title: George Lucas

text: After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed "THX 1138" (1971), based on his student short "", which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was "American Graffiti" (1973), inspired by his youth in the early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful and received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas's next film, the epic space opera "Star Wars" (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) and "Return of the Jedi" (1983). With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced, and co-wrote the "Indiana Jones" films "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), "The Temple of Doom" (1984), "The Last Crusade" (1989), "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008) and only produced "The Dial of Destiny" (2023). Lucas is also known for his collaboration with composer John Williams, who was recommended to him by Spielberg, and with whom he has worked for all the films in both of these franchises. He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s.


title: George Lucas

text: In 1997, Lucas re-released the original "Star Wars" trilogy as part of a Special Edition featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with a "Star Wars" prequel trilogy comprising "" (1999), "Episode II – Attack of the Clones" (2002), and "Episode III – Revenge of the Sith" (2005). He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series "" (2008–2014, 2020), the war film "Red Tails" (2012), and the CGI film "Strange Magic" (2015).


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, California, the son of Dorothy Ellinore Lucas (née Bomberger) and George Walton Lucas Sr., and is of German, Swiss-German, English, Scottish, and distant Dutch and French descent. His family attended Disneyland during its opening week in July 1955, and Lucas would remain enthusiastic about the park. He was interested in comics and science fiction, including television programs such as the "Flash Gordon" serials. Long before Lucas began making films, he yearned to be a racecar driver, and he spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages. On June 12, 1962, a few days before his high school graduation, Lucas was driving his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina when another driver broadsided him, flipping his car several times before it crashed into a tree; Lucas's seatbelt had snapped, ejecting him and thereby saving his life. However, his lungs were bruised from severe hemorrhaging and he required emergency medical treatment. This incident caused him to lose interest in racing as a career, but also inspired him to pursue his other interests.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas's father owned a stationery store, and had wanted George to work for him when he turned 18. Lucas had been planning to go to art school, and declared upon leaving home that he would be a millionaire by the age of 30. He attended Modesto Junior College, where he studied anthropology, sociology, and literature, amongst other subjects. He also began shooting with an 8 mm camera, including filming car races.


title: George Lucas

text: At this time, Lucas and his friend John Plummer became interested in Canyon Cinema: screenings of underground, avant-garde 16 mm filmmakers like Jordan Belson, Stan Brakhage, and Bruce Conner. Lucas and Plummer also saw classic European films of the time, including Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless", François Truffaut's "Jules et Jim", and Federico Fellini's "8½". "That's when George really started exploring," Plummer said. Through his interest in autocross racing, Lucas met renowned cinematographer Haskell Wexler, another race enthusiast. Wexler, later to work with Lucas on several occasions, was impressed by Lucas's talent. "George had a very good eye, and he thought visually," he recalled.


title: George Lucas

text: At Plummer's recommendation, Lucas then transferred to the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts. USC was one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to motion picture film. During the years at USC, Lucas shared a dorm room with Randal Kleiser. Along with classmates such as Walter Murch, Hal Barwood, and John Milius, they became a clique of film students known as The Dirty Dozen. He also became good friends with fellow acclaimed student filmmaker and future "Indiana Jones" collaborator, Steven Spielberg. Lucas was deeply influenced by the Filmic Expression course taught at the school by filmmaker Lester Novros which concentrated on the non-narrative elements of Film Form like color, light, movement, space, and time. Another inspiration was the Serbian montagist (and dean of the USC Film Department) Slavko Vorkapić, a film theoretician who made stunning montage sequences for Hollywood studio features at MGM, RKO, and Paramount. Vorkapich taught the autonomous nature of the cinematic art form, emphasizing the kinetic energy inherent in motion pictures.


title: George Lucas

text: After graduating with a bachelor of fine arts in film in 1967, he tried joining the United States Air Force as an officer, but he was immediately turned down because of his numerous speeding tickets. He was later drafted by the Army for military service in Vietnam, but he was exempted from service after medical tests showed he had diabetes, the disease that killed his paternal grandfather.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas saw many inspiring films in class, particularly the visual films coming out of the National Film Board of Canada like Arthur Lipsett's "21-87", cameraman Jean-Claude Labrecque's cinéma vérité "60 Cycles", the work of Norman McLaren, and the documentaries of Claude Jutra. Lucas fell madly in love with pure cinema and quickly became prolific at making 16 mm nonstory noncharacter visual tone poems and cinéma vérité with such titles as "Look at Life", "Herbie", "", "The Emperor", "Anyone Lived in a Pretty (how) Town", "Filmmaker", and "6-18-67". He was passionate and interested in camerawork and editing, defining himself as a filmmaker as opposed to being a director, and he loved making abstract visual films that created emotions purely through non narrative structures.


title: George Lucas

text: In 1967, Lucas re-enrolled as a USC graduate student in film production. He began working under Verna Fields for the United States Information Agency, where he met his future wife Marcia Griffin. Working as a teaching instructor for a class of U.S. Navy students who were being taught documentary cinematography, Lucas directed the short film "", which won first prize at the 1967–68 National Student film festival. Lucas was awarded a student scholarship by Warner Bros. to observe and work on the making of a film of his choosing. The film he chose after finding the animation department closed down was "Finian's Rainbow" (1968) which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who was revered among film school students of the time as a cinema graduate who had "made it" in Hollywood. In 1969, Lucas was one of the camera operators on the classic Rolling Stones concert film "Gimme Shelter".


title: George Lucas

text: In 1969, Lucas co-founded the studio American Zoetrope with Coppola, hoping to create a liberating environment for filmmakers to direct outside the perceived oppressive control of the Hollywood studio system. Coppola thought Lucas's "Electronic Labyrinth" could be adapted into his first full-length feature film, which was produced by American Zoetrope as "THX 1138", but was not a success. Lucas then created his own company, Lucasfilm, Ltd., and directed the successful "American Graffiti" (1973).


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas then set his sights on adapting Flash Gordon, an adventure serial from his childhood that he fondly remembered. When he was unable to obtain the rights, he set out to write an original space adventure that would eventually become "Star Wars". Despite his success with his previous film, all but one studio turned "Star Wars" down. It was only because Alan Ladd, Jr., at 20th Century Fox liked "American Graffiti" that he forced through a production and distribution deal for the film, which ended up restoring Fox to financial stability after a number of flops. "Star Wars" was significantly influenced by samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, Spaghetti Westerns, as well as classic sword and sorcery fantasy stories.


title: George Lucas

text: "Star Wars" quickly became the highest-grossing film of all-time, displaced five years later by Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". After the success of "American Graffiti" and prior to the beginning of filming on "Star Wars", Lucas was encouraged to renegotiate for a higher fee for writing and directing "Star Wars" than the US$150,000 agreed. He declined to do so, instead negotiating for advantage in some of the as-yet-unspecified parts of his contract with Fox, in particular, ownership of licensing and merchandising rights (for novelizations, clothing, toys, etc.) and contractual arrangements for sequels. Lucasfilm has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from licensed games, toys, and collectibles created for the franchise.


title: George Lucas

text: The original "Star Wars" film went through a tumultuous production, and during editing, Lucas suffered chest pains initially feared to be a heart attack, but actually a fit of hypertension and exhaustion. The effort that Lucas exerted during post-production for the film, and its subsequent sequels, caused strains on his relationship with his wife Marcia Lucas, and was a contributing factor to their divorce at the end of the trilogy. The success of the first "Star Wars" film also resulted in more attention focused on Lucas, both positive and negative, attracting wealth and fame but also many people who wanted Lucas's financial backing or just to threaten him.


title: George Lucas

text: Following the release of the first "Star Wars" film, Lucas worked extensively as a writer and producer, including on the many "Star Wars" spinoffs made for film, television, and other media. Lucas acted as executive producer for the next two "Star Wars" films, commissioning Irvin Kershner to direct "The Empire Strikes Back", and Richard Marquand to direct "Return of the Jedi", while receiving a story credit on the former and sharing a screenwriting credit with Lawrence Kasdan on the latter. Lucas also gave away his writing story credit out of great respect for Leigh Brackett for "The Empire Strikes Back" after her death from cancer. He also acted as story writer and executive producer on all four of the "Indiana Jones" films, which his colleague and good friend Steven Spielberg directed.


title: George Lucas

text: Craig Barron, who worked at ILM as part of the matte painting department, told "Star Wars Insider" that Lucas liked to spend time with the department's painters and often spoke of what movies he wanted to make. According to Barron, Lucas had wanted to make a film about Alexander the Great, but this film was ultimately never produced. Projects where Lucas credited as executive producer and sometimes story writer in this period include Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" (1980), John Korty's "Twice Upon A Time" (1983), "" (1984), "" (1985), "" (1985), Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" (1986), Ron Howard's "Willow" (1988), Don Bluth's "The Land Before Time" (1988), and the "Indiana Jones" television spinoff "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" (1992–93). There were unsuccessful projects, however, including "More American Graffiti" (1979), Willard Huyck's "Howard the Duck" (1986), which was the biggest flop of Lucas's career, Coppola's "" (1988) and "Radioland Murders" (1994) directed by Mel Smith.


title: George Lucas

text: The animation studio Pixar was founded in 1979 as the Graphics Group, one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm. Pixar's early computer graphics research resulted in groundbreaking effects in films such as "" and "Young Sherlock Holmes", and the group was purchased in 1986 by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple Computer. Jobs paid Lucas $5 million and put $5 million as capital into the company. The sale reflected Lucas's desire to stop the cash flow losses from his seven-year research projects associated with new entertainment technology tools, as well as his company's new focus on creating entertainment products rather than tools. As of June 1983, Lucas was worth $60 million, but he met cash-flow difficulties following his divorce that year, concurrent with the sudden dropoff in revenues from "Star Wars" licenses following the theatrical run of "Return of the Jedi". At this point, Lucas had no desire to return to "Star Wars", and had unofficially canceled the sequel trilogy.


title: George Lucas

text: Also in 1983, Lucas and Tomlinson Holman founded the audio company THX Ltd. The company was formerly owned by Lucasfilm and contains equipment for stereo, digital, and theatrical sound for films, and music. Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, are the sound and visual effects subdivisions of Lucasfilm, while Lucasfilm Games, later renamed LucasArts, produces products for the gaming industry.


title: George Lucas

text: Having lost much of his fortune in a divorce settlement in 1987, Lucas was reluctant to return to "Star Wars". However, the prequels, which were still only a series of basic ideas partially pulled from his original drafts of "The Star Wars", continued to tantalize him with technical possibilities that would make it worthwhile to revisit his older material. When "Star Wars" became popular once again, in the wake of Dark Horse's comic book line and Timothy Zahn's trilogy of spin-off novels, Lucas realized that there was still a large audience. His children were older, and with the explosion of CGI technology he began to consider directing once again.


title: George Lucas

text: By 1993, it was announced, in "Variety" among other sources, that Lucas would be making the prequels. He began penning more to the story, indicating that the series would be a tragic one, examining Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side. Lucas also began to change the status of the prequels relative to the originals; at first, they were supposed to be a "filling-in" of history tangential to the originals, but now he saw that they could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the film series into a "Saga". In 1994, Lucas began work on the screenplay of the first prequel, tentatively titled "Episode I: The Beginning".


title: George Lucas

text: In 1997, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "Star Wars," Lucas restored the original trilogy, also making numerous modifications using newly available digital technology to bring them closer to his original vision. The films were in theaters as the "Special Edition". The trilogy received further modifications and restorations for DVD releases in 2004, Blu-ray releases in 2011, and 4K releases released in 2019. Additionally, Lucas released a director's cut of "THX 1138" in 2004, with the film and containing a number of CGI additions.


title: George Lucas

text: The first "Star Wars" prequel was finished and released in 1999 as "Episode I – The Phantom Menace", which would be the first film Lucas had directed in over two decades. Following the release of the first prequel, Lucas announced that he would also be directing the next two, and began working on "Episode II". The first draft of "Episode II" was completed just weeks before principal photography, and Lucas hired Jonathan Hales, a writer from "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", to polish it. It was completed and released in 2002 as "Attack of the Clones". The final prequel, "Episode III – Revenge of the Sith", began production in 2002 and was released in 2005. Numerous older fans and critics considered the prequels inferior to the original trilogy, though they were box office successes. In 2004, Lucas reflected that his transition from independent to corporate filmmaker mirrored the story of "Star Wars" character Darth Vader in some ways but conceded he was glad to be able to make his films his own way.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas collaborated with Jeff Nathanson as a writer of the 2008 film "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", directed by Steven Spielberg. Like the "Star Wars" prequels, the reception was mixed, with numerous fans and critics once again considering it inferior to its predecessors. From 2008 to 2014, Lucas also served as the creator and executive producer and for a second "Star Wars" animated series on Cartoon Network, "" which premiered with a before airing its first episode. The supervising director for this animated series was Dave Filoni, who was chosen by Lucas and closely collaborated with him on its development. This series bridged the events between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith", and featured the last "Star Wars" stories in which Lucas was involved in a major way.


title: George Lucas

text: In 2012, Lucas served as executive producer for "Red Tails", a war film based on the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. He also took over direction of reshoots while director Anthony Hemingway worked on other projects.


title: George Lucas

text: In January 2012, Lucas announced his retirement from producing large blockbuster films and instead re-focusing his career on smaller, independently budgeted features.


title: George Lucas

text: In June 2012, it was announced that producer Kathleen Kennedy, a long-term collaborator with Steven Spielberg and a producer of the "Indiana Jones" films, had been appointed as co-chair of Lucasfilm Ltd. It was reported that Kennedy would work alongside Lucas, who would remain chief executive and serve as co-chairman for at least one year, after which she would succeed him as the company's sole leader. With the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, Lucas is currently Disney's second-largest single shareholder, after the estate of Steve Jobs.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas worked as a creative consultant on the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy's first film, "The Force Awakens". Lucas's involvement included attending early story meetings; according to Lucas, "I mostly say, 'You can't do this. You can do that.' You know, 'The cars don't have wheels. They fly with antigravity.' There's a million little pieces ... I know all that stuff." Lucas's son Jett told "The Guardian "that his father was "very torn" about having sold the rights to the franchise, despite having hand-picked Abrams to direct, and that his father was "there to guide" but that "he wants to let it go and become its new generation." Among the materials turned over to the production team were rough story treatments Lucas developed when he considered creating episodes "VII"–"IX" himself years earlier; in January 2015, Lucas stated that Disney had discarded his story ideas.


title: George Lucas

text: "The Force Awakens", directed by J. J. Abrams, was released on December 18, 2015. Kathleen Kennedy executive produced the film and its sequels. The new sequel trilogy was jointly produced by Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company, which had acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. During an interview with talk show host and journalist Charlie Rose that aired on December 24, 2015, Lucas likened his decision to sell Lucasfilm to Disney to a divorce and outlined the creative differences between him and the producers of "The Force Awakens". Lucas went on to say that he needed to support the company and its employees who were going to suffer financially. Lucas described the previous six "Star Wars" films as his "children" and defended his vision for them, while criticizing "The Force Awakens" for having a "retro feel", saying, "I worked very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships – you know, to make it new." Lucas also drew some criticism and subsequently apologized for his remark likening Disney to "white slavers".


title: George Lucas

text: In 2015, Lucas wrote the CGI film "Strange Magic", his first musical. The film was produced at Skywalker Ranch. Gary Rydstrom directed the movie. At the same time the sequel trilogy was announced, a fifth installment of the "Indiana Jones" series also entered pre-development phase with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg set to return. Lucas originally did not specify whether the selling of Lucasfilm would affect his involvement with the film. In October 2016, Lucas announced his decision to not be involved in the story of the film but would remain an executive producer. In 2016, "", the first film of a "Star Wars" anthology series was released. It told the story of the rebels who stole the plans for the Death Star featured in the original "Star Wars" film, and it was reported that Lucas liked it more than "The Force Awakens". "The Last Jedi", the second film in the sequel trilogy, was released in 2017; Lucas described the film as "beautifully made".


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas has had cursory involvement with "" (2018), the "Star Wars" streaming series "The Mandalorian", and the premiere of the eighth season of "Game of Thrones". Lucas met with J. J. Abrams before the latter began writing the script to the sequel trilogy's final film, "The Rise of Skywalker", which was released in 2019.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas was also heavily involved and invested in the scoring process for the original "Star Wars" soundtrack, which was composed by John Williams, on the recommendation of his friend and colleague Steven Spielberg. Whilst initially wanting to use tracks and film music in a similar manner to "", which served as the inspiration for the film, Williams advised against this and instead proposed a system of recurring themes (or leitmotifs) to enhance the story in the style of classical composers Gustav Holst, William Walton, and Igor Stravinsky; works that Lucas had used as "temp tracks" for Williams to gain inspiration from. The film, and subsequent sequels and prequels, make use of the Main Title Theme, the Force Theme (less commonly referred to as Obi Wan Kenobi's Theme), the Rebel Alliance Theme, and Princess Leia's Theme (all introduced in this film) repeatedly. Subsequent films also added to the catalogue of themes for different characters, factions, and locations.


title: George Lucas

text: The score was released to critical acclaim and won Williams his third Academy Award for Best Original Score. The score was listed by the American Film Institute in 2005 as the greatest film score of all time. The professional relationship formed by Lucas and Williams extended through to Williams working on all of Lucas's blockbuster franchise movies: the remaining two films of the Star Wars original trilogy; all three films of prequel trilogy developed over fifteen years later; and the five films of the Indiana Jones franchise, in which Williams reunited with his long-time collaborator Spielberg. In his collaborations with Lucas, Williams received six of his fifty-two Academy Award nominations ("Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"). After Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, Williams stayed on board with the franchise, and continued to score the remaining three films of the "Skywalker saga" (", ", and "," for which he received a further three Oscar nominations), after which he announced his "retirement" from the series.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas was in attendance for a ceremony honouring Williams as the 44th recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, the first composer to receive the honour, and gave a speech in praise of their relationship and his work. In interviews, and most famously at the 40th Anniversary Star Wars Celebration convention, Lucas has repeatedly reaffirmed the importance of Williams to the Star Wars saga, affectionately referring to him as the "secret sauce" of his movies.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas is the wealthiest film celebrity in the world. His personal net worth is estimated to be between $7.5–9.4 billion. Lucas has pledged to give half of his fortune to charity as part of an effort called The Giving Pledge led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to persuade America's richest individuals to donate their financial wealth to charities.


title: George Lucas

text: In 1991, The George Lucas Educational Foundation was founded as a nonprofit operating foundation to celebrate and encourage innovation in schools. The foundation's content is available under the brand Edutopia, in an award-winning web site, social media and via documentary films. Lucas, through his foundation, was one of the leading proponents of the E-rate program in the universal service fund, which was enacted as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. On June 24, 2008, Lucas testified before the United States House of Representatives subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet as the head of his Foundation to advocate for a free wireless broadband educational network.


title: George Lucas

text: In 2012, Lucas sold Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company for a reported sum of $4.05 billion. It was widely reported at the time that Lucas intended to give the majority of the proceeds from the sale to charity. A spokesperson for Lucasfilm said, "George Lucas has expressed his intention, in the event the deal closes, to donate the majority of the proceeds to his philanthropic endeavors." Lucas also spoke on the matter: "For 41 years, the majority of my time and money has been put into the company. As I start a new chapter in my life, it is gratifying that I have the opportunity to devote more time and resources to philanthropy."


title: George Lucas

text: By June 2013, Lucas was considering establishing a museum, the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, to be built on Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which would display his collection of illustrations and pop art, with an estimated value of more than $1 billion. Lucas offered to pay the estimated $300 million cost of constructing the museum, and would endow it with $400 million when it opened, eventually adding an additional $400 million to its endowment. After being unable to reach an agreement with The Presidio Trust, Lucas turned to Chicago. A potential lakefront site on Museum Campus in Chicago was proposed in May 2014. By June 2014, Chicago had been selected, pending approval of the Chicago Plan Commission, which was granted. The museum project was renamed the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. On June 24, 2016, Lucas announced that he was abandoning his plans to locate the museum in Chicago, due to a lawsuit by a local preservation group, Friends of the Parks, and would instead build the museum in California. On January 17, 2017, Lucas announced that the museum will be constructed in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California.


title: George Lucas

text: In 2005, Lucas gave $1 million to help build the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to commemorate American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.


title: George Lucas

text: On September 19, 2006, the University of Southern California announced that Lucas had donated $175–180 million to his alma mater to expand the film school. It is the largest single donation to USC and the largest gift to a film school anywhere. Previous donations led to the already-existing George Lucas Instructional Building and Marcia Lucas Post-Production building.


title: George Lucas

text: In 2013, Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson donated $25 million to the Chicago-based not-for-profit After School Matters, of which Hobson is the chair.


title: George Lucas

text: On April 15, 2016, it was reported that Lucas had donated between $501,000 and $1 million through the Lucas Family Foundation to the Obama Foundation, which is charged with overseeing the construction of the Barack Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side.


title: George Lucas

text: In 1969, Lucas married film editor Marcia Lou Griffin, who went on to win an Academy Award for her editing work on the original "Star Wars" film. They adopted a daughter, Amanda Lucas, in 1981, and divorced in 1983. Lucas subsequently adopted two more children as a single parent: daughter Katie Lucas, born in 1988, and son Jett Lucas, born in 1993. His three eldest children all appeared in the three "Star Wars" prequels, as did Lucas himself. Following his divorce, Lucas was in a relationship with singer Linda Ronstadt in the 1980s.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas began dating Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments and chair of DreamWorks Animation, in 2006. Lucas and Hobson announced their engagement in January 2013, and married on June 22, 2013, at Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. They have one daughter together, born via surrogate in August 2013.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas was born and raised in a Methodist family. The religious and mythical themes in "Star Wars" were inspired by Lucas's interest in the writings of mythologist Joseph Campbell, and he would eventually come to identify strongly with the Eastern religious philosophies he studied and incorporated into his films, which were a major inspiration for "the Force". Lucas has come to state that his religion is "Buddhist Methodist". He resides in Marin County.


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas is a major collector of the American illustrator and painter Norman Rockwell. A collection of 57 Rockwell paintings and drawings owned by Lucas and fellow Rockwell collector and film director Steven Spielberg were displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from July 2, 2010, to January 2, 2011, in an exhibition titled "Telling Stories".


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas has said that he is a fan of Seth MacFarlane's hit TV show "Family Guy". MacFarlane has said that Lucasfilm was extremely helpful when the "Family Guy" crew wanted to .


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas supported Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.


title: George Lucas

text: The American Film Institute awarded Lucas its Life Achievement Award on June 9, 2005. This was shortly after the release of "Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith", about which he joked stating that, since he views the entire "Star Wars" series as one film, he could actually receive the award now that he had finally "gone back and finished the movie."


title: George Lucas

text: Lucas was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Directing and Writing for "American Graffiti" and "Star Wars". He received the academy's Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1991. He appeared at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in 2007 with Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola to present the Best Director award to their friend Martin Scorsese. During the speech, Spielberg and Coppola talked about the joy of winning an Oscar, making fun of Lucas, who has not won a competitive Oscar.


title: George Lucas

text: The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Lucas in 2006, its second "Film, Television, and Media" contributor, after Spielberg. The Discovery Channel named him one of the 100 "Greatest Americans" in September 2008. Lucas served as Grand Marshal for the Tournament of Roses Parade and made the ceremonial coin toss at the Rose Bowl, New Year's Day 2007. In 2009, he was one of 13 California Hall of Fame inductees in The California Museum's yearlong exhibit.


title: George Lucas

text: In July 2013, Lucas was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama for his contributions to American cinema. In October 2014, Lucas received Honorary Membership of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.


title: George Lucas

text: In August 2015, Lucas was inducted as a Disney Legend, and on December 6, 2015, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors. In 2021, coinciding with Lucasfilm's 50th anniversary, an action figure of Lucas in stormtrooper disguise was released as part of Hasbro's .


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PlayStation 5 (PS5) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 4 in April 2019, it was launched on November 12, 2020, in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North America, and South Korea, with worldwide release following a week later. The PS5 is part of the ninth generation of video game consoles, along with Microsoft's Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, which were released in the same month.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The base model includes an optical disc drive compatible with Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. The Digital Edition lacks this drive, allowing it to serve as a lower-cost model for those who prefer to buy games through digital download. The two variants were launched simultaneously.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PlayStation 5's main hardware features include a solid-state drive customized for high-speed data streaming to enable significant improvements in storage performance, an AMD GPU capable of 4K resolution display at up to 120 frames per second, hardware-accelerated ray tracing for realistic lighting and reflections, and the Tempest Engine allowing for hardware-accelerated 3D audio effects. Other features include the DualSense controller with haptic feedback and backward compatibility with the majority of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR games.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The lead architect of the PlayStation console line, Mark Cerny, implemented a two-year feedback cycle after the launch of the PlayStation 4. This entailed regularly visiting Sony's first-party developers at two-year intervals to find out what concerns they had with shortcomings in Sony's current hardware and how such hardware could be improved in console refreshes or for the next generation. This feedback was fed into the priorities for the console development team. In the development of the PlayStation 5, a key issue was the length of loading times for games. Cerny said several developers, including Epic Games' Tim Sweeney, told him that standard I/O speed of hard disk drives was now a limiting factor in pushing game development. Slow data rates placed limits on the size of data being loaded into the game, the physical location of data on the storage medium, and the duplication of data across the medium in order to reduce load times. An important goal was to find ways to reduce loading time, particularly in games that stream or dynamically load new game areas as the player moves through the game world.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Jim Ryan, the CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, stated that Sony had researched the feasibility of a "low priced, reduced spec" version of the PlayStation 5, like what Microsoft had done with its Xbox Series X and its lower-power counterpart the Xbox Series S; and concluded that they believed such consoles do not fare well, becoming obsolete too fast.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Cerny first publicly described the new console in an interview with "Wired" magazine in April 2019. In early 2019, Sony's financial report for the quarter ending March 31, 2019, affirmed that new next-generation hardware was in development but would ship no earlier than April 2020. In a second "Wired" magazine interview in October 2019, Sony said it intended to ship its next-generation console worldwide by the end of 2020. The current hardware specifications were revealed in October 2019. At CES 2020, Sony unveiled the official logo for the platform, which follows the similar minimalist styling of the previous PlayStation consoles and brand. Full specifications were given in an online presentation by Cerny and published by Sony and Digital Foundry on March 18, 2020. Digital Foundry spoke with Cerny in detail and published a "deep dive" on April 2.


title: PlayStation 5

text: A major game library showcase had been planned for June 4, 2020, but was postponed until June 11 due to the George Floyd protests. This presentation was also the premiere of the console's external hardware design.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony planned to launch the PlayStation 5 by the 2020 end-of-year holiday period. The date and pricing was confirmed as part of a game showcase presentation on September 16, 2020; the release date in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, North America, and South Korea was confirmed for November 12, 2020, and for most of the rest of the world on November 19, 2020.


title: PlayStation 5

text: PlayStation 5's release in India was delayed, leading to speculation that a trademark dispute was the reason; the name "PS5" was briefly trademarked by a different person; eventually the dispute was resolved and the system released there on February 2, 2021. The console launched in Indonesia on January 22, 2021. The system launched in China on May 15, 2021.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The console launched with two models: a base version with an Ultra HD Blu-ray compatible optical disc drive for retail game support alongside online distribution via the PlayStation Store, and a lower-cost variant lacking the disc drive and retaining digital download support.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Following the September 16, 2020, presentation, Sony stated that pre-orders for the console were to open at various retailers on the following day. However, several retailers in the United States and United Kingdom launched pre-orders that evening, causing a rush on pre-orders, including scalping as many stores' inventories were quickly sold out, and creating confusion. Sony apologized for the incident on September 19, 2020, and promised to increase more pre-order deliveries over the coming days and stock through the end of the year.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The console has remained difficult to find worldwide since its release as stock is limited due to a global chip shortage. Sony expects it to remain in short supply until 2023.


title: PlayStation 5

text: In August 2022, Sony announced that it would increase the price of the PlayStation 5 by up to 20% in most of the markets PS5 is available in, citing global economic, inflationary, and supply chain pressures. The U.S. however, did not see a price increase.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PlayStation 5 is powered by a custom system on a chip (SoC) designed in tandem by AMD and Sony, integrating a custom AMD CPU with eight cores running at a variable frequency capped at 3.5 GHz. The integrated GPU is also a custom unit based on AMD's RDNA 2 graphics architecture. The GPU has 36 compute units running at a variable frequency capped at 2.23 GHz, making it capable of a peak theoretical performance of 10 teraFLOPS. The GPU supports hardware-accelerated real-time ray tracing, a rendering technique that allows for realistic lighting and reflections. The console has 16 GB of GDDR6 SDRAM with a peak bandwidth of 448 GB/s, and integrates Bluetooth 5.1, and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6).


title: PlayStation 5

text: Both the CPU and GPU are monitored by a special boost system incorporating AMD's SmartShift technology that adjusts the frequency of these units based on the current activities of both to target ideal constant power drawn and a model SoC performance profile. For example, if the CPU is running at lower activity, the boost system may reduce its frequency and increase the frequency of the GPU for higher performance without otherwise affecting power use or cooling.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The cooling system includes a double-sided cooling fan for air intake that is 120 mm in diameter and 45 mm thick, and a large heat sink with a standard heat pipe design that Sony says has a "shape and airflow [which] make it possible to achieve the same performance as a vapor chamber". SoC cooling includes a liquid metal thermal conductor which sits between the SoC and heat sink. The system contains a 350-watt power supply. Sony developed the PlayStation 5 to consume less energy than the PlayStation 4 for suspended gameplay states.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The console has a new audio technology called Tempest Engine, allowing hundreds of simultaneous sound sources compared to 50 for the PlayStation 4.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The internal storage of the PlayStation 5 is a custom-built 825 GB solid-state drive (667 GB available) with a 12-channel interface, achieving a raw throughput of 5.5 GB/s. This atypical drive size was found to be optimal for the 12-channel pathway rather than a more common 512 GB or 1 TB unit. With a dedicated decompression unit supporting zlib and the new Oodle Kraken data compression protocol from RAD Game Tools, the unit has a typical throughput of 8–9 GB/s. Mark Cerny stated that a fast SSD was the top request from game developers so the goal not only was to have a theoretical raw read speed 100 times faster than PS4, but to eliminate input/output (I/O) bottleneck points so the performance target could be made effective. To this end, Sony designed a custom chip with multiple coprocessors to work in unison with the flash memory controller to reduce latency and channel data more efficiently around the system. At peak, the custom unit is capable of processing up to 22 GB/s of compressible data.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Storage for games is expandable through an NVM Express (NVMe) M.2 port for solid-state storage and USB hard drives, however at launch, NVMe drives were not supported and the console will not boot if one is installed. Beta system software support for the M.2 port was released in July 2021, while full support was added in a September 2021 system update. The internal SSD is not user-serviceable, since its flash memory chips and controller are built into the PlayStation 5's motherboard. Though game installation is mandatory, the user has some control of what to install such as only installing the multiplayer component of a game. While PlayStation 4 games can be moved between the internal SSD drive and an external drive to free up space on the SSD, PlayStation 5 games must be stored on the internal SSD to be played, and at launch could not be moved to an external storage device. An April 2021 system patch enabled users to move PlayStation 5 games to and from an external USB storage device, though the games must still reside on the internal SSD to be played.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The base version of the PlayStation 5 includes an Ultra HD Blu-ray optical drive compatible with Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, standard Blu-ray discs and DVDs. The PlayStation 5 does not support CDs and will not play 3D Blu-ray content. The choice of Ultra-HD Blu-ray as the disc medium means PlayStation 5 game discs can hold up to 100 GB of data, in contrast to PlayStation 4 games which usually came on dual-layer standard Blu-ray discs capable of holding up to 50 GB. An example of this is the title Gran Turismo 7. The PS4 version comes on 2 discs where the PS5 version comes on one.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The console's form factor was revealed during the June 11, 2020 presentation. Sony President Jim Ryan stated that the aesthetics are intended to be "transformational in how they look, sound, and feel". The launch unit is a two-tone design matching the design of the DualSense controller, with a black internal block flanked by two white wings along its sides, each lit by blue LEDs. Ryan stated that more colors than white and black may be available after launch. The unit can operate vertically or horizontally. Two long air intake vents run along the front, and heat exhaust vents dominate the rear. The wings are removable to access certain internal components such as the NVMe SSD storage expansion slot, the power supply, and the optional Blu-ray disc drive. Beneath the side panels are two "dust catchers" holes allowing the user to vacuum out dust collected by the cooling system. Senior Art Director Yujin Morisawa led the console's case design, inspired by the term "five dimensions" and crafting the skeleton of its design around circles and squares that would make players comfortable when looking at it. Morisawa also had to manage the case shape to provide enough internal volume within the unit for all the technical hardware while reducing its size without restricting air flow.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The Blu-ray version has dimensions of and , and the download-only version is slightly slimmer, at and . The console has been recognized for its large size in comparison to previous gaming consoles, and its size has been attributed to ensuring effective cooling management and minimizing noise during operation.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The front includes a USB-C port with USB 3.1 Gen 2 and a USB-A port with USB 2.0. The back has two USB-A ports with USB 3.1 Gen 2, an HDMI 2.1 port, Gigabit Ethernet, and power.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The DualSense wireless controller for the PlayStation 5 was revealed on April 7, 2020. It is based on the prior DualShock controller but with modifications influenced by discussions with game designers and players. The DualSense controller has adaptive triggers with force feedback through voice coil actuators that can change the resistance to the player as necessary, supporting experiences such as virtually drawing an arrow from a bow. The DualSense maintains the same buttons as the DualShock 4, though the "Share" button was renamed to "Create" with additional means for players to create and share content. A new built-in microphone array was added so players can speak to others using only the controller, and the included controller speaker has been improved. It has two-tone coloring, primarily white with black facing, with the black piece being easily detachable. The light bar has been moved to the sides of the touchpad. It has USB-C connectivity, a higher-rated battery, and an audio jack. As an Easter egg, the texture of the controller unit is covered in miniature versions of the four PlayStation button symbols (cross, circle, square, and triangle).


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony revealed the DualSense Edge, a new controller for the PlayStation 5 in August 2022. The controller will feature a more modular design than the DualSense with replaceable stick modules, multiple control profiles and an option of relocating map inputs.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Accessories include a charging station for the DualSense, a new HD camera, and a media remote control. The Pulse 3D wireless headset is integrated with the PS5's Tempest Engine 3D audio technology.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PS5 is backward compatible with most existing PS4 controllers and accessories for PS4 games only some with limited functionality. "Rock Band" peripherals are supported since "Rock Band 2". PS5 games can use the existing PlayStation Move, PlayStation Camera, PlayStation VR Aim Controller, officially licensed headsets, and specialty controllers with official licenses like flight sticks and racing wheels. Sony announced the PlayStation VR2 system built for the PlayStation 5 in January 2022.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony began shipping a minor hardware revision of the PlayStation 5 in August 2021. The new design reduced the size and weight of the heat sink, reducing the net system weight by , without having a noticeable effect on cooling performance, according to Digital Foundry and Gamers Nexus. This change also replaced the screw for the console stand to be screwable without the use of a screw driver.


title: PlayStation 5

text: In August 2022, Sony began shipping another revised hardware for both the base and digital versions of the PS5, furthering reducing the weight. The digital version now weighs 3.4 kg (compared to 3.9 kg for the original launch version) while the base version weighs 3.9 kg (compared to 4.5 kg for the original launch version).


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PlayStation 5's redesigned user interface is characterized by Sony as "accessible and informative", providing real-time updates of friends' activities, available multiplayer activities, and single-player missions and rewards. Cerny stated "we don't want the player to have to boot the game, see what's up, boot the game, see what's up", so all of these options are "visible in the UI". Matt MacLaurin, the current vice president of UX design at PlayStation, described the redesigned user interface as a "very interesting evolution of the OS", and a "100 percent overhaul of the PS4 UI and some very different new concepts". MacLaurin stated that the UI is extremely fast with a new and robust visual language.


title: PlayStation 5

text: "Eurogamer" said the user interface was conceived for responsiveness, improved accessibility, clarity, and simplicity. It is rendered in 4K resolution and high dynamic range. Users are greeted with a stylistic boot-up animation and new login screen. The central design concepts and motifs introduced on the PS4 were redesigned into a new home screen user interface. The top of the screen has a row of applications, and two upper tabs to switch between showing games or media apps. Selecting a game directly reveals individual activities such as a specific level or multiplayer mode. PlayStation Store is no longer a standalone application and is now fully integrated into the home screen user interface.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The most significant departure from the PS4 interface is the introduction of the Control Center, instantly summoned from the bottom of the screen by pressing the PS button. The Control Center is divided into two sections. The upper portion is a row of cards suggesting actions based on the current game or recent actions such as a group chat. Game-related cards may present players with gameplay information such as a progress report toward completing specific missions, or listing game challenges with an option to jump directly to it. PlayStation Plus subscribers see game activity cards with hints, tips, screenshots, or videos detailing how to complete the activity. System-level items may present the player with options such as PlayStation Store sale information, or recent screenshots taken by the user to be shared. These features are available for PS5 games or for updated PS4 games. The lower portion of the Control Center contains a customizable horizontal row of icons, including notifications, status updates, friends list, and system settings. According to internal materials reviewed by "Vice", the strategy behind this "activities"-focused UI was to help players in committing time towards games particularly single-player video games which Sony felt were thriving on the PlayStation console environment. Sony recognized that at the present, many players did not have as much time to commit to playing games, so the notion of activity cards was used to help give players an idea of what activities they could do in a game and how long it would take so that they could work that activity into their schedule.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PlayStation 5 supports 7plus, 9Now, ABC iview, AbemaTV, All 4, Amazon Freevee, Amazon Prime Video, Anghami, Apple Music, the Apple TV app, BBC iPlayer, Blim TV, Crackle, Crave, Crunchyroll, Curiosity Stream, DAZN, Disney+, Emby, Foxtel Now, HBO Max, Hulu, iHeartRadio, ITVX, Joyn, Kayo Sports, Mubi, My5, MyCanal, Neon, Netflix, the NFL TV app, Niconico, NOW, Pandora, Paramount+, Peacock, Plex, Pluto TV, Popcornflix, Red Bull TV, Salto, Showmax, Sky Go, Spotify, Stan, Star+, Tubi, TuneIn, TVNZ+, Twitch, Viaplay, Videoland, Vudu, YouTube TV, YouTube, and YuppTV while support for other streaming services has been pledged for the future. The system includes support for PlayStation Now, Sony's subscription-based cloud gaming service to play games from older generations of PlayStation consoles.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony's Remote Play application, available on the PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, iOS and Android devices, was updated just prior to the PlayStation 5's launch to allow a user to remotely play their PlayStation 5 games on these other devices over a local network.


title: PlayStation 5

text: In April 2021, Sony released a new software update through which users can transfer their downloaded PS5 game to an external USB hard drive to free up space.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony announced a PlayStation 5 system software beta program in June 2021, similar to the Xbox Insider program, where signed-up users can receive early releases of planned updates to the console's software for testing prior to their release. One of the first major features offered in this program was support for expanding internal storage via the M.2 port, added in the beta software path in July 2021.


title: PlayStation 5

text: In September 2021, Sony released a new software update offering support for the new trophy tracker, Control Center customization, 3D audio support for built-in TV speakers, internal SSD expansion and several UX enhancements.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony introduced Game Trials in October 2021, starting with a limited release for UK users for "Death Stranding: Director's Cut" and "Sackboy: A Big Adventure". Users have access to download and play the full version of the game for a fixed amount of time through these Game Trials, after which they would be required to buy the game to continue playing.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Each PlayStation 5 console comes pre-installed with "Astro's Playroom", a game designed to serve as a demonstration of the DualSense controller. Games are not region-locked, so games purchased in one region can be played on consoles in all regions.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony announced its concurrent responsibilities of supporting the PlayStation 4 community, and embracing the PlayStation 5 as a major technological advancement. In an interview with "GamesIndustry.biz", Ryan stated "We have always said that we believe in generations. We believe that when you go to all the trouble of creating a next-gen console, that it should include features and benefits that the previous generation does not include. And that, in our view, people should make games that can make the most of those features." Discussing the capabilities of the DualSense controller with Geoff Keighley, General manager Eric Lempel affirmed that Sony "want[s] to evolve every part of the experience", but for that to happen "we can't take everybody with us from previous consoles into [a next-generation experience]. You need new hardware, you need new devices to experience what these developers want you to experience." "" was highlighted as a next-generation game that is not technically possible on older hardware. Lempel assured Keighley that interest in PlayStation 4 will not end abruptly, with more to come.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony's definition of consoles as distinct generations had been widely interpreted as an era-defining shift to PS5-exclusive games that exploit the console's capabilities instead of releasing cross-generation games that play across both PlayStation consoles. Ryan said that there should be no disappointment as the PS5 versions take advantage of the console's advanced feature set and initially planned that PS4 versions can be freely upgraded. Few major games such as "Horizon Forbidden West" are developed as concurrent releases for PS4 and PS5, and Sony supports any publisher that wants to offer enhanced versions of PS4 games at no additional cost. However, in May 2021, Sony announced a major shift in this approach, with previously PS5-exclusive games "Gran Turismo 7" and "God of War Ragnarök" now planned as both PS4 and PS5 games. Game journalists believed this was a factor related to impact of the global semiconductor shortage from the COVID-19 pandemic on PlayStation 5 availability. Sony initially had planned to charge PS4 users to upgrade to the PS5 version of "Horizon Forbidden West" when preorders were announced, but after negative feedback from consumers (who pointed out that Sony had previously mentioned that "Horizon Forbidden West" would have a free upgrade), stated that this upgrade will be free, but all future PS4 to PS5 upgrades from their first-party games will be at cost, reversing course from their earlier plans.


title: PlayStation 5

text: "Eurogamer" reported that Sony's certification program as of May 2020 required PS4 games, submitted for certification after July 13, 2020, to be natively compatible with the PlayStation 5.


title: PlayStation 5

text: According to Hideaki Nishino, Sony's senior vice president of Platform Planning and Management, the PS5 is designed to be backward compatible with more than "99 percent" of PS4's 4,000+ game library, playable from launch day. The console is compatible with PlayStation VR. Because of PS5's high-speed SSD and increased processing power, many PS4 games gain from improved loading times or gameplay speeds "so that they can benefit from higher or more stable frame rates and potentially higher resolutions". Players can synchronize their saved game files through cloud storage or transfer them using a USB storage device so no progress is lost. Backward compatibility is enabled in part by the similarity of hardware architecture, such as "extra logic" in the RDNA 2 GPU that ensures compatibility with PS4's GCN-based GPU. Mark Cerny explained during a March 2020 presentation and later in an interview with Digital Foundry how CPU clock timing required particular attention; though the Zen 2 CPU has an instruction set to handle the PS4's Jaguar CPU, their timings can be very different, so Sony worked closely with AMD when developing the Zen 2 CPU to more closely match the Jaguar's timings. PS5 backward compatibility may exhibit errors with some PS4 games, and does not include previous generations. However, some older PlayStation console games are available through the PlayStation Plus game streaming service which is available for the PlayStation 5. The PlayStation 4's Share menu cannot be displayed but the PS5's Create menu can be used to capture screenshots or video.


title: PlayStation 5

text: All compatible downloaded versions of PS4 games are visible in the library on the PS5 and available for download. The games can also be copied via USB hard drive or Wi-Fi. Save data can be copied in the same way or via the cloud storage. On October 9, 2020, Sony released a list of ten PS4 games identified as being incompatible with PS5; the list has shortened since as some developers released compatibility updates for previously incompatible games. As of December 16, 2021, the official PlayStation website shows six PS4 games that remain incompatible with PS5; "Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma Volume One", "Hitman Go: Definitive Edition", "Just Deal With It!", "", "Shadwen", and "We Sing".


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PlayStation 5 was generally well received at launch, with much praise of its DualSense controller's improved haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. "Astro's Playroom", which comes pre-installed on every PS5 and is designed to demonstrate the controller's features, was praised with "Laptop Mag" calling it "deceptively cute". The exclusive line-up, including "" and "Demon's Souls", was heavily praised, although some reviewers, such as "TechRadar", said there should have been more launch games. The console's user interface was generally praised for being fast and easy to navigate.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Many reviewers found the console's design polarizing. CNET described the black and white scheme as "clearly meant to be a sculptural conversation piece". The large size was criticized by "Tom's Guide" as "inelegant", and by others as frustrating its integration into a home entertainment center. Many also acknowledged the size for improving the cooling and quieting of its operation. The relatively small 667 GB of usable SSD space was criticized.


title: PlayStation 5

text: More technical reviews, such as those by "Digital Foundry", noted that features such as variable refresh rate and the advertised 8K video output mode were not present at launch. They lauded the ray-tracing, SSD speed, and 120 Hz output capabilities.


title: PlayStation 5

text: The PlayStation 5, as with the Xbox Series X/S, was in limited supply immediately upon launch, and through 2021 due to a global semiconductor shortage, combined with increased demand for video game consoles due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sony expects supply to continue to be limited until at least 2022. Scalpers took advantage of the shortage, attempting to sell the console for thousands of dollars. Sony expanded its PlayStation Direct program to sell consoles directly to consumers within Europe in November 2021 as to bypass scalpers.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Two weeks after launch, Sony declared the largest launch in PlayStation history, surpassing PS4's 2.1 million units in its first two weeks in 2013. During the system's first week of release in Japan, 103,901 standard consoles were sold, and 14,181 Digital Editions were sold, for a combined total of 118,082, making it the best-selling console in the country for that week. By September 2021, Sony reported over one million PS5 sales in Japan. In comparison, its predecessor did not reach one million consoles sold until a full year after release. In the UK, the PlayStation 5 was the best-selling video game console sold in the month of November. In Spain, the PS5 sold over 43,000 units in the first week of release.


title: PlayStation 5

text: Sony reported total shipments of the PS5 through its fiscal quarter ending December 31, 2020 of 4.5 million units, which were similar numbers to the PS4's launch shipments. Total shipments of PlayStation 5 reached 7.8 million by March 31, 2021, surpassing the 7.6 million units that the PlayStation 4 had shipped in its first two-quarters of release. Sony reported that as of July 18, 2021, 10 million PS5 units had been sold through, making the PlayStation 5 their fastest-selling console unit to date. The company later confirmed that by June 30, 2021, it had shipped 10.1 million consoles, indicating that nearly every shipped console had been sold as soon as it reached the market. Console shipments surpassed 13.4 million as of September 30, 2021. The company anticipated in August it has enough stock hardware to ship more than 22 million PS5 units by the end of its 2021 fiscal year in March 2022, but this was revised to 15 million units in November. Despite this, sales during the fiscal year 2022 were forecast to increase to 22.6 million units. "Bloomberg News" reported in January 2022 that Sony was continuing to produce the PlayStation 4 rather than discontinue it at the end of 2021 as to help alleviate the shortage of PlayStation 5 while the chip shortage continued. Sales of the PlayStation 5 reached 20 million units by May 31, 2022.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Josef Rudolf Mengele (; 16 March 19117 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (), was a German (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners, was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Before the war, Mengele received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims.


title: Josef Mengele

text: After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all the while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons of Walburga ( Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. He attended the University of Bonn, where he took his medical preliminary examination. In 1931 he joined , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.


title: Josef Mengele

text: As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany.


title: Josef Mengele

text: On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.


title: Josef Mengele

text: The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the Aryan master race.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in the (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- ('captain') in April 1943.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In 1942, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting "selections" where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately killed in the gas chambers. The arrivals that were selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS- Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.


title: Josef Mengele

text: When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants killed in 1944.


title: Josef Mengele

text: When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to their deaths in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being killed in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. His medical procedures showed no consideration for the victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. A grant was provided by the ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish pathologist who arrived in Auschwitz on 29 May 1944, performed dissections and prepared specimens for shipment in this laboratory. The twin research was in part intended to prove the supremacy of heredity over the environment in determining phenotypes and thus strengthen the Nazi premise of the genetic superiority of the Aryan race. Nyiszli and others reported that the twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to uncover strategies for 'racially desirable' Germans to reproduce more twins.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from execution in the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than the other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets, while at the same time being personally responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of victims whom he killed via lethal injection, shootings, beatings, and his deadly experiments. In his 1986 book, Lifton describes Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. Rolf Mengele later claimed that his father had shown no remorse for his wartime activities.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them. Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele's eye experiments included attempts to change the eye color by injecting chemicals into the eyes of living subjects, and he killed people with heterochromatic eyes so that the eyes could be removed and sent to Berlin for study. His experiments on dwarfs and people with physical abnormalities included taking physical measurements, drawing blood, extracting healthy teeth, and treatment with unnecessary drugs and X-rays. Many of his victims were dispatched to the gas chambers after about two weeks, and their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele sought out pregnant women, on whom he would perform experiments before sending them to the gas chambers. Alex Dekel, a survivor, reports witnessing Mengele performing vivisection without anesthesia, removing hearts and stomachs of victims. Yitzhak Ganon, another survivor, reported in 2009 how Mengele removed his kidney without anesthesia. He was forced to return to work without painkillers. Witness Vera Alexander described how Mengele sewed two Romani twins together, back to back, in a crude attempt to create conjoined twins; both children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ulmann", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".


title: Josef Mengele

text: After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced in 1954.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the more affluent neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.


title: Josef Mengele

text: After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued with an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also alleged that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm near the Argentine border.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led the fugitive Mengele to relocate once again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele to cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.


title: Josef Mengele

text: Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele suffered another stroke while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".


title: Josef Mengele

text: Meanwhile, sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 () in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did "The Washington Times" and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.


title: Josef Mengele

text: On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and that news of his father's death had been concealed to protect people who had sheltered him.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele.


title: Josef Mengele

text: In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands. "At a time when Ahmadinejad's Iran regularly denies the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews is back in vogue, this acquisition is especially significant", he said. In 2011, a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.


title: Ram Charan

text: Konidela Ram Charan Teja (born 27 March 1985) is an Indian actor, producer, and entrepreneur who works predominantly in Telugu films and two Hindi films. One of the highest-paid Telugu film actors, he is the recipient of three Filmfare Awards and two Nandi Awards. Since 2013, he has featured in "Forbes India"s Celebrity 100 list.


title: Ram Charan

text: Charan made his acting debut with "Chirutha" (2007), a box office hit, winning the Filmfare Best Male Debut Award. He rose to prominence starring in S. S. Rajamouli's fantasy action film "Magadheera" (2009), the highest-grossing Telugu film of all time at the time, winning the Filmfare Best Actor Award. His notable works include "Racha" (2012), "Naayak" (2013), "Yevadu" (2014), "Govindudu Andarivadele" (2014), and "Dhruva" (2016). Charan then starred in the blockbusters "Rangasthalam" (2018), winning his second Filmfare Best Actor Award, and "RRR" (2022), that collected over .


title: Ram Charan

text: In 2016, Charan launched his own production house Konidela Production Company, which has notably backed "Khaidi No. 150" (2017) and "Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy" (2019). Beyond his film career, he owns the polo team Hyderabad Polo and Riding Club and co-owns the regional airline service TruJet.


title: Ram Charan

text: Ram Charan was born in Madras (now Chennai) to Telugu film actor Chiranjeevi and his wife Surekha on 27 March 1985. He has two sisters: Sushmitha and Sreeja. He is the grandson of Allu Ramalingaiah and the nephew of Nagendra Babu, Pawan Kalyan, and Allu Aravind. He is the cousin of Allu Arjun, Varun Tej, Sai Dharam Tej, Allu Sirish, Niharika Konidela, and Panja Vaisshnav Tej.


title: Ram Charan

text: Ram Charan was educated at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, Chennai, Lawrence School, Lovedale, The Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, and then at the St. Mary's College, Hyderabad. He also attended Kishore Namit Kapoor's acting school in Mumbai, Maharashtra.


title: Ram Charan

text: In 2007, Charan made his film debut as the leading actor in "Chirutha", which was directed by Puri Jagannadh and completed 50 days in 178 direct movie theaters and 15 other shifted movie theaters. He played the role of Charan, an ex-convict seeking to kill his father's murderer. "Rediff.com" praised his performance, stating: "Ram Charan is quite promising. Dance and action appear to be forte. He is rather graceful in the dance numbers. He also stays clear of any oblique reference to his star father by way of dialogue or adopting any particular mannerism or style." His performance in the film earned him a Filmfare Best South Debutant Award and Nandi Special Jury Award.


title: Ram Charan

text: After the release of the 2009 film "Magadheera", his second film, Charan established himself as one of the leading contemporary actors in Tollywood. The film, in which he played dual roles, was directed by S. S. Rajamouli, and Charan's performance was critically acclaimed. "The Times of India" stated that "Ram Charan returns as a valiant soldier and breathes life into the larger-than-life role with ease. He showcases his horse-riding and dancing skills to perfection." "IndiaGlitz" commented: "Charan has come up with a mature performance and he has carried the film very well. Both his characters were done justice, and he reminded of his father at many places." "Magadheera" grossed over ₹150 crores worldwide and held the record of being the highest-grossing Telugu film until 2013 before it was surpassed by "Attarintiki Daredi". The film received six Filmfare Awards including two awards – Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Telugu and Nandi Special Jury Award for Charan.


title: Ram Charan

text: Charan starred in Bommarillu Bhaskar's urban romantic film "Orange" in 2010 as Ram, a NRI living in Australia. Although the film didn't perform well at the box office, critics praised the storyline and performance by Charan. Jeevi of "Idlebrain" felt that Charan didn't tried to stick to stardom and is not willing to repeat the mistakes performed by stars. Over the years, it became a cult film and received appreciation from the audience. In her article for "Film Companion", Alekhya Devarakonda compared his character to Howard Roark of 1943 novel "The Fountainhead". Following a year-long absence from the screen, he next appeared in "Racha" (2012), directed by Sampath Nandi. He played the role of "Betting Raj", a gambler. The film completed a 100-day run in 38 centres across Andhra Pradesh on 13 July 2012. "Rachas" final share for its distributors was "." His performance in the film brought two nominations, including Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Telugu and SIIMA Award for Best Actor (Telugu). "Sify" stated, "Both, actor Ram Charan and his director Sampath Nandi play a safe game by following the same pattern of earlier mass-masala movies." Radhika Rajamani of "Rediff" criticized the plot of the film, but praised Charan's performance in action sequences and dance moves. "IndiaGlitz" wrote: "He shows flashes of Chiru-ness more than he ever did in the past; be it his baritone or demeanor, he is a Megastar in effect. Helped by a strong script, he could have been much better." The film was released on 5 April 2012 and was declared a commercial success.


title: Ram Charan

text: Charan had two films released in 2013. His first release was "Naayak", directed by V. V. Vinayak, in which he played dual role, once again after "Magadheera". Writing to "The Times of India," Karthik Pasupulate wrote that "Ram Charan did a great job, though there was no variation shown between the two characters." It opened to mixed critical acclaim and became a commercial success. The film brought him two nominations, Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Telugu and SIIMA Award for Best Actor (Telugu), once again, with a Best Actor award at TSR –TV9 National Film Awards. The same year he made his Hindi cinema debut alongside Priyanka Chopra in the Telugu-Hindi bilingual film "Zanjeer", a remake of the 1973 film of the same name. He played the role of ACP Vijay Khanna who swears vengeance on his parents' killer. Charan made his debut as a playback singer with the song "Mumbai Ke Hero", composed by Chirrantan Bhatt, from the album "Thoofan", the Telugu version of "Zanjeer". "Rediff" called it as "an unforgivably bad remake." Film critic Rajeev Masand criticized his performance writing that he "comes off as stiff as a wax statue in his Bollywood debut, with barely any emotion, forget brooding anger." Amid huge expectations, the film became a box-office bomb. Following the film's box-office performance and critics reviews, Charan decided not to feature again in a Hindi film.


title: Ram Charan

text: The following year saw Charan with two releases. "Yevadu" (2014), directed by Vamshi Paidipally is the third film in which he played the dual role, one who has received a face transplant of the other and becomes the target of underworld gangs because of the mistaken identity. The Central Board of Film Certification gave the film an 'A' certificate because of its violent action sequences. "Bangalore Mirror" wrote that "For Ram Charan, "Yevadu" is essential to establish his status after "Thoofan" tanked at the box office. His character has two shades, and he tries his best to bring variations. He dances like there is no tomorrow and the choreography is a delight to watch." A critic of "Sify" compared Charan's performance to his earlier films – "Nayak" and "Thoofan" and commented that he has done a fairly good job here. Y. Sunita Chowdhary of "The Hindu" felt that Charan did well in the dance sequences than his acting in the role.


title: Ram Charan

text: His second release of the same year was the family drama "Govindudu Andarivadele". The film features him as a NRI from the United Kingdom. The film opened to mostly positive reviews from critics, and grossed over at the box office. Sangeetha Devi Dundoo commented that he has done best performance after the film "Magadheera." Similarly Suresh Kaviyarani of the "Deccan Chronicle" too praised him and cited Charan's performance as "good" and "subtle".


title: Ram Charan

text: He next played an IB Officer and a stunt performer in the Srinu Vaitla's action comedy film "" (2015). Charan hired Priyanka Chopra's trainer Samir Jaura in mid-July 2014 to get into shape for this film by following an intensive training program designed by Jaura, lasting for four-five months along with a strict diet. He also began learning Karate for his role in mid May 2015. For the role, he sported a tattoo of Bruce Lee on his hand. The film collected more than 12.66 crore, on its opening day, registering the highest opening day collection of Ram Charan's film. Over days the film didn't performed well at the box office and was declared as a box-office bomb, with a budget of 60 crore. Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of "The Hindu" once again criticized Charan's performance and wrote that "Charan dances like a dream, as always, and shows marked improvement as an actor. But what he needs is a project that will not belittle the huge fan base in the garb of masala."