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Battle of the Sequel: A Review of Gladiator 2

Gladiator 2 (2024) was one of the most highly-anticipated films to come out of 2024 and an unexpected sequel to Gladiator (2000), one of the most iconic and praised films of all time. The film earned twelve Oscar nominations and five wins, with Russell Crowe receiving an Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ for his portrayal of Maximus. When Ridley Scott controversially announced that he would be making Gladiator 2, many Gladiator fans felt faithless in Scott’s ability to re-capture the magic of the first film and I think their doubts were proven to be right. Ridley Scott is the director behind many classic films such as Alien (1979), Thelma and Louise (1991) and of course Gladiator (2000). Yet, over recent years his latest projects notably seem to be diminishing in quality. From House of Cards (2021) to his most recent film Napoleon (2023), which have both been box-office failures and flops in the eyes of both critics and fans, it seems to be a downward spiral for now 86-year old Scott’s filmograph...
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The NBA’s Jontay Porter scandal reveals just how bad it can—and will—get as gambling dollars flood into sports

In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a decades-old federal ban on sports betting, at last empowering state lawmakers to decide how free their constituents should be to wager their life savings on Jalen Hurts’s first-half rushing total. On the day of the decision, Tulane Law School professor Gabriel Feldman predicted a wave of “gamblization” that would render the American sports landscape unrecognizable. “Fans will become much more focused on gambling than following a team,” he told the New York Times. “It will make every second of every game of every week interesting to fans as it will give everyone something to root for.” If anything, Feldman’s prognosis was too cautious. Today, betting has become so integral to the fan experience that it’s hard to remember what it was like before, when the industry’s most significant incursion in mainstream sports programming was the occasional cryptic quip about the spread from Al Michaels in the waning moments of Sunday Night Football. Pregame sh...
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South Carolina coach Dawn Staley says ready for any potential blowback caused by her comments

Transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley said ahead of her team’s NCAA Tournament championship game. Staley made the comments during a news conference Saturday when asked by OutKick reporter Dan Zaksheske whether she believes “biological males” should be “included” in women’s sports. “I’m on the opinion of if you’re a woman you should play,” Staley said. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.” Staley was speaking to reporters ahead of South Carolina’s championship matchup against Iowa on Sunday. Iowa coach Lisa Bluder declined to answer the same question later on. “I understand it’s a topic that people are interested in, but today my focus is on the game tomorrow, my players,” Bluder said. “It’s an important game we have tomorrow and that’s what I want to be here to talk about, but I know it’s an important issue for anothe...
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In ‘The Disappearance of Shere Hite,’ a canceled sex researcher is reclaimed

It shouldn’t be surprising by now that history is full of groundbreaking women whose accomplishments are overlooked and whose names get buried. Sex researcher Shere Hite’s near-Stalinist erasure from popular consciousness after writing an all-time-bestselling barnburner of feminist self-actualization — 1976’s “The Hite Report on Female Sexuality” — is the mystery that undergirds documentary filmmaker Nicole Newnham’s evocative, thrilling work of cold-case portraiture, “The Disappearance of Shere Hite.” The Missouri-born Hite had been a social-history graduate student at Columbia, chafing at the school’s dismissal of her interest in sexuality, when her activism in the burgeoning Second Wave feminist movement led her to start a project centered on women’s sexual experiences. Charting and analyzing thousands of open-ended questionnaires submitted anonymously by women of all stripes, she shocked an unsuspecting public by revealing in “The Hite Report” that women didn’t need men to achieve ...
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The 2024 Oscars BuzzMeter is here to trumpet the contenders that will be and the ones that should be

They’re back again, those Buzz people, and here to flag what will — and argue passionately for what should be — in the Oscar conversation. It’s the first round of the BuzzMeter, which we think of as an awards season viewing guide. Each round, our panel of six veteran film journalists ranks picks in each of 10 Oscar categories, using a points system (most points for top choice) that yields a fair picture of what their roiling, wrestling group mind believes are the best bets. In Round 2, they’ll predict the actual Oscar nominees. In Round 3, they’ll predict the winners. Think you can do better? Fill out your own slate in our online polls each week for each featured category. This week, we officially kick off awards season (now that the strikes are thankfully over!) with The Big One: Best picture. The Buzz Gang’s first pass at the best-picture race mixes personal picks and perceived slam dunks by acclamation, this summer’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon among them. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenhe...
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It’s a very diva Christmas: Mariah Carey brings sass, snow and holiday hits to the Bowl

“Christmas is almost upon us!” Mariah Carey said to greet her audience at the Hollywood Bowl — which, OK, sure. With more than five weeks (and one whole Thanksgiving) until the holiday, the veteran pop star brought her latest yuletide concert extravaganza — this one’s called “Merry Christmas One and All!,” not to be confused with 2022’s “Merry Christmas to All!” — to Los Angeles on Friday night for the first of two sold-out dates before the show begins its month-long crawl toward Carey’s hometown of New York City. Was it feeling particularly Christmas-y outside the Bowl as a threat of light rain slowed traffic on Highland Avenue? You needn’t be the Grinch to admit it was not. Yet at age 54 — and with her most recent studio album a half-decade behind her — Carey has unquestionably made Christmas her brand (even if she recently lost a bid to trademark her nickname as the Queen of Christmas). There are children’s books. There are TV specials. There are the Naughty and Nice pajama sets she...
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A new Kanye West song harks back to his antisemitic tirades

A new Kanye West song has surfaced, which finds the troubled rapper calling back to his antisemitic tirade a year prior. Friday night, radio station WPWX Power 92 Chicago premiered the new song, “Vultures,” which features West, Lil Durk, Ty Dolla Sign and Bump J. Midway through the song over brooding production, West raps, “How I’m antisemitic?” The song was not on streaming services or online stores as of Saturday afternoon, and there was no word on an official release date. West and Ty Dolla Sign have recently been teasing the arrival of a new joint album, which the two have been shopping to distributors as recently as last month, per Billboard. On Oct. 23, Ty Dolla Sign announced he and West would host a “multi-stadium listening event” for the new music on Nov. 3, although the date came and went without any activity. “Vultures” marks West’s first musical release in over a year; he most recently featured alongside Durk on Cardi B’s song “Hot S—.” Toward the end of 2022, West launched...
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Deadpool 3 Will Be the MCU's Only Movie In 2024 (And That's Good)

Deadpool 3 has the honor of being the only MCU release of 2024, but why is that so good for both the movie and Marvel as a whole? It would be a bit of an understatement to call the MCU a massive force in the movie industry, and Deadpool 3 is only bound to add to it. With dozens of movies made and billions of dollars earned, the MCU has become a train that isn’t slowing anytime soon. With all that success, the MCU has really ramped up its productions, resulting in what some have called superhero fatigue. While the concept of superhero fatigue in movies is debatable, one thing that isn’t is the fact that the MCU is putting out a lot of content. With multiple movies and series coming out every single year, it can be hard for the average fan to keep track of everything, and even worse, it can be hard for those casual fans to care about every character. With Deadpool 3 potentially being the only MCU movie of 2024, the movie may signal the beginning of a new trend for the MCU. Marvel Is Fron...
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Nintendo's Animal Crossing Movie Is The Reason They Should Make Their Own Movies

There’s an important lesson Nintendo should learn from their own animated film, Animal Crossing: The Movie, that may help them produce better films. Nintendo is an eccentric entertainment company that prides itself on creating unique experiences based on its intellectual property. Their objective to produce financially profitable goods and services while leading with innovative creativity can prove to be arduous at times, evidenced by the struggles of the Wii U. When it comes to filmmaking, however, Nintendo is again faced with two choices: red ocean or blue ocean. A red ocean strategy is one that involves producing in an overcrowded market that's saturated with products that nearly resemble each other. A blue ocean strategy charts new waters with innovative, differentiated products. The latter strategy can be too risky for some businesses, especially fiscally conservative businesses such as Nintendo. That being said, the blue ocean approach has been Nintendo's philosophy for o...
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Kang's Future In Avengers: Secret Wars May Have Been Decided By Marvel Studios

An Avengers: Secret Wars rumor suggests Marvel Studios' final decision on the franchise's Kang problem has been made, at least partly. While Avengers: Secret Wars is still far from its theatrical release, the uncertainty concerning Jonathan Majors' Kang role might have finally been settled despite the ongoing legal battle surrounding the star. Avengers: Secret Wars is set to be the final installment of the MCU's phase six and the cumulation of the entire Multiverse Saga. While Avengers: Secret Wars' two potential leads were revealed by a recent rumor, the issue of the film’s antagonist, Kang the Conqueror, has been a source of speculation thanks to the trouble surrounding Kang actor Majors. The going theory was that Marvel Studios was looking for ways to replace Majors' villain Kang as the franchise’s big bad after allegations of abuse surfaced against him, leading to an ongoing legal battle and near-universal distancing from the actor. However, a new report fro...
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Beyoncé’ Hopes To Pull In More Than The Single Ladies With $20M+ Opening

So AMC‘s second concert movie, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, hit tracking recently with a $20M opening projection. You’ll remember that the No. 1 circuit in the world, which is distributing the movie to other exhibitors through Variance (which also was tapped to handle AMC’s concert movie Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour) set a Dec. 1 release date. That’s a notoriously slow post-Thanksgiving frame for moviegoing. Renaissance, which has more of documentary quality to it than Eras Tour, always was expected to debut in this range, so no surprise here. When the movie was announced, despite Beyoncé’s latest concert tour grossing close to $600M, per Live Nation back in August — the seventh-highest-grossing concert of all time, with wild estimates out there that the tour could rack up $2.4 billion — distribution sources have been figuring that the film would not post Eras Tour-type opening numbers. The Swift pic saw a $92.8M domestic opening and $123M global debut and has a current running total...
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Rami Malek’s 20th Century Thriller ‘Amateur’ Among First Studio Shoots To Get Rolling In UK After Strikes

After a grueling few months for UK film and TV producers, there are signs that the industry is starting to head back to work following twin actors and writers strikes in the U.S. Amateur, the 20th Century terrorism thriller starring Rami Malek, will be among the first studio shoots to resume filming in London next month, sources tell Deadline. Amateur, which also stars Rachel Brosnahan and Laurence Fishburne, was halfway through production when the feature’s hundreds of cast, crew, and contractors were put on hiatus in July. The film’s cast has prioritized the project ahead of other commitments they would be shooting had the strike not happened. “Productions needing lead actors back to complete means other shows and films cannot schedule starting,” said a source. Amateur is directed by James Hawes, whose debut feature, the Anthony Hopkins vehicle One Life, has generated plenty of buzz during the fall festival season. Bleecker Street has acquired U.S. rights. Amateur follows a CIA crypt...
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‘Bachelor In Paradise’ Recap: Katie Thurston Makes Blake Question His Connection With Jess & A Comedy Roast Gets Taken Too Far

It’s coming down to the wire on Bachelor in Paradise. With just a few weeks left, the beach is practically split into steady couples and lost souls. One of those lost souls is Olivia, who has now had her man stolen from her twice. Most recently, the culprit was Kat, who caught the attention of John Henry after Tanner broke things off with her. But, last week ended on a hopeful note for Olivia after Michael Barbour appeared in Paradise. This week’s episode begins with the answer we’ve all been waiting for. Michael does, indeed, ask Olivia to join him on the date. And it looks like everyone is happy for her, including Kat. At this point, she deserves it! For as enthusiastic as Olivia is about going on this date, you’d think she would remember his name! In a confessional before her date, she asks the producers to reminder her, after spending minutes going on and on about how he seems perfect for her and she’s ready to give him her ring size. Hmmm. It looks like Olivia’s misfortunes in Par...
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‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes’ Begins With Thursday Previews Around $6M – Box Office

Lionsgate‘s prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is looking at a Thursday night between $5.75M-$6M after showtimes that began at 3PM. Again, these numbers aren’t from the studio and we could see a slightly different result by morning. While some will be quick to yell that Marvel Studios’ misfire last weekend, The Marvels, began its weekend journey with a Thursday night of $6.6M which resulted in the lowest opening ever for a Disney MCU title at $47M, note that Songbirds & Snakes cost half the price of The Marvels‘ $200M at $100M. Furthermore, Lionsgate always covers their risk on a big title with a bulk of foreign sales. Projections heading into the weekend were at $50M+ stateside, $100M+ worldwide. We’ll see where this lands. Part of the uphill battle for the movie is that it’s a brand new cast sans franchise star Jennifer Lawrence, and one character to crossover from the core franchise, that being Coriolanus Snow. Similar to that first movie when Lawrenc...
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Loki Producer Shares Cryptic Comment on Kang's Future in the Multiverse

Loki’s executive producer Kevin Wright says there are clues about Kang’s future in the MCU in the show’s Season 2 finale. Loki Season 2 wrapped up with an epic finale for its titular character while also leaving new questions about Kang the Conqueror's role in the MCU moving forward. Tom Hiddleston's Loki is one of the MCU's most developed characters - his latest turn in the Disney+ series is far removed from 2011 Thor's single-minded villain arc. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Executive Producer Kevin Wright spoke at length about the titular character now that Loki Season 2 has wrapped up, culminating in a self-sacrifice that weaved Loki into the fabric of the Marvel Multiverse. Considering how the Kang variants also played pivotal parts in the series, Loki becoming the Multiverse's guardian begs the question if it affects Kang the Conqueror's development as the MCU's next big bad. Wright cautiously commented on the show's impact on the MCU ...
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David Zaslav Concedes the Writers Were "Right About Almost Everything"

Warner Bros. Discovery's CEO David Zaslav says he agrees with the WGA on almost all its demands and doesn't mind paying for the writers' services. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav recently conceded that the Writers Guild of America (WGA) was right regarding almost all the demands they made of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Per Variety, Zaslav revealed in a profile published by The New York Times that he did not regret the concessions made to the WGA, stating, "They are right about almost everything. So what if we overpay? I've never regretted overpaying for great talent or a great asset." The Warner Bros. Discovery boss was among a small group of top Hollywood studio chiefs, including Disney's Bob Iger, Netflix's Ted Sarandos, and NBCUniversal's Donna Langley, that attended the WGA-AMPTP negotiations in August to show their commitment to concluding talks and agreeing a deal with the writers, with the SAG-AFT...
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CD Projekt To Release Official Mod Editor for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developer CD Projekt will release an official mod editor that allows players to alter or create new content in the game. CD Projekt, the developer behind The Witcher video game series and Cyberpunk 2077, announced it will release an official mod editor for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in 2024. On social media platform X, The Witcher video game's official account revealed its decision to release an official mod editor. According to the online post, the upcoming mod editor will allow players of The Witcher 3 to change the game's existing quests or content, as well as create new ones. All for the price of free. Currently, 2024 is the projected release date. Originally released in 2015, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is still considered by many as one of the best open-world role-playing games around. During the height of its release, The Witcher 3 received praise for its ambitious storytelling and engaging gameplay that followed veteran monster hunter Geralt of Rivia...
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Night Sky More Than Earned The Second Season It Didn't Get

Prime Video's sci-fi series Night Sky had one of the most original concepts in a long time - but didn't garner the audience or Season 2 it deserved. Night Sky debuted in May 2022 on Prime Video, but although most reviews were positive, the sci-fi series seemingly didn't draw enough viewers to justify its sizable production costs. As a result, Amazon pulled the plug after just eight episodes, far too soon for any series to find an audience. It's a shame that there won't be a Night Sky Season 2, because it was a unique take on a science-fiction concept, offering sci-fi fans something they'd not seen before. Created by Holden Miller, Night Sky centered on Franklin and Irene York (played by Spider-Man alum J.K. Simmons and the original Carrie Sissy Spacek). The two portrayed an older couple living quietly in the Midwest, but like any good protagonists, the Yorks harbor a secret. Inside their barn is a device that can teleport them to a chamber that looks out onto th...
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How Loki Sets Up the TVA's Future & Avengers: The Kang Dynasty

Loki Season 2 ends on a shocking note, laying down important building blocks for the Time Variance Authority and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. With the conclusion of Loki Season 2, fans have been treated to one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's most mind-bending stories. Here, Tom Hiddleston's run as Loki (as the actor claims) seems to come to an end after 14 years with Marvel Studios. It also happens in the most shocking way in the Disney+ TV series. Loki's newfound glorious purpose finds him fixing the Sacred Timeline, saving the Time Variance Authority (TVA), and stringing the Multiverse back together. He also ensures He Who Remains isn't revived, while setting his peers -- namely, Mobius and Sylvie -- free. However, there are key threads left hanging that tease what the TVA's future could be, as well as the temporal trouble to come in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Victor Timely's Story Isn't Finished There's no denying the MCU has to contend with Jonath...
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David Tennant's Cut Regeneration Scene Would've Rewritten Doctor Who

Tennant’s regeneration scene is arguably one of the saddest from Doctor Who, but his famous “I don’t want to go scene” was almost much different. David Tennant’s regeneration scene in Doctor Who was almost much different, and it would have changed the Doctor’s entire personality. David Tennant’s Doctor differs quite a lot from other regenerations as he is the only Doctor to have regenerated twice, because the first time he regenerated in series 4, episode 13, “Journey’s End”, he kept the same face. Tennant is also the only face of the Doctor to make a return, as Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor regenerated back into David Tennant, which will be explained in the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special ahead of Doctor Who season 14. Although most of the Doctor’s regenerations have returned at some point throughout Doctor Who, David Tennant is particularly connected to the role. Tennant’s Doctor regenerated twice before changing to Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor, and he also returned for the 50th Anni...
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