Author: Douglas McLennan

The 25 Most Powerful Hollywood Movie Franchises

“We crunched the global box office numbers (courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com) for series and franchises that have at least three installments and are still ongoing. (Hence, no “Avatar” or “Lord of the Rings.”) Then we factored in more diffuse criteria, like longevity (how many could you conceivably make?) and merchandisability (does anyone want toys?). And what we came up with was our movie franchise power list, or the 25 Most Powerful Franchises in Hollywood.”

Disney’s Biggest Bet Yet: Shanghai

The $5.5-billion Shanghai Disneyland is a colossal 963-acre park three times larger than Hong Kong Disneyland and anchored by the tallest castle in any Disney theme park. The joint venture with China-based Shanghai Shendi Group, which owns 57% of the park, is the glitziest in a spate of entertainment firms rushing to establish themselves in the world’s most populous nation, one run by a regime that increasingly views entertainment as a vital component of its soft power.

Hollywood North Is Booming (Betting On B.C.)

“Why the sudden spike? For starters, Hollywood values Vancouver for its trained crews, studio space and a record for handling such major productions as next month’s feature Star Trek Beyond, or the Ryan Reynolds blockbuster Deadpool, which hired more than 2,000 local cast, crew and extras. Geography gives B.C. another upside.”

A Heartbreaking Story About A Brazilian Children’s Orchestra

The story behind “The Violin Teacher”, a film which has been moving audiences to tears, is true. And the Latin American movements it is based on, which teach poor children how to play instruments after school, have been hailed as the future of classical music. Having seen his young actors drawn from a tough Sao Paulo slum learn to play Bach as he shot the film, director Sergio Machado is now evangelical about the city’s Baccarelli Institute.

Elon Musk Says We Might All Be Living In A Simulation. Really?

“Wouldn’t it, I mean, be a remarkable coincidence to find ourselves alive at just the moment where technology finally shows itself to be adequate to reveal to us the true nature of reality? And how are we supposed to interpret the equally certain claims of people in other times and places, who believed that reality in fact reflected some device or artifice of central importance to their own culture (e.g., horologia, mirrors, puppets, tjurungas…)?”

Where Science Went Wrong (It’s Systemic)

“Given the public awareness that science can be low-quality or corrupted, that whole fields can be misdirected for decades (see nutrition, on cholesterol and sugar), and that some basic fields must progress in the absence of any prospect of empirical testing (string theory), the naïve realism of previous generations becomes quite Medieval in its irrelevance to present realities.”