognisable to that which came earlier – The bombs saw to that. Humanity may never fully recover…Adventure beckons once more, and you are ready to answer its call!
The YouTuber explains that his game has two components: “Mapping and Questing” and “Battling.” You can move through the various areas of the bombed-out RPG environment…
Screenshot: YouTube/Dynamic Pear
…or you can duel with the various characters you encounter along the way.
Screenshot: YouTube/Dynamic Pear
The website also offers more details about the various quirks of the gameplay and includes a link where you can download the game.
The inspiration behind this creation, Fallout, is a popular post-apocalyptic video game that takes place after a nuclear war. The first version of it was originally released in 1997 and was playable on Mac, Windows, and MS-DOS. It was originally spawned by a previous 1988 game, dubbed Wasteland. Since then, there have been four sequels and a number of spinoffs. But the big reason we’re seeing this now is that the Amazon Prime Video TV series based on the games has exploded in popularity and inspired people to head back to the experiences that started it all. In this case, someone made a new experience just for you.
Anyway, if you’re looking to make your workday slightly more interesting and you don’t have access to the Eggman Game, my suggestion would be to check out Dynamic Pear’s interesting creation. It’s probably the most fun you’ll ever have with spreadsheets.
The ultimate Star Wars selfie, Lego-style.Screenshot: Lego
Nowhere in Star Wars will old Han Solo meet young Han Solo. Yoda is not likely to ever meet Grogu. Princess Leia won’t cross paths with General Leia. Some things are just not going to happen. Unless, well, it’s Lego, where any and everything is possible.
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This year marks the 25th anniversary of Lego making Star Wars sets and the result has already been excellent. Set after set has already been released immortalizing some of our favorite moments and ships from the Star Wars galaxy. Today though, Lego Star Wars has also released a delightful video showing characters from across the full Star Wars saga—we’re talking High Republic, original trilogy, sequel trilogy, prequel trilogy, Disney+, Rebels, video games, and more—into one massive celebration. It’s sure to bring a smile to your face.
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Obviously, that’s just for fun but it got us thinking about one team-up in particular. Cal Kestis could, hypothetically, meet Cassian Andor right? He’s already met Saw Gerrera who is in this clip with the two of them. That would be pretty awesome, right?
Besides that, I think what I love most about this video are the transitions. They’re so imaginative and energetic. Certainly made with an abundance of care and love for the series.
To grab yourself a little Star Wars Lego action, head here.
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During Pixar Fest at the Disneyland Resort, the Turning Red crew have brought 4*Town into the spotlight for show-stopping moments that will get you on your feet. First, during the day, you can catch them featured on their own float in the Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration parade at Disney’s California Adventure. We get to finally see red panda Mei she performs “Nobody Like You” with 4*Town and her best friends—even Mei’s dad in the cardboard red panda costume gets in on the action. It’s exciting to see Disney lean into its own boy band fandom. Take a look below to see the Turning Red parade float in action!
Then at night, Turning Red is featured twice during Together Forever: A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular. The first segment features Mei’s introduction with friends and her red panda transformation practice set to fireworks; it’s so cool to see a kaiju-sized panda Mei on the Sleeping Beauty castle and a welcome addition to the show.
“Together Forever is a story about meeting new friends. It’s about taking those friends and setting out on adventures. And it’s about overcoming adversity together,” shared KC Wilkerson, the principal media designer for Disney Live Entertainment at the Disneyland Resort and show director for the return of Together Forever. He noted that Turning Red’s story was perfect for the parade’s theme and wraps it all up in the film’s second appearance in the show. “We’ve also changed what we call the walk-out of the show—we changed the song so we get to enjoy an instrumental version of ‘Nobody Like You’ from Turning Red,” Wilkerson said. And it’s such a sweet moment to close out on.
Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has a lot to smile about. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images (Getty Images)
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) killed net neutralityback in 2017 under former president Donald Trump, but on Thursday, it brought it back from the dead.
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Net neutrality—the principle that internet providers should treat all traffic equally and not throttle or block certain traffic for whatever reasons—is once again in effect after the FCC voted 3-2 in favor of its return. This reinstates the policies first established in 2015 that regulate telecom companies and prohibit the blocking or throttling of certain, lawful content.
Along with preventing internet providers from throttling or blocking traffic, the FCC also added language to stop the companies from prioritizing certain traffic. Thanks to 5G technology, telecom companies can do what’s called network slicing, which can create multiple virtual subnetworks and prioritize certain 5G customers over others depending on whether they paid for a premium subscription to the provider. The rules back in 2015 didn’t put a focus on this concept since 5G wasn’t around back then like it is today.
The FCC will also be able to stop foreign-owned entities that may pose a threat to national security from operating broadband networks. And if networks go down preventing workers, businesses, or even students from doing their work, the commission can get involved.
As expected, internet providers are not going to take this lying down and will pursue the options available to them to stop net neutrality from happening.
“This is a nonissue for broadband consumers, who have enjoyed an open internet for decades,” Jonathan Spalter, the president of a broadband lobbying group, USTelecom, told the New York Times Thursday.
Try putting pure joy into words. The English language has plenty of worthy adjectives and beautiful metaphors but nothing quite comes close to actually, perfectly capturing what it feels like to be completely filled with happiness. To reverberate with delight. To float on cloud nine. No, to adequately capture that feeling, you need more than just words. You need pictures, you need sounds, you need story. You need… Amélie.
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Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the 2001 fantasy romance recently got a limited edition Blu-ray steelbook release, and it felt like the perfect opportunity to revisit a film that has long been one of my personal favorites. I saw Amélie in theaters when it was first released and instantly became obsessed. It had, and still has, an energy, attitude, and voice all its own. In the years that followed, I watched it often.
But, it’s been a lot of years since then and to be honest, I hadn’t seen it again in a while. During that time, the world has changed. I’ve changed. And when I popped in Amélie this week it hit me in ways I never imagined. From the very first moments, where the film starts to talk about random acts of beauty happening simultaneously all over France, a rush of emotions began flooding through me. Could it have been the second glass of wine I was enjoying? For sure. And yet from the first frame of Amélie you know you’re in for something special. Something that, if you’ve already experienced it, is almost more exciting because you know what you’re in for: a cinematic roller coaster ride of laughs, love, and elation.
Image: Miramax
For anyone who maybe hasn’t seen the film, Amélie follows the life of an introverted woman (played with a contagious, infectious sweetness by Audrey Tautou) who finds purpose by helping others via random acts of kindness. Amélie’sactions make everyone around her happy, but she’s still sad, so she tries to employ the same tactics on her crush, a man named Nico played by Mathieu Kassovitz.
Amélie is so much more than just that plot though. It’s a celebration of life. A reminder that the good you put in the world can and will come back to you. As Amélie moves through Jeunet’s vibrant, lush Paris, you can’t help but smile the entire time. The film is hilarious, sweet, heartbreaking, and reaffirming, often all at once. Every single character is completely relatable but wholly unique and specific. Each line of dialogue or piece of information seems random but also totally accurate and purposeful. Then, on top of all that, Jeunet weaves in moments of fantasy enriching the world even further. Paintings move, bedside figures speak, and people melt into the floor, all adding a level of wonder to the already stunning world. You simply can’t watch Amélie and not feel fantastic. It captures so many hyper-specific but ultra-relatable slices of life while also building a world full of magic and wonder.
Image: Miramax
Those feelings coursed through me for the entire rewatched. I grinned, I laughed, I often wiped away tears as moments I love and quoted growing up flickered by. Then, in the end, when Jeunet really amps things up, I became a blubbering mess. Most of that was because the movie does such a fantastic job of making you love everyone and everything happening on screen in ways 99% of other movies would never dream of. But a small part was also just a reflection of the world today compared to almost 25 years ago. Things are always messed up. People are always sad. But watching a movie this happy, this positive, this obsessed with the beauty of life made me think about the good things in my life more than I usually do, and that was a gift.
Life is hard, but it can be quite beautiful too. And that’s especially the case if you use some of it to watch Amélie. It’s a perfect movie. A celebration of all that’s possible and good in the world told in a way you’ve never seen before and may never see again. I loved it before but, rewatching it again, I love it more than I even remembered.
When we first met General Grievous 20 years ago this month in Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars microseries, it gave him an immediate, chilling presence. But then Revenge of the Sith, and with it the Clone Wars 3DCG series, constrained what could be done with the character. Grievous took on the air of a Saturday morning cartoon villain—twirling lightsabers rather than mustaches. Tales of the Empire is keeping the twirling lightsabers, but it might just bring back a little of that original menace, too.
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Today Lucasfilm released the first clip from the upcoming anthology series Tales of the Empire—its spiritual successor to Tales of the Jedi, this time focusing on stories of the Dark Side, including the life of Morgan Elsbeth before she joined Thrawn’s service, and whatever happened to Barriss Offee after her radicalization against the Jedi’s role in the Clone War. Leaning on the Morgan side of things, the clip sees Tales’ own riff on a particular moment from the 3D Clone Wars series—the season four episode, “Massacre,” when as part of an act of vengeance by Count Dooku, Grievous and an army of Battle Droids launch a devastating assault on Dathomir to try and wipe out Asajj Ventress and her Nightsister comrades.
Tales of the Empire | ‘Stay Back’ Official Clip
The clip is brief, but very fun—if Star Wars is to insist on returning to stories of Clone Wars as it so often is these days, at the very least being able to do so in animation, with the lessons and experiences learned since it came to an end in place, is nice. Getting to see this moment first glimpsed 12 years ago with modern visuals and style is great! But it’s also because, given free reign to act here as the catalyst for Morgan’s traumatic past, Grievous just gets to be unleashed as pure, sinister id.
Going up against Obi-Wan or other Jedi in Clone Wars—never Anakin, of course, because the two were not allowed to actually meet until Revenge of the Sith—Grievous was most often doomed to be a bit of a jobber. He had his moments here and there, sure (the early season one episode “Lair of Grievous” is always worth shouting out), but in Clone Wars Grievous was usually far from the charismatically petrifying agent of death he was when he first stomped into animated canon in the 2D series. It might only be for a brief while, but at least Tales of the Empire looks like it’s bringing at least a little bit of that edge back.
Tales of the Empire begins streaming on Disney+ May 4.
The U.S. Senate passed the TikTok bill on Tuesday evening in a vote of 79-18. The bill, which bans TikTok unless Bytedance sells it to a U.S. owner, flew through Congress this week as part of a broader package to provide $90 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. President Joe Biden said in a statement following the Senate vote that he would sign the package as soon as Wednesday, clearing the last hurdle before the TikTok divest-or-ban bill becomes law.
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“We’ve learned in recent years that democracy is a fragile and precious thing,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor Tuesday. “It will not survive the threats of this century – the new threats – if we aren’t willing to do what it takes to defend it.”
TikTok is prepared to wage a legal battle against the U.S. government over the so-called ban, Bloomberg reported on Sunday. The social media company claims the so-called TikTok ban is “a clear violation” of the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s 170 million American users. A court case of this kind is unprecedented and could go up to the Supreme Court.
TikTok did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
The “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” also known as the TikTok bill, grants the White House new privileges to crack down on apps it determines to be a national security threat. The bill gives U.S. presidents the power to label apps as “foreign adversary-controlled applications” and force them to be sold to a U.S. owner within 270 days, though Biden can extend this to 360 days (a previous version only provided 180 days). If no sale occurs, the apps will be banned from app stores and blocked by internet service providers in the United States.
TikTok has long denied that it shares any data with the Chinese government. However, Senators received classified briefings on TikTok from national security officials in March, which reportedly revealed the app’s “shocking” spy capabilities. Senators told Axios that TikTok could be used to tap the microphone on users’ devices, and even determine what users are doing on other apps. That said, none of this evidence has been made public
A previous version of this bill swiftly passed through the House in March but stalled in the Senate for more than a month. By tying the TikTok bill to a crucial foreign aid package, lawmakers were able to nearly ensure it would be taken up by the Senate.
One concern tech lawyers have raised about the TikTok bill is that it could ban apps other than TikTok. The bill features vague definitions of what constitutes “foreign adversary-controlled applications,” and gives the president a near unchecked power to make such a categorization.
As President Biden seems poised to sign the TikTok bill into law, former President Donald Trump has flipped his stance on the social media app. Trump now supports TikTok’s existence, posting on Truth Social Monday that “Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok.” Trump was the first to attempt a TikTok ban in 2020 when he signed an executive order that was later rejected by a federal court.
Trump’s reversal, which seems contradictory, is likely to curry favor with younger voters. Despite the overwhelming support in Congress, a U.S. TikTok ban is not popular with voters. Just 38% of U.S. adults say they would support a TikTok ban, according to the Pew Research Center. If Biden signs the TikTok bill, he’ll appear strong against China, but could potentially lose important swing voters.
TikTok says this bill would “trample” free speech in America, an increasingly popular claim among social media apps. Elon Musk’s X and Trump’s Truth Social make similar First Amendment arguments for their app’s controversial content. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is going in the other direction. Facebook, Threads, and Instagram how vowed not to prioritize news on their social media sites, making duller apps in exchange for less controversy.
TikTok has fought tooth and nail to avoid a U.S. ban under Bytedance’s ownership. The app sent push notifications to millions of American users asking them to call their local congress member. Lawmakers’ offices were flooded with phone calls later that day. TikTok and Bytedance also reportedly spent over $7 million lobbying in Congress this year to fight the potential ban. Those attempts were unsuccessful, so now TikTok is poised to take this battle to court.
It’s not only food CEOs who need to worry about their bottom lines thanks to in-demand weight loss drugs like Ozempic. Big Tobacco and Alcohol have reason to fret, too.
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A new report from Morgan Stanley finds that people using GLP-1 drugs — among them Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound — reduce their consumption of tobacco and alcohol while taking the medications. GLP-1s are a class of diabetes and weight loss drugs that have recently caught fire (and blown up sales numbers) for their ability to suppress a user’s appetite.
The investment bank also surveyed about 300 GLP-1 users about their consumption habits while taking the medication. Analysts at the bank have previously cautioned that the growing use of GLP-1s will put some longterm pressure on fast food sales, as users have reported spending less money at restaurants. But their survey also finds that users are reducing their intake of tobacco and alcohol.
Could weight loss drugs help users smoke or drink less?
While 40% of survey respondents said they smoked cigarettes at least weekly before starting a GLP-1 treatment, thatnumber fell to 24% after they started the treatment. Meanwhile, weekly e-cigarette usage dropped from 30% of respondents to 16% after they started taking a GLP-1.
Morgan Stanley found similar results when it asked respondents about their use of alcohol. About 56-62% of alcohol consumers on GLP-1s reported drinking less alcoholsince starting the medications, with about 14-18% cutting their alcohol consumption entirely.
The analysts noted they were “cautious about drawing conclusions” from their survey about the impact of GLP-1 drugs on addictive behaviors. But there has been anecdotal evidence from patients and health care providers that suggests GLP-1s can help users curb their addictions to alcohol and tobacco. While research hasn’t yet proven a causal link between the two, clinical trials are currentlyunderway to better understand the effects of GLP-1’s on alcohol and tobacco consumption.
In addition, Morgan Stanley anticipates the GLP-1 frenzy isn’t slowing anytime soon. global market for GLP-1 drugs will reach $105 billion by 2030. It also projects these drugs will be adopted by about 31.5 million people in the U.S. (or about 9% of the nation’s population) by 2035.
Suleyman said the industry needs to find the right analogies for AI’s future potential as a way to “prioritize safety” and “to ensure that this new wave always serves and amplifies humanity.” While the AI community has always referred to AI technology as “tools,” Suleyman said the term doesn’t capture its capabilities.
“To contain this wave, to put human agency at its center, and to mitigate the inevitable unintended consequences that are likely to arise, we should start to think about them as we might a new kind of digital species,” Suleyman said.
He also said he sees a future where “everything”—from people to businesses to the government—will be represented by an interactive persona, or “personal AI” that is “infinitely knowledgable,” “factually accurate, and reliable.”
“If AI delivers just a fraction of its potential” in finding solutions to problems in everything from healthcare to education to climate change, “the next decade is going to be the most productive in human history,” Suleyman said.
When asked what keeps him up at night, Suleyman said the AI industry faces a risk of falling into the “pessimism aversion trap,” when it should actually “have the courage to confront the potential of dark scenarios” to get the most out of AI’s potential benefits.
“The good news is that if you look at the last two or three years, there have been very, very few downsides,” Suleyman said. “It’s very hard to say explicitly what harm an LLM has caused. But that doesn’t mean that that’s what the trajectory is going to be over the next ten years.”
While Suleyman said he sees five to 10 years before humans have to confront the dangers of autonomous AI models, he believes those potential dangers should be talked about now.
If viewers felt that after the 28-minuteBluey finale “The Sign”—and its unannounced season three coda episode “Surprise,” which dropped on Disney+ last night—that there was a sense of finality to the beloved animated series, it was in a way intentional.
Some fans feared that when the “For Sale” sign went up at the Heeler home at the end of season three—or because the last moments of “Surprise” (small spoiler alert here) jumped into the future with a grown-up Bluey and her kid showing up at her parents’ home—that it could mean the Heelers were going away.
Don’t stress too much: the show will return in some form, but that’s still to be determined by the creatives at Ludo Studio, whose small indie animated show blew up as a pop culture phenomenon that proves that animation is made for everyone. In an interview with the BBC, Bluey producer Sam Moor declared, “No, it is not the end for Bluey. I’m sure we have many more surprises in store for you.” The team is taking a break after creating about 151 seven-minute episodes and the 28-minute “The Sign,” but “We have more in store and we are thinking what would be next.”
The interview also mentioned that fellow producer Daley Pearson has said it would be a “dream” for the team to tackle a feature-length film about Bluey and her family if Ludo’s risk-taking 28 minute episode paid off—and it has. Bloomberg cites a report from market research firm Circana that Bluey accounts for 29 percent of TV views on Disney+. The release of “The Sign” extended episode boasted 10.4 million views on the platform, making it “both the most-viewed Bluey episode premiere and the most-viewed Disney Junior episode premiere ever,” based on a release sent out by Disney.
This is all the more remarkable because Bluey is not even a Marvel, Star Wars, or Disney property; Disney just distributes the Ludo Studio show, which is backed by BBC Studios for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Bluey merchandise has exploded at retailers like CAMP, which did an incredible immersive activation where fans could also meet Bluey and Bingo, as well as FAO Schwarz, which just released a new collaboration. It’s truly a wonder that neither Disney Stores or Disney Parks have gotten in on that action—but hey we like the little guy sorta holding this power. And we can’t wait to see where they wield it next. More seasons and that movie, please!
Ground was broken today on what is said to be America’s first high-speed rail. The project, which is designed to connect Los Angeles and Las Vegas via a 218-mile stretch of track that will be built across the Mojave desert, will be completed within the next four years, its backers say.
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The proposed infrastructure project will stretch from the California city of Rancho Cucamonga to Vegas and is being headed by rail construction firm Brightline. In its description of the project, the company notes that the new route will be traveled by “all-electric, zero-emission trains” that will be capable of “reaching top speeds of 200 mph, getting passengers from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in about 2 hours and 10 minutes (2x faster than the normal drive time).” The project was helped along by $3 billion in federal funding supplied by the Biden administration, the Associated Press writes.
In a press release from Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the government said the project would “remove an estimated 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, bolster tourism, and create 35,000 good-paying jobs.”
“As the first true high-speed rail system in America, Brightline West will serve as the blueprint for connecting cities with fast, eco-friendly passenger rail throughout the country,” Brightline’s Founder and Chairman Wes Edens, previously said. “Connecting Las Vegas and Southern California will provide wide-spread public benefits to both states, creating thousands of jobs and jumpstarting a new level of economic competitiveness for the region. We appreciate the confidence placed in us by DOT and are ready to get to work.”
The AP also notes that Brightline already operates a railway system between Miami and Orlando in Florida. Gizmodo reached out to the company for details about its new project and will update this story if it responds.
Many countries around the world have modernized their rail systems. Much of Europe is connected by a bevy of efficient and comfortable train systems, while Japan’s bullet trains have long been a source of pride for the country. China is said to have the fastest trains in the world and it has built up a highly effective high-speed rail network in a period of just twenty years. The U.S., meanwhile, has largely failed to develop any sort of modernized rail travel, despite decades of talk about the benefits that such systems could bring to Americans.
One can only hope that this new effort won’t suffer the same fate as California’s long-suffering attempt to erect a high-speed rail service between Los Angeles and San Francisco. That project, which was originally approved by state voters in 2008, has—as of this year—completed less than a quarter of the proposed rail line and is currently missing billions of dollars in funding. In March, project leaders told California lawmakers that the full rail line that had originally been envisioned would need another $100 billion and years to complete.
Even before its casting was officially unveiled, Marvel Studios’ upcoming Fantastic Four movie was always poised to be a big deal. The First Family of Marvel Comics hasn’t had a movie since Fant4sticnearly a decade ago (despite Fox’s best attempts), and we’re also coming up on 20 years since the studios’ previous go with the 2000s movies. Those two films have an interesting place in the superhero movie canon, particularly since their Johnny Storm was Chris Evans, who went on to become Captain America for nearly a decade.
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Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Joseph Quinn was asked about if any previous version of Johnny colored his approach to the character. While he was a fan of Evans’ portrayal back in the day, he’s chiefly concerned with “making it your own [version].” There’s “big boots to fill,” certainly, but he says discussions with director Matt Shakman made clear that this movie won’t be in conversation with earlier versions like the MCU Spider-Man movies are with their cinematic past. “There are aspects of it that are very much a singular thing and its own thing. […] I’m really looking forward to establishing this familial dynamic with [my costars] and with Matt Shakman’s guidance.”
From the stars to Shakman and writers Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer, and Eric Pearson, everyone involved wants to “get [Fantastic Four] right,” continued Quinn. According to him, this new movie will feel different from earlier Marvel movies in ways he clearly can’t explain. But he was hopeful that the end result will be a movie that both does right by the Four and also converts anyone who’s had understandable burnout on superhero movies in the last few years.
In regards to fatigue, Quinn noted that superhero movies have to put the people before the punches and bombast, nothing it’s why people see these in the first place. That’s something Fantastic Four is aiming to deliver on, and something that sounds like the core ethos of the entire film: “We’re not just in a penny, “ he said, “we’re in for a pound with this one. We’re going to go for it.”
The Fantastic Four comes to theaters on July 25, 2025, but Quinn can be seen next in A Quiet Place: Day Oneon June 7.
There are a lot of superheroes running around the DC universe at any given time, and it often causes some headaches for its villains. If you’re a bad guy in that universe, how do you tackle that problem in 2024? With some evil super-robots.
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In DC’s big summer event Absolute Power (from the World’s Finest team of Mark Waid and Dan Mora, Amanda Waller takes center stage its big central villain. After forming a Trinity of Evil with the Brainiac Queen and Zur-En-Arrh (a split Batman personality inside an android named Failsafe), Waller finds a way to take powers from the Justice League and other metahumans to pass on to their Amazo androids. And in looking to get their powers back, Batman leads the now-depowered Leaguers in a resistance movement where they’ve all got some spiffy new threads, which you can see below.
Image: Dan Mora/DC Comics
While Waid and Mora tackle the main four-part story, there’ll be the standard deluge of event tie-ins, including the Absolute Power: Task Force VII miniseries focusing on the souped-up Amazos as they go hunting for superpowers. Foro the first three issues releasing in July, Leah Williams and Caitlin Yarsky kick things off with Last Son, who goes after the Shazam family; Depth Charge targets Aquaman’s entourage in John Layman and Max Raynor’s one-shot; and Jeremy Adams and Marco Santucci spin a tale of Jadestone pursuing the JSA. Finally, Waller gets her own origin story in a three-part miniseries from John Ridley and Alitha Martinez that digs into her longstanding beef with metahumans.
Absolute Power will begin with a Ground Zero recap issue on June 25—from writers Waid, Nicole Maines, Joshua Williamson and Chip Zdarsky, and art by Gleb Melnikov, V. Ken Marion, and Skylar Patridge—followed by its first issue on July 3.
Years ago, Andy Weir’s sci-fi novel Project Hail Marywas being optioned as a film with Ryan Gosling in the lead role. After years of no significant news on the project, Amazon MGM’s ready to bring the adaptation to theaters, and it’s even locked down a release date: March 20, 2026.
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No other major films—if any movies, period—have that called dibs on that day, according to Deadline. At time of writing, a start date for production hasn’t been locked down; last year, cameras would reportedly start rolling in early 2024 over in the UK, but that was before the Hollywood strikes came along and threw any plans out of whack as it has with other productions. What hasn’t changed, though, is the talent behind the camera: the movie’s still to be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and like The Martian in 2015, be working off a screenplay written by Drew Goddard.
Project Hail Mary released in 2021 as the technically fourth (and most recent) novel in Weir’s career. Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a school teacher-turned-astronaut who wakes up from a coma riddled with amnesia and aboard the titular space station. Eventually, he starts to put his memories back together, where he realizes he was sent to the Tau Ceti solar system to reverse a solar dimming event that could wipe out humanity. Like The Martian, it received pretty good reviews, and became a finalist at the 2022 Hugo Awards’ Best Novel category.
Back when it released in 2020, we thought Hail Mary was a pretty solid read, especially for those who got onboard with Weir through The Martian. In some ways, it’s doing the same things as that book on a bigger scale, but it was also just as engrossing as Martian, so can you really be mad at it? Count as curious to see what comes of the film on March 20, 2026. If you haven’t read it yet, it might not hurt to do so ahead of time, even if it’s just to beat the rush at bookstores and libraries.
