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WIRE Buzz: Fantastic Beasts gets a nature show; Star Wars Resistance teases special episode
J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World is coming to the BBC in the form of a nature special that takes a deep dive into the magical creatures of the Fantastic Beasts films. It's basically Planet Earth meets Harry Potter, and we couldn't be more here for it. As if that weren't enough, the BBC One event will be hosted/narrated by comedian Stephen Fry — voice of the Potter audiobooks in the U.K.
“I could not be more delighted to be a part of this magnificent opportunity for us Muggles to show the Wizarding World that the fantastic beasts in our world are more than a match for theirs," Fry said in an official statement. "Joining forces with the combined powers of the fabulous BBC, its legendary Natural History Unit and the magical Natural History Museum, we hope to be able to bring you closer than you’ve ever been to some of the most spectacular and extraordinary creatures ever seen.”
Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History will whisk viewers around the world (starting with London's Natural History Museum), taking a "dive deep into the bewitching secrets, marvelous wonders, and surprising truths behind a host of fantastic beasts, both real and imagined," according to the official announcement. Viewers will also get a glimpse of the museum's Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature exhibit, which opens in the spring.
Directed by David Yates, Fantastic Beasts 3 is scheduled to hit theaters on Nov. 12, 2021. The third installment in the Harry Potter spinoff series (five movies are planned by Warner Bros.) will head to South America for its story.
Star Wars Resistance is almost at an end, but the second and final season of the animated series ain't going anywhere until it airs a one-hour, two-part episode this Sunday, Jan. 12, on Disney XD.
The official description is as follows:
Doza takes the Colossus to a hidden world on the outer rim, only to find it’s inhabited by a race of beings who don’t like them — for a very good reason. Meanwhile, when Kaz decides to join up with Poe and the Resistance, things go awry when he discovers the First Order has located the Colossus.
Check out the teaser below:
"The New World" and "No Safe Place" will air on Disney XD this Sunday at 9 p.m. EST. The two episodes will later hit the Disney Channel and DisneyNOW app at 1 a.m. EST the following morning.
Warner Bros. has struck an unlikely alliance with our robot brethren when it comes to the process of giving the greenlight to film projects, writes The Hollywood Reporter.
No joke, the studio is utilizing an artificial intelligence system developed by Cinelytic that "will leverage the system’s comprehensive data and predictive analytics to guide decision-making at the greenlight stage. The integrated online platform can assess the value of a star in any territory and how much a film is expected to make in theaters and on other ancillary streams."
Per the report, this A.I. can't necessarily predict what the next billion-dollar movie will be, but can save executives time "on low-value, repetitive tasks and instead give them better dollar-figure parameters for packaging, marketing and distribution decisions including release dates."
The most practical application of the system is for heated bidding wars with other studios at film festivals. THR also asserts that the tech can help WB avoid future bombs like Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Shaft, and The Kitchen — all of which tanked last year.
“The system can calculate in seconds what used to take days to assess by a human when it comes to general film package evaluation or a star’s worth,” Cinelytic founder Tobias Queisser told the outlet. “Artificial intelligence sounds scary. But right now, an AI cannot make any creative decisions. What it is good at is crunching numbers and breaking down huge datasets and showing patterns that would not be visible to humans. But for creative decision-making, you still need experience and gut instinct."
