Netflix agreed to some exclusive theatrical distribution for "Glass Onion" and "Matilda the Musical," but it's not clear exhibitors will get much more. From a report: "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery," the much-anticipated follow-up to the 2019 sleeper hit directed by Rian Johnson, was supposed to be the moment Netflix crossed the Rubicon. Rather than give the film a perfunctory theatrical release -- a strategy designed to ensure most viewers ultimately watch a movie on the streaming service -- Netflix, in a first, would give the film a traditional, exclusive run in a large number of cinemas. It didn't happen.

After much back and forth, and contrary to the wishes of some Netflix employees and Mr. Johnson, a theatrical release for "Glass Onion" that at one point some people inside the company hoped would reach up to 2,000 screens ended up at 638 in the United States. The movie, which was released on Wednesday and has received positive reviews, will run in theaters for just one week before becoming available on Netflix on Dec. 23. What was supposed to be the moment to prove the value of theaters to the streaming giant will not come to pass. Yet the company is also involved in another intriguing theatrical experiment this weekend, one that could end up providing Netflix with even more valuable feedback.

On Friday, "Matilda the Musical," financed and produced by Netflix, will open on more than 1,500 screens in 670 locations across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The movie, starring Emma Thompson as the villainous Miss Trunchbull, will be released and promoted by Sony Pictures, which, in a unique one-picture deal, licensed the rights to Netflix on the condition that Sony could hold onto the United Kingdom for a theatrical release. ("Matilda," which is based on a stage musical that itself is based on a children's book by Roald Dahl, is beloved in the United Kingdom. The musical has been running in London's West End since 2011.) "It will be a good example of what could be done," said Tim Richards, founder and chief executive of Vue International, a London-based exhibitor with theaters in countries including the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany and Italy. âoeIf there was ever a film made for the big screen, it's 'Matilda.'"

Cinemas stocks got a boost Wednesday after a report said Amazon plans to spend $1 billion a year on theatrical film releases. CNBC reports: The tech company plans to make between 12 and 15 movies for movie theaters each year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A smaller number of films will be produced in 2023 as Amazon builds up its output, the report said. Cinemark jumped 11% on the news, with IMAX up 7% and AMC up 5%.

How expensive is "Avatar: The Way of Water"? Early reports have claimed the production budget alone was in the $250 million range, but director James Cameron isn't willing to give a hard number just yet. The only answer Cameron would give about the sequel's budget when asked by GQ magazine was the following: "Very fucking [expensive]." From a report: Cameron apparently told Disney and 20th Century Studios executives that his sequel budget was so high it represented "the worst business case in movie history." According to the director's estimates, "you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That's your threshold. That's your break even."

On the current chart of highest-grossing movies worldwide (unadjusted for inflation), Cameron's original 2009 "Avatar" ranks at the top with $2.9 billion. Disney's "Avengers: Endgame" is in second position with $2.7 billion, while Cameron's "Titanic" remains in the third slot with $2.1 billion. That means, according to Cameron, that if "Avatar: The Way of Water" wants to break even, it'll need to overtake either âoeStar Wars: The Force Awakens" ($2.07 billion) or "Avengers: Infinity War" ($2.05 billion) in the fourth or fifth slots, respectively.

The Spanish police have dismantled a network of pirated streaming sites that illegally distributed content from 2,600 TV channels and 23,000 movies and series to roughly 500,000 users. From a report: The law enforcement action took place in a joint operation involving the Spanish police and EUROPOL, resulting in the arrest of four operators in Malaga. Additionally, 95 resellers in Spain, Malta, Portugal, Cyprus, Greece, and the United Kingdom have been identified. The pirated TV network used numerous websites to advertise and promote subscription-based streaming services, listing unlimited access to channels from different platforms. The live streams from these platforms were decoded with stolen or abused accounts and passwords and then re-broadcasted to the subscribers' video player clients. The resellers bought the subscription packages from the organization operators and resold them to thousands of people in their local countries to profit from the price difference.

Kevin Conroy, best known for voicing Batman on Warner Bros.' long-running TV show "Batman: The Animated Series," has died after a short battle with cancer. He was 66. Variety reports: "Batman: The Animated Series" originally aired for 85 episodes on Fox Kids from 1992-1995. Conroy's deep, gravelly Batman voice was widely acclaimed by critics and comic book fans, with many regarding the actor as the definitive Caped Crusader. The series also featured Mark Hamill's memorable performance as the Joker.

Conroy was so beloved for his Batman voice role that he continued with the character in various other DC projects, including the "Batman: Arkham" and "Injustice" video games franchises. He also appeared in various DC Universe Animated Original Movies, including "Batman: Gotham Knight" (2008), "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies" (2009), "Justice League: Doom" (2012), "Batman: The Killing Joke" (2016) and "Justice League vs. the Fatal Five" (2019), among other films. The 2019 "Justice League" animated film is Conroy's last credited feature as Batman, and his most recent video game credit as Batman is Warner Bros.' "MultiVersus" from earlier this year.

Lauren Forristal writes via TechCrunch: Disney reported (PDF) results for the final quarter of its 2022 fiscal year today, revealing a total of 164.2 million Disney+ global subscribers, an increase of 12 million subs from 152.1 million in Q3. The flagship streaming service was only expected to gain 9.35 million subs. Across Disney's streaming services, Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ had a combined total of 235.7 million subscribers, up from 221 million in the third quarter. The company beat expectations of 233.8 million. [...] However, the company fell short of expectations for total revenue, which was reported to be $20.15 billion. Wall Street estimated that Disney would report a 15% year-on-year jump in revenue to $21.3 billion. The direct-to-consumer division lost $1.5 billion. Disney+ is also set to launch a cheaper ad-supported version on December 8th as it looks to find more ways to earn revenue. The company also increased subscription prices for Disney+, Hulu, Hulu Live TV bundles and ESPN+ plans.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Deadline: AMC Entertainment plans to launch "Zoom Rooms" at movie theaters in up to 17 U.S. cities serving businesses with in-person events and meetings. The partnership with Zoom will roll out "sometime in 2023," the giant exhibitor said. It will give the chain access to the "multi-billion market for corporate and other meetings," according to CEO Adam Aron, and during weekdays when most theaters are quiet.

Users will book three-hour blocks online, selecting preferred theaters and meeting time. AMC and Zoom will provide the necessary equipment. Auditorium sizes are expected to range between 75 to 150 seats. Additional services like food and beverage offerings, movie viewings, and concierge-style personalized handling of meeting needs will be available for an added cost. "As hybrid work has become more commonplace throughout the United States, Zoom Rooms at AMC will enable companies and other entities with decentralized workforces and customer bases to bring people from different markets together at the same time for cohesive virtual and in-person events and meeting experiences," the nation's biggest chain said.

"One of the lessons learned during the pandemic when so many of us were forced to work remotely was the importance of a reliable, dynamic communications platform. We also learned that even though we may be spread far apart, the ability to come together in person is as important as ever," said Aron. "This creates an all-new product in major cities across the U.S. for companies and meeting planners."

Mitch Lowe and Ted Farnsworth already settled with the FTC over fraudulent activity affecting MoviePass customers, but now the former heads of MoviePass and its parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics (HMNY), are facing criminal allegations of securities fraud and wire fraud. The Verge reports: The Department of Justice announced the charges today, saying false statements made by both men defrauded investors in HMNY when the execs pretended like the company's money-losing $9.95 "unlimited" moviegoing plan had any hope of profitability. HMNY's own auditor cast doubt on the company's viability in a report in 2018, but at the time, Farnsworth downplayed the advisory, telling Insider that "pretty much most" companies running at a loss would have a similar warning.

But the big problem is his claims that HMNY's analytics prowess could somehow monetize data generated from MoviePass simply didn't hold up: prosecutors now allege "Farnsworth and Lowe knew HMNY did not possess these technologies or capabilities to monetize MoviePass's subscriber data or incorporate these technologies into the MoviePass application." [...] The DOJ says each man is facing one count of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud over the lies they allegedly told in "press releases, SEC filings, interviews on podcasts and on television, and in print and online media."

The animated series "Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi" premiered this week on Disney+, witih all six 15-minute episodes released on Wednesday.

CNN calls it a slick and well-produced "kind of super-service for the Star Wars faithful, rekindling old flames, and comfortably submerging them in the past." But they also add that animation "has also become a vehicle for greater experimentation, as witnessed in the Star Wars: Visions anime shorts that premiered last year." It's hardly a surprise that this latest addition to the mythology comes courtesy of producer Dave Filoni, who oversaw such series as The Clone Wars and Rebels before throwing his fertile mind for all things Star Wars into The Mandalorian and other live-action fare. Filoni wrote five of the six shorts, which are split between Ahsoka Tano (again voiced by Ashley Eckstein), soon to be featured in her own live-action spinoff; and Count Dooku (played in the movies by Christopher Lee, and voiced by Corey Burton).

Beyond a glimpse of a baby Ahsoka (just in time for holiday gift-giving, kids), in an episode that illustrates her home planet and its warrior streak, the episodes leap around in time. That includes additional insights into Dooku and his abandonment of the Jedi order to embrace the dark side and Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid). The anthology format creates the opportunity to drop in at different inflection points scattered across the "Star Wars" timeline.
"Fans will likely be particularly intrigued by some of the gradations surrounding Ahsoka, her relationship to Anakin Skywalker and the aftermath of the Clone Wars," the article teases...

Inside Netflix's movie studio, top executives lobbied Ted Sarandos, the company's co-chief executive, for much of this year to experiment with releasing more Netflix original movies broadly in theaters WSJ is reporting. From the report: They outlined their case in a memo shared in June on the company network. Some argued that Netflix is leaving hundreds of millions in box-office receipts on the table with its current strategy of showing only select movies in a few hundred theaters for at most a few weeks before streaming them, according to people familiar with the matter. Other executives thought showing movies in more theaters would create valuable buzz for the streaming service. Soon after, in an internal meeting, Mr. Sarandos told Netflix studio leaders that he had doubts, and still felt that streaming is the future of entertainment, movies included. Instead, he suggested that studio chief Scott Stuber and other executives meet with their counterparts at Sony Pictures Entertainment to see if they would agree to let Netflix stream Sony's movies just four to six weeks after they came out in theaters, instead of after six to eight months, as spelled out in a partnership the two studios reached last year.

If a new deal could be struck, some executives said, it would help Netflix understand how the company might benefit from streaming a movie shortly after it had been shown on thousands of big screens across the country. The debate inside Netflix over how best to distribute its films -- details of which haven't been previously reported -- is one that is playing out across an entertainment industry that has been rapidly upended by the rise of streaming video. Every major company in Hollywood is facing some version of the same question: What is the best way to release a movie? Is it in a cinema, with stadium seating, popcorn and digital surround sound? Or is it at home, streamed on a flat-screen TV or a laptop? Should movies go to theaters first, then to streaming, or should they be released at the same time? How long should a studio wait between theatrical and streaming release? How many theaters should show a film? Should all movies go to the big screen, or just splashy action thrillers?

As part of Netflix's earning results today, which says the company reversed customer losses, Netflix plans to crack down on password sharing beginning in 2023. The Verge reports: After giving users the ability to transfer their profiles to new accounts last week, the streamer says it will start letting subscribers create sub-accounts starting next year in line with its plans to "monetize account sharing" more widely. [...] Earlier this year, Netflix reported losing subscribers for the first time in over 10 years, with the company's subscriber count dipping by another 1.3 million in the US and Canada and 1 million worldwide last quarter. To remedy this, Netflix has also been slowly nudging subscribers away from password sharing. The company conducted tests that prompted users in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru to pay extra for a sub-account if Netflix detected someone was using the owner's subscription outside of their household.

It also tried out a way for users in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic to buy additional "homes" for accounts located outside of the subscriber's primary household. More recently, Netflix widely introduced a Profile Transfer tool that lets users easily transfer their personalized recommendations, viewing history, My List, saved games, and other settings to a new account after testing it in other countries. Last month, a report from Rest of World revealed frustration from users subject to the tests in Latin America. The earnings report (PDF) projects that the company's new ad-supported streaming service, which starts at $6.99 per month and launches in November, will help attract 4.5 million subscribers by year's end. This quarter it added 2.4 million subscribers and grew by 104,000 paid subscribers in the U.S. and Canada over the last three months, up from 73,000 in the same period last year.

Starting in November, Netflix will roll out its ad-supported tier for $6.99 a month, yet another sign that the onetime disruptive upstart streaming service has slowly become a cable package by another name. From a report: Netflix announced today that its new Basic with Ads tier is slated to launch on November 3rd, 2022, for $6.99 in the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. In exchange for making you watch an average of four to five ads per hour that run anywhere from 15-30 seconds, Basic with Ads will give subscribers access to a large swath of Netflix's programming but not the platform's full catalog. A small selection of television shows and movies will not be available to Basic with Ads subscribers due to licensing restrictions that Netflix says it's currently working on. Additionally, Basic with Ads subscribers will not be able to download content onto their devices, and video quality is capped at 720p / HD.

Today, Microsoft and Apple announced a number of deeper integrations of Apple services on both Windows PCs and Xbox game consoles, including Music and TV apps for both platforms and the ability to browse your iCloud Photo Library within the Windows 11 Photos app. Ars Technica reports: The Apple Music app for Xbox is already available. Existing users can download the app and start listening to their playlists and stations, while new users can sign up for a one-month trial. The user interface for Apple Music on the Xbox is almost exactly the same as the one we've used before on Apple TV hardware. It doesn't add any new features we haven't seen before, but it's nice to see parity between the platforms. The Music and TV apps for Windows aren't available yet, but the companies say they'll both be available next year.

The Windows iTunes app lets users listen to songs and watch TV and movies purchased through Apple's online store. Even though Apple Music will arrive on Windows, iTunes will continue to be available, and users will still be able to access Podcasts and Books there. While you'll have to wait until next year to download the Music and TV apps in Windows, the iCloud Photo Library integration is available right now. You'll have to download the iCloud Windows app (which is already used to sync a variety of things, like browser bookmarks) and opt into syncing your iCloud Photo Library. After that, both videos and photos should be available within the Windows 11 Photos app.

"John Galvan was arrested at 18 and spent 35 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit," writes the Innocence Project, a nonprofit specializing in legal exoneration.

"In 2007, John Galvan was about 21 years into a life sentence for a crime he didn't commit when he saw something on the prison television he thought might finally help him prove his innocence and secure his freedom: A re-run of an episode of the Discovery Channel's MythBusters."

At the time of his arrest, they write, Galvan had been handcuffed to a wall for hours, physically beaten, and ultimately "agreed to give a confession that was completely fabricated by the detectives to end the abuse" — that Galvan had started a fire in an apartment building "by throwing a bottle filled with gasoline at the building and then tossing a cigarette into the pool of gasoline on the porch to ignite it." And then 21 years later... In his cell, a 39-year-old John watched as the hosts of MythBusters struggled repeatedly to ignite a pool of gasoline with a lit cigarette, despite fervent attempts. Based on the ignition temperature of gasoline and the temperature range of a lit cigarette, the show's hosts had initially hypothesized that a lit cigarette might be able to ignite spilled gasoline as they had seen on TV and in movies. But after several failed attempts to start a fire, including rolling a lit cigarette directly into a pool of gasoline, the team determined it was highly unlikely that dropping a cigarette into gasoline could cause a fire....

The show's findings were confirmed in 2007, by experiments conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which made more than 2,000 attempts to ignite gasoline with a cigarette under various conditions. The bureau's experiments even included a vacuum that increased the cigarette's temperature to the level it would typically reach when being sucked and spraying a mist of gasoline directly onto the lit cigarette. All of the attempts failed. "Despite what you see in action movies, dropping a lit cigarette on to a trail of gasoline won't ignite it, assuming normal oxygen levels and no unusual circumstances," said Richard Tontarski, a forensic scientist and then chief of the ATF's fire research laboratory.

In 2017, when John finally had his evidentiary hearing on his post-conviction claims, [his attorney Tara] Thompson and his legal team presented multiple alibi witnesses, in addition to seven witnesses who testified to being tortured by the same officers who had coerced his confession, documents showing that police had fabricated probable cause to arrest him, and an arson expert who testified that John's false confession was scientifically impossible.... In 2019, the appellate court granted John post-conviction relief on the grounds of actual innocence — a rarity in Illinois — largely based on the abuse used to coerce a false confession from John.

The court concluded that without John's false confession, which he did not give voluntarily, "the State's case was nonexistent."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Sleeping Kirby for sharing the story!

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Even as Americans cut back in the face of rising prices and recessionary fears, fewer want to give up their streaming subscriptions, especially when it comes to TV, movies and music services, such as Amazon Prime, Netflix and Spotify. Roughly two-thirds of consumers said they will have to decrease their spending due to inflation; however, only about a quarter plan to cancel such subscriptions in the months ahead, according to a recent report by the National Research Group. Most people said they were more likely to cut back on dining out, groceries and clothing.

Consumers are least likely to cancel Amazon Prime, TV and movie streaming services and home security systems, the report found, even over food and gasoline. Just over half, or 51%, also said subscriptions now make up a "significant" portion of their monthly spending. On average, U.S. consumers estimate they spend $135 a month and 17.8% of their monthly budget on subscriptions, the National Research Group found. The report polled more than 2,500 adults in August.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: A court in India has granted what appears to be the most aggressive site-blocking injunction in the history of copyright law. In advance of the movie 'Vikram Vedha' premiering in cinemas last Friday, a judge handed down an injunction that ordered 40 internet service providers to proactively and immediately block an unprecedented 13,445 sites. [...] India began blocking pirate sites in 2011 but the public had no idea it was coming. In an early case, movie company Reliance Entertainment went to court to protect the movie 'Singham' and came away with an order that compelled ISPs to temporarily block sites including Megaupload, Megavideo, Rapidshare, Putlocker, Hotfile and Fileserve. Having obtained one injunction, to the surprise of no one Reliance Entertainment immediately sought and obtained another. From there, the site-blocking train gathered steam and hasn't looked back. [...]

After obtaining certification for its new movie 'Vikram Vedha' last Monday, Reliance Entertainment filed an injunction application the next day. The goal was to protect the movie from online piracy following its premiere last Friday. Given that courts in other countries can take months over a decision, the Madras High Court needed to act quickly. On September 30, the day of the movie's release, the Court published its orders, noting that substantial sums had been invested in 'Vikram Vedha' and the movie was expected to screen in 3,000 cinemas worldwide. With words such as "imminent" and "threat" featured early on, it was already clear which way the judge was leaning. How far he was prepared to go still came as a surprise. After reading through the Reliance application, the judge declared that Reliance had made its case and that an injunction was appropriate. The judge said that if an interim injunction wasn't immediately granted, it would "result in alleged piracy being completed in all and every aspect of the matter." That would in turn lead to an "irreversible situation" and "irreparable legal injury incapable of compensation."

Due to the urgency, the respondents in the case – including 40 internet service providers -- weren't notified of the legal action. Nevertheless, the injunction was handed down via two separate orders, which together prohibit anyone from copying, recording, camcording, making available, uploading, downloading, exhibiting or playing the movie without a license. After specifically prohibiting copying to CD, DVD, pen drives, hard drives or tapes, the orders move on to the issue of ISP blocking. It appears that Reliance asked for a lot and the judge gave them everything. According to one of the orders, the websites put forward for blocking are all "non-compliant" operations, in that they have no reporting and take down mechanisms in place, at least according to Reliance. Interestingly, Reliance also informed the court that all of the websites were infringing its copyrights in respect of the movie 'Vikram Vedha', even though it was yet to be released and when the application was filed, no copies were available online. This means that Reliance couldn't have provided any infringing URLs even if it wanted to. Nevertheless, the judge did consider more limited blocking.

Ultimately, the judge granted an interim injunction and ordered all of the ISPs (list below) to immediately and proactively block a grand total of 13,445 websites. While the names of the websites were made available to the court, the court did not make the schedule available on the docket. As a result we have no way of confirming which domains are on the list. The ISPs weren't informed about the injunction application either, so presumably they're also in the dark. The idea that the judge tested all 13,445 domains seems wishful thinking at best. That leaves Reliance Entertainment as the sole entity with any knowledge of the submitted domains, all of which have been labeled in court as infringing the movie's copyright, even though no copy was available when the application was made.

"Paramount Global executive David Nevins, who has run the premium network Showtime since 2016, is leaving the company at the end of year," reports CNBC. According to the report, it may help give the media conglomerate "more flexibility to potentially merge Showtime into Paramount+." From the report: Along with his departure, Paramount Global is restructuring Showtime in ways that could give the company flexibility to effectively end Showtime as it's existed for decades -- as an independent premium cable network churning out prestige hits such as "Dexter," "Weeds," "Billions," "Homeland" and "Yellowjackets." Paramount Global announced Thursday that it's moving Showtime's network business under the leadership of Chris McCarthy, who runs other linear cable networks such as MTV and Comedy Central, and the streaming service under Tom Ryan, who runs Paramount Streaming.

The moves come as the company is considering the idea of merging Showtime into Paramount+ and using the network's hit programming to fuel Paramount+ subscriptions, according to people familiar with the matter. The company's goal is to have Paramount+ be one of the five largest global streaming services, along with Warner Bros. Discovery's HBO Max, Amazon's Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. No decisions about Showtime's future have been made, and no changes are imminent, the people said.

One obstacle to pushing Showtime together with Paramount+ is existing pay TV distributor agreements. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Paramount has discussed simply shuttering the standalone Showtime network with at least one pay-TV partner. Another idea under consideration by Paramount Global executives is to move Paramount+ originals and movies to Showtime, effectively making Showtime a mirror to Paramount+'s content that doesn't appear on other TV networks, two of the people said. That could assuage pay-TV providers, who could adjust pricing against the merged streaming product. [...] Eliminating Showtime as an independent entity would also come with cost savings from head count reductions, such as Nevins' departure, and technology and marketing duplications.

Last week, a number of outlets reported that Bruce Willis sold his face to a deepfake company called Deepcake, allowing a "digital twin" of himself to be created for use on screen. The only problem is that it's apparently not true. According to the BBC, the actor's agent said that he had "no partnership or agreement" with the company and a representative of Deepcake said only Willis had the rights to his face From the report: On 27 September, the Daily Mail reported that a deal had been struck between Willis and Deepcake. "Two-time Emmy winner Bruce Willis can still appear in movies after selling his image rights to Deepcake," the story reads. The story was picked up by the Telegraph and a series of other media outlets. "Bruce Willis has become the first Hollywood star to sell his rights to allow a 'digital twin' of himself to be created for use on screen." said the Telegraph. But that doesn't appear to be the case.

What is true is that a deepfake of Bruce Willis was used to create an advert for Megafon, a Russian telecoms company, last year. The tech used in the advert was created by Deepcake, which describes itself as an AI company specializing in deepfakes. Deepcake told the BBC it had worked closely with Willis' team on the advert. "What he definitely did is that he gave us his consent (and a lot of materials) to make his Digital Twin," they said. The company says it has a unique library of high-resolution celebrities, influencers and historical figures. On its website, Deepcake promotes its work with an apparent quote from Mr Willis: "I liked the precision of my character. It's a great opportunity for me to go back in time. "The neural network was trained on content of Die Hard and Fifth Element, so my character is similar to the images of that time." A representative from Deepcake said in a statement: "The wording about rights is wrong... Bruce couldn't sell anyone any rights, they are his by default."

"Whirring as it powered up, a hoverbike lifted directly into the air in Michigan, video shows."

That's the lead from one news report about a big debut at a U.S. auto show in Detroit: a gasoline-and-electric powered hoverbike (using a Kawasaki motor) created by Japanese manufacturing company AERWINS Technologies. They've already started selling them in Japan, and they're now also hoping to sell a smaller version in America in 2023. The hoverbike flies for 40 minutes, Reuters reports, and can reach speeds of up to 62 miles per hour (100 kph). (They added that the bike drew "perhaps inevitable comparisons to the speeder bikes of Star Wars.")

From McClatchy news services: Video from WXYZ's Facebook shows the hoverbike's flight. The test rider checks the vehicle then signals with a fist pump. The engines power up, whirring louder and louder until the bike lifts off. The hoverbike flies back and forth, slightly faster as the ride goes on, then lands smoothly to the ground, video shows. "I feel like I'm literally 15 years old and I just got out of Star Wars," the test rider told Reuters. "It's awesome! Of course, you have a little apprehension, but I was just so amped. I literally had goosebumps and feel like a little kid...."

The price of a hoverbike? Only $777,000 according to current estimates, though the company hopes to get the cost down to about $50,000, The Detroit News reported.
The Detroit News adds this about the company's founder/CEO: As a boy, Shuhei Komatsu loved Star Wars movies, especially the lightning-fast land speeders. So when he grew up, he decided to make one of his own, he said.

"I wanted to make something from the movie real," Komatsu said. "It's a land speeder for the Dark Side...."

Komatsu said his company will make its public offering of stock on the NASDAQ exchange in November.... He said he's hoping the U.S. government classifies its XTURISMO as a non-aircraft.... He said he thinks consumers will buy the machine for recreation, and governments will buy it for law enforcement and for inspecting infrastructure. "I hope that in the future, people will use it for every day," he said.

"There's a new Joker movie coming out," writes the Verge, "but you might not get a chance to see it because copyright is broken." I'm not talking about Joker: Folie à Deux, the officially sanctioned sequel to the Todd Phillips film Joker. I'm talking about The People's Joker, a crowdfunded Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) selection that was pulled at the last minute, thanks to unspecified "rights issues." The People's Joker is (as far as I can tell) an extremely loose retelling of the Batman villain's origin story, reinterpreting the Joker as a trans woman trying to break into the mob-like world of Gotham's stand-up comedy scene. Its trailer describes it as "an illegal comic book movie," but its creators more seriously defend it as an unauthorized but legal parody of DC's original character, to the point of (apparently) giving their lawyer a full-screen credit.

I have no idea if The People's Joker is a good movie — thanks to its cancelation, my colleague Andrew Webster couldn't catch it at TIFF. The piece is clearly a provocation designed to thumb its nose at DC's copyright, and DC parent company Warner Bros. hasn't said whether it actually ordered TIFF to cancel showings — it's possible the festival balked or even that Drew did it herself. But despite all that, one thing is very clear: outside a tiny number of corporate behemoths, virtually nobody benefits from shutting down The People's Joker — not the filmmakers, not the public, and not the people who created Gotham City in the first place.

Writer-director Vera Drew says she made The People's Joker partly to test a contemporary truism: that beloved fictional universes are a shared modern mythology, and people draw meaning from them the way that artists once reinterpreted Greek myths or painted Biblical figures. As Drew has put it, "if the purpose of myth is to learn about the human experience and grow and also chart your progress — the hero's journey and all that stuff — let's actually do that earnestly with these characters."
The essay delves into the argument that culture exists for the common good. "It's useful to have a temporary period where artists can maintain control over their work because it helps support them financially and encourages them to make more of it. But the ultimate goal is that art should pass into the public domain and that it should be part of a conversation, with people repurposing it to create their own work...."

In an interview with Comic Book Resources, the filmmaker said the film was protected by both fair use and copyright law. "The only thing that makes it weird in both of those categories is nobody's ever taken characters and IP and really personalized it in this way. So I think that's the thing that really kind of makes it seem a lot more dangerous than I actually think it is. I mean, I get it, look, I put an 'illegal comic book movie' on the poster, but that was just to get your butts in the seats. Mission accomplished."

A statement from the filmmaker on Twitter blames "a media conglomerate that shall remain nameless" for an angry letter pressuring them not to screen the film. (It was ultimately allowed to premiere, but then pulled from later screenings.) They added that they were disappointed since "I went to great lengths with legal counsel to have it fall under parody/fair use," but they made the choice to protect the film festival and the future prospects for a possible return of the movie itself.

"The People's Joker will screen again very soon at several other festivals worldwide."

The Verge's conclusion? "If a law meant to protect artists is leaving weird independent movies in limbo to protect a corporate brand, something has gone deeply wrong."

Thanks to Slashdot reader DevNull127 for the article