title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: However, Scott instead contacted Lindelof and asked him to review Spaihts's script. Within the hour, a messenger delivered the script to Lindelof and informed him that he would wait outside to return it as soon as Lindelof had finished reading it. Lindelof was unaware of what Scott and the producers liked about the existing script, and informed them that he found the general concept appealing, but that the story relied too heavily on elements of the "Alien" films, such as the "Alien" creatures' life-cycle. As a direct prequel to "Alien", the story was shaped to lead into that film's story, and to recreate the familiar cues of that series, and Scott wanted to avoid repeating his previous accomplishments. Lindelof said, "If the ending to ["Prometheus"] is just going to be the room that John Hurt walks into that's full of [alien] eggs [in "Alien"], there's nothing interesting in that, because we know where it's going to end. Good stories, you don't know where they're going to end." "A true prequel should essentially precede the events of the original film, but be about something entirely different, feature different characters, have an entirely different theme, although it takes place in that same world."


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Lindelof said that the other parts of the script were strong enough to survive without the "Alien" hallmarks, such as the "Alien" creature, which he believed had been diluted by the exposure it had received. He said, "[The producers] were just looking for someone to say to them, Hey, we don't need the "Alien" stuff in here. It shouldn't be about that. It can be a part of this movie, but it shouldn't be what it's about." Lindelof said that the film could instead run parallel to the "Alien" series and that a sequel would be "Prometheus 2" and not "Alien", and submitted an idea for how such a sequel could work. Lindelof met with the producers the following morning, and was hired shortly afterward in late 2010. Under Lindelof, the script diverged from Spaihts's "Alien" prequel into an original creation. Scott and Lindelof worked together five days a week between July and August 2010 to construct the vision Scott wanted to convey and decide what script changes were needed, including scaling back the "Alien" symbolism and tropes. In August and September 2010, Lindelof spent almost five weeks writing his first draft, which he submitted in mid-September 2010. Inspired by "Blade Runner" and Spaihts's script, Lindelof thought that it would be possible to combine an "Alien" story of action and horror with "the "Blade Runner" thematic," to ask bigger questions than he felt were normally posed in science fiction films. Lindelof said,


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Scott's story concept was partially inspired by "Chariots of the Gods?", Erich von Däniken's work about the theory of ancient astronauts which hypothesizes that life on Earth was created by aliens. Scott said, "NASA and the Vatican agree that [it is] almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way ... That's what we're looking at [in the film], at some of Erich von Däniken's ideas of how did we humans come about." Spaihts originated the idea that David, the android, is like humans but does not want to be anything like them, eschewing a common theme in "robotic storytelling" such as in "Blade Runner". He also developed the theme that while the human crew is searching for their creators, David is already among its creators. Scott liked these ideas and further explored them in Lindelof's rewrite. For Shaw, Lindelof felt it was important that she was distinct from "Alien"s Ripley, to avoid inevitable comparisons between the two characters. In Spaihts's draft, Shaw was directly responsible for the events of the plot because she wants to seek out potentially dangerous knowledge. As with David, Lindelof expanded this facet of the character during his rewrites. He spent approximately eight months developing the script, finishing in March 2011 as filming began.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Pre-production began in April 2010. A team developed graphic designs for the film. Scott convinced Fox to invest millions of dollars to hire scientists and conceptual artists to develop a vision of the late 21st century. The production of "Prometheus" was marked by a high degree of secrecy.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: In July 2011, Lindelof said that the film would rely upon practical effects, and would use CGI generally for on-set pre-visualization of external space visuals. Scott said that "you can pretty much do anything you want" with digital technology, and, "Doug Trumbull once said to me 'If you can do it live, do it live.' That was 29 years ago. Even though we have remarkable digital capabilities I still say do it live. It's cheaper." Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski convinced Scott that it would be possible to film in 3D with the same ease and efficiency of 2D filming. 3D company 3ality Technica provided some of the rigs and equipment to facilitate 3D filming, and trained the film's crew in their proper operation. According to Scott, the decision to film in 3D added $10 million to the film's budget. Since 3D films need high lighting levels on set, the hallmark dark and shadowy atmosphere of the "Alien" films was added in post-production using color grading processes, and the 3D equipment was based on post-"Avatar" technology.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: With an estimated $120–130 million budget, principal photography began on March 21, 2011 and wrapped up on October 8, 2011. Filming began at Shepperton Studios and Pinewood Studios in England. Scott used eight sound stages for filming, including the 007 Stage. Studio space was limited and the crew had to make five stages work for approximately 16 sets, and increased the size of the 007 stage by over 30%.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Exterior shots of the alien world were shot in Iceland, where filming took two weeks. It commenced on July 11, 2011, at the base of Hekla, an active volcano in southern Iceland. Speaking about working at the volcano, Scott said, "If one is afraid of nature in this profession then it would be best to find a different job." Filming also took place at Dettifoss, one of the most powerful waterfalls in Europe. The Iceland shoot involved 160 Icelandic crew members and over 200 imported crew. Scott said that the filming in Iceland comprised approximately fifteen minutes of footage for the film, and that the area represented the beginning of time. Morocco had been chosen as a location for these scenes, but the 2010 Arab Spring protests forced the change of venue. Alternatives including the Mojave Desert had been considered, but Scott explained that Iceland was ultimately chosen because "here it is so rough and 'Jurassic-like' and that proved decisive."


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: In September 2011, filming moved to the Ciudad de la Luz audiovisual complex in Alicante, Spain. Shooting areas included the complex's large water tank, and a nearby beach. The complex was booked from August 22, 2011, through to December 10, 2011, and set construction occurred from August until late September. Approximately 250 people worked on the three-month-long Spain shoot, generating over €1 million in the local economy. Filming also took place in the Wadi Rum valley in Jordan.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Scott avoided using green screens unless necessary. Instead, he used various items so the actors would know where they should be looking in any particular scene on the practical sets where CGI elements would be inserted in post-production. Rapace said that green screens were used fewer than six times during filming. The production used five 3ality Technical Atom 3D rigs, four of which were configured with Red Epic 3D cameras set on camera dollies and tripods, which were continuously in use during filming. The fifth rig used an Epic camera as a steadicam, which was used only occasionally.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Scott used the 3D footage to increase the illusion of depth. Despite this being his first 3D film he found the process easy. He said, "You can literally twiddle a knob and the depth will increase," and, "the trick is not to overdo it." In December 2011, Rapace undertook additional dialogue recordings for the film. Additional pick-up scenes were filmed during January 2012, including a one-day shoot on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, and a new scene shot at a cave in the Scottish mountains. For dark scenes, the film was color graded to specifically compensate for the light loss of 3D glasses, to ensure the image was comparable to the 2D version.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: In July 2011, Scott said that he was filming "Prometheus" with both adult-oriented R and more accessible PG-13 film ratings in mind, allowing the more adult content to be cut if necessary without harming the overall presentation. Scott said he had a responsibility to 20th Century Fox to be able to present a PG-13 cut of the film if the studio demanded, allowing it to be viewed by a wider potential audience. When asked about the rating, Scott said, "The question is, do you go for the PG-13, or do you go for what it should be, which is R? Financially it makes quite a difference ... essentially it's kinda R ... it's not just about blood, it's about ideas that are very stressful." Scott also said that, regardless of rating, he would present the most aggressive cut of the film he could, while Rothman said that Scott would not be forced to compromise the film's quality to avoid an R-rating. On May 7, 2012, Fox confirmed that the film had received an R-rating and would be released without any cuts being made. According to Scott, the scene of Shaw surgically removing her alien offspring was the significant cause of the restrictive rating, and it was suggested that removing the scene entirely would be the only way to gain a lower one. A fight scene between Shaw and the Engineer was shortened because Scott decided that Shaw directly wounding the Engineer diminished his role. Scott concluded work on the film in March 2012.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Marc Streitenfeld, who had worked with Scott on earlier projects, composed the musical score for "Prometheus". It took just over a week to record with a 90-piece orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London, England. Streitenfeld began writing ideas for the score after reading the script before filming commenced. He used some unusual techniques to compose the score, and said, "I actually wrote out the sheet music backwards so the orchestra played it backwards and then I digitally flipped it. So you're hearing the score as it's written, the same melody, but with a backwards sounding orchestra which gives it a kind of unusual, unsettling sound." The "Prometheus (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)" album was released on iTunes on May 15, 2012, and on CD on June 4, 2012. It features 23 tracks by Streitenfeld and two supplemental tracks by Harry Gregson-Williams. Frédéric Chopins "Raindrop prelude" (1838) is also featured in the film.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Production designer Arthur Max led the film's design staff. His art team were tasked with deconstructing the art and visuals of "Alien", and reverse-designing them for the chronologically earlier setting of "Prometheus". Influence was drawn from the work of "Alien" creature designer H. R. Giger, and designers Ron Cobb and Chris Foss, including their designs for that film which Scott had been unable to develop at the time.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: For the crew's space suits, Scott was inspired to include spherical glass helmets after reading a story in Steve Jobs' biography about building an office out of Gorilla Glass. Scott said, "If I'm in 2083 and I'm going into space, why would I design a helmet that has blind spots. What I want is something where I have 360 [vision]. Glass, by then, will be light and you won't be able to break it with a bullet." The interior of the prop helmets had nine functioning video screens, internal lighting, an air supply provided by two fans, and battery packs concealed within a backpack. The helmet's exterior featured a functional light source and high definition video cameras with a transmitter and recorder. For the suit itself, Scott wanted to avoid the unwieldy NASA-style suit. His frequent collaborator, Janty Yates, used medical research concepts relating to skin replacement treatments and materials to develop a garment that would be believable, flexible and comfortable. The outfit comprised a neoprene suit worn under an outer space suit, a base to which the helmet could be attached, and a backpack.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Aboard the ship, Yates gave the characters their own distinct looks. Theron is dressed in an ice-silver, silk mohair suit. Yates said, "[Theron] is the ice queen. It was always our vision to make her look as sculptural as possible." Fassbender's David is dressed similarly to other crew members, but his outfit was given finer lines to produce a more linear appearance. To create a casual, relaxed appearance, Marshall-Green's Holloway was dressed in hoodies, fisherman pants, and flip-flops, while Elba wore a canvas-greased jacket to represent his long career at the helm of a ship.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Arthur Max designed the sets such as the alien world landscape and structures, and the vehicles, including the "Prometheus" and the Engineer's ship. Digital 3D models and miniature replicas of each set were built to allow the designers to envisage the connections between them and to know where the CGI elements would be inserted. To better blend the practical and the digital, the design team took rock samples from the Iceland location so they could match the graphical textures with the real rocks. To create the "Prometheus", Max researched NASA and European Space Agency spacecraft designs, and extended these concepts with his own ideas of how future space vehicles might look. He said that he wanted "to do something that was state-of-the-art, which would represent a flagship spacecraft with every technology required to probe into the deepest corners of the galaxy."


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: The interior of the "Prometheus" was built across a two-level structure, fronted by a large, faceted, wrap around windscreen. Theron's quarters were designed to represent her high status in the crew, and were furnished with modern and futuristic items, including Swarovski chandeliers and a Fazioli piano. The ship's garage was built on the backlot of Pinewood Studios in England. The vehicles inside were built in 11 weeks and were designed to operate on difficult terrain while having a futuristic aesthetic. Max created a large pyramid structure for the alien world, which had its main interior areas connected by a series of chambers, corridors, and tunnels; it was so large that some members of the film crew became lost inside it. The pyramid was enhanced in post-production to further increase its size. One of the key sets, the chamber where the crew find the humanoid-head statue, was designed to resemble the interior of a cathedral and convey a quasi-religious impression. Giger designed the murals that appear within the chamber.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: For the scene of the "Prometheus" descent to the alien moon LV-223, visual effects art director Steven Messing referenced NASA imagery, including vortex cloud structures. He also used aerial photographs of locations in Iceland and Wadi Rum shot by VFX supervisor Richard Stammers and his team. Messing painted over these images and combined them with 3D set extensions to create a realistic altered landscape. Scott wanted the ship's descent scenes to have a sense of grandeur to contrast the dark and shrouded descent featured in "Alien". Much of LV-223s world was based upon the world visited in "Alien", but scaled back as Scott felt some elements were too unrealistic. Other influences were the Martian mountain Olympus Mons and several large mountain structures on Earth. NASA advisers provided concepts for the aesthetics of alien worlds which were incorporated into the design work. MPC developed a digital representation of Wadi Rum using the design material, modified it to locate the alien pyramid and a landing area for the "Prometheus", and resized the planet's natural features relative to the alien structures.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Neal Scanlan and Conor O'Sullivan developed the film's alien creatures, aiming to convey that each creature has a logical biological function and purpose. Scanlan said that much of Scott's inspiration for creature design is drawn from natural life, such as plants and sea creatures. Creature designer Carlos Huante chose to make the creature designs pale to contrast the black-toned, Giger-influenced aesthetic of "Alien". Huante designed them to be white and embryonic because the events in the film occur before Giger's influence had taken effect. Huante took influences from references Scott was using to design the pale-skinned Engineers. Huante also referenced other Giger works, national monuments, large sculptures, and the Crazy Horse Memorial statue in South Dakota. Part of Huante's early design work included developing precursors to "Alien"s Facehugger, and a primitive "Alien" creature, but these were cut from the final release. When designing the Engineers, Scott and Huante referenced paintings by William Blake and J. M. W. Turner, and classical sculptures. Scott wanted the Engineers to resemble Greco-Roman gods, and instructed designer Neville Page to reference the Statue of Liberty, Michelangelo's "David", and Elvis Presley. The 8-foot tall, humanoid Engineers were created by applying bulky, full-body prosthetics to the actors, whose facial features were diminished by the material, and were later digitally enhanced to preserve the "godlike" physical perfection. Scott described the Engineers as tall, elegant "dark angels."


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: The snake-like alien dubbed the "Hammerpede" was given life through a mixture of CGI and practical effects, and the wires controlling the practical puppet were digitally removed. For a scene in which the Hammerpede is decapitated, the VFX team digitally animated and inserted the spontaneous growth of a replacement head. During the scene in which the Hammerpede erupts from Spall's character's corpse, Scott controlled the puppet using wires. Scott did not inform Dickie about what was to occur in the scene and her screaming reaction was real. The creature's design was partially inspired by translucent sea creatures with visible arteries, veins, and organs beneath the skin's surface, and cobras. The designers gave the creature a smooth, muscular, and powerful appearance. Early designs of the "Trilobite," the tentacled offspring cut from Shaw, resembled an octopus or squid. Page redeveloped this creature as an embryo in an early state of development, with tentacles that began fused together and would gradually split, creating new tentacles, as the creature developed. The practical creature was a remotely operated animatronic creation with a silicone skin.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: The mutated Fifield effects were achieved mainly through the use of make-up and prosthetics. Due to concerns that the practical effects would be unsatisfactory, the filmmakers completed an alternative version of the sequence, in which Fifield was rendered as "a digital character with elongated limbs and an engorged, translucent head, incorporating a semblance of Harris's face." Three other variations of the mutated Fifield were modeled, but these were rejected as being too inhuman.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: For its grown form, the "Adult Trilobite," Max found inspiration from an arthropod-like creature from Earth's Cambrian period, and the alien octopus in Jean Giraud's illustrations for the comic strip "The Long Tomorrow". Further inspiration came after Max found a formaldehyde-preserved giant squid, an image which met with Scott's approval. The film's last-unveiled creature, the "Deacon," was named by Scott for its long, pointed head that he considered resembled a bishop's mitre. Scanlan aimed to represent the creature's genetic lineage, beginning with Shaw and Holloway who produce the Trilobite which impregnates the Engineer, in its design. However, the creature was given a somewhat feminine appearance, since "it was born of a female before being born of a male." Messing drew inspiration for the Deacon's birth scene from the birth of foals, and created an iridescent appearance for its skin, based on the equine placenta. The Deacon's protruding jaw was inspired by the goblin shark.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Sound effects were generated with a variety of sources including Pop Rocks—a brand of popping candy—and a parrot. The glistening ice forming on the stone cylinders discovered in the film was created by applying the popping candy to materials such as wet metal and stone that was then sprayed with water to produce the "popping, cracking" sound. Sound designer Ann Scibelli's parrot was recorded over several weeks to document her variety of vocalizations which were then used as beeps, alarms and the cries of Shaw's alien offspring.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: "Prometheus" contains approximately 1,300 digital effect shots. The main effects studio was Moving Picture Company (MPC), which produced 420 of the shots. Several other studios, including Weta Digital, Fuel VFX, Rising Sun Pictures, Luma Pictures, Lola Visual Effects, and Hammerhead Productions, also produced effects shots for the film.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: The creation of life from the disintegration of an Engineer in the film's opening scene was created by WETA Digital. The scene was difficult to produce because it had to convey the story of the Engineer's DNA breaking apart, reforming and recombining into Earth DNA in a limited span of time. The team focused on making the DNA stages distinct to convey its changing nature. Scott requested the studio to focus on the destruction occurring within the Engineer. A light color scheme was used for the Engineer's DNA and decayed fish spines were used as an image reference, while the infected DNA had a melted appearance. To find methods of depicting the DNA destruction, the team carved vein-like structures from silicone and pumped black ink and oils into them while filming the changes occurring over an extended period of time.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: A key scene involving a large 3D hologram star map, dubbed the Orrery, was inspired by the 1766 Joseph Wright painting "A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery", in which a scientist displays a mechanical planetarium by candlelight. While discussing the necessity of a star map with Spaihts, Scott mentioned that he envisaged a physical representation being similar to the painting, although he was unaware of its title and described it as "circles in circles with a candle lit image." Using Scott's description, Spaihts located an image of the painting. Spaihts said, "making the leap from a star map, to an Enlightenment painting, and then back into the far future. [Scott's] mind just multiplexes in that way." The Orrery was one of the most complex visual effects, contained 80–100 million polygons, and took several weeks to render as a single, complete shot.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: "Prometheus" marketing campaign began on July 21, 2011, at the San Diego Comic-Con International, where images and footage from the film were presented by Lindelof and Theron; Scott and Rapace participated via satellite contribution. A segment of the footage showed Theron performing naked push-ups, which attracted much attention. A teaser poster was released on December 14, 2011, with the tagline, "The search for our beginning could lead to our end." A bootleg recording of an incomplete trailer was leaked online on November 27, 2011, but was quickly taken down by Fox. The trailer was released on December 22, 2011.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: On March 17, 2012, Scott, in partnership with AMC Theatres, hosted the premiere of the first full "Prometheus" trailer at the AMC Downtown Disney during WonderCon in Anaheim, California. The event was streamed live via Facebook, Twitter, and the AMC Theatre website, and the trailer was posted on AMC's YouTube channel immediately after its debut. Reactions to the trailer from WonderCon attendees, and on Twitter, were generally positive, and it received nearly three million views in the three days following its release. On April 10, 2012, media outlets were shown a 13-minute montage of scenes in 3D from the film's opening at the Vue Cinema in Leicester Square, London. The screening, and in particular the 3D visuals and the performances of Fassbender, Rapace, Theron, and Elba, was well received.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: On April 29, 2012, the international launch trailer debuted in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 during the first advertisement break of the TV show "Homeland". Viewers were encouraged to share their opinions about the trailer on Twitter, some of which were then shared in a live broadcast during a later break. This was the first time that viewers' tweets were used in a broadcast advertisement. A competition, offering viewers a chance to win tickets to the film whenever the social platform Zeebox detected the advertisement airing, was launched on that site. On May 8, 2012, the advertisement became the subject of an investigation by the British broadcasting regulatory body Ofcom for allegedly breaching broadcast rules when a voiceover encouraged viewers to book tickets during the advertisement with the logo onscreen. The broadcast potentially broke a ruling that advertising and teleshopping must be clearly distinguishable from editorial content.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Although marketers typically avoid promoting adult-oriented films to reach a broader demographic, the film attracted several promotional partners including Coors, Amazon, and Verizon FiOS, which were estimated to have spent $30 million in marketing support. Amazon directed interested users to purchase tickets through Fandango, and placed promotional material in products shipped to customers; this was the first time that Amazon had allowed such marketing by an external company. The premiere in London was streamed live via the film's website and the Verizon FiOS Facebook page. The event was facilitated by BumeBox, which took audience questions from social sites and gave them to reporters to ask at the event. The National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) released a series of "Prometheus" action figures in September 2012. A book, "Prometheus: The Art of the Film", containing production art and behind-the-scenes photographs, was released on June 12, 2012.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: A viral marketing campaign began on February 28, 2012, with the release of a video featuring a speech by Pearce, in character as Peter Weyland, about his vision for the future. Set in 2023, the "TED 2023" video presents a futuristic vision of a TED conference, an annual technology and design event held in Long Beach, California. The segment was conceived and designed by Scott and Lindelof, and directed by Scott's son, Luke. The production was made in collaboration with, and made available through TED because Lindelof wanted to introduce new audiences to the conference itself. Lindelof said that the scene takes place in a futuristic stadium because "a guy like Peter Weyland—whose ego is just massive, and the ideas that he's advancing are nothing short of hubris—that he'd basically say to TED, 'If you want me to give a talk, I'm giving it in Wembley Stadium.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: TED community director Tom Rielly helped the film's producers gain approval for the use of the TED brand, which had not previously been used for promotional purposes. Rielly was involved in designing the 2023 conference, and said that the association generated millions of unique visits to the TED website. The video's release was accompanied by a fictional TED blog about the 2023 conference and a tie-in website for the fictional Weyland Corporation. On March 6, 2012, the Weyland website was updated to allow visitors to invest in the company as part of a game, which would reveal new "Prometheus" media.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: During the 2012 WonderCon, attendees at the film's panel were given Weyland Corporation business cards that directed them to a website and telephone number. After calling the number, the caller was sent a text message from Weyland Corporation that linked them to a video that was presented as an advertisement for the "David 8" android, narrated by Fassbender. An extended version of the video, released on April 17, 2012, lists the android's features, including its ability to seamlessly replicate human emotions without the restrictions of ethics or distress. A full page "David 8" advertisement was placed in "The Wall Street Journal"; a Twitter account operated by a David8, that allowed Twitter users to ask the character questions, was included. A partnership with Verizon FiOS was launched, offering a virtual tour of the "Prometheus" spaceship. Another video, "Quiet Eye," starring Rapace as Shaw, was released on May 16, 2012, and debuted on the Verizon FIOS Facebook page. In a telephone call monitored by Yutani, a fictional company from the "Alien" series, Shaw requests Weyland's aid to seek out alien life. In France, the Saint-Martin ghost train station was converted to resemble alien architecture from the film, and was visible to passing commuters. The campaign continued after the film's release with a website that was listed during the film's end credits. The site referenced the philosophical novel "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche, and featured a video of Weyland, who quotes from the book. Another video followed in September 2012, featuring Elba's Captain Janek preparing for a mission.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: At the May 2012 Digital Hollywood conference, Lindelof said that the videos originated from the question of the film's status as an "Alien" prequel. It was decided that creating videos with the film's stars would generate more interest than any commentary about its connection to the "Alien" films. He also said that the videos needed to be cool enough to justify their existence, but not so important that their absence from the final film would be an issue for audiences.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: The premiere of "Prometheus" took place on May 31, 2012, at the Empire cinema in Leicester Square, London. The film was released in the United Kingdom on , 2012, and in North America on , 2012. It was simultaneously released in IMAX theaters and in 3D, and it is encoded for D-Box motion seats that provide physical feedback to the audience during the film.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: In the United Kingdom, approximately £1 million ($1.6 million) of tickets were pre-sold. 18,827 tickets pre-sold for the London IMAX, the largest IMAX screen in the country, which broke the theater records for the highest grossing week of pre-sales with £293,312 ($474,687), and the highest grossing first day of pre-sales with £137,000 ($221,717). It extended this record to 30,000 tickets sold and £470,977 ($737,588) earned, and become the most pre-booked film at that theater, exceeding the performance of high-profile IMAX releases including "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2" and "Avatar".


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: In North America, audience tracking showed high interest among males, but low among females. In the week before the film's release, predictions were conflicted on whether "Prometheus" or "" (the first family-oriented film of the summer), which were released simultaneously, would reach number 1 for that weekend. On June 6, 2012, Fandango reported that with 42% of daily sales "Prometheus" was beating "Madagascar 3". The online tracking for "Prometheus" surged with each additional promotional footage. "Prometheus" was predicted to earn approximately $30 million, and "Madagascar 3" around $45 million. As the weekend approached, tracking suggested a $55 million debut for "Madagascar 3" and $50–$55 million for "Prometheus". "Prometheus" was disadvantaged by "Madagascar" opening in 264 more theaters and its adult rating.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: "Prometheus" was considered a financial success overall. After a strong start in North America, the film failed to meet the studio's expectations, but it continued to perform strongly in other territories until the end of its theatrical run. "Prometheus" earned $126.4 million (31.4%) in North America and $276.9 million (68.6%) elsewhere for a worldwide total of $403.4 million, making it the 18th highest-grossing film of 2012, and at its peak it was the 155th highest-grossing film worldwide unadjusted for inflation.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: "Prometheus" was released in 15 markets between May 30 and June 1, 2012—about a week before its North American release. The earlier start in these countries was timed to avoid competition with the start of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship the following week. On its opening day, which varies depending on the country, it earned $3.39 million in the United Kingdom, $2.2 million in Russia, and $1.5 million in France. The film earned $34.8 million during its opening weekend from 4,695 theaters in 15 markets, and debuted at number 1 in 14 of them, with an average of $7,461 per theater. Its overall rank for the weekend was third behind "Men in Black 3" and "Snow White & the Huntsman". Its opening weekends in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($10.1 million), Russia and the CIS ($9.80 million), and France and the Maghreb region ($6.68 million) represented its largest takings. By June 8, the film had opened in a total of 50 markets, and was also successful during its opening weekends in Australia ($7.2 million) and South Korea ($4.2 million). During its late August opening in Japan, the film earned $9.6 million.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: In North America, "Prometheus" earned $3.561 million in midnight showings at 1,368 theaters, including $1.03 million from 294 IMAX theaters, and went on to earn $21.4 million through its opening day. During its opening weekend, the film earned $51.05 million from 3,396 theaters—an average of $15,032 per theater—ranking second behind "Madagascar 3" ($60.4 million), which made it the second largest opening for a film directed by Scott behind his 2001 thriller "Hannibal", the third largest second-place opening, the ninth largest opening for a prequel, and the tenth largest for an R-rated film. The largest demographic of the opening weekend audience was over the age of 25 (64%) and male (57%). 3D showings accounted for 54% of ticket sales, while IMAX contributed 18%—the majority of which was accounted for in the 3D figure. The film closed on September 20, 2012, after 105 days (15 weeks) in release with a total gross of $126.4 million. The figure made it the number 43 highest-grossing film to never finish a week as the number 1 film.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: In North America, "Prometheus" DVD and Blu-ray disc releases were listed for pre-order in partnership with Amazon on June 1, 2012, a week before the film was released in theaters. A limited number of cinema tickets for the film were offered as a pre-order incentive. In June 2012, "FX" obtained the rights to the film's network television premiere. On September 7, 2012, Fox announced that "Prometheus" would be the launch title of its new digital distribution initiative "Digital HD." The film was released on September 18, 2012, three weeks prior to its DVD, Blu-ray disc and Video on demand (VOD) release, for downloading and streaming through platforms including Amazon, iTunes, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live in over 50 countries. The film was released on Blu-ray disc and DVD on October 9, 2012. The Blu-ray disc edition of the film was released in a 2-disc set and a 4-disc "Collector's Edition." Both versions contain the theatrical cut of "Prometheus", commentary by Scott, Lindelof and Spaihts, a DVD and digital copy of the film, alternate and deleted scenes, and other features. Additionally, the Collector's Edition contains the 3D version of the film and approximately 7 hours of supplemental features including a documentary on the film's production. On October 8, 2012, it was reported that Fox had requested an extended version of the film for home media, but Scott refused to edit cut scenes back into the theatrical version of the film, which he considered his director's cut. During its first week of sale in the United Kingdom, "Prometheus" was the number 1 selling film on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, outselling its nearest competitor by a factor of three. An Ultra HD Blu-ray version was released in September 2017.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: The film has approval rating from critics with an average rating of on the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, which says, "Ridley Scott's ambitious quasi-prequel to "Alien" may not answer all of its big questions, but it's redeemed by its haunting visual grandeur and compelling performances—particularly Michael Fassbender as a fastidious android." Metacritic provides a score of 64 out of 100 from 43 critics, which indicates "generally favorable" reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B" on a scale of A+ to F, while audience members under 25 rated it the highest at A−. Reviews frequently praised both the film's visual aesthetic and design, and Fassbender's performance as the android David received almost universal acclaim. However the plot drew a mixed response from critics, who criticized plot elements that remained unresolved or were predictable, tempered by appreciation for the action and horror set-pieces.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: "The Hollywood Reporter"s Todd McCarthy called the film's visuals vivid, stunning, and magnificent on a technical level, and praised the performances of Fassbender, Rapace, and Theron, but wrote that the film "caters too much to imagined audience expectations when a little more adventurous thought might have taken it to some excitingly unsuspected destinations." "Time Out London"s Tom Huddleston wrote that "the photography is pleasingly crisp and the design is stunning," but that, "[t]he script feels flat ... the dialogue is lazy, while the plot, though crammed with striking concepts, simply fails to coalesce. After an enjoyable setup, the central act is baggy, confusing and, in places, slightly boring, while the climax has flash and fireworks but no real momentum." Emanuel Levy wrote that the writing was his only complaint about the film, which, he said, "is not only uneven, but promises more original ideas and thematic provocations than it can possibly deliver." Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, labeling it a "seamless blend of story, special effects and pitch-perfect casting, filmed in sane, effective 3-D that doesn't distract." Ebert wrote that Rapace's performance "continues here the tradition of awesome feminine strength begun by Sigourney Weaver in "Alien"," but considered that Elba's Janek has the most interesting character evolution. Ebert thought that the plot raises questions and does not answer them, which made the film intriguing and parallel to the "classic tradition of golden age sci-fi." He later went on to name it as one of the best films of 2012.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: "Total Film"s Jonathan Crocker wrote that the plot successfully integrated itself with "Alien"s mythology while offering its own original ideas. "Entertainment Weekly"s Lisa Schwarzbaum was positive towards the cast, particularly Rapace, and the cinematography. "Salon"s Andrew O'Hehir wrote that the film was "somber, spectacular and ponderous," but that the "portentousness and grandiosity ... is at once the film's great strength and great weakness" and criticized the characters for lacking common sense. O'Hehir also mentioned Wolski's cinematography and Max's production design. "The New York Times"' A. O. Scott criticized the story as weak, and argued that the narrative's twists and reversals undermine its "lofty, mindblowing potential." He said the film has no revelations, just "bits of momentarily surprising information bereft of meaning or resonance," and that Rapace is a "fine heroine, vulnerable and determined."


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: "Variety" film critic Justin Chang wrote that the film's narrative structure was unable to handle the philosophical dimension of the plot, and that "Prometheus" was lazily deferring key plot points under the presumption that a sequel would be made. "The Guardian's" Peter Bradshaw wrote that "Prometheus" was "more grandiose, more elaborate—but less interesting" than "Alien", and lacked the latter's "central killer punch." Ian Nathan of "Empire" magazine was unimpressed by Rapace—whom he described as an unconvincing lead—and said that with "a lack of suspense, threadbare characters, and a very poor script, the stunning visuals, gloopy madness, and sterling Fassbenderiness can't prevent "Prometheus" feeling like "Alien"s poor relation." "The Village Voice"s Nick Pinkerton wrote that the film is "prone to shallow ponderousness," and that Scott "can still mimic the appearance of an epic, noble, important movie—but the appearance is all." He criticized Rapace and Marshall-Green for failing to instill interest in their characters' relationship, but added: "There are a few set pieces here that will find a place of honor among aficionados of body horror and all things clammy and viscous."


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: James Cameron said: "I enjoyed "Prometheus". I thought it was great. I thought it was Ridley returning to science fiction with gusto, with great tactical performance, beautiful photography, great native 3D. There might have been a few things that I would have done differently, but that's not the point—you could say that about any movie." However, despite his praise, he also said he thought it "didn't add up logically."


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Scott discussed a continuation of the series in March 2012, saying that "Prometheus" leaves many questions unanswered and that these could be answered in a sequel. In June 2012, Lindelof said that while plot elements were deliberately left unresolved so that they could be answered in a sequel, he and Scott had thoroughly discussed what should be resolved so that "Prometheus" could stand alone, as a sequel was not guaranteed. By August 2012, a sequel was announced to be in development for release no earlier than 2014. Lindelof chose not to work on the new film, citing other commitments.


title: Prometheus (2012 film)

text: Titled "", the sequel premiered in London, England on May 4, 2017, and was released in the United States on May 19, 2017. Set eleven years after the events of "Prometheus", "Alien: Covenant"s story follows the crew of the Covenant space ship who land on an uncharted and seemingly uninhabited planet. The film stars Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez, Alex England and Billy Crudup. On release, "Alien: Covenant" earned a worldwide box office gross of $240.7 million (compared to "Prometheus" $403.4 million), and received generally favorable reviews. A sequel to "Alien: Covenant" is in development. In 2013, a comic book series was announced by Dark Horse Comics that serves as a spin-off to "Prometheus". The series, titled "Fire and Stone", is an "Alien vs. Predator" crossover featuring content exclusive to "Prometheus". The first issue of "Fire and Stone" was released on September 10, 2014.


title: Alexa Demie

text: Alexa Demie is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Maddy Perez on the HBO teen drama television series "Euphoria". Demie made her feature film debut with a minor role in the comedy-drama "Brigsby Bear" (2017), and went on to star in the coming-of-age film "Mid90s" (2018) and the drama film "Waves" (2019). She has also appeared in numerous music videos.


title: Alexa Demie

text: Born in Los Angeles, California, Demie grew up in the neighborhood of Atwater Village. She was raised by her mother, Rose Mendez, a make-up artist whose family immigrated to Los Angeles from Mexico when she was an infant and who got pregnant with Demie at an "extremely young" age. Demie has said that she "didn't grow up with the best male figures in [her] life" or "much respect for men". She lived in an apartment across the street from a meth lab and next door to several meth addicts, with the Black Eyed Peas recording studio being around the corner from her. According to her, there was frequent fighting and yelling in her home growing up, and she ran away from home as a teenager in order to escape her toxic family environment. However, she has described her family as "very supportive" and "there for each other". From elementary to high school, Demie was bullied by her classmates, describing herself during that time as "quite a loner". She got involved with performing arts in high school during her senior year.


title: Alexa Demie

text: While in high school, she spent her spare time bedazzling sunglasses that she purchased from Downtown Los Angeles, which led to her creating Mainframe, a line of sunglasses that she began selling at a store on Melrose Avenue where her friend worked. The brand eventually became popular overseas, with Mainframe glasses being worn by G-Dragon, Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, and Amber Rose and appearing in "Vogue Korea", though she soon stopped making them due to not being paid for her designs. Also in high school, she started writing songs and designed a costume for one of Minaj's first music videos. Demie had plans to become a fashion designer but after attending orientation for an art school in New York, she decided against it.


title: Alexa Demie

text: Demie made her first onscreen appearance as a video vixen in Azealia Banks' 2013 music video for the song "ATM Jam". After appearing in a short film for a friend, she got the lead role in "The Godmother", a scrapped biopic about Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, in 2015. Her professional acting career began with a role in the 2015 short film "Miles", through which she found an agency to represent her. She went on to guest star on the television series "Ray Donovan" and "Love", also guest starring on the second season of the drama television series "The OA" as Ingrid, a bilingual gamer. In 2016, she released her debut single, "Girl Like Me", and was featured on Pearl's single "Turnin' Tricks". She appeared in the music video for JMSN's 2017 song "Slide" and made her debut feature film appearance in the 2017 comedy-drama film "Brigsby Bear", in which she played Merideth. In July 2018, she directed the music video for JMSN's song "Talk is Cheap" with Natalie Falt.


title: Alexa Demie

text: Demie gained attention with her supporting role in the 2018 film "Mid90s", written and directed by Jonah Hill, as Esmee, the protagonist's love interest. A year after Demie unsuccessfully auditioned for Augustine Frizzell's 2018 film "Never Goin' Back", Frizzell emailed her about an audition for the HBO drama series "Euphoria", the pilot episode of which she was directing. Although Demie had planned to take a break from acting to pursue her music career, she was impressed by the script for the series and decided to audition for it. In 2019, she began starring on "Euphoria" as Maddy Perez, a popular teenage girl in an abusive, on-again, off-again relationship with football quarterback Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi). Demie was called the breakout star of "Euphoria" by critics.


title: Alexa Demie

text: Demie went on to star in the 2019 film "Waves" as Alexis, a party girl who is impregnated by her boyfriend, a popular but troubled high school wrestler played by Kelvin Harrison Jr.


title: Alexa Demie

text: She watched videos about codependency and drew on her own experience with an emotionally abusive relationship between her and a high school boyfriend, which she described as "very codependent", as the basis for the film's relationship. She also appeared in the comedy-drama film "Mainstream" in 2020 as a game show audience member named Isabelle Roberts, and made a cameo in The Neighbourhood's video for their 2020 song "Stargazing". In "Nineteen on Fire", a 2021 short film written and directed by Ryan Simpkins, Demie played a drug dealer. Demie appeared in and directed the video for JMSN's song "Love 2 U" in August 2021. In September 2021, she released the single "Leopard Limo (Archive LL11)" and appeared in the music video for JMSN's song "Act Like I'm Not Here".


title: Alexa Demie

text: After messaging with photographer Petra Collins in the summer of 2020, Demie and Collins created "Fairy Tales", a collection of erotic short stories written with Collins and containing photos of Demie dressed as various mythical creatures taken by Collins, which was published by Rizzoli in November 2021. She is set to be a voice actor in the upcoming animated series "Fables".


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: Elizabeth Debicki (born 24 August 1990) is an Australian actress. After studying drama at the Victorian College of the Arts, she made her film debut with a brief role in the Australian comedy "A Few Best Men" (2011). Debicki's role in Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" (2013) won her the AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. She played in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (2017), and gained critical attention for her performance in Steve McQueen's heist thriller "Widows" (2018). The following year, she received the Cannes Film Festival's Trophée Chopard. She then co-starred in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller "Tenet" (2020).


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: On television, Debicki has acted in the Australian series "Rake" (2014). She starred in the BBC limited series "The Night Manager" (2016), for which she received a nomination for the Critics' Choice Television Award, and the HBO television film "The Tale" (2018). In 2022, she portrayed Diana, Princess of Wales in the Netflix drama series "The Crown", gaining a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: Elizabeth Debicki was born on 24 August 1990 in Paris to a Polish father and an Australian mother of Irish descent. Her parents were both ballet dancers, who met while performing in a show together. When she was five, the family moved to Glen Waverley in Melbourne, Australia. The eldest of three children, she has a younger sister and a brother.


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: Debicki became interested in ballet at an early age and trained as a dancer until deciding to switch to theatre. A student at Huntingtower School in eastern Melbourne, she achieved two perfect study scores in Drama and English and was the school's dux when she graduated in 2007. In 2010, she completed a degree in drama at the Victorian College of the Arts. In August 2009, she was the recipient of a Richard Pratt Bursary for outstanding acting students in their second year of training. Debicki is tall.


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: Debicki made her feature film debut in the 2011 Australian film "A Few Best Men", with a brief appearance as a secretary. This was her first role after graduating from drama school. After seeing her audition reel, director Baz Luhrmann, who was casting for his upcoming film adaptation of "The Great Gatsby", flew her to auditions in Los Angeles, where she screen tested with actor Tobey Maguire. In May 2011, Luhrmann announced that she had been cast as Jordan Baker in his 2013 film "The Great Gatsby". She would go on to receive rave reviews for her portrayal of the character, winning an AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In December 2012, Debicki was the subject of a photo shoot for "Vogue Australia".


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: From June to July 2013, Debicki played Madame in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Jean Genet's play "The Maids", with Cate Blanchett starring as Claire and Isabelle Huppert as Solange. She won the best newcomer award at the Sydney Theatre Awards for her performance. In 2014, the play transferred off-Broadway at the New York City Center. Around this same time, Debicki also starred in a 13-minute short film called "Gödel Incomplete" and made an appearance as a guest star in the third season of the Australian television series "Rake".


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: In 2015, Debicki played supporting roles in three major motion pictures. She played the villain in the Guy Ritchie-directed film adaptation of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (2015), learning to drive on set. She also appeared in Australian film director Justin Kurzel's adaptation of "Macbeth", as well as the biographical adventure film "Everest", which would gross $203 million worldwide. The following year, she starred as Mona Sanders alongside Mark Strong and Hope Davis in the world première stage adaptation of Georges Simenon's novel "The Man on the Bench in the Barn" titled, "The Red Barn" by David Hare at the National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre in London. The play ran from October 2016 to January 2017.


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: In 2016 Debicki played major roles in two television shows. She played the lead role of Dr. Anna Macy in the eight-part Australian television series "The Kettering Incident", which was shot almost entirely on location in Tasmania. A few months after shooting on that show ended, Debicki headed to Switzerland to begin shooting the television miniseries "The Night Manager"; she played the role of Jed in the adaptation of the John le Carré novel of the same name. The show aired in the United States in April 2016.


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: Following the success of "The Night Manager", Debicki landed a supporting role in the Marvel Studios film "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2", in which she portrayed Ayesha, leader of the Sovereign people. She will return for its sequel and the final installment in the film series, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3". In June 2017, she was added to the cast of director Luc Besson's "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" in an undisclosed voice-over role. The film would arrive in theaters around two months later, at which time her role was revealed to be that of Emperor Haban-Limaï. 2017 also saw Debicki as Eva in Australian actor Simon Baker's directorial debut "Breath", for which she would receive an AACTA Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The film would garner five additional AACTA Award nominations, including Best Film, and would win Best Supporting Actor and Best Sound at the 8th AACTA Awards.


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: In 2018, Debicki appeared in five films. She played the role of Jensen in "The Cloverfield Paradox", the third instalment in the "Cloverfield" franchise. The film was released on Netflix in February 2018, directly after Super Bowl LII. Following this, she appeared as Mrs. G in the critically acclaimed HBO film "The Tale", for which she received rave reviews. One of her biggest roles yet would come several months later, however, in November 2018; she played the role of Alice in Steve McQueen's heist film "Widows". Upon the film's release, she received some of the best reviews of her career, with many critics stating how impressed they were that she managed to stand out among such a crowded cast, which included the likes of Viola Davis and Liam Neeson. The same year, Debicki also starred as Virginia Woolf in "Vita & Virginia" and was the voice of Mopsy Rabbit in "Peter Rabbit". She would return for the sequel, "".


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: Debicki had a leading role in the 2019 thriller "The Burnt Orange Heresy", in which she starred opposite Claes Bang and Mick Jagger. The following year, she starred in Christopher Nolan's spy film "Tenet" (2020) as Kat, the estranged wife of Kenneth Branagh's character. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" thought that she had "the most recognisable human emotions here, shouting, crying and even smiling in a way that no one else quite does" but added that her role was similar to the one she played in "The Night Manager". In an interview with Divya-Kala Bhavani of "The Hindu", Debicki recalls, "Playing Kat, I understood the harrowing scenes are important to show the audience the threats to her existence — physical and psychological — she faced."


title: Elizabeth Debicki

text: Debicki portrays Diana, Princess of Wales in the final two seasons of the Netflix period drama series "The Crown", taking over from Emma Corrin. Debicki's performance in the fifth season earned her a nomination for the a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series – Comedy/Musical or Drama.


title: The French Dispatch

text: The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun, or simply The French Dispatch, is a 2021 American anthology comedy drama film written, directed, and produced by Wes Anderson from a story he conceived with Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman. It features an expansive ensemble cast and follows three different storylines as the French foreign bureau of the fictional "Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun" newspaper publishes its final issue.


title: The French Dispatch

text: The first segment, "The Concrete Masterpiece", follows an incarcerated and unstable painter, and stars Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton and Léa Seydoux. The second, "Revisions to a Manifesto", is inspired by the May 68 student protests, and stars Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, and Lyna Khoudri. "The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner" features Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, and Stephen Park, and follows the kidnapping of a police commissioner's son. Bill Murray also stars as Arthur Howitzer Jr., the paper's editor, while Owen Wilson appears in a short segment that introduces the film's fictional setting of Ennui-sur-Blasé.


title: The French Dispatch

text: The project was first mentioned in August 2018 as an untitled musical set after World War II. That December, the film was officially announced, with Anderson calling it a "love letter to journalists". Filming took place between November 2018 and March 2019, with cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman, in the city of Angoulême, France. In post-production, editing was completed by Andrew Weisblum and the score was composed by Alexandre Desplat.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Following a delay from 2020, "The French Dispatch" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on July 12, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States by Searchlight Pictures on October 22, 2021. It received generally positive reviews, with praise for its score, production design, and performances. It has grossed $46 million worldwide against its budget of $25 million.


title: The French Dispatch

text: In 1975, in the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé (from French, literally, "boredom on apathetic"), Arthur Howitzer Jr., the editor of the magazine "The French Dispatch", dies suddenly of a heart attack. According to the wishes expressed in his will, publication of the magazine is immediately suspended following one final farewell issue, in which four articles are published, along with an obituary.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Herbsaint Sazerac delivers a cycling tour of Ennui-sur-Blasé, demonstrating several key areas such as the arcade, Le Sans Blague café and a pickpocket's alleyway. He compares the past and the present of each place, demonstrating how much and yet how little has changed in Ennui over time.


title: The French Dispatch

text: J.K.L. Berensen delivers a lecture at the art gallery of her former employer, Upshur "Maw" Clampette, in which she details the career of Moses Rosenthaler. Rosenthaler, a mentally disturbed artist serving a sentence in the Ennui prison for murder, paints an abstract nude portrait of Simone, a prison officer with whom he develops a relationship. Julien Cadazio, an art dealer also serving a sentence for tax evasion, is immediately taken by the painting and buys it despite Rosenthaler's protests. Upon his release, Cadazio convinces his family of art exhibitors to put it on display, and Rosenthaler soon becomes a sensation in the art world. Privately, Rosenthaler struggles with inspiration to the point of near-suicide, and devotes himself to a long-term project at Simone's challenging.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Three years later, Cadazio, his uncles, Clampette, Berensen, and a mob of artists inspired by Rosenthaler, all frustrated at the lack of further paintings, bribe their way into the prison to confront him, only to discover that his masterpiece is in fact a series of frescoes in the concrete prison hall. Angered that the paintings are irremovable from the prison, Cadazio gets into a physical altercation with Rosenthaler, but soon comes to appreciate the paintings for what they are, and later arranges for the entire wall to be airlifted out of the prison into a private museum in Kansas, owned by Clampette. For his actions in halting a prison riot that breaks out during the reveal of the paintings, Rosenthaler is released on probation. Simone also departs after earning a great sum of money for becoming the inspiration and motivation for Rosenthaler during his incarceration. Simone and Rosenthaler maintain correspondence following his release, but never see each other again.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Lucinda Krementz reports on a student protest breaking out in the streets of Ennui that soon boils over into the "Chessboard Revolution", so-called for the students using chess to communicate with the police. While the revolution initially is inspired by petty concerns over access to the girls' dormitory, the traumatic military conscription of one student, Mitch-Mitch, inspires greater uprising.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Despite her insistence on maintaining "journalistic neutrality", Krementz has a brief romance with Zeffirelli, a self-styled leader of the revolt, and secretly helps him write his manifesto and adds an appendix. Juliette, a fellow revolutionary, is unimpressed with his manifesto. After they briefly express their disagreement about its contents, Krementz discovers that Juliette is in fact infatuated with Zeffirelli and is jealous of her closeness with him. She then tells the two to "go make love", which they do.


title: The French Dispatch

text: A few weeks later, Zeffirelli dies attempting repairs on the tower of a revolutionary pirate radio station, and soon a photograph of his likeness becomes symbolic of the movement. Five years later, Krementz translates Mitch-Mitch's theatrical dramatization of his conscription, and Zeffirelli's death, for a National Playhouse production of his play (at the downstairs Knoblock Theatre).


title: The French Dispatch

text: During a television interview, Roebuck Wright recounts the story of his attending a private dinner with The Commissaire of the Ennui police force, prepared by legendary police officer/chef Lt. Nescaffier. Nescaffier is a famous specialist in a kind of haute cuisine specifically designed to be eaten by working police officers. The dinner is disrupted when the Commissaire's son Gigi is kidnapped and held for ransom by criminals, led by a failed musician labelled The Chauffeur.


title: The French Dispatch

text: The kidnappers represent the warring criminal syndicates of Ennui-sur-Blasé, and demand the release of an underworld accountant Albert, nicknamed "the Abacus", who possesses their shared financial records. The Abacus is being held in a solitary confinement cell at police headquarters. Wright recollects his own imprisonment in that same cell for his homosexuality, for which he was bailed out by Howitzer and offered a job at the "Dispatch".


title: The French Dispatch

text: Following a shoot-out at the kidnapper's hideout, Gigi manages to sneak out a message in Morse code to "send the cook". Lt. Nescaffier is sent into the kidnappers' hideout, ostensibly to provide both them and Gigi with food, but secretly the food is laced with poison. The criminals all succumb to the poison except Gigi and The Chauffeur as neither ate the poisoned radishes, and Nescaffier just barely survives (due to his strong stomach). The Chauffeur escapes with Gigi, and leads the police on a chase. Gigi manages to escape through the car's sunroof and reunites with his father. During his recovery, Nescaffier saves The Abacus from starving to death by preparing him an omelette, the prisoner having been totally forgotten in the commotion.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Back at the "Dispatch" office, Howitzer tells Wright to reinsert a deleted segment. In it, a recovering Nescaffier tells Wright that the taste of the poison was unlike anything he had ever eaten before, before they commiserate over the state of being foreigners in France, and outsiders to society as a whole. Howitzer and Wright disagree on whether this conversation is the heart of the piece.


title: The French Dispatch

text: In an epilogue, the "French Dispatch" staff mourn Howitzer's death, but set to work putting together a final issue to honor his memory.


title: The French Dispatch

text: During the closing credits, there is a dedication to the following writers and editors, many of whom were associated with "The New Yorker": Harold Ross, William Shawn, Rosamond Bernier, Mavis Gallant, James Baldwin, A. J. Liebling, S. N. Behrman, Lillian Ross, Janet Flanner, Lucy Sante, James Thurber, Joseph Mitchell, Wolcott Gibbs, St. Clair McKelway, Ved Mehta, Brendan Gill, E. B. White, and Katharine White, and additionally to Christophe, writer of the featured song "Aline". Accompanying the credits are covers of the "French Dispatch" which are reminiscent of "The New Yorker" covers.


title: The French Dispatch

text: The film has been described as "a love letter to journalists set at an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th-century French city", centering on four stories. It brings to life a collection of tales published in the eponymous "The French Dispatch", based in the fictional French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé (literally "Boredom-upon-Apathetic"). The film is inspired by Anderson's love of "The New Yorker", and some characters and events in the film are based on real-life equivalents from the magazine. Arthur Howitzer Jr., the Kansas-born editor of the "Dispatch", was based on the "New Yorker" founding editor Harold Ross, who came from Colorado. A. J. Liebling served as a secondary inspiration for the character. The character Herbsaint Sazerac was inspired by the "New Yorker" writer Joseph Mitchell. The food journalist Roebuck Wright was based on an amalgamation of James Baldwin, Liebling and Tennessee Williams. The story "Revisions to a Manifesto" was inspired by Mavis Gallant's two-part article "The Events in May: A Paris Notebook", centering on the May 68 student protests. "The Concrete Masterpiece" was inspired by the 1951 feature "The Days of Duveen", a six-part profile on art dealer Lord Duveen, upon which the character Julien Cadazio (played by Adrien Brody) is modeled. The character Upshur "Maw" Clampette was based on art collector Dominique de Menil, and J.K.L. Berensen was inspired by art lecturer Rosamond Bernier.


title: The French Dispatch

text: When speaking to French publication "Charente Libre" in April 2019, Anderson said: "The story is not easy to explain . . . [It's about an] American journalist based in France [who] creates his magazine. It is more a portrait of this man, of this journalist who fights to write what he wants to write. It's not a movie about freedom of the press, but when you talk about reporters you also talk about what's going on in the real world."


title: The French Dispatch

text: In August 2018, it was reported Wes Anderson would write and direct an untitled musical film set in France, post World War II. In November 2018, it was announced Jeremy Dawson would produce the film, with Tilda Swinton and Mathieu Amalric starring in the film. Dawson also confirmed the film is not a musical. Additionally, Natalie Portman, Brad Pitt, and Léa Seydoux were rumored for roles in the film. In December 2018, it was announced Anderson would write and direct the film, with Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, and Jeffrey Wright; Seydoux was confirmed to star in the film alongside Swinton and Amalric, with Steven Rales producing under his Indian Paintbrush banner and Fox Searchlight Pictures distributing. Timothée Chalamet's role was written with him in mind.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Later that month, Lois Smith and Saoirse Ronan joined the cast. In January 2019, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Henry Winkler, Willem Dafoe, Bob Balaban, Steve Park, Denis Ménochet, Lyna Khoudri, Alex Lawther, Félix Moati, Benjamin Lavernhe, Guillaume Gallienne, and Cécile de France were cast. Robert D. Yeoman served as the film's cinematographer. In February 2019, it was announced Wally Wolodarsky, Fisher Stevens, Griffin Dunne, and Jason Schwartzman had joined the cast of the film. In April 2019, Christoph Waltz, Rupert Friend, and Elisabeth Moss were cast. Initially, Kate Winslet was also part of the cast, but had to exit the project to prepare for her next role in "Ammonite."


title: The French Dispatch

text: Principal photography began in November 2018, in the city of Angoulême in southwestern France and wrapped in March 2019. Murray and Ronan, who had small roles, recorded their scenes in two days.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Director of photography Robert Yeoman shot "The French Dispatch" on 35 mm film using Kodak Vision3 200T 5213 for the color sequences, and Eastman Double-X 5222 for the black-and-white sequences, on Arricam Studio and Lite cameras provided by a studio in Paris. Anderson preferred classic methods for shooting the scenes. Accordingly, the crew used scaffolding and hauled equipment on ropes, rather than a Technocrane; and golf carts for transporting cameras, rather than camera cars. Most scenes were framed in 1.37:1 format (also known as Academy ratio), which Anderson used in his "The Grand Budapest Hotel", and which was used for many of the French films that inspired "The French Dispatch". Occasional scenes were shot in anamorphic format "mainly to make a bold dramatic statement", according to Yeoman. French New Wave films were primary sources of inspiration for Yeoman's lighting; "In Cold Blood" (1967, shot by Conrad Hall) was another major reference.


title: The French Dispatch

text: The animated segments were directed by Gwenn Germain, who previously worked on Anderson's "Isle of Dogs". As a nod to Angoulême's comic heritage, they were done entirely by local illustrators. The team comprised a maximum of 15 people, with "The Adventures of Tintin" and "Blake and Mortimer" as their main inspirations. They took about seven months to complete. The visual effects were done by the UK-based company Koala FX.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Javi Aznarez drew from his own imagination and memories to design the covers for this movie which were made to look like ‘New Yorker’-Style Magazine Covers .


title: The French Dispatch

text: Adam Stockhausen was responsible for the production design of "The French Dispatch". Stockhausen and his team began the scouting process using Google Maps, looking for promising locations before visiting them in person. Stockhausen and Anderson envisioned a town which "felt like Paris but not as it is today – more a sort of memory of Paris, the Paris of Jacques Tati." The team eventually settled on Angoulême. Stockhausen estimates that over 125 sets were constructed, most of them on location around Angoulême. A former felt factory was converted into a makeshift movie studio for the crew. A real building in Angoulême was chosen as the basis for the "Dispatch" headquarters, enhanced with foreground sets and miniatures in order to create the symmetry typically seen in Anderson films.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Rena DeAngelo was "The French Dispatch" set decorator. DeAngelo and Anderson sought inspiration from French films such as "The Red Balloon", "The 400 Blows", "Bande à part" and "Vivre sa vie", and researched an extensive photo collection of Paris from the mid-1800s through the 1950s and 1960s in order to "get a feeling of Paris when it was dirtier—still beautiful, but grimy." DeAngelo and her team sourced the furniture at Le Sans Blague café from various places in Paris, and the coffee cups were specially made in Limoges, a city famous for its porcelain. DeAngelo also shopped once a month during filming at prop houses and flea markets in Le Mans, from which she sourced the furniture for Roebuck Wright's office. Much of the rest of the film's furniture came from a local estate liquidator in Angoulême.


title: The French Dispatch

text: Rosenthaler's abstract paintings were created by the German-New Zealand visual artist (and Tilda Swinton’s partner) Sandro Kopp in a three-month-long process. Kopp cited the works of Frank Auerbach, Willem de Kooning and Francis Bacon as references, while insisting that the paintings must be "idiosyncratic" and would not "look too much like the work of any living or dead painter". He relocated to the "French Dispatch" set in Angoulême to create the paintings, working in the on-set studio. Kopp also served as Tony Revolori's hand-double for the scenes where the young Rosenthaler is seen painting.


title: The French Dispatch

text: For the film's musical score, Wes Anderson teamed up with his long-term collaborators Alexandre Desplat and Randall Poster. Desplat enlisted pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet to draw inspiration from composers Erik Satie and Thelonious Monk and pair him in unusual duos including harp, timpani, bassoon and tuba. Recording took place remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film's soundtrack album was released on CD and digitally on October 22, 2021 by ABKCO Records with a vinyl release planned for early 2022. The film's soundtrack album's only single, titled "Obituary", was released on September 14, 2021. The film's musical score was given an earlier separate release.


title: The French Dispatch

text: In September 2019, Searchlight Pictures acquired distribution rights to the film. It was set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 12, 2020, and get a wide release on July 24, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival was cancelled and the film was pulled from the schedule on April 3, 2020. The film was rescheduled for release on October 16, 2020, before being pulled from the schedule again on July 23, 2020.


title: The French Dispatch

text: "The French Dispatch" had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film was screened at film festivals in Busan, South Korea, the Hamptons, London, Mill Valley, Montclair, New York, Twin Cities, Philadelphia, Wrocław, San Diego, and Zürich. There was a surprise screening at Telluride. It was released in limited theaters on October 22, 2021, followed by the wide expansion of October 29, 2021.


title: The French Dispatch

text: The film was released digitally on December 14, 2021, and was followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on December 28, 2021 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. However, the movie did not receive a release on physical media in the UK and europe.


title: The French Dispatch

text: In promoting the movie, pop-up exhibitions with recreations of film's sets emerged in Los Angeles, New York, and London for a limited run around the film's release. The London store sported Le Sans Blague café's storefront, and housed several props from the film, including costumes, and the Rosenthaler's mural.


title: The French Dispatch

text: "The French Dispatch" has grossed $16.1million in the United States and Canada, and $30.2million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $46.3million.


title: The French Dispatch

text: In its limited opening weekend, it grossed $1.3 million from 52 theaters, for a per-venue average of $25,000, the best per-venue performance for a theatrically released film of the COVID-19 pandemic until "Licorice Pizza" released in November with a per-venue average of $86,289). It expanded to 788 theaters the following weekend and grossed $2.75 million. It continued to expand in its third weekend, making $2.6 million from 1,205 theaters.


title: The French Dispatch

text: At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of 310 reviews are positive, with the film having an average rating of 7.10/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "A loving ode to the spirit of journalism, "The French Dispatch" will be most enjoyed by fans of Wes Anderson's meticulously arranged aesthetic". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 56 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The French Dispatch

text: David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" praised the "hand-crafted visual delights and eccentric performances" and wrote: "While "The French Dispatch" might seem like an anthology of vignettes without a strong overarching theme, every moment is graced by Anderson's love for the written word and the oddball characters who dedicate their professional lives to it". Writing for "The Guardian", Peter Bradshaw said: "It might not be at the very zenith of what he can achieve but for sheer moment-by-moment pleasure, and for laughs, this is a treat".


title: The French Dispatch

text: "The French Dispatch" was mentioned in lists of the best films of the year by "The New Yorker" (#1), "The Forward" (the best movie), "IndieWire" (#6), "Esquire" (#38), "New Musical Express" (#11), "British Film Institute" (#23) and "Vogue" (unlisted)"."


title: Video on demand

text: Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of over-the-air programming was the most common form of media distribution. As Internet and IPTV technologies continued to develop in the 1990s, consumers began to gravitate towards non-traditional modes of content consumption, which culminated in the arrival of VOD on televisions and personal computers.


title: Video on demand

text: Unlike broadcast television, VOD systems initially required each user to have an Internet connection with considerable bandwidth to access each system's content. In 2000, the Fraunhofer Institute IIS developed the JPEG2000 codec, which enabled the distribution of movies via Digital Cinema Packages. This technology has since expanded its services from feature-film productions to include broadcast television programmes and has led to lower bandwidth requirements for VOD applications. Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. subsequently launched the Digital Cinema Initiative, in 2002.


title: Video on demand

text: Television VOD systems can stream content, either through a traditional set-top box or through remote devices such as computers, tablets, and smartphones. VOD users can permanently download content to a device such as a computer, digital video recorder (DVR) or a portable media player for continued viewing. The majority of cable and telephone company–based television providers offer VOD streaming, whereby a user selects a video programme that begins to play immediately, or downloading to a DVR rented or purchased from the provider, or to a PC or to a portable device for deferred viewing.


title: Video on demand

text: Streaming media has emerged as an increasingly popular medium of VOD provision. Desktop client applications such as the Apple iTunes online content store and Smart TV apps such as Amazon Prime Video allow temporary rentals and purchases of video entertainment content. Other Internet-based VOD systems provide users with access to bundles of video entertainment content rather than individual movies and shows. The most common of these systems, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max and Paramount+, use a subscription model that requires users to pay a monthly fee for access to a selection of movies, television shows, and original series. In contrast, YouTube, another Internet-based VOD system, uses an advertising-funded model in which users can access most of its video content free of cost but must pay a subscription fee for premium content. Some airlines offer VOD services as in-flight entertainment to passengers through video screens embedded in seats or externally provided portable media players.


title: Video on demand

text: Downloading and streaming VOD systems provide the user with features of portable media players and DVD players. Some VOD systems store and stream programmes from hard disk drives and use a memory buffer to allow the user to fast forward and rewind videos. It is possible to put video servers on local area networks; these can provide rapid responses to users. Cable companies have rolled out their own versions of VOD services through apps, allowing television access wherever there is a device that is Internet capable. Cable media companies have combined VOD with live streaming services. The early-2020s launches of apps from cable companies (e.g. NBC's Peacock, CBS's Paramount+) are attempts to compete with Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) services because they lack live news and sports content. Streaming video servers can serve a wide community via a WAN but responsiveness may be reduced. Download VOD services are practical in homes equipped with cable modems or DSL connections. Servers for traditional cable and telco VOD services are usually placed at the cable head-end, serving a particular market and cable hubs in larger markets. In the telco world, they are placed in either the central office or a newly created location called a Video Head-End Office (VHO).


title: Video on demand

text: VOD services first appeared in the early 1990s. Until then, it was not thought possible that a television programme could be squeezed into the limited telecommunication bandwidth of a copper telephone cable to provide a VOD service of acceptable quality as the required bandwidth of a digital television signal is around 200Mbps, which is 2,000 times greater than the bandwidth of a speech signal over a copper telephone wire.


title: Video on demand

text: VOD services were only made possible as a result of two major technological developments: MPEG (motion-compensated DCT) video compression and asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) data transmission.


title: Video on demand

text: A VOD service was proposed as early as 1986 in Japan, where there were plans to develop an "Integrated Network System" service. It was not possible, however, to practically implement such a VOD service until the adoption of DCT and ADSL technologies in the early 1990s. The first VOD systems used tapes as the real-time source of video streams. GTE started as a trial in 1990 with AT&T providing all components. By 1992, VOD servers were supplying previously encoded digital video from disks and DRAM.


title: Video on demand

text: In the US, the 1982 anti-trust break-up of AT&T resulted in several smaller telephone companies nicknamed Baby Bells. Following this, the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 prohibited telephone companies from providing video services within their operating regions. In 1993 the National Communication and Information Infrastructure (NII) was proposed and passed by the US House and Senate, opening the way for the seven Baby Bells—Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell, and US West—to implement VOD systems. These companies and others began holding trials to set up systems for supplying video on demand over telephone and cable lines.


title: Video on demand

text: In November 1992, Bell Atlantic announced a VOD trial. IBM was developing a video server code-named Tiger Shark. Concurrently, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was developing a scalable video server configured from small-to-large for a range of video streams. Bell Atlantic selected IBM and in April 1993 the system became the first VOD over ADSL to be deployed outside the lab, serving 50 video streams. In June 1993, US West filed for a patent to register a proprietary system consisting of the Digital Equipment Corporation Interactive Information Server, Scientific Atlanta providing the network, and 3DO as the set-top box with video streams and other information to be deployed to 2,500 homes. In 1994–95, US West filed for a patent concerning the provision of VOD in several cities: 330,000 subscribers in Denver, 290,000 in Minneapolis, and 140,000 in Portland. In early 1994, British Telecommunications (BT) introduced a trial VOD service in the United Kingdom. It used the DCT-based MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video compression standards, along with ADSL technology.


title: Video on demand

text: Many VOD trials were held with various combinations of server, network, and set-top box. Of these the primary players in the US were the telephone companies using DEC, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, USA Video, nCube, SGI, and other servers. The DEC server system was the most-used in these trials.


title: Video on demand

text: The DEC VOD server architecture used interactive gateways to set up video streams and other information for delivery from any of a large number of VAX servers, enabling it in 1993 to support more than 100,000 streams with full videocassette recorder (VCR)-like functionality. In 1994, it upgraded to a DEC Alpha–based computer for its VOD servers, allowing it to support more than a million users. By 1994 the Oracle scalable VOD system used massively parallel processors to support from 500 to 30,000 users. The SGI system supported 4,000 users. The servers connected to networks of increasing size to eventually support video stream delivery to entire cities.


title: Video on demand

text: In the UK, from September 1994, a VOD service formed a major part of the Cambridge Digital Interactive Television Trial This provided video and data to 250 homes and several schools connected to the Cambridge Cable network, later part of NTL, now Virgin Media. The MPEG-1 encoded video was streamed over an ATM network from an ICL media server to set-top boxes designed by Acorn Online Media. The trial commenced at a speed of 2 Mbit/s to the home, subsequently increased to 25 Mbit/s. The content was provided by the BBC and Anglia Television. Although a technical success, difficulty in sourcing content was a major issue and the project closed in 1996.


title: Video on demand

text: In 1997, Enron Corporation had entered the broadband market, constructing and purchasing thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables throughout the United States. In 2001, Enron and Blockbuster Inc. attempted to create a 20-year deal to stream movies on demand over Enron's fiber-optic network. The heavily promoted deal fell through, with Enron's share prices dropping following the announcement.


title: Video on demand

text: In 1998, Kingston Communications became the first UK company to launch a fully commercial VOD service and the first to integrate broadcast television and Internet access through a single set-top box using IP delivery over ADSL. By 2001, Kingston Interactive TV had attracted 15,000 subscribers. After several trials, Home Choice followed in 1999 but was restricted to London. After attracting 40,000 customers, they were bought by Tiscali in 2006 which was, in turn, bought by Talk Talk in 2009. Cable TV providers Telewest and (now Virgin Media) launched their VOD services in the United Kingdom in 2005, competing with the leading traditional pay-TV distributor BSkyB, which responded by launching "Sky by broadband", later renamed "Sky Anytime on PC". The service went live on 2 January 2006. Sky Anytime on PC uses a legal peer-to-peer approach based on Kontiki technology to provide very-high-capacity multi-point downloads of the video content. Instead of the video content all being downloaded from Sky's servers, the content comes from multiple users of the system who have already downloaded the content. Other UK television broadcasters implemented their own versions of the same technology, such as Channel 4's 4oD (4 on Demand, now known as All 4) which was launched on 16 November 2006 and the BBC's iPlayer, which was launched on 25 December 2007. Another example of online video publishers using legal peer-to-peer technology is based on Giraffic technology, which was launched in early 2011, with large online VOD publishers such as US-based VEOH and UK-based Craze's Online Movies Box movie rental service.


title: Video on demand

text: The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 planned to launch a joint platform provisionally called Kangaroo in 2008. This was abandoned in 2009 following complaints, which were investigated by the Competition Commission. In that same year, the assets of the now-defunct Kangaroo project were acquired by Arqiva, who used the technology to launch the SeeSaw service in February 2010. A year later, however, SeeSaw was shut down due to a lack of funding.


title: Video on demand

text: VOD services are now available in all parts of the United States, which has the highest global take-up rate of VOD. In 2010, 80% of American Internet users had watched video online, and 42% of mobile users who downloaded video preferred apps to a normal browser. Streaming VOD systems are available on desktop and mobile platforms from cable providers (in tandem with cable modem technology). They use the large downstream bandwidth present on their cable systems to deliver movies and television shows to end-users. These viewers can typically pause, fast-forward, and rewind VOD movies due to the low latency and random-access nature of cable technology. The large distribution of a single signal makes streaming VOD impractical for most satellite television systems. Both EchoStar/Dish Network and DirecTV offer VOD programming to PVR-owning subscribers of their satellite TV service. In Demand is a cable VOD service that also offers pay-per-view. Once the programs have been downloaded onto a user's PVR, he or she can watch, play, pause, and seek at their convenience. VOD is also common in expensive hotels.


title: Video on demand

text: According to the European Audiovisual Observatory, 142 paying VOD services were operational in Europe at the end of 2006. The number increased to 650 by 2009. At the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sezmi CEO Buno Pati and president Phil Wiser showed a set-top box with a one-terabyte hard drive that could be used for video-on-demand services previously offered through cable television and broadband. A movie, for example, could be sent out once using a broadcast signal rather than numerous times over cable or fiber-optic lines, and this would not involve the expense of adding many miles of lines. Sezmi planned to lease part of the broadcast spectrum to offer a subscription service that National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon H. Smith said would provide a superior picture to that of cable or satellite at a lower cost.


title: Video on demand

text: Developing VOD requires extensive negotiations to identify a financial model that would serve both content creators and cable providers while providing desirable content for viewers at an acceptable price point. Key factors identified for determining the economic viability of the VOD model include VOD movie buy-rates and setting Hollywood and cable operator revenue splits. Cable providers offered VOD as part of digital subscription packages, which by 2005 primarily allowed cable subscribers to only access an on-demand version of the content that was already provided in the linear traditional broadcasting distribution. These on-demand packages sometimes include extras and bonus footage in addition to the regular content.


title: Video on demand

text: Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software allows the distribution of content without the linear costs associated with centralised streaming media. This innovation proved it is technically possible to offer the consumer potentially every film ever made, and the popularity and ease of use of such services may have motivated the rise of centralised video-on-demand services. Some services such as Spotify use peer-to-peer distribution to better scale their platforms. Netflix was reported to be considering switching to a P2P model to cope with net neutrality problems from downstream providers.


title: Video on demand

text: Transactional video on demand (TVOD) is a distribution method by which customers pay for each piece of video-on-demand content. For example, a customer would pay a fee for each movie or TV show that they watch. TVOD has two sub-categories: electronic sell-through (EST), by which customers can permanently access a piece of content once purchased via the Internet; and download to rent (DTR), by which customers can access the content for a limited time upon renting. Examples of TVOD services include the Apple iTunes Store and the Google Play Store, as well as VOD rental services offered through multichannel television (i.e., cable or satellite) providers.


title: Video on demand

text: Premium video on demand (PVOD) is a version of TVOD which allows customers to access video-on-demand content several weeks or months earlier than their customary TVOD or home video availability – often feature films made available alongside, or in place of, a traditional release in movie theaters – but at a much higher price point. A version of the model was tested in 2011 by American satellite TV provider DirecTV under the brand name "Home Premiere", which allowed viewers to rent select films from major studios for US$30 per rental as soon as 60 days after they debuted in cinemas, compared to 120 days for the regular TVOD window; this version only lasted a few months.


title: Video on demand

text: PVOD made a return during the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting global closures of cinemas. Certain films that had already been released including "The Invisible Man" were quickly also released on VOD platforms for a higher rental price than usual, while other films including "Trolls World Tour" were released simultaneously on PVOD and in drive-in theaters, or in some cases directly to PVOD only.


title: Video on demand

text: In most cases, these PVOD releases are offered through most of the same platforms as traditional TVOD, but at a higher price point, typically about US$20 for a 48-hour rental; this offering has again been branded as "Home Premiere" by some studios and platforms. Disney used the September 2020 release of the live-action remake of "Mulan" to launch a related model called Premier Access; this requires customers to pay a premium fee (approximately US$26-30 depending on country) on top of a subscription to the Disney+ streaming service, but they then retain access as long as they maintain their subscription (for "Mulan", this was effectively a 90-day rental, as the film became available to all Disney+ subscribers at no extra charge in December).


title: Video on demand

text: It has been reported that the pandemic has contributed to a transformation in movie distribution in favor of PVOD over traditional movie houses, as studios are able to realize 80% of revenue through PVOD versus 50% of traditional theater box office receipts. Theater owners including AMC and Cinemark, as well as suppliers including IMAX and National CineMedia, all experienced significant drops in revenues during shutdowns related to COVID-19.


title: Video on demand

text: Many television stations offer "catch-up TV" as a way for viewers to watch programmes though their VOD services after the original television broadcast is over.


title: Video on demand

text: Subscription VOD (SVOD) services use a subscription business model in which subscribers are charged a regular fee to access unlimited programs. Examples of these services include Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, Hotstar, Star+, Peacock, Hayu, Paramount+, Noggin, BET+, Voot, Discovery+, HBO Max, Crunchyroll, SonyLIV, GulliMax and ZEE5.


title: Video on demand

text: Near video on demand (NVOD) is a pay-per-view consumer video technique used by multi-channel broadcasters using high-bandwidth distribution mechanisms such as satellite and cable television. Multiple copies of a programme are broadcast at short time intervals (typically staggered on a schedule of every 10–20 minutes) on linear channels providing convenience for viewers, who can watch the programme without needing to tune in at the only scheduled point in time.


title: Video on demand

text: A viewer may only have to wait a few minutes before the next time a movie will be programmed. This form is bandwidth-intensive, reduces the number of channels a provider can offer, and is generally provided by large operators with a great deal of redundant capacity. This concept has been reduced in popularity as video on demand is implemented, along with providers often wanting to provide the maximum throughput for their broadband services possible.


title: Video on demand

text: Only the satellite services DirecTV and Dish Network continue to provide NVOD services, as they do not offer broadband and much of their rural customer base only has access to slower dial-up and non-5G wireless and satellite internet options which cannot stream films or have onerous data caps (and where possible, AT&T is now prioritizing their streaming service AT&T TV, which utilizes a fully immediate VOD experience, over DirecTV).


title: Video on demand

text: Before the rise of VOD, the cable pay-per-view provider In Demand provided up to 40 channels in 2002, with several films receiving four channels on a staggered schedule to provide the NVOD experience for viewers. As of 2018, most cable pay-per-view channels now number mainly 3–5, and are used mainly for live ring sports events (boxing and professional wrestling), comedy specials, and concerts, though the latter two sources are declining due to streaming services offering much more lucrative performance contracts to performers, and several ring sports organisations (mainly UFC and WWE) now prefer direct marketing of their product via streaming services such as ESPN+, the WWE Network, and the apps of Fox Sports over pay-TV providers which require a portion of the profits they otherwise retain directly. In Australia, pay-TV broadcaster Foxtel offers NVOD for new-release movies over their satellite service.