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    Amazon Embraces CinemaCon, Previews Todd Hayne’s “Wonderstruck”

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments3324 Views
    Charlie Hunnam, right, a cast member in the upcoming film "The Lost City of Z," interacts onstage with Bob Berney, head of marketing and distribution for Amazon Studios, during the Amazon Studios presentation at CinemaCon 2017 at Caesars Palace on Thursday, March 30, 2017, in Las Vegas. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

    By Lindsey Bahr, Film Writer

    LAS VEGAS (AP) --

    Amazon Studios might have a streaming component, but executives say the company is fully committed to the theatrical experience.

    The young studio in its second year at CinemaCon, an annual gathering of theater owners and exhibitors, reiterated its commitment to preserving the theatrical window Thursday and previewed its upcoming slate of releases. Amazon's streaming and original content competitor, Netflix, did not present at CinemaCon.

    "Our customers love great movies and great movies play in theaters," said Amazon executive Jason Ropell. "We really believe in the theatrical experience by fully supporting the theatrical window for our releases."

    Last year at CinemaCon, Amazon was a new studio, timidly dipping its toes into the waters alongside the biggest studios in Hollywood. This year, it came back with swagger and a story, boasting Oscar wins for "Manchester by the Sea" and "The Salesman."

    One of its most highly anticipated is Todd Haynes' "Wonderstruck," a fanciful coming of age drama set in 1927 and 1977 and starring Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams and "Pete's Dragon's" Oakes Fegley. The film is set for release sometime this year.

    Amazon plans at least 15 releases again this year, concentrating on filmmaker-driven projects like Richard Linklater's "Last Flag Flying" about Vietnam vets played by Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell and Laurence Fishburne who reunite years later around a death.

    The studio also showed a preview of the Mike White-directed "Brad's Status" starring Ben Stiller in a dramatic turn and the John Cena war pic "The Wall" from "Edge of Tomorrow" director Doug Liman.

    Its next release is "Lost City of Z" on April 14 from lyrical filmmaker James Gray. Starring Charlie Hunnam, "Lost City of Z" is a spiritual adventure film about an explorer obsessed with a city he discovered on an expedition.

    Hunnam was on site to talk about the arduous jungle shoot and the beetle that crawled into his ear one night during production. The actor also passed out candy to the audience in crowded ballroom at Caesar's Palace along with Kumail Nanjiani, whose rom-com "The Big Sick" launches on June 23.

    Amazon's marketing head Bob Berney also announced that Terry Gilliam's long-time-coming "Don Quixote" is currently in production with Adam Driver.

    Category:News
    Tags:Amazon StudiosCinemaConTodd HaynesWonderstruck



    Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky

    Sunday, December 22, 2024

    Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.

    The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.

    But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.

    The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.

    Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.

    "They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More

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