EDITORIAL

APPLE TV
Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and featuring an original score by multiple Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer, the captivating exploration of ancient Earth to debut five all-new episodes in a week-long event starting May 22, 2023...

When Amazon debuted its highly anticipated Most Expensive TV Series Ever Made — The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power last fall — the company had to contend with a bothersome rival from Warner Bros. Discovery: the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon. Warners picked a debut date for its prestige TV drama 12 days before Amazon’s $1 billion gamble launched, ensuring nonstop media and fandom comparisons, many of which were less favorable to the family-friendly Rings. For Amazon, the head-to-head rivalry was all the more galling because Warners is a minority licensee stakeholder in Rings, so they’re ostensibly supposed to be on the same side. Team Rings’ public spin concerning the matchup went like this: None of this matters because these shows are totally different...

One of the favorite tools of stop-motion filmmakers including Henry Selick and Guillermo del Toro for many years, 3D printing has become a dominant force in cutting edge costume design and prosthetics construction for this year’s awards season frontrunners. As techniques, materials and methods for adding color continue to develop, its reach could extend even further. Helmer Dean Fleischer Camp was able to create the shells he needed for “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” which is Oscar-nommed in the animated feature category. Actual shells were too fragile for set lighting and impossible to recreate in order to have multiple versions of Marcel. The original version of Marcel was scanned and then sculpted using digital software Zbrush before 3D printing him multiple times for uses/poses in different scenes.“The original Marcel was made from a real snail shell that is one of a kind,” says Camp. “When you’re filming him, you notice all the differences. He’s only an inch tall and we’re really on him. Even slight imperfections or differences in shells would give him different expressions. We were able to print shells where you really couldn’t tell the difference. Then we worked with some very talented craftspeople who were able to hand paint the luminescence, the reflective qualities on the shell and the striations on the shell. But without 3D printing, I’d still be on a beach somewhere looking for shells that matched the original Marcel.”...

Italy’s 2,500 dubbing industry workers are on a protracted strike demanding higher wages, less frenzied work conditions, and protection against digital dubbing devices, which they claim threaten their jobs. The unions are demanding that standard contract wages that have remained unvaried for the past 15 years be raised. But they are also clamoring for the right to be able to work at a slower pace, claiming that “current production rhythms are not conducive to [good] quality of work and of life,” according to a statement issued by Italian dubbers’ union ANAD.....

Longtime indie film chain Landmark Theatres has a novel idea for how to improve attendance: half-naked male dancers! “We want to celebrate new films when we see an opportunity to give guests something more than just the movie,” says Landmark president Kevin Holloway. And boy, did they ever. On Feb. 9 and 10, Landmark’s Scottsdale Quarter Theatre in Arizona presented the “’Magic Mike’s Last Dance’ Immersive Experience.” For $65 a head, moviegoers got a 75-minute “pre-screening party” at the theater’s bar, a DJ, two alcoholic “Mike-tails,” guns that made it rain “Landmark Bucks” for patrons to “spread appreciation” to the dancers and, oh yes, a movie ticket, popcorn and soda. All nine screenings sold well, says Holloway, who has added more studio films like “Mike” to his indie slate. “To be clear, [they were] live dancers,” he says. “I would not categorize them as strippers.”...

Rocky Balboa is missing from 'Creed III. It has been known for a while that Sylvester Stallone would not be appearing in the ninth movie of the franchise, but the reason behind it is a little murkier and has a couple of different facets to it. Stallone doesn't see a dime from the franchise outside what he is being paid to appear in the movies that were inspired by Stallone himself. He wrote the screenplay for Rocky and created the gravy train that he believes PRODUCER Irwin Winkler is riding all the way to the bank. It doesn't look like he’s wrong, either. The star is steadfast about it being about more than just the cash and more about what he'll have left behind when he's gone, stating, "I wrote it. I thought it would be nice to say, 'Here’s the gesture darling here. Beautiful children, beautiful wife. When I’m long gone, this is you. This is what I made for you."...