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December 6 - December 13

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Apple TV+ shared a first-look at “Government Cheese,” starring multi-award-winner David Oyelowo, who also serves as executive producer. The 10-episode series will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on Wednesday, April 16, with the first four episodes, followed by one episode weekly every Wednesday through May 28, 2025...

The Native American Media Alliance (NAMA) has announced the class of fellows for the 6th Annual Native American Animation Lab. This program was created to support Native Americans pursuing careers in the animation field as well as to highlight more accurate portrayals of Indigenous communities in television and film. The five-day curriculum for the Native American Animation Lab includes meetings with industry executives from companies such as Netflix, Dreamworks Animation, MTV, Sony Pictures Animation and more. The program is also tailored around mentoring opportunities, group sessions and initiatives to help participants build relationships with professionals in animation...

Alamo Drafthouse will open two new San Francisco theaters, Alamo Drafthouse Mountain View and Alamo Drafthouse Westfield Valley Fair, in the next year. The Austin-based circuit is taking over spaces from ShowPlace Icon and plans to have the theaters fully converted and operating by summer 2025. These venues will join the existing nearby location, Alamo Drafthouse New Mission. The new Alamo Drafthouse Mountain View will set up shop in a 64,500 square-foot space in the Village at San Antonio Center, a luxury mixed-use retail center. It will feature 10 auditoriums that will be retrofitted with approximately 1,100 plush recliner seats. Both locations will feature state-of-the-art 4K digital projection and immersive Dolby Atmos sound systems. As part of the Bay Area expansion, Alamo Drafthouse is giving away five free, yearlong, two-person subscriptions to Alamo Season Pass, its monthly subscription service which allows patrons to watch one free movie per day...

Movie theater stocks moved higher in the wake of the biggest Thanksgiving ever at the domestic box office. Spurred by Moana 2‘s debut and strong carryover business for Gladiator II and Wicked, shares in AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Imax, National CineMedia and Marcus Corp. rose between 1% and 5% on the day. Reading International, which owns specialty theaters including New York’s Angelika Film Center, jumped 12%, partly due to recent interest from potential takeover suitors. Canada’s Cineplex gained 5.5% on the Toronto Stock Exchange. AMC, the No. 1 global theater circuit, as well as Regal Cinemas and Cinemark announced record ticket and concession sales for the 5-day holiday span. Overall ticket sales reached $420 million, according to Comscore. Attendance at AMC alone totaled 8.8 million moviegoers around the world, the company said, with many patrons returning multiple times during the extended weekend. AMC CEO Adam Aron pronounced the holiday “one for the ages” for the tempest-tossed exhibition business. Imax also took in $24 million, a new high for Thanksgiving...

BAFTA has revealed that almost one in five of its members are now based in the U.S., according to an update. This represents 18% of members, though the UK academy’s 13,500-strong network stretches across 50 countries in total. The org has branches in London, Cardiff, Glasgow and LA. Overall, 58% of BFTA members are male and 42% female, with 17% from underrepresented ethnic groups, 8% with disabilities, 14% LGBTQIA+ and 19% from low socio-economic backgrounds. However, a breakdown of members who have joined since 2020 — when BAFTA set itself new diversity targets — reveals a changing picture. Among new members, 52% are female and 48% male, 28% come from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds, 13% have disabilities, 22% are LGBTQIA+ and 21% are from low socio-economic background....

The Visual Effects Society annonced that VR and immersive technology pioneer DR. Dr. Jacquelyn Ford Morie will receive its 2025 Georges Méliès Award at the VES Awards in February. Morie helped establish USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies that launched in 1999 and was a senior scientist there for 14 years, working on groundbreaking projects in virtual reality, virtual worlds, mobile applications and intelligent virtual humans. Prior to that, she initiated comprehensive training programs for the computer animation and special effects industries, including work for Walt Disney Feature Animation and Rhythm and Hues Studios. She also designed animation, computer graphics and immersive media curricula for several academic programs such as Ringling College of Art and Design, the University of Central Florida, Otis College of Art and Design and UCLA Extension. After forming her own company, All These Worlds, LLC in 2011, she produced a pivotal study for NASA called ANSIBLE, designed to mitigate social isolation and sensory deprivation future astronauts would encounter on long duration space missions. She served as Senior Technical Advisor on the XPRIZE ANA Avatar Competition for 2018-2022, advocating for the use of two-way haptics in robot avatars to bring enhanced sensory impact to the operators of such robots...