#billion dollars

[funbearer]

[roysexton]

“When I found out the patriarchy wasn’t about horses, I just lost interest anyway.” Barbie the Movie

Kudos to Barbie helmer and co-screenwriter Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women), Hollywood’s first woman director (and likely NOT the last) to earn $1 billion at the international box office for a film. In just two weeks no less. I was reflecting on that milestone on the way home from seeing the fab film this morning. Why? What is it about this movie that has captured the zeitgeist so?…

[rahul-tech]

OpenAI's o1: A Step Forward in Reasoning, But at a Cost

OpenAI unveiled its highly anticipated o1 models, a revolutionary leap in generative AI, on Thursday. These models, codenamed “Strawberry” within OpenAI, have been generating a buzz in the tech world, promising to be a game-changer. At the heart of this excitement is the concept of “thinking” AI, where the model takes a pause to analyze and reason before delivering an answer. However, while o1…

[mateushonrado]

Superhero films that have grossed $1 billion

Status Post #11306: At the time of this writing.

1-2-3-4

Avengers: Endgame (2019) - $2.799 billion

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - $2.052 billion

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) - $1.923 billion

The Avengers (2012) - $1.521 billion

5-6-7-8

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - $1.405 billion

Black Panther (2018) - $1.349 billion

Incredibles 2 (2018) - $1.243 billion

Iron Man 3 (2013) - $1.216 billion

9-10-11-12

Captain America: Civil War (2016) - $1.155 billion

Aquaman (2018) - $1.152 billion

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) - $1.133 billion

Captain Marvel (2019) - $1.131 billion

13-14-15-16

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) - $1.085 billion

Joker (2019) - $1.079 billion

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) - $1.029 billion

The Dark Knight (2008) - $1.006 billion

[dailyworldecho]

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[newsmrl]

Elon Musk: person who earns $3237.35 per minute ₹100 crore in Indian currency every hour

NEW YORK: According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk’s net worth is now (as of December 27, 2023) $239 billion. This year alone there has been an increase of 101 billion dollars. If we look at it at the rate of Rs 83.27 per dollar, then this amount is ₹ 84,10,27,00,00,000 crore. If we divide it by 361 then this amount will be ₹ 23,29,71,46,814. That means, last year, Musk added an…

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #611

Top Ten Billion Dollar Movies

I remember the first time a film crossed a billion dollars at the international box office (Titanic in 1997; it’s not on this list). It was a big deal; in fact, it was a huge deal. Sure, there were films that had come very close, earning over $900m; the likes of Jurassic Park and The Lion King. But crossing that particular financial Rubicon was a watershed moment in cinema (no pun intended when discussing Titanic). Okay, sure, money isn’t everything; but this was a lot of money.

Since then, we’ve slowly become accustomed to films making crazy stupid amounts of money. It’s still pretty rare if a film hits the big Two Bil – Avatars, Avengers, oh my – and each of them feels in some way like a seismic pop-cultural event. Although I still remain slightly baffled at quite how big a deal Avatar is; more on which later. But when what feel like undersung Disney films such as Zootopia, or crap films like most of the Transformers sequels, are raking in over a billion, it has almost become commonplace.

Until it wasn’t. Because, post-Covid, there has definitely been a big box office wobble. There are many potential reasons for this: maybe people got out of the habit of going to the pictures during lockdown? The rise of streaming services, especially studio-owned ones such as Disney+ and Paramount+, have coached people into expecting films to appear on their TVs “for free” a couple of months down the line. Nowadays, you can’t simply expect your huge $250m blockbuster to earn nine figures. In fact, I’d argue that for most mainstream movies, $500m is a good figure right now. The Marvels, sadly, might struggle to reach that, despite it being thoroughly enjoyable.

So as we stand in the Year of Our Lord 2023, a film that crosses the billion-dollar-boundary is something to take note of once again. Whilst it should go without saying that financial success is no guarantee of quality, it obviously means that the film struck a chord with audiences. This year – and I really, really can’t imagine any of the films scheduled this side of January joining the club – there are only two Big Bill films, Barbie and Super Mario Bros (although Oppenheimer is only just behind, to be honest). One of those two films is tremendous. The other is, frankly, a bit shit. But which is which? Go on, take a guess. Even so, the fact that they connected with audiences to such a degree is something to be applauded; clearly there’s something to them – even if it’s something in the moment, in the zeitgeist – that films such as Elemental, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and – yes – The Marvels all, I guess, lacked.

Oh, one more thing. I’ve based this off the website boxofficemojo.com. That’s where I’ve got the financial figures for these flicks. So if they’re wrong don’t blame me. It’s global gross in US dollars, and it’s not adjusted for inflation – something I actually comment on in about two paragraphs’ time. This is a ranking of my favourite films, not by their gross, so the relatively “low earning” Jurassic Park tops the list (spoiler alert!) despite not earning nearly as much as some other films. “Much” and “low” being relative when you’re talking about squillions of dollars.

Anyway, that’s enough pointless preamble. Let’s get to the cinema and start counting coins. I hope you all got a cut of the gross!

Jurassic Park (1993), $1.11b: this one’s a cheat but I don’t care; on its original release it made only (“only”) $914m (this is in 1993 money, remember; if the website I used to calculate it is correct, that’d be $1.9b today). Anyway, subsequent re-releases nudged it over a bil, even if Titanic beat it to the billionaire punch. Anyway, that doesn’t matter; it’s Jurassic Park. It’s scary, it’s cool, it’s a sci-fi horror story monster movie adventure blockbuster romcom. It’s got a shirtless Jeff Goldblum, a T-Rex, and a big pile of shit. It’s a masterpiece. Clever girl.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), $1.16b: the whole LOTR trilogy is one enormous three-year, nine-plus-hour masterpiece. Arguably the best exercise in adaptation, it managed to bottle the lightning of a tumultuous production and a book that was “unfilmable”, with a director so theoretically unsuited for the material that only he could make the movie. The final film manages – somehow – to stick the landing in incredible fashion (multiple times!). Epic battles, tragic ends, a heroic finale. It bows to no one.

Toy Story 3 (2010), $1.07b: it can be a controversial opinion, stating which is your favourite Toy Story (anyone who says 4 can get in the bin though). I love this one, with its nuanced take on aging and obsolescence, as the toys (parents) say goodbye to the child who’s loved them. It’s a bittersweet end to a franchise that should have ended here, and it’s Paddington levels of perfect.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018), $2.05b, and Avengers: Endgame (2019), $2.8b: I’ve bunched these together partly for effect and partly because I didn’t want to bloat this list with four or five different MCU movies. I don’t even think these absolute epics are my favourite from the saga (it’s either Iron Man 3 or any one of the Captain Americas), but they represent something epochal, the culmination of a never-before-attempted multi-film saga, bringing so many different characters into play and landing it in as perfect a fashion as you could wish for. The Lord of the Rings of comic book movies, the greatest superhero saga told on screen, and did I mention there’s a bit where Steve lifts the hammer?

Frozen II (2019), $1.45b: quite a few Disney films have made a lot of money, but the runaway success of the first Frozen in 2013 took people by surprise; not many expected this girly musical about two sisters singing in the snow to blow Pixar’s box office out the water. I prefer – just – the sequel, as I think its themes are more nuanced but also more layered into the film, just like the central musical motif. It also manages to duck out of questions about Elsa’s sexuality whilst still allowing itself to be interpreted as a further queer coming out story, which is a pretty delicate needle to thread. Also: Lost in the Woods.

The Dark Knight (2008), $1b: I go back and forth over which is my favourite; the precision-tooled Dark Knight or the broader, looser, messier, but more Batman-y Rises. As a piece of crime fiction, this is great, Nolan channelling Heat to amazing effect and also showcasing one of the greatest bits of acting in superhero cinema. The Joker’s first proper scene, in the kitchen with all the mob bosses, is a thing of beauty.

Barbie (2023), $1.44b: here we go with the most recent film on the list, a surprising adaptation of a toy that manages to be not only really interesting and funny and moving, but also unique and visually sumptuous and, well, a treatise on misogyny and the damaging nature of the patriarchy. Far better than it had any right to be; much more than Kenough.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), $1.33b: there aren’t really that many Star Wars films in the Big Bil Club, as most of them I guess are just too old. Last Jedi wasn’t quite the box office juggernaut its predecessor was, but it’s still an exciting, compelling, and well-executed film, probably the best directed in Star Wars history, and willing to do interesting things with the characters and lore. We are what they grow beyond, indeed.

Avatar (2009). $2.92b: the big blue daddy of the billionaire’s boys’ club, the most successful film ever made. I do find it odd just how successful it is, as it doesn’t feel to have impacted the zeitgeist the way it has James Cameron’s pockets. All the same, it really is great, a barnstorming action movie with groundbreaking effects, showcasing just how good Jim is at this sort of stuff. The sequel’s great too. It’s got a talking whale in it.

Skyfall (2012), $1.14b: I do like a good James Bond film, even though I’m far from an afficionado. This one’s probably my favourite, despite (because?) of how it deconstructs the character. It’s also funnier than most Craig Bonds and has a hell of a song. But the quirky plot, streak of cold brutality, and fantastic Home Alone-esque finale really earns it a place here.

[sophbun]

gerald: not to worry commander, my granddaughter will not interact with the ultimate lifeform

maria with shadow 2 seconds after hes born:

[crashdlanding]

I won’t tell anyone but there will be signs.

If I won a billion dollars Sing that to the tune of “if I had a million dollars” by the bare naked ladies. too niche? “If I had a million dollars” – Barenaked Ladies – YouTube Now according to this calculator I’d have about $690,000,000 left after taxes, if this were a lump sum payment. This is also assuming I won a billion dollars from the lottery. That’s still a significant amount of money…

[rahul-tech]

The Rise of AI: A Week in Review

The world of artificial intelligence is evolving at a breakneck pace. Each week seems to bring a new milestone, a groundbreaking discovery, or a stark warning about the potential pitfalls of this rapidly advancing field. From the depths of Silicon Valley to the hallowed halls of academia, the conversation surrounding AI is abuzz with excitement, apprehension, and a healthy dose of…

[crashdlanding2015]

I won’t tell anyone but there will be signs.

If I won a billion dollars Sing that to the tune of “if I had a million dollars” by the bare naked ladies. too niche? “If I had a million dollars” – Barenaked Ladies – YouTube Now according to this calculator I’d have about $690,000,000 left after taxes, if this were a lump sum payment. This is also assuming I won a billion dollars from the lottery. That’s still a significant amount of money…

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[thepopoptic]

Watch "Defense Department Admits 'Accounting Error' Made Us Give Ukraine $6.2 Billion Extra" on YouTube

[sambucha2]

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