An anonymous reader writes: Netflix has removed the ability to cast shows and movies from phones to TVs, unless subscribers are using older casting devices. An updated help page on Netflix's website, first reported by Android Authority, says that the streaming service "no longer supports casting shows from a mobile device to most TVs and TV-streaming devices," and instead directs users to navigate Netflix using the remote that came with their TV hardware.

"There are times when World of Tanks feels less like a videogame and more like a giant ad budget looking for something to be spent on," writes PC Gamer. This year, all those huge sacks with dollar signs on them have been thrown Benedict Cumberbatch's way, making him the game's newest "Holiday Ambassador" and the star of an absolutely bizarre Christmas advert. The story has very little to do with Christmas and, frankly, not much connection to tanks either, featuring Cumberbatch as a sort of chaotic, supernatural therapist trying to bring a meek nerd out of his shell with the help of a chaotic crowd of his other patients. It's a good watch, shedding the usual hard man action star vibe of past celebrity trailers in favour of something that feels more like a mischievous one act play.
Cumberbatch also portrayed Smaug and Sauron in The Hobbit films (2012-2014), Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and Dr. Strange in six Marvel movies. And now Amazon has also hired Cumberbatch for what its calls its "Cannes-winning '5-Star Theater' campaign... performing real Amazon customer reviews as theatrical monologues." Cumberbatch performed over 15 reviews, including popular holiday gifts like the Bissell portable carpet cleaner, Toto bidet, and SharkNinja blender — showing that Amazon truly does have something for everyone on your list.
Last year Amazon produced a similar campaign starring Adam Driver ("Kylo Ren" from the final trilogy of Star Wars sequels). "The humor comes from the juxtaposition between Cumberbatch's gravitas and the text itself," reports Adweek, adding that the reviews were curated "using internal AI tools, to find the most oddly specific reviews on the platform."

Amazon will stream Cumberbatch's bizarre ads on major platforms including TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Lyft, Uber, Disney/Hulu, Paramount, and Roku, and on several NFL football games.

I remember when Amazon just chose the best funny fake reviews from customers, and then posted them on the front page of Amazon...

pbahra writes: Saudi Arabia is betting that the future of Hollywood won't be built in physical stages but in datacenters. In a push to anchor itself in next-generation film production, Riyadh-based Humain has led Luma AI's latest Series C round, backing the shift towards cloud-based, AI-generated video rather than traditional studio infrastructure.. Humain's announcement says the new investment will accelerate Luma's development of world models capable of learning from video, audio and language to generate photorealistic scenes, environments and characters on demand. Supporters argue this could upend film-making by pushing much of Hollywood's production pipeline into high-performance datacenters rather than physical sets.

"Google is going to court to help put an end to, or at least limit, the prevalence of phishing scams over text message," reports BGR: Google said it's bringing suit against Lighthouse, an impressively large operation that allegedly provides tools customers can buy to set up their own specialized phishing scams. All told, Google estimates that Lighthouse-affiliated scams in the U.S. have stolen anywhere between 12.7 million and 115 million credit cards. "Bad actors built Lighthouse as a phishing-as-a-service kit to generate and deploy massive SMS phishing attacks," Google notes. "These attacks exploit established brands like E-Z Pass to steal people's financial information."

Google's legal action is comprehensive and is intent on completely dismantling Lighthouse's operations. The search giant is bringing claims under RICO, the Lanham Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). RICO, which often comes up in movies and television shows, allows authorities to treat Lighthouse's phishing operation as a broad criminal enterprise as opposed to isolated scams. By using RICO, Google also expands the list of individuals who can be found liable, whether it be the people who started Lighthouse, the people who run it, or even unaffiliated customers who used the company's services. The Lanham Act, for those unaware, targets malicious actors who misappropriate well-known company trademarks in order to confuse consumers. This Lanham Act comes into play because many phishing scams masquerade as legitimate messages from companies like Amazon and FedEx. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, meanwhile, is relevant because scammers typically use stolen credentials to gain unauthorized access to financial systems, something the CFAA is designed to target...

The fact that Google is invoking all three of the acts above underscores how serious the company is about putting a stop to SMS-based scams. By using all three, Google's legal attack is more potent and also expands the range of available remedies to include civil damages and criminal penalties. In short, Google isn't merely trying to win a legal case; it's aiming to emphatically and permanently stop Lighthouse in its tracks.
Getting even more aggressive, Google says it's also working with the U.S. Congress to pass new anti-scammer legislation, and endorsed these three new bipartisan bills:

• The Scam Compound Accountability and Mobilization (SCAM) Act "would develop a national strategy to counter scam compounds, enhance sanctions and support survivors of human trafficking within these compounds."

• The Foreign Robocall Elimination Act "would establish a taskforce focused on how to best block foreign-originated illegal robocalls before they ever reach American consumers."

• The Guarding Unprotected Aging Retirees from Deception (GUARD) Act "would empower state and local law enforcement by enabling them to utilize federal grant funding to investigate financial fraud and scams specifically targeting retirees. "

Thanks to Slashdot reader anderzole for sharing the article.

Netflix is launching a new slate of TV-streamed party games that are all playable using your phone as the controller. The Verge reports: To start, Netflix is offering Boggle Party, Party Crasher: Fool Your Friends, Lego Party, Pictionary: Game Night, and Tetris Time Warp. A social deduction game based on the Knives Out series, Dead Man's Party: A Knives Out Game, is also part of this new slate but will launch at a later time. The streaming platform's approach to gaming has been unfocused, with the company bouncing between being a boutique development studio while also being a platform for premium and exclusive mobile gaming experiences. Offering party games on your TV seems like a better fit -- one that could allow Netflix to finally find its gaming footing.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Nintendo has always been a company willing to try just about anything. Cardboard cutout toys that mesh with games? Done. A console called the Wii with a remote-shaped controller? Massive success. Legendary game designer and Nintendo executive Shigeru Miyamoto offered more insight into how the company operates in a recent financial briefing. "Nintendo has always worked with the idea that there are no limits to our efforts," he said. "For example, when we tried our hand at movies with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, its success was compared to the box office revenues of other movies. However, even if the movie topped the rankings, we would think there was more room for growth."

Nintendo has been expanding its efforts in Hollywood after The Super Mario Bros. Movie became one of the best-selling films of 2023. The Legend of Zelda movie is now in production, and the Super Mario Galaxy movie is expected sometime in 2026. Miyamoto believes that some Nintendo IPs could see sales numbers "potentially reach beyond the boundaries of entertainment."

"My latest theme is that there is no ceiling in the world of entertainment," he said. "In that sense, there are still many markets around the world that can be expanded through Nintendo Switch [...] One thing that is interesting about Nintendo is that it's okay to try anything."

In a recent article published in the New York Times, author Casey Michael Henry argues that today's tech industry keeps borrowing dystopian sci-fi aesthetics and ideas -- often the parts that were meant as warnings -- and repackages them as exciting products without recognizing that they were originally cautionary tales to avoid. "The tech industry is delivering on some of the futuristic notions of late-20th-century science fiction," writes Henry. "Yet it seems, at times, bizarrely unaware that many of those notions were meant to be dystopian or satirical -- dismal visions of where our worst and dumbest habits could lead us." Here's an excerpt from the report: You worry that someone in today's tech world might watch "Gattaca" -- a film that features a eugenicist future in which people with ordinary DNA are relegated to menial jobs -- and see it as an inspirational launching point for a collaboration between 23andMe and a charter school. The material on Sora, for instance, can feel oddly similar to the jokes about crass entertainment embedded in dystopian films and postmodern novels. In the movie "Idiocracy," America loved a show called "Ow! My Balls!" in which a man is hit in the testicles in increasingly florid ways. "Robocop" imagined a show about a goggle-eyed pervert with an inane catchphrase. "The Running Man" had a game show in which contestants desperately collected dollar bills and climbed a rope to escape ravenous dogs. That Sora could be prompted to imagine a game show in which Michel Foucault chokeslams Ronald Reagan, or Prince battles an anaconda, doesn't feel new; it feels like a gag from a 1990s writer or a film about social decay.

The echoes aren't all accidental. Modern design has been influenced by our old techno-dystopias -- particularly the cyberpunk variety, with its neon-noir gloss and "high tech, low life" allure. From William Gibson novels to films like "The Matrix," the culture has taken in countless ruined cityscapes, all-controlling megacorporations, high-tech body modifications, V.R.-induced illnesses, deceptive A.I. paramours, mechanical assassins and leather-clad hacker antiheroes, navigating a dissociative cyberspace with savvily repurposed junk-tech. This was not a world many people wanted to live in, but its style and ethos seem to reverberate in the tech industry's boldest visions of the future.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today, Samsung provided details about the next version of the HDR10 format, which introduces six new features. Among HDR10+ Advanced's most interesting features is HDR10+ Intelligent FRC (frame rate conversion), which is supposed to improve motion smoothing.

A TV using motion smoothing analyzes each video frame and tries to determine what additional frames would look like if the video were playing at a frame rate that matched the TV's refresh rate. The TV then inserts those frames into the video. A 60Hz TV with motion smoothing on, for example, would attempt to remove judder from a 24p film by inserting frames so that the video plays as if it were shot at 60p. For some, this appears normal and can make motion, especially camera panning or zooming, look smoother. However, others will report movies and shows that look more like soap operas, or as if they were shot on higher-speed video cameras instead of film cameras. Critics, including some big names in Hollywood, argue that motion smoothing looks unnatural and deviates from the creator's intended vision.

Intelligent FRC takes a more nuanced approach to motion smoothing by letting content creators dictate the level of motion smoothing used in each scene, Forbes reported. The feature is also designed to adjust the strength of motion interpolation based on ambient lighting.

Data centers were typically "hulking, chilly buildings lined with stacks of computing gear and bundles of wiring," writes the Washington Post. But "AI experts say that the hubs for computers that power AI are different from the data centers that deliver your Netflix movies and Uber rides. They use a different mix of computer chips, cost a lot more and need a lot more energy.

"The question is whether it's necessary and illuminating to rebrand AI-specialized data centers, or if calling them 'AI factories' is just marketing hogwash." The AI computer chip company Nvidia seems to have originated the use of "AI factories." CEO Jensen Huang has said that the term is apt because similar to industrial factories, AI factories take in raw materials to produce a product... The term is spreading. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT parent company OpenAI, recently said that he wants a "factory" to regularly produce more building blocks for AI. Crusoe, a start-up that's erecting a mammoth "Stargate" data center in Texas, calls itself the "AI factory company." The prime minister of Bulgaria recently touted an "AI factory" in his country...

Alex Hanna, director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute and co-author the book, "The AI Con," had a more pessimistic view of the term "AI factories." She said that it's a way to deflect the negative connotations of data centers. Some people and politicians blame power-hungry computing hubs for driving up residential electric bills, spewing pollution, draining drinking water and producing few permanent jobs.

Indonesia's film industry has started using generative AI tools to produce films at a fraction of Hollywood budgets. The country's filmmakers are deploying ChatGPT for scriptwriting, Midjourney for image generation, and Runway for video storyboarding. VFX artist Amilio Garcia Leonard told Rest of World that AI has reduced his draft editing time by 70%.

The Indonesian Film Producer Association supports the technology. Indonesian films typically cost 10 billion rupiah ($602,500), less than 1% of major Hollywood productions. The sector employed about 40,000 people in 2020 and generated over $400 million in box office sales in 2023. Jobs for storyboarders, VFX artists, and voice actors are disappearing.

An anonymous reader shared this report from The Wrap Tesla this weekend introduced a new "Tron: Ares" mode, giving drivers an opportunity to turn their on-screen vehicles into the glowing Light Cycles that have been a big part of the Disney franchise since 1982.

The optional update started rolling out on Friday, as Tron: Ares debuted in theaters. Tesla announced the update on X: "The grid has expanded to your Tesla — Tron: Ares update rolling out now." The feature is activated in Tesla's Toybox "infotainment" system, and turns the driver's vehicle avatar into a red Light Cycle. For drivers who have the "ambient lighting" feature, the mode will also expand the theme throughout the cabin.
There was also a sleek black Tesla Optimus robot at the premier of Tron: Ares.

Ironically, the Hollywood Reporter writes that by box office figures, "Tron is in big trouble," selling fewer tickets than expected (despite the movie's $180 million pre-marketing budget). While Tron's audience reviews gave it an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes, its score with critics is just 57%.

The Los Angeles Times says the movie "has glowing style, but its storytelling doesn't compute." (Or, as the New York Times puts it, "Who needs logic when you have neon?")

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a law banning excessively loud advertisements on streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime that could become a de facto national standard. From a report: The new California law is aimed at addressing what the Federal Communications Commission has called a "troubling jump" in TV ad noise complaints, fueled by streamers airing commercials louder than the shows and movies they accompany.

It's modeled off a federal law passed in 2010 that caps ad volumes on cable and broadcast TV, but doesn't apply to streaming services. Given the Golden State's massive sway in the entertainment industry, the new law may strong-arm streamers into shushing commercials nationwide. "We heard Californians loud and clear, and what's clear is that they don't want commercials at a volume any louder than the level at which they were previously enjoying a program," Newsom said in a statement. "California is dialing down this inconvenience across streaming platforms."

A computer-generated actress appearing in Instagram shorts now has a talent agent, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The massive screen actors union SAG-AFTRA "weighed in with a withering response." SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.

To be clear, "Tilly Norwood" is not an actor, it's a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation. It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we've seen, audiences aren't interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. It doesn't solve any "problem" — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.

Additionally, signatory producers should be aware that they may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used.
"They are taking our professional members' work that has been created, sometimes over generations, without permission, without compensation and without acknowledgment, building something new," SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin told the Los Angeles Times in an interview: "But the truth is, it's not new. It manipulates something that already exists, so the conceit that it isn't harming actors — because it is its own new thing — ignores the fundamental truth that it is taking something that doesn't belong to them," Astin said. "We want to allow our members to benefit from new technologies," Astin said. "They just need to know that it's happening. They need to give permission for it, and they need to be bargained with...."

Some actors called for a boycott of any agents who decide to represent Norwood. "Read the room, how gross," In the Heights actor Melissa Barrera wrote on Instagram. "Our members reserve the right to not be in business with representatives who are operating in an unfair conflict of interest, who are operating in bad faith," Astin said.
But this week the head of a new studio from startup Luma AI "said all the big companies and studios were working on AI assisted projects," writes Deadline — and then claimed "being under NDA, she was not in a position to announce any of the details."

In India, Bollywood stars are asking judges to protect their voice and persona in the era of AI. From a report: One famous couple's biggest target is Google's YouTube. Abhishek Bachchan and his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, known for her iconic Cannes Film Festival red carpet appearances, have asked a judge to remove and prohibit creation of AI videos infringing their intellectual property rights. But in a more far-reaching request, they also want Google ordered to have safeguards to ensure such YouTube videos uploaded anyway do not train other AI platforms, legal papers reviewed by Reuters show.

A handful of Bollywood celebrities have begun asserting their "personality rights" in Indian courts over the last few years, as the country has no explicit protection for those like in many U.S. states. But the Bachchans' lawsuits are the most high-profile to date about the interplay of personality rights and the risk that misleading or deepfake YouTube videos could train other AI models. The actors argue that YouTube's content and third-party training policy is concerning as it lets users consent to sharing of a video they created to train rival AI models, risking further proliferation of misleading content online, according to near-identical filings from Abhishek and Aishwarya dated September 6, which are not public.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Ars Technica: Late last week, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story about an "AI Stan Lee hologram" that would be appearing at the LA Comic Con this weekend. [Watch it in action here.] Nearly seven years after the famous Marvel Comics creator's death at the age of 95, fans will be able to pay $15 to $20 this weekend to chat with a life-sized, AI-powered avatar of Lee in an enclosed booth at the show. The instant response from many fans and media outlets to the idea was not kind, to say the least. A writer for TheGamer called the very idea "demonic" and said we need to "kill it with fire before it's too late...."

But Chris DeMoulin, the CEO of the parent company behind LA Comic Con, urged critics to come see the AI-powered hologram for themselves before rushing to judgment. "We're not afraid of people seeing it and we're not afraid of criticism," he told Ars. "I'm just a fan of informed criticism, and I think most of what's been out there so far has not really been informed...." [DeMoulin said he saw] "the leaps and bounds that they were making in improving the technology, improving the interactivity." Now, he said, it's possible to create an AI-powered version that ingests "all of the actual comments that people made during their life" to craft an interactive hologram that "is not literally quoting the person, but everything it was saying was based on things that person actually said...." [Hyperreal CEO and Chief Architect Remington Scott] said Hyperreal "can't share specific technical details" of the models or training techniques they use to power these recreations. But Scott added that this training project is "particularly meaningful, [because] Stan Lee had actually begun digitizing himself while he was alive, with the vision of creating a digital double so his fans could interact with him on a larger scale...."

Still, DeMoulin said he understands why the idea of using even a stylized version of Lee's likeness in this manner could rub some fans the wrong way. "When a new technology comes out, it just feels wrong to them, and I respect the fact that this feels wrong to people," he said. "I totally agree that something like this-not just for Stan but for anyone, any celebrity alive or dead-could be put into this technology and used in a way that would be exploitative and unfortunate." That's why DeMoulin said he and the others behind the AI-powered Lee feel a responsibility "to make sure that if we were going to do this, we never got anywhere close to that."
The "premium, authenticated digital identities" created by Hyperreal's system are "not replacing artists," says Hyperreal CEO/Chief Architect Remington Scott, but "creating respectful digital extensions that honor their legacy."

Still, DeMoulin says in the article that "I suppose if we do it and thousands of fans interact with [it] and they don't like it, we'll stop doing it."

alternative_right writes: Americans are more likely to watch newly released movies from the comfort of their own homes instead of heading out to a theater, according to a new poll.

About three-quarters of U.S. adults said they watched a new movie on streaming instead of in the theater at least once in the past year, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, including about 3 in 10 who watched new movies on streaming at least once a month.

Meanwhile, about two-thirds of Americans said that they've watched a recently released movie in a theater in the past year, and only 16% said they went at least once a month. The results suggest that, on the whole, American moviegoers are more likely to stream a film than see it in the theaters, a shifting tide that was only accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last year, the AI video company Runway joined forces with the major Hollywood studio Lionsgate in a partnership the pair hoped would result in AI-generated scenes and even potentially full-length movies. But the project has hit a snag. According to a report by The Wrap, the past 12 months have been unproductive. Lionsgate distributes Hollywood blockbusters including The Hunger Games, John Wick, The Twilight Saga, and Saw franchises. But despite its huge catalog, it is simply not enough for the AI to produce quality content.

"The Lionsgate catalog is too small to create a model," a source tells The Wrap. "In fact, the Disney catalog is too small to create a model." Despite Runway being one of the leading names in AI video, the technology needs a copious amount of data to produce AI-generated films. It is the reason AI has proven to be such an unpopular technology, as AI firms help themselves to any type of media they can get their hands on -- whether it has copyright protections or not. Another issue is the rights of actors and the model for remuneration if their likeness appears in an AI-generated clip. It is a legal gray area with no clear path.

"OpenAI's video generation tool, Sora, can create high-definition clips of just about anything you could ask for..." reports the Washington Post.

"But OpenAI has not specified which videos it grabbed to make Sora, saying only that it combined 'publicly available and licensed data'..." With ChatGPT, OpenAI helped popularize the now-standard industry practice of building more capable AI tools by scraping vast quantities of text from the web without consent. With Sora, launched in December, OpenAI staff said they built a pioneering video generator by taking a similar approach. They developed ways to feed the system more online video — in more varied formats — including vertical videos and longer, higher-resolution clips... To explore what content OpenAI may have used, The Washington Post used Sora to create hundreds of videos that show it can closely mimic movies, TV shows and other content...

In dozens of tests, The Post found that Sora can create clips that closely resemble Netflix shows such as "Wednesday"; popular video games like "Minecraft"; and beloved cartoon characters, as well as the animated logos for Warner Bros., DreamWorks and other Hollywood studios, movies and TV shows. The publicly available version of Sora can generate only 20-second clips, without audio. In most cases, the look-alike scenes were made by typing basic requests like "universal studios intro." The results also showed that Sora can create AI videos with the logos or watermarks that broadcasters and tech companies use to brand their video content, including those for the National Basketball Association, Chinese-owned social app TikTok and Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch...

Sora's ability to re-create specific imagery and brands suggests a version of the originals appeared in the tool's training data, AI researchers said. "The model is mimicking the training data. There's no magic," said Joanna Materzynska, a PhD researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied datasets used in AI. An AI tool's ability to reproduce proprietary content doesn't necessarily indicate that the original material was copied or obtained from its creators or owners. Content of all kinds is uploaded to video and social platforms, often without the consent of the copyright holder... Materzynska co-authored a study last year that found more than 70 percent of public video datasets commonly used in AI research contained content scraped from YouTube.
Netflix and Twitch said they did not have a content partnership for training OpenAI, according to the article (which adds that OpenAI "has yet to face a copyright suit over the data used for Sora.")

Two key quotes from the article:

• "Unauthorized scraping of YouTube content continues to be a violation of our Terms of Service." — YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon

• "We train on publicly available data consistent with fair use and use industry-leading safeguards to avoid replicating the material they learn from." — OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood

A former Memphis disc manufacturing employee has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison after stealing pre-release Blu-rays from his employer and leaking them online. While he received 21 months for copyright infringement, a concurrent firearm charge extended his total prison term to 57 months. TorrentFreak reports: In February, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted 37-year-old Steven Hale from Tennessee, a former employee of a disc manufacturing and distribution company in Memphis. While working at the unnamed company between 2021 and 2022, Hale allegedly stole numerous "pre-release" DVD and Blu-ray discs from his employer. These stolen discs contained many high-profile movie titles including "Spider-Man: No Way Home." In addition to the copyright infringement charge, Hale was also indicted for a firearm offense. When raiding his premises, law enforcement found a gun in a car that was registered in his name, which, for a felon, is a separate criminal offense.

Hale was sentenced at a federal court in Memphis yesterday, where Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman handed down a 57-month prison term, exactly in line with the U.S. government's recommendation. Two separate sentences will be served concurrently. Hale received 21 months for the theft and distribution of hundreds of pre-release movie discs. A longer sentence of 57 months was handed down for the firearm charge, which ultimately defines the total prison term. Judge Lipman also granted several requests by the defense. The court recommended that Hale be housed in a facility as close to Memphis as possible so he can be near his family. In addition, the defendant will be allowed to remain on bond and self-surrender to prison at a later date.

The 21-month sentence for the copyright infringement charge is substantially lower than the maximum of 60 months. This is in part the result of a guilty plea the defendant signed in May. After accepting responsibility, the prosecution agreed to drop other charges and recommend a sentence at the low end of the guideline range. Hale entered his guilty plea to Count Two of the indictment. The charge relates to his distribution of ten or more copies of copyrighted works, including pre-release movies, for commercial advantage and private financial gain. This includes the pre-release 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' disc, which is likely the source of the public leak.

Netflix's film division faces a fundamental mismatch between its subscription model and filmmakers' artistic ambitions, according to new data analysis examining a decade of original productions. The streamer's movies cost two to three times more than A24 films but consistently score lower across review aggregators. Netflix attracts established actors like Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz but struggles to retain acclaimed directors.

The typical Netflix director has less critical acclaim and shorter filmographies than theatrical counterparts despite handling larger budgets. Directors recently turned down Netflix's $150 million for Wuthering Heights and $50 million for Weapons, accepting lower offers from Warner Bros. that guaranteed theatrical releases. The Electric State cost Netflix $320 million in February 2025 and received a 30 Metacritic score and 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. Netflix's business model requires filling hours to justify $9.99 monthly subscriptions. Directors seek theatrical releases where audiences watch films in one sitting without checking phones.