George Lucas has a problem with Hollywood when it comes to focus groups and test screenings. The “Star Wars” creator, who left the franchise in 2012 after selling Lucasfilm to Disney in a $4 billion deal, recently told A Rabbit’s Foot (via IGN) that Hollywood’s overreliance on focus groups has created studio films dictated entirely
Andrew Lloyd Webber responded to the early closure of “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” by arguing that Broadway musicals are in crisis. In a lengthy social media post on Tuesday, the composer warned that the high costs of putting on shows are making it difficult for creators to make a living and worrying investors about supporting
Barbara Ling, the Oscar-winning production designer for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” who also designed films such as “The Doors” and “Michael,” died July 9. He was 73 years old. Ling’s career spanned four decades, during which he worked on Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” and Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down.” He designed the sets for
A few days ago, the New York Times published a provocative list titled “What is the definitive movie about America?” Its writers came up with a couple of inspired options, like “Dazed and Confused,” along with a handful of interesting questions (“Disclosure Day”? “The Florida Project”?). Since no one asked, I thought I’d offer five
As part of an ongoing legal dispute with three Hollywood studios, AI startup Midjourney is seeking to force those studios to disclose how they themselves use AI. Disney and Universal sued Midjourney for alleged copyright infringement last year, pointing out that the startup’s imaging models could create images of characters, such as Bart Simpson and
The 20-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons has risen to the top so fast that he’s had zero time to process how far he’s come. “It’s been go, go, go,” Parsons tells WIRED. “Even the tiniest bit of a break,” he says, would give him some better perspective on everything that’s happened over the past few years.