“In the long lead-up to its release, Chinese fantasy epic Asura was promoted as China’s most expensive film ever made, with a production budget of over $110 million (750 million yuan). So perhaps it’s unsurprising that the film’s producers, which include Jack Ma’s Alibaba Pictures, decided to take desperate action after the movie opened to just $7.1 million over the weekend.”
Month: July 2018
Saudi Arabia’s Now-Growing Art Scene Was Built By Women
“Despite many legal and bureaucratic challenges, Saudi women have been at the forefront of a growing cultural landscape. As a tsunami of government funding floods the Saudi Arabian cultural sector with the announcement this February of a planned $64 billion investment in the entertainment and cultural sector over the next decade, it is crucial that these waves of cash not wash away the legacy and achievements of these female pioneers.”
Could Arabic Literature In Translation Be On The Verge Of A Breakout?
Hannah Johnson reports from a seminar on the topic at the New York Public Library, where publishers, agents, and other industry members were unusually eager for information.
Today’s highlights from AJBlogs 07.16.18
- Communities Are Creative Our next entry comes from Micah Goldstein via new Creative Community Fellow Jane Wegscheider and is a great video about an annual event in their Western Massachusetts community. Jane writes: Micah Goldstein is an emerging videographer … read more
- Random facts about me that may surprise you I recently ran across a long-forgotten meme called “Random Facts About Yourself That May Surprise People” that I never got around to finishing or posting. I don’t know how surprising you’ll find the answers, much … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2018-07-16
MoviePass Stock Dives, Losing 26% Of Its Value
The issue has lost more than 98% of its value this year and has continued to decline in recent weeks in the wake of AMC’s launch on June 20 of a discount pricing program, allowing customers to see three movies a week for a $19.95 monthly fee. MoviePass has more than 3 million subscribers and allows customers the chance to see a movie a day for a monthly fee of $9.99. But Wall Street has been losing faith in whether MoviePass can survive by selling data about its customers and striking marketing partnerships.
Netflix Adds Only 600K Subscribers In Q2 And Its Stock Price Plunges
The company reported 670,000 streaming net adds domestically and 4.47 million internationally. Wall Street analysts expected 1.23 million net adds in the U.S. and 5.11 million overseas for the period (slightly higher that Netflix’s prior guidance).
“Boys In The Band” Becomes First Broadway Show Of This Season To Recoup Its Investment
Boys in the Band, a revival of Mart Crowley’s 1968 play about a group of New York gay men celebrating – or not – a birthday party, was, as usual, close to SRO, with paid attendance of 6,058 at 98% of capacity, for a total gross of $929,338, 97% of the $957K potential.
Is Economics Incompatible With Humanities?
Economics, Morson and Schapiro say, has three systematic biases: it ignores the role of culture, it ignores the fact that “to understand people one must tell stories about them,” and it constantly touches on ethical questions beyond its ken. Culture, stories, and ethics are things that can’t be reduced to equations, and economics accordingly has difficulty with them. Morson and Schapiro’s solution is to use the study of the humanities, and particularly of realist fiction, to broaden perspectives and to reintroduce to economics those three missing factors.
How Science Is Building Better Dancers
The Royal Ballet is rich in tradition, but the company’s 97 dancers are now supported by a 17-strong team of sports science and healthcare experts. “Our facilities are now similar to those of a Premier League football club,” explains Gregory Retter, clinical director of ballet healthcare. “Strength, jumping, force attenuation, cardiovascular fitness, psychological wellbeing and nutrition; all support the dancer to be free to create artistic excellence. This is a completely new concept in dance.”
Survey Suggests Pro-Brexit Voters Do Not Engage With Arts
“It’s not just that there’s a relationship between engagement in the arts and voting Remain at the area level: it looks like it’s particularly about attending cultural institutions, which must come as a challenge to the institutions themselves.”