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Disney made an estimated $296.4 million loss at the box office on just two of its Marvel superhero movies in 2023 according to analysis of recently-released financial statements.

They reveal that the cost of making The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania came to a staggering $762.4 million (£609.3 million) before Disney banked $124.9 million (£99.4 million) in government incentives bringing its net spending on the movies down to $637.5 million. They both bombed at the box office.

According to industry analyst Box Office Mojo, the movies grossed a combined $682.2 million with theaters typically retaining 50% of the takings and the remainder going to the studio. This reflects the findings of film industry consultant Stephen Follows who interviewed 1,235 film professionals in 2014 and concluded that, according to studios, theaters keep 49% of the takings on average. It would give Disney just $341.1 million from The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. No expense was spared on them.

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Disney does not publicly discuss how much it spends on specific productions and did not respond to a request for comment. Budgets are usually a closely-guarded secret. This is because studios combine the costs of individual pictures in their overall expenses and their filings don't itemize how much was spent on each one. Films made in the UK are exceptions and both The Marvels and Quantumania fall into this category.

Studios shoot in the UK to benefit from its Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) which gives them a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country.

To qualify for the reimbursement, at least 10% of the production costs need to relate to activities in the UK. In order to demonstrate this to the UK government, studios tend to set up a separate production company in the country for each movie they make there.

The companies have to file financial statements which shine a spotlight on their budgets. They reveal everything from the headcount and salaries to the level of reimbursement and the total costs. Studios directly receive the revenue from theater tickets, streaming and Blu-ray sales and carry the costs of marketing as the function of the UK companies is purely making the movies.

Francis Ford Coppola directed The Godfather when he was just 30 years old. As if that wasn’t astounding enough, he rattled off The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II, and Apocalypse Now before hitting 40. For most directors, this run of stone-cold classics at such a young age would be the vindication of the talent they always believed they possessed. Fascinatingly, though, Coppola wound up feeling like he’d hit the pinnacle of mainstream Hollywood success too early and eventually needed to reverse his career.

In 2007, Coppola released Youth Without Youth – his first picture since 1997’s The Rainmaker. A fantasy drama with a small $1million budget, it was a far cry from a $40m John Grisham adaptation starring a host of Hollywood A-listers. However, it wasn’t like Coppola had been reduced to working on low-budget indies against his will – he simply wanted to re-do his early career.

The legendary director told DGA Quarterly Magazine: “I feel as though I’ve made a deliberate choice to reapproach filmmaking with the same attitudes and ignorance that I had as a young person. Obviously, I’m not a kid, but we all have a kid in us, and I approached this movie with the willingness to do whatever came into my mind.”

Coppola had been inspired by his daughter Sofia’s film Lost in Translation, which she made outside the confines of a major Hollywood studio. He explained: “I just realised that maybe I should go off on my own and make a movie. I could finance myself and not tell anyone about it and not show anyone the script, not announce it, not anything. And ultimately, that’s what I did.”

He admitted, “That gave me a new life, really. In a sense, I was reinvigorated, which is exactly what Youth Without Youth is about.”

I don't care how many people were murdered there!

It’s surprising just how many cult-favorite horror movies were significantly influenced by earlier films and, when it really comes down to it, were totally unoriginal. While this may seem like a point of criticism, paying homage to horror movies of the past or filmmakers wearing their influences on their sleeve was never a bad thing, and just because a movie was derivative does not mean it’s bad. In fact, many of the biggest cult hits took premises already explored in other movies and expanded upon them to create something even better.

Some of the best cult horror movies owe a lot to classic films of times past, as actors, directors, and writers have shamelessly ripped off well-worn tropes and clichés to create great B-movie favorites, satirical commentaries, or just plain laugh-out-loud hilarious horror comedies. As a genre known to repeat itself, it’s almost impossible to make a slasher movie these days without copying aspects from Halloween or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The incredible history of horror has informed plenty of great movies, and a knowledge of horror classics can make watching cult favorites even more enjoyable.

1. Scream (1996)
2. Friday the 13th (1980)
3. Lake Placid (1999)
4. Night of The Creeps (1986)
5. Sleepaway Camp (1983)
6. Sharknado (2013)
7. Galaxy of Terror (1981)
8. Chopping Mall (1986)
9. The Stuff (1985)
10. Piranha (1978)

The new horror movie Terrifier 3 comes with a warning, telling viewers that they might feel “unwell” during the slasher from director Damien Leone, with the opening scene already prompting walkouts and vomiting.

The Terrifier films, which follow the exploits of serial killer Art the Clown, have earned a reputation with viewers for the film’s extreme levels of violence and gore.

The previous film reportedly made people “pass out” in theatres which Leone denied was a “marketing ploy” created to promote the independent movie.

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An image shared on the film’s X/Twitter account shows a note on a cinema door telling people: “Warning! This film contains extreme violence and excessive gore. If you are feeling unwell, please find a member of staff. Staff trained in first aid are on site.”

The image is captioned with, “Don’t say we didn’t warn you…”

Of course, while most people would be horrified by the sound of film that might cause you to need first aid, horror fans are seemingly gleeful at the thought.

His initial films were accomplished, often brilliant, but “The Brutalist” represents a dramatic step forward.

Critics hailed the movie as a masterpiece when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival; some compared its dark rumination on capitalism to that of “There Will Be Blood.” A24 bought the film and is planning a major Oscar push. Even if it doesn’t become an awards season darling, “The Brutalist” is indisputably one of the most audacious American independent films of this or any decade, boasting a run time of three and a half hours while telling a story that starts with American power at its postwar zenith and ends in the Reagan era. It was also shot in VistaVision, a large-format process popular in the 1950s, so it could be projected in 70mm like the screen epics of yesteryear. Oh, and it was all made for roughly $10 million — less than a tenth of what a major studio film costs.

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“We cut every corner we could to make sure that every single cent was on screen,” Corbet says. “It was a Herculean effort, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, because it was just years and years of essentially working for free.”

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Despite the challenges, Corbet didn’t dream of making “The Brutalist” on a big budget. “I never thought, ‘I wish I had $30 million more,’” he says. “There’s a lot of strings that come with that kind of money. It invites lots of opinions. You have all these executives who don’t trust the director and bury them in notes. What you get is something antiseptic that lacks a signature. It’s the difference between a bowl from Crate & Barrel and a wabisabi ceramic.”

Like the style of architecture referenced in its title, “The Brutalist” may be polarizing, but it is unmistakably the movie Corbet set out to make.

Announced way back in 2016, David Lee Fisher was directing a new take on the horror classic Nosferatu, with Doug Jones (Hellboy, The Shape of Water) starring as Count Orlok.

Eight years later, the film finally has a title and release date.

Doug Jones stars as the titular Nosferatu in David Lee Fisher’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, a remix of the 1922 original with new actors, dialogue, sound, and musical score.

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror premieres October 18 on Apple TV+.

This movie is scene-for-scene the same story as the original silent film, but with a new cast and a green screen element for every frame of the movie. “What will be filled in that green screen is a digitally created backdrop from the original film,” Bloody Disgusting has been told.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18202626

Neve Campbell is back as Sidney Prescott in the upcoming Scream VII, and it’s been officially announced today that the seventh installment will hit theaters on February 27, 2026.

Original Scream scribe Kevin Williamson will direct Scream 7. The film, which is currently untitled, was written by Guy Busick from a story by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick.

Courteney Cox is expected to return as Gale Weathers, but hasn’t yet signed on.

The franchise has been mired in controversy in the past several months, with new series leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega both exiting the project. Barrera was fired, while it was subsequently announced that Ortega wouldn’t be returning. At this time, we still don’t know if Jasmin Savoy Brown or Mason Gooding will be returning for Scream 7.

According to Neve Campbell, the upcoming seventh installment will be a return to the franchise’s roots in the sense that Sidney Prescott will be the central character of the movie.

Neve Campbell is back as Sidney Prescott in the upcoming Scream VII, and it’s been officially announced today that the seventh installment will hit theaters on February 27, 2026.

Original Scream scribe Kevin Williamson will direct Scream 7. The film, which is currently untitled, was written by Guy Busick from a story by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick.

Courteney Cox is expected to return as Gale Weathers, but hasn’t yet signed on.

The franchise has been mired in controversy in the past several months, with new series leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega both exiting the project. Barrera was fired, while it was subsequently announced that Ortega wouldn’t be returning. At this time, we still don’t know if Jasmin Savoy Brown or Mason Gooding will be returning for Scream 7.

According to Neve Campbell, the upcoming seventh installment will be a return to the franchise’s roots in the sense that Sidney Prescott will be the central character of the movie.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18200295

Online searches for big cats in Wales have surged following an increase in alleged sightings.

Research by AussieBoots has revealed that Cardiff and Wrexham saw a 100% increase in searches for ‘Big Cats UK’ from 2021 to 2023 – with Swansea seeing a 50% rise.

It comes after multiple big cat sightings have been reported in the press across the country in recent months and years.

The term ‘big cat’ is usually used to describe large wild felines such as tigers, lions, panthers, jaguars, leopards, cheetahs and cougars.

Big cats such as pumas are solitary and their hunting range is dozens of miles.

When big cats were banned as pets in the 1970s, it was legal to release them into the countryside to avoid expensive rehoming costs.

Experts believe that owners from across the UK travelled to Wales to release their cats in to the remote environment.

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A BBC study collated more than 100 big cat sightings in 18 months across north and mid Wales.

Another study recorded 123 Welsh sightings over two years with frequent reports of big cats in Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy and Gwynedd.

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Wales overall has seen a 50% increase in internet searches for big cats whilst Northern Ireland was the country that saw the highest rise in searches (133%).

Scotland came second (127%), and England came third (84%).

The UK saw an 84% increase overall.

Pete Bryden from AussieBoots said: “The increase in big cat sightings across the UK has certainly captured the public’s imagination.

“It’s fascinating to see how interest has grown, particularly in Wales where searches have surged.

“Whether these sightings are fact or folklore, it’s clear that the British countryside still holds plenty of mysteries for us to discover.”

Online searches for big cats in Wales have surged following an increase in alleged sightings.

Research by AussieBoots has revealed that Cardiff and Wrexham saw a 100% increase in searches for ‘Big Cats UK’ from 2021 to 2023 – with Swansea seeing a 50% rise.

It comes after multiple big cat sightings have been reported in the press across the country in recent months and years.

The term ‘big cat’ is usually used to describe large wild felines such as tigers, lions, panthers, jaguars, leopards, cheetahs and cougars.

Big cats such as pumas are solitary and their hunting range is dozens of miles.

When big cats were banned as pets in the 1970s, it was legal to release them into the countryside to avoid expensive rehoming costs.

Experts believe that owners from across the UK travelled to Wales to release their cats in to the remote environment.

...

A BBC study collated more than 100 big cat sightings in 18 months across north and mid Wales.

Another study recorded 123 Welsh sightings over two years with frequent reports of big cats in Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy and Gwynedd.

...

Wales overall has seen a 50% increase in internet searches for big cats whilst Northern Ireland was the country that saw the highest rise in searches (133%).

Scotland came second (127%), and England came third (84%).

The UK saw an 84% increase overall.

Pete Bryden from AussieBoots said: “The increase in big cat sightings across the UK has certainly captured the public’s imagination.

“It’s fascinating to see how interest has grown, particularly in Wales where searches have surged.

“Whether these sightings are fact or folklore, it’s clear that the British countryside still holds plenty of mysteries for us to discover.”

A woman from China’s northwest region has made headlines after giving birth to twins from two separate uteruses, a rare occurrence that has captured the attention of the medical world. The woman, known only by her surname Li, delivered the twins in September at a hospital in Shaanxi province, according to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The woman was diagnosed with uterus didelphys, a rare condition that affects only 0.3 per cent of women worldwide. This condition results in a woman having two fully formed uteruses, each with its own set of ovaries and oviducts. While it is already uncommon, Li’s case was even more remarkable because she managed to naturally conceive and give birth to twins—a boy and a girl—each from a different womb.

The twins were born when Li was eight and a half months pregnant, adding a unique chapter to the limited cases of such births across the globe.