Hollywood: Shit or Garbage?

Netflix appointed feminist DEI director Greta Gerwig to direct its new Narnia series -- based, of course, on the very clear Christian allegory book by C.S. Lewis. An allegory so obvious that even fellow Christian J.R.R. Tolkien thought it was a bit much.

The feminist did exactly what you'd guess she would do -- she has gender-flipped Aslan, the clear Christ figure in the story.

Meryl Streep is officially Aslan in Barbie Director Greta Gerwig's Netflix adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia.

After more than a year of reports and speculation surrounding Greta Gerwig's upcoming adaptation of The Magician's Nephew, Streep has now been confirmed as the voice of C.S. Lewis' Great Lion -- one of the most explicitly Christian figures in modern fantasy literature.

But that's only the beginning.

Gerwig has also revealed that her interpretation of Narnia draws heavily from 1960s and 1970s British rock, that she approached the movie with the idea of making a "rock opera," and that her new version of Aslan has been visually inspired by David Bowie.

For longtime Narnia readers -- and particularly the generations of Christians for whom Lewis' books carry enormous spiritual significance -- there's a lot to unpack here.

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The available material continues to describe Aslan as male, so this doesn't appear to be a straightforward gender swap in which Aslan has been rewritten as a lioness or female deity. Rather, Gerwig has cast a woman to provide the voice of the male Aslan.

I think they're just calling him a "he" for the moment, to tamp down on backlash.

They only have three tricks -- deconstruct; rewrite to propagandize about Current Day Isssues; race- and gender-flip -- and they just do these same three tricks over and over, and then demand praise.

Groomer Network Disney will enable ads on its channel -- even for subscribers who are paying extra to not see ads at all.

Disney has updated its subscriber agreement in parts of Europe to expressly permit advertising before or after content across every Disney+ plan, including tiers marketed as ad-free.

Disney's U.S. agreement already allows limited promotions, sponsorship messages, product integrations, and certain other exceptions on ad-free plans. However, the newly reported European language more explicitly permits "advertisements before/after playback" on all tiers.

Sony's new Gay Wolverine game -- which features a homosexual yearning between Wolverine and his nemesis, and half-brother, Sabertooth -- is being censored in Middle East countries do to its "Pride" content.

Players in parts of the Middle East say regional copies of Marvel's Wolverine have been altered so that Mystique's marriage to Tyger is hard to see and, in some scenes, hard to hear. The reports began circulating days after the PlayStation 5 launch and have since been repeated across gaming sites, including coverage that collected player screenshots, a letter with the text blocked out, and a compilation clip from Reddit.

Insomniac Games' story treats Mystique and Tyger as wives. In versions players describe as Middle East copies, that framing does not survive intact. A framed wedding photograph can still be picked up, but the image itself is blank or fully blurred. A letter tied to the couple is likewise unreadable. Spoken lines that mention "wife" drop out while the rest of the scene's audio keeps going. Subtitles in those moments replace the word with asterisks. One player wrote that the cuts first looked like a glitch, then repeated often enough that they no longer did. Another post aimed at Insomniac asked why Mystique's relationship had been removed in Lebanon.

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The pattern is not new for this studio's Marvel games. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was previously changed for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including pride flags and a side quest built around a same-sex couple.

The game, by the way, is bad. Skill Up says it's one of the worst Triple A releases he's played. In addition to being repetitive, it's also low-skill to a fault. The game's levels are the typical single-path linear tracks, but the game assumes you are stupid and points out the way to go, using Wolverine's "scent" ability to draw a glowing bright blue trail for you to follow, and won't let you lose Quick Time Events.

This itself seems to be a political choice. If you're not a gamer, you probably don't know that there's an argument in the gaming world about whether games should require skill and should be difficult to beat, or if they should be "for everyone" and hand you a win just for pushing the top arrow button. I'm a very casual gamer myself so I appreciate games having an easy or moderate mode, but this game seems to take that to extremes, and doesn't offer a harder difficulty for those who want to actually beat a game using skill.

Skill is racist and discriminatory.

It's going to bomb, terribly. And it cost over $300 million. (Yes, Triple A titles cost as much to produce as big spectacular blockbuster movies.)

This guy says his estimates show that while the game sold okay for its first three days, word of mouth has collapsed sales since then:

JayViper @JayViperTV

🚨 WOLVERINE SALES HAVE PLUMMETED.

According to Alinea Analytics, Wolverine made $130 million from Tuesday to early Friday morning, last week. That was a reported 1.9 million copies.

Since that time, it has only made approximately $18 million. This includes the weekend! This represents about 2.3 million copies, so 400K have moved since Friday morning until today, Tuesday.

Wolverine's falloff has been historic, if these numbers are correct, so I checked my own which were close to Alinea's.

My data shows that when I had it at ~1.4M units on Thursday, that now accounts for about 66% of all sales, so my estimate puts total sales at 2.1 million (as of YESTERDAY; my data lags by 1 day).

So yes, it does look like the Wolverine sales have stalled, hard.

Zach Snyder is in director jail -- where they put directors who've had a run of poor-performing films -- after the very divisive results with the DC movies and then the much-mocked Rebel Moon Star Wars copy-pastes he did for Netflix.

So, to get himself out of director jail, he's refuting his rumored conservative leanings and telling everyone he loves The Gays.

Despite having a loyal fanbase and several blockbusters under his belt, Zack Snyder may be finding that Hollywood's doors no longer open as quickly as they once did.

During a lengthy interview with Variety promoting his new film, The Last Photograph, at the Toronto International Film Festival, the director addressed several assumptions frequently made by his critics. He also attempted to distance himself from the perception that he is somehow "right wing."

His comments come as Snyder searches for a distributor for his latest effort, which appears far more grounded than his action epics. During the same interview, Snyder called himself "pro-gay" and described 300 as "the gayest movie ever made." There is no indication that these remarks represent a coordinated effort to make The Last Photograph more appealing to a left-leaning industry, but the timing is difficult to ignore.

During the interview, Snyder argued that his films are frequently dismissed simply because he made them.

"With me, it's more clickable to say, 'I hate Zack Snyder! He's a fascist!' than it is to say, 'I saw the movie and it was cool,'" Snyder said. "Nobody gives a f-- about that. And obviously, I'm not a fascist."

The Last Photograph, an independently produced film from Snyder, is already receiving harsh reviews. Major outlets have described it as "pretentious," "superficial," "miserable," and "undercooked." Until general audiences can see the film for themselves, however, it remains unclear whether those criticisms will reflect the broader reception.

Still, Snyder appears optimistic and is already looking ahead to future projects. That is where the conversation becomes particularly interesting.

The Variety interviewer asked Snyder whether there were any other films he was "just dying to make."

The director admitted that he still wants to make a Rick and Morty movie.

"It would be fun," Snyder said. He then added, "For the longest time, I've been trying to make The Fountainhead into a movie or into TV show because it's too long. I've written it.

When Variety pointed out that adapting the famous Ayn Rand novel was unlikely to "help with the right-wing allegations," Snyder quickly agreed.

"I was going to say! That's not going to help," Snyder said. "But it's an undeniably great book. What people don't realize is that The Fountainhead in the 1950s was like Harry Potter now in terms of popularity. It was off the charts. Even just the why of that is worth it. And The Fountainhead is an insane melodrama. That'll probably be my magnum opus. I'll probably die on that one."

He's also pitching himself as the right director for a Dark Knight Returns live action production, though he stole much of the plot of that for his poorly-received Batman v. Superman movie.

I don't hate the guy for trying to ingratiate himself to his Leftist Masters. He's in steep career decline and can't afford the industry being against him just because his politics are slightly right of center (maybe?).

But I don't think this is going to work. SJWs never forgive. They don't even forgive imaginary sins.

Mark Ruffalo actually wind up helping Paramount/Skydance win in its effort to buy Warner/Discovery? Maybe -- the communist imbecile was a loud and angry agitator against the merger, but he may have blown up his side by attempting his own merger, merging the fake "anti-trust" concerns with open antisemtism.

Mark Ruffalo spent months fighting to stop Paramount Skydance's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Now, in a remarkable twist, a new report claims the actor's crusade may have actually helped Paramount get the deal across the finish line.

The New York Post reports that California Attorney General Rob Bonta faced mounting political pressure to settle his antitrust lawsuit against Paramount, with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and others pushing toward a resolution as concerns grew about the potential economic consequences of continuing the fight.

But according to people cited by the Post, Ruffalo's increasingly vocal involvement became another problem for Bonta.

The report describes Ruffalo as a "constant opponent" of a settlement and says the actor made what sources characterized as a damaging mistake when he connected his opposition to the Ellison family with Oracle's contracts involving Israel.

One person familiar with the situation told the Post that Ruffalo's comments "hurt Bonta's effort" and created political problems for the attorney general among fellow Democrats.

Ruffalo had become one of Hollywood's most visible opponents of David Ellison's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

The actor helped spearhead an opposition campaign that collected signatures from thousands of entertainment industry workers. Earlier in the fight, Bonta even publicly acknowledged Ruffalo's concerns, writing in February, "Mark, I hear you," while saying he was speaking with fellow attorneys general about the transaction.

But Ruffalo's campaign eventually expanded beyond traditional antitrust concerns.

In August, Paramount accused Ruffalo of employing antisemitic tropes after he criticized the Ellisons and Oracle's business relationship with Israel.

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The controversy nevertheless became entangled with the merger fight, with National Jewish Advocacy Center head Mark Goldfeder publicly questioning Bonta about Ruffalo's influence on the case.

The Post now reports that the episode proved politically damaging to Bonta's efforts.

Tasty.

What's even tastier is that the Ellisons are seeking Elon Musk's investment in the company.

Paramount executives reportedly have discussed asking billionaire Elon Musk to take an equity stake in its $81 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery -- a move that could fuel the burgeoning panic among CNN staffers.

Hollywood mogul David Ellison is looking to build up his media empire's finances ahead of the mega merger, and has been mulling over several wealthy individuals who could back the deal, according to a Semafor report. The size of the investment that Paramount is seeking is unclear.

His father, Oracle founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison, is currently on the hook for more than $40 billion of the equity financing supporting the acquisition, and a contribution from Musk -- a close friend -- could help reduce the burden, the report said.

An investment from Musk could incite uproar at left-leaning CNN, where staffers are already in a panic about potential layoffs and who will be in charge of the network once David Ellison takes over, sources told The Post.

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Layoffs weren't addressed in detail by the California settlement -- and employees at both companies fear a bloodbath in the months ahead.

"When it rains...[it pours]," one CNN source said of the Musk news. "It's really scary given what he did at X and DOGE."

Love it.

Male Karen and former comedian Bill Burr says that CEOs shouldn't have rushed to condemn Luigi Mangione but instead asked, "Why do they hate us?" That's a favorite take of the pro-terrorism party that we've been hearing since literally 12 hours after 9/11.

This fat ginger also has a role as a Male Karen in the upcoming anti-Zuckerberg hit-piece movie. Now, you may say Zuckerberg deserves to be hit, but this movie thinks he should be castigated not for his rampant censorship but for slightly resisting Biden's demands for censorship, and then later rolling it back when the political winds changed.

Zuckerberg's censorship was heroic, his retreat back from it is villainous. Got it. We'll keep Hollywood's acceptance of censorship in mind for when we accumulate more power and can act with a freer hand.

You may have heard of the coming Elizabeth Holmes documentary -- you know, the weird hoaxster who conned the entire stupid liberal elite into vouching for her fake "Theranos" company and swindling the wealthy (including Rupert Murdoch) out of billions for tech that not only didn't work but which could not even work in principle.

NY Post reviewer Kyle Smith said the nudity would be "Peen." I don't know if he knows that or is just guessing, based on Hollywood's embrace of the New Rule that boobs are exploitative but naked floppy wangs all over the place are Empowering.

Possibly worth a look:

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:10 PM

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