The new Venice, Calif.-based ad shop that Rupert Samuel, former director of integrated production at Crispin Porter+Bogusky, is partnered in (with fellow CP+B alumni Tom Adams, Paul Keister, Bob Cianfrone and Brian Rekasis) is called Goodness Manufacturing. And the Goodness moniker is most apropos in describing another Samuel endeavor, this one slated for Sunday, Oct. 7, when he, his brother Rowley Samuel, director of creative integration at DDB Chicago, and friend Andy Kenny will be running in the 30th annual Chicago Marathon to help raise not only awareness of congenital toxoplasmosis but also money for The Toxoplasmosis Center in Chicago.
The cause hits close to home for Rupert and Rowley Samuel in that the latter’s son, Fin, was born this past January with congenital toxoplasmosis and has consequently been challenged with a brain injury, affecting his development and resulting in seizures. Fin also has visual impairment, Hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and in his first six months has undergone two operations performed by a neurosurgeon.
Still Fin manages to shine through this adversity–and now there’s a way to help many of those stricken with this illness.
In that the disease is rare, funding is hard to come by. Government resources, for example, are most often targeted at more common illnesses such as heart disease and cancer. The Toxoplasmosis Center has thus found it difficult to gain necessary funding and has looked to other avenues to support its pioneering research into preventing and treating this disease that is triggered by a parasite infection during pregnancy.
To continue the good work of The Toxoplasmosis Center, your help is needed. To sponsor the aforementioned trio of marathon runners, log onto www.active.com/donate/toxoplasmosis.
The Toxoplasmosis Center provides care and treatment to patients from all over the world. It is one of the only centers that offers comprehensive, lifelong care to people of all ages stricken with congenital toxoplasmosis and other Toxoplasma gondii parasite infections. The Toxoplasmosis Center has been working with some of the same patients for more than 25 years.
All donations based on sponsorship of the Chicago Marathon runners will be paid into the Finley John Gubbins Samuel Special Needs Trust Fund from which all money raised will be given to The Toxoplasmosis Center.
While coping with the illness is an ordeal for patients and their families, an e-mail from Rowley Samuel to help drum up Marathon run sponsors reminds us that human triumph is still possible under the most trying circumstances.
The opening sentences of the e-mail, in which Rowley Samuel refers to his wife Gemma, sum up the family’s strength, its state of mind, heart and spirit. It reads, “I said to Gemma the other day that the last year has been by far the hardest year in my entire life but at the same time the most amazing one. Hard because of all the troubles we have had to see little Fin deal with, amazing because of how he has dealt with them and what we now have as a family.”
“Mufasa: The Lion King” and “Sonic 3” Rule Box Office For 1st Weekend Of 2025
The Walt Disney Co.'s "Mufasa: The Lion King" claimed the No. 1 spot on the North American box office charts over the first weekend of 2025.
The photorealistic "Lion King" prequel earned $23.8 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Paramount's "Sonic the Hedgehog 3," which has dominated the past two weekends, wasn't far behind.
"Sonic 3" stayed close with a 3-day estimate of $21.2 million, bringing its total domestic earnings to $187.5 million and helping the overall franchise cross $1 billion worldwide. "Mufasa's" running total is slightly less, with $169.2 million.
In third place, Focus Features' "Nosferatu" remake defied the fate of so many of its genre predecessors and fell only 39% in its second weekend. Horror films typically fall sharply after the first weekend and anything less than a 50% decline is notable. "Nosferatu," which added 140 screens, claimed $13.2 million in ticket sales, bringing its running total to $69.4 million since its Christmas debut. The film, directed by Robert Eggers, already surpassed its reported production budget of $50 million, though that figure does not account for marketing and promotion expenses).
No new wide releases opened this weekend, leaving the box office top 10 once again to holdovers from previous weeks. Several have been in theaters since Thanksgiving. One of those, "Moana 2," claimed the No. 4 spot for Disney in its sixth weekend in theaters. The animated sequel earned another $12.4 million, bumping its global total to $960.5 million.
The Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," dipped only slightly in its second weekend, bringing in $8.1 million. With $41.7 million total, it's Searchlight's highest grossing film since Disney acquired the company in... Read More