title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Angourie Rice and Jorge Lendeborg Jr. reprise their roles from "Homecoming" as Parker's classmates Betty Brant, Ned's on-and-off girlfriend, and Jason Ionello. Peter Billingsley reprises his "Iron Man" (2008) role of scientist William Ginter Riva, a former employee of Stark Industries who now works with Beck. J. K. Simmons appears as J. Jonah Jameson in the mid-credits scene, marking the first time an actor has reprised a non-MCU role in an MCU film after Simmons portrayed a different incarnation of Jameson in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" film trilogy. Ben Mendelsohn and Sharon Blynn make uncredited cameo appearances in the post-credits scene as the Skrulls Talos and Soren, reprising their roles from "Captain Marvel" (2019); this scene reveals that they have been posing as Fury and Hill during the film, with deleted footage of Jackson and Smulders, originally intended for the opening scene, used in the reveal. Smulders learned about the twist from producer Kevin Feige shortly before the film's release.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: In June 2016, Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman stated that Sony and Marvel Studios were committed to making future "Spider-Man" films after "" (2017). The following month, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said if additional films were made, the company had an early idea to follow the model of the "Harry Potter" film series, and have the plot of each film cover a new school year, with a second film intended to take place during Parker's junior year of high school. By October, discussions had begun for a second film, including which villain would be featured, according to Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, who was signed for two more "Spider-Man" films after "Homecoming". In December, after the successful release of the first "Homecoming" trailer, Sony slated a sequel to the film for July 5, 2019. Sony's insistence that the sequel be released in 2019 complicated Marvel's preference for secrecy regarding their plans for Spider-Man in this film and their other MCU films, since the character would die at the end of "" (2018), and would not be resurrected before "" in April 2019 by which time marketing for this film would have already begun.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: After being able to include Iron Man for "Homecoming", Sony was revealed in June 2017 to have the use of another Marvel Studios-controlled character for the sequel. Feige stated that Marvel and Sony were "just starting to solidify our plans" for the film, and felt Spider-Man's appearances in "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame" would "launch him off into a very new cinematic universe at that point", similar to how "" (2016) "informed everything in "Homecoming"". Marvel and Sony both wanted "Homecoming" director Jon Watts returning for the sequel, with Feige saying "that's the intention for sure", and Watts said he was signed for another Spider-Man film. Feige said the sequel would have a subtitle like "Homecoming", and would not feature "2" in the title. He added that filming was expected to begin in April or May 2018. As with "Homecoming", Feige said the film's villain would be one that had not yet been seen in film. By July, Watts was in negotiations with the studios regarding his return for the sequel, and Marisa Tomei expressed interest in returning as Aunt May from the previous films.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: The film is set eight months after the conclusion of "Avengers: Endgame". Watts felt dealing with many of the unanswered questions from "Endgame" posed "a fun creative challenge" for the "Far From Home" team. They looked to "make a movie that's in that world and deals with those stories but is also still [a] fun Spider-Man movie". For example, Ned, MJ, and Flash all turned to dust during the events of "Infinity War" along with Parker, while some of his classmates did not and are now five years older due to the events of "Endgame". Watts compared this dynamic to the film "Flight of the Navigator" (1986), calling the situation "really weird... but... also something you can have a lot of fun with".


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: At the end of August 2017, as the film was entering pre-production, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers were in final negotiations to return from "Homecoming" to write the sequel. In early October, Jacob Batalon confirmed he would reprise his role of Ned in the sequel. Feige confirmed that Watts was returning to direct the sequel in December. By February 2018, Zendaya was slated to return for the film, reprising her role as MJ. Location scouting for the film began at the end of the month, as did the pre-visualisation process for the creative team to begin planning action sequences and visual effects for the film. By late April, Feige stated that filming was scheduled to begin in early July 2018, and would primarily occur in London. This was a change from the first film, which was mostly produced in Atlanta. Feige explained that one of the reasons behind this change in location was because a majority of the sequel would be spent around the world, outside New York City.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: A month later, Jake Gyllenhaal entered negotiations to play Mysterio, while Tomei and Michael Keaton were confirmed to reprise their respective roles of May and Adrian Toomes / Vulture; Gyllenhaal's casting was confirmed a month later, but Watts later stated that Keaton and Laura Harrier would not be appearing in the sequel. Also in May, McKenna and Sommers were also confirmed as the film's screenwriters. They began working on the film from a set of notes that Marvel had put together based on different influences and story ideas. This included the directive that the film would be releasing shortly after "Endgame" and would need to deal with the death of Stark due to the relationship between that character and Spider-Man that previous films had established. The film also needed to deal with the aftereffects of "the Blip", the five-year period between "Infinity War" and "Endgame" where half of all life disappeared. Mysterio was chosen to be the film's villain because he is one of Spider-Man's iconic villains that had yet to be featured in a film, and because his history of deception in the comics lent itself to a character who could take advantage of a Spider-Man that is mourning the death of Stark. This also allowed the writers to explore relevant modern themes such as fake news. Mysterio's plan went through several iterations, including an early suggestion that he could be an alien Skrull in disguise.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: The film reuses two of Spider-Man's costumes from the previous films: his main costume from "Captain America: Civil War" and "Spider-Man: Homecoming", and the Iron Spider suit from "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame". It also introduces two new costumes: a black "stealth" costume given to Parker by Nick Fury, and a new, upgraded Spider-Man suit that Parker designs for himself at the end of the film. Marvel Studios' head of visual development Ryan Meinerding explained that Watts had wanted to include a suit inspired by the Spider-Man Noir version of the character, which led to the design of the more tactical stealth suit. He added that the suit represents Parker experimenting with being a new kind of superhero. Other tactical costumes from the comic books were looked at when developing this one, but Meinerding felt they looked less practical than the more straightforward Noir inspiration. The costume includes tactical goggles that can be flipped up. For Parker's new self-designed costume, Meinerding originally designed it with the idea that it would be made from Parker's webbing since that is the strongest material he has access to. Practical versions of the costumes were created by Ironhead Studio, who previously worked on "The Amazing Spider-Man" films. For "Far From Home", Ironhead developed a skull cap for the costumes that has built-in fans to prevent the goggles from steaming up. They also developed a magnetic bellows system for connecting the goggles to the mask, so they could be easily removed but not fall off during action sequences.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: At the end of June 2018, Holland revealed the film's title to be "Spider-Man: Far From Home". Feige explained that they decided to have Holland reveal the title because they thought it was likely that it would leak after filming began anyway. He compared the title to "Spider-Man: Homecoming" in that it is "full of alternate meaning" while continuing the use of "Home", and revealed the film's premise to be Parker and his friends going to Europe on summer vacation, away from their home of New York.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Principal photography began on location in Hertfordshire, England, on July 2, 2018, under the working title "Fall of George". Matthew J. Lloyd served as director of photography, after previously working with Watts on "Cop Car" (2015). Watts had wanted to work with Lloyd on "Homecoming", but the cinematographer was working on "Power Rangers" (2017) at the time. Filming moved to London, with locations including East London, and at London Stansted Airport. Studio work occurred at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden near Watford, England, where a Venice set was created on one of the studio's backlots. Shortly after filming began, set photos revealed Hemky Madera would return as bodega owner Mr. Delmar, while J.B. Smoove and Numan Acar joined the cast.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: By early August, Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders were confirmed to be appearing in the film, reprising their respective roles of Nick Fury and Maria Hill from previous MCU films, and Remy Hii joined the cast later in the month. Filming took place in Prague and Liberec in the Czech Republic in September, and moved to Venice by the end of the month. Filming moved to New York City and Newark, New Jersey in October, where it used the working title "Bosco". Locations included areas around Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, and Newark Liberty International Airport. Filming wrapped on October 16, 2018.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Lloyd explained that the creative team had approached the film as a road-trip story, and so he wanted to maintain the distinct look and feel of each location visited. This meant giving each stop on the school trip a distinct lighting scheme and color palette. For example, Lloyd visited Venice three times during location scouting to discuss how the scenes there would be filmed, and learned that the city has a "bright, pastel feel, where the light comes through and hits a building. It bathes people in this warm, sandy light". Prague, on other hand, has a "more warm and cool mix, and the beauty of that sort of Baroque, eastern-European architecture." The production took advantage of lighting already on the buildings in Prague, which are often lit for texture in real life. Lloyd felt comfortable working within the aesthetic of the MCU after acting as director of photography on the first season of the MCU television series "Daredevil" and the miniseries "The Defenders", as well as working on additional photography for the films "" (2017) and "Captain Marvel" (2019). Lloyd originally began planning to use the Alexa 65 cameras that Marvel usually films with, but Sony asked that they focus on optimizing the footage for their 2K releases, so the production switched to Alexa Mini cameras. This ended up being a lot easier for the camera department to use on location, and for combining live-action shooting with visual effects elements.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: In late October 2018, Sony Pictures reached a new multi-film agreement with IMAX Corporation to release their films in IMAX, including "Far From Home". At Sony's CCXP Brazil panel in December 2018, it was revealed that the Elementals—a group of characters based on the elements of water, earth, air, and fire—would appear in the film. The four Elementals are modeled after different Spider-Man villains from Marvel comic books: the water Elemental borrows from Hydro-Man, the fire Elemental borrows from Molten Man, the Earth Elemental borrows from Sandman, and the air Elemental borrows from Cyclone. The names of these other villains are not given to the characters in the film. Martin Starr was confirmed to be reprising his role as Mr. Harrington from "Homecoming" the next month. In April 2019, Sony moved the film's release date up to July 2, 2019. While promoting "Endgame" at a fan event in Shanghai, Feige said "Far From Home" would be the final film of the MCU's , rather than the start of as some had believed. Also in April, Jackson returned to do reshoots for the film.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Discussing the film's mid-credits scene, Watts explained that they approached J.K. Simmons "as late as possible" before the film's release to ask him to reprise his role as J. Jonah Jameson from Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" film trilogy, hoping to keep the cameo a surprise for fans. Watts acknowledged that there was a chance Simmons would not want to reprise the role, but stated that he never considered another actor, saying, "It's gotta be him. Like, if it wasn't him, it wasn't worth doing." After being pitched the idea for the cameo, Simmons called Raimi and received the director's blessing to return to the role for the new film. The MCU version of the character is brand new, not the Raimi version "from another dimension or multiverse". Simmons' footage was filmed in a Disney conference room in front of a green screen. Watts noted that Simmons' performance was over-the-top in Raimi's films, but now that same performance has real-world comparisons, such as Alex Jones. According to Feige, the changes in the real world also meant that moving the character from a newspaper editor to a "radical right news journalist that kind of scream[s] in front of the camera" made more sense. Simmons said he and Watts did not see "eye to eye" on the film's contemporary portrayal of the character versus his performance in Raimi's films.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Watts described "Far From Home" as a "con man movie" with "so many layers of deception", and for the post-credits scene he felt that ending the film with "one last twist" was on theme. He felt that he owed the fans a more substantial post-credits scene than the jokey one at the end of "Homecoming". The "Far From Home" scene depicts Fury on vacation, in a simulation, both of which are also themes in the film, and reveals that the Fury and Hill seen throughout the film are actually Skrulls in disguise. Watts felt this twist made sense after Fury's interactions with the Skrulls in "Captain Marvel". Post-production for "Spider-Man: Far From Home" was completed in June 2019.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: The film's visual effects were provided by Framestore, Industrial Light & Magic, Image Engine, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Luma Pictures, Rising Sun Pictures, Scanline VFX, Territory Studio, and Method Studios. Janek Sirrs served as visual effects supervisor on the film, and explained that following the release of the animated film "" (2018) the effects team looked for ways to use similarly inventive visuals in "Far From Home". They ultimately did not use added effects to represent Spider-Man's Spider-sense because these did not fit within the live-action world or were too similar to previous effects, such as Daredevil's sonar vision. They did try to use Spider-Man's actions and the use of his abilities to show his growth since "Homecoming", but to also show his "reach as always exceeding his grasp as he refines his superhero skills". The film's main-on-end title sequence was designed by Perception.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Method Studios added Spider-Man to a Venice speedboat scene, using their Spider-Man suit asset from "Homecoming". Image Engine created the Stark jet, drone, and satellite. The jet work included the creation of a new Spider-Man suit, for which the vendor had to design the interior of the suit based on a scan of a practical costume they were given. They also made a Netherlands tulip field for a scene that was filmed in a grass field in the UK. It required around two million digital tulips. Rising Sun Pictures created the holograms used by Mysterio when he first explains the Elementals to Spider-Man, which include simulations of black-holes and elements researched from real-world history and mythology. The company aimed for the holograms to have a similar quality to the ones that they had created for "Captain Marvel". Mysterio was designed by Ryan Meinerding, Marvel Studios' head of visual development, to look like a combination of different Marvel heroes such as Thor and Doctor Strange. His fishbowl helmet is retained from the comics. Sirrs described the character as a "larger-than-life showman at heart" and almost a superhero version of Liberace. The digital model for Mysterio was created by Scanline.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: The Elementals consisted of animated figures, often driven by slowed-down motion-capture performances, with environmental effects layered on top. Scanline created Earth and Water, Luma created Fire, and Imageworks created the final amalgamation of the four creatures, referred to as the Super Uber Elemental (SUE). For the Fire Elemental, Luma created different looks and actions for the character to show Watts and Sirrs potential designs and movements for the character. This included a progression where the creature goes from being upright and humanoid to bigger and more hunched over as it consumes metal throughout the sequence. Watts responded positively to movements that looked more creature-like. The final battle was created by Imageworks, and consists of over 300 visual effects shots. In addition to creating the SUE—which required extensive effect simulations for the different combined elements such as "water tentacles", rocks, lava, and lightning—the company had to create a digital model of the Tower Bridge for the fight to take place around. The company attempted to fully render only small sections of the bridge where needed, but ultimately required around 80% of the bridge to be fully detailed due to how much of it is seen throughout the fight. They made use of Image Engine's Stark jet model and Scanline's Mysterio asset for the fight, and created the drone models and new Spider-Man suit that were used by the other vendors. They started with a single drone design that featured missiles, cannons, and Gatling guns, but this became repetitive during the battle and so flamethrower and sonic blaster drones were added. Additionally, the sky and environment needed to be digitally replaced in most of the sequence.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Framestore handled the "Illusion Battle" sequence in which Mysterio traps Spider-Man within a series of elaborate fear-based illusions. Based on early prototypes of the sequence from Framestore, Marvel decided to extend it to around 150 shots. It was heavily pre-visualized to define which background plates and motion-capture performances would be required; Framestore visual effects supervisor Alexis Wajsbrot compared the motion-capture process for the sequence to automated dialogue replacement, where each short section of the performance was captured individually. The company used existing digital assets from other vendors, including for the different Spider-Man suits, combined with new models such as those for statues of fallen heroes or a "Zombie Iron Man". The effect of green smoke that is throughout the sequence was created using Houdini. Framestore took inspiration from the title sequences of the "James Bond" films, especially that of "Spectre" (2015) for the graveyard portion of the battle. For the transition between the real world and the illusions, Framestore had to match a similar transition from the B.A.R.F. scene in "Captain America: Civil War" which Wajsbrot described as a time-consuming process for each environment in which it was required. Sirrs compared the sequence to an elaborate Broadway production with an unlimited budget, and named several other visual influences including the "Looney Tunes" short "Duck Amuck" (1953), "Paprika" (2006), "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984), and the "Pink Elephants on Parade" scene from "Dumbo" (1941).


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: "Spider-Man: Homecoming" composer Michael Giacchino was confirmed to return to score "Far From Home" in October 2018. Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" plays during the Marvel Studios opening logo as part of the film's opening "in memoriam" scene. The end credits song is "Vacation" by The Go-Go's. The soundtrack album was released by Sony Classical on June 28, 2019.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Due to Parker dying at the end of "Infinity War" and not being resurrected until "Endgame", Germain Lussier of io9 noted in May 2018 that Sony would either have to begin marketing this film only two months before its release or spoil the fact that Parker is resurrected for general audiences that may not realize that this would happen in "Endgame". Lussier suggested the latter approach be taken, while a representative of Sony said the studio would be working with Marvel to "figure out the Spider-Man strategy". Holland and Gyllenhaal debuted the first trailer for "Far From Home" at Sony's CCXP Brazil panel on December 8, 2018. The footage does not acknowledge the events of "Infinity War" or "Endgame", with Steven Weintraub of Collider describing it as a continuation of "the "Spider-Man" universe" only. Holland debuted the trailer publicly on his Instagram account on January 15, 2019. A slightly different "international version" was also released. Several news outlets commented on Parker's appearance in the trailer following the events of "Infinity War", with Zack Straf of IndieWire pointing out that while the trailer reveals Parker's return, it does not explain how.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Adam Chitwood of Collider described the trailer as "cute and fun" just like "Homecoming", and approved of the vacation storyline, the addition of Fury, and Mysterio's short appearance. He did think the film looked "the tiniest bit less special" when compared to the acclaimed animated film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". A teaser poster was released with the trailer showing Spider-Man's mask covered in travel stickers. Chitwood said the poster was "really fun, leaning into the whole 'summer vacation' vibe" while potentially hinting at the film's locations with the stickers. Graeme McMillian of "The Hollywood Reporter" felt the trailer presented the threat of the Elementals so audiences would be "thrown off the scent" of Mysterio being the villain. McMillian's colleague Richard Newby felt the "main takeaway from the trailer is that "Spider-Man: Far From Home" is deftly blending old and new school elements of the Spider-Man mythos, for a result that feels surprisingly fresh". Newby was also excited about the inclusion of Fury. "Forbes"s Scott Mendelson felt the trailer showed "the sheer confidence" of Sony in its Spider-Man films, especially after the successes of "Homecoming", "Venom" (2018), and "Into the Spider-Verse". The trailer received 130 million views in 24 hours, surpassing "Homecoming" (116 million views) as the most viewed Sony Pictures trailer in that time period.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: On May 6, 2019, a second trailer for the film was released. The trailer featured an introduction from Holland warning viewers that it includes spoilers for "Avengers: Endgame". Watts, who knew the plots of "Infinity War" and "Endgame" and worked with the Russo brothers on Spider-Man's appearances in those films, was relieved that the trailer's release allowed him to speak more openly about "Far From Home". The second trailer was viewed 135 million times in 24 hours, surpassing the first "Far From Home" trailer as the most viewed Sony Pictures trailer in that time period. Beginning the weekend after the trailer's release, screenings of "Endgame" began with a message from Holland telling audiences to stay till the end of the credits, with the trailer played at the end of the film. Marvel previously added a trailer for "The Avengers" (2012) to the end of "" (2011). United Airlines served as a promotional partner on the film, with one of their Boeing 777 aircraft and several United employees appearing in the film. As done with previous MCU films, Audi also sponsored the film, promoting several vehicles such as the e-tron SUV, while having some of their other vehicles appear in the film. Partnering with several other companies, including Dr Pepper, Papa John's Pizza, and Burger King, the film had a total promotional marketing value of $288 million, the largest for a film ever.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Ahead of the film's home media release, in September 2019, Sony released a "Night Monkey" trailer, featuring footage from the film of Spider-Man in his jokey alter-ego of the same name. Lussier said the trailer was clever, and "in terms of repurposing old footage in fun, funny new ways, you have to give Sony a tip of the cap for this." Later in the month, Sony created a real version of the fictional TheDailyBugle.net website as part of a viral marketing campaign to promote the home media release of the film. Inspired by real-world "conspiracy-pushing" websites such as that of Alex Jones, the website features Simmons reprising his role as Jameson in a video where he speaks out against Spider-Man and in support of Mysterio, before adding "Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe!" The website includes testimonials from supposed victims of "the Blip", including one complaining that they disappeared in a dangerous situation and were seriously injured when they reappeared. This contradicts a statement by Feige saying that anyone in such a situation would have reappeared safely. Several days after this was pointed out, the website was updated to say this story was faked for an insurance claim.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: "Spider-Man: Far From Home" had its world premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on June 26, 2019. The film was released on June 28, in China and Japan, and in the United States on July 2, in 3D and IMAX. In the United States, it opened in 4,634 theaters, which was second all-time behind "Avengers: Endgame". It was originally scheduled to be released on July 5. The film was re-released on Labor Day weekend, beginning August 29, with four minutes of extra footage. "Spider-Man: Far From Home" was the last film released in Phase Three of the MCU.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: "Spider-Man: Far From Home" was released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on digital on September 17, 2019, and on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 1. The home media release features a short film titled "Peter's To-Do List", which uses scenes of Parker retrieving various items for his trip that were cut from the theatrical release of the film. The short also includes footage featuring Hemky Madera reprising his "Homecoming" role as Mr. Delmar, the owner of a local bodega, which was all cut from "Far From Home".


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: In April 2021, Sony signed a deal with Disney giving them access to their legacy content, including past Spider-Man films and Marvel content in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, to stream on Disney+ and Hulu and appear on Disney's linear television networks. Disney's access to Sony's titles would come following their availability on Netflix. "Far From Home" had previously been available on Starz and FX.


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: "Spider-Man: Far From Home" grossed in the United States and Canada, and in other territories, for a worldwide total of . It was the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2019 and the 24th-highest-grossing film of all time. On August 18, 2019, the film surpassed "Skyfall" (2012) to become Sony Pictures' highest-grossing film worldwide. "Far From Home" was the first "Spider-Man" film to gross over $1billion. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the film's net profit as $339million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it seventh on their list of 2019's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Three weeks before its domestic release, official industry tracking had the film grossing around $170 million over its six-day opening frame. Some had the film reaching as high as $200 million, while others were at a conservative $165 million; Sony was predicting a $154 million debut. By the week of release industry estimates lowered to $140 million, with the studio expecting $120 million, due to the recent underperformance of other sequels. "Far From Home" made a Tuesday-opening record $39.3 million, including an estimated $2.8–3 million from midnight previews at about 1,000 theaters. It then made $27 million on its second day, the best-ever Wednesday gross for an MCU film, and $25.1 million on the 4th of July, the second highest ever total for the holiday behind "Transformers" ($29 million in 2007). In its opening weekend the film made $92.6 million, and a total of $185.1 million over the six-day frame, topping the $180 million made by "Spider-Man 2" over its six-day July4 opening in 2004; it was the number one film for the weekend. In its second weekend, the film made $45.3 million, again topping the box office with a 51% decrease from the first week; lower than "Homecoming"s 62% drop in its second box office weekend. "Far From Home" grossed over $21 million in its third weekend but was dethroned by newcomer "The Lion King".


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: "Far From Home" was projected to gross around $350 million worldwide by the end of its first week of release, and about $500 million over its first 10 days. In China and Japan, where it was released a week prior to its U.S. debut, the film was expected to gross around a combined $90 million in its opening weekend. In China, where pre-sale tickets were less than "Homecoming"s, the film made $35.5 million on its first day, including $3.4 million from midnight previews (the fourth-best of all time for a superhero film in the country). It ended up slightly over-performing, debuting to $111 million including $98 million in China, the fourth-best-ever superhero opening in the country. "Far From Home" ended up grossing $580.1 million worldwide over its first 10 days of release, including $238 million from international territories in its opening weekend. In China, the film had a 10-day total of $167.4 million, and its other biggest debuts were South Korea ($33.8 million), the United Kingdom ($17.8 million), Mexico ($13.9 million) and Australia ($11.9 million).


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of , with an average score of , based on reviews. The website's critics' consensus reads, "A breezily unpredictable blend of teen romance and superhero action, "Spider-Man: Far From Home" stylishly sets the stage for the next era of the MCU." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 69 out of 100 based on reviews from 55 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to Fscale, while those at PostTrak gave it a 76% "definite recommend".


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" praised Holland's performance and wrote, "By the end, this Spider-Man really does find his tingle, yet coming after "Into the Spider-Verse", with its swirling psychedelic imagery and identity games and trap doors of perception, "Spider-Man: Far From Home" touches all the bases of a conventional Marvel movie. It doesn't take you out of this world. But it's good enough to summon the kick—or maybe just the illusion—of consequence." Writing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Richard Roeper gave the film 3out of 4stars, calling it "zesty, sweet and satisfying" and praised the performances of the cast. Bernard Boo of "PopMatters" praised the film, commenting, ""Spider-Man: Far From Home" is technically the final film in Phase [Three] of the MCU, and it's hard to think of a better way to send off the most successful run of one of the highest grossing franchises in history." Alonso Duralde of "TheWrap" said that the film feels like "a charming teen road-trip comedy that occasionally turns into a superhero movie", which he said was a compliment. He highlighted the cast, including the chemistry between Holland, Zendaya and Batalon, and said that Gyllenhaal "nails his character's earnestness but also clearly enjoys a few moments that let him channel every exasperated-sigh, I-just-want-to-get-this-right male diva director he's ever known."


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: Writing for IndieWire, David Ehrlich gave the film a grade of "C" and, despite complimenting the cast, called the film an "unadventurous bit of superhero housekeeping that only exists to clean up the mess that "Avengers: Endgame" left behind". He criticized the character development of Spider-Man, feeling that he does not change throughout the film beyond becoming more confident. He described the action as "plastic", and felt that the film did not give enough attention to its teen elements. Ehrlich said it might be enough to satisfy fans but called it a "failure when compared to the remarkable artistry of "Into the Spider-Verse" or the raw pathos of Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 2"." John Anderson of "The Wall Street Journal" praised Holland and Zendaya's performances, but described the film as "a visually incoherent, effects-heavy superhero movie", and called the dialogue "dire".


title: Spider-Man: Far From Home

text: In September 2019, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures announced that they were set to produce a third film, after an impasse between the two companies during negotiations. Watts returned to direct, from a script by McKenna and Sommers. Holland, Zendaya, Favreau, Tomei, Batalon, and Revolori reprise their roles, while Benedict Cumberbatch and Benedict Wong reprise their MCU roles as Doctor Strange and Wong. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" features several actors reprising their roles from past "Spider-Man" films, including Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as their versions of Spider-Man from Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy (2002–2007) and Marc Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" films (2012–2014), nicknamed "Peter-Two" and "Peter-Three" respectively, alongside Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus, and Thomas Haden Church as Flint Marko / Sandman from the Raimi trilogy, as well as Rhys Ifans as Curt Connors / Lizard and Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon / Electro from the Webb films. The film was released on December 17, 2021.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in the world. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.


title: Howard Hughes

text: As a film tycoon, Hughes gained fame in Hollywood beginning in the late 1920s, when he produced big-budget and often controversial films such as "The Racket" (1928), "Hell's Angels" (1930), and "Scarface" (1932). He later acquired the RKO Pictures film studio in 1948, recognized then as one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age, although the production company struggled under his control and ultimately ceased operations in 1957.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Through his interest in aviation and aerospace travel, Hughes formed the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1932, hiring numerous engineers, designers, and defense contractors. He spent the rest of the 1930s and much of the 1940s setting multiple world air speed records and building the Hughes H-1 Racer (1935) and H-4 Hercules (the "Spruce Goose", 1947), the latter being the largest flying boat in history and having the longest wingspan of any aircraft from the time it was built until 2019. He acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines and later acquired Air West, renaming it Hughes Airwest. Hughes won the Harmon Trophy on two occasions (1936 and 1938), the Collier Trophy (1938), and the Congressional Gold Medal (1939) all for his achievements in aviation throughout the 1930s. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973 and was included in "Flying" magazine's 2013 list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation, ranked at 25.


title: Howard Hughes

text: During his final years, Hughes extended his financial empire to include several major businesses in Las Vegas, such as real estate, hotels, casinos, and media outlets. Known at the time as one of the most powerful men in the state of Nevada, he is largely credited with transforming Vegas into a more refined cosmopolitan city. After years of mental and physical decline, Hughes died of kidney failure in 1976. His legacy is maintained through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Howard Hughes Corporation.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was the son of Allene Stone Gano (1883–1922) and of Howard R. Hughes Sr. (1869–1924), a successful inventor and businessman from Missouri. He had English, Welsh and some French Huguenot ancestry, and was a descendant of John Gano (1727–1804), the minister who allegedly baptized George Washington.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes Sr. patented the two-cone roller bit in 1909, which allowed rotary drilling for petroleum in previously inaccessible places. The senior Hughes made the shrewd and lucrative decisions to commercialize the invention by: leasing the bits instead of selling them, obtaining several early patents, and founding the Hughes Tool Company in 1909.


title: Howard Hughes

text: A 1941 affidavit birth certificate of Hughes, signed by his aunt Annette Gano Lummis and by Estelle Boughton Sharp, states that he was born on December 24, 1905, in Harris County, Texas. However, his certificate of baptism, recorded on October 7, 1906, in the parish register of St. John's Episcopal Church in Keokuk, Iowa, listed his date of birth as September 24, 1905, without any reference to the place of birth.


title: Howard Hughes

text: At a young age, Hughes Jr. showed interest in science and technology. In particular, he had a great engineering aptitude, and built Houston's first "wireless" radio transmitter at age 11. He went on to be one of the first licensed ham-radio operators in Houston, having the assigned callsign W5CY (originally 5CY). At 12, Hughes was photographed for the local newspaper, which identified him as the first boy in Houston to have a "motorized" bicycle, which he had built from parts of his father's steam engine. He was an indifferent student, with a liking for mathematics, flying, and mechanics. He took his first flying lesson at 14, and attended Fessenden School in Massachusetts in 1921.


title: Howard Hughes

text: After a brief stint at The Thacher School, Hughes attended math and aeronautical engineering courses at Caltech. The red-brick house where Hughes lived as a teenager at 3921 Yoakum Blvd., Houston, still stands, now known as Hughes House on the grounds of the University of St. Thomas.


title: Howard Hughes

text: His mother Allene died in March 1922 from complications of an ectopic pregnancy. Howard Hughes Sr. died of a heart attack in 1924. Their deaths apparently inspired Hughes to include the establishment of a medical research laboratory in the will that he signed in 1925 at age 19. Howard Sr.'s will had not been updated since Allene's death, and Hughes Jr. inherited 75% of the family fortune. On his 19th birthday, Hughes was declared an emancipated minor, enabling him to take full control of his life.


title: Howard Hughes

text: From a young age, Hughes became a proficient and enthusiastic golfer. He often scored near-par figures, playing the game to a two-three handicap during his 20s, and for a time aimed for a professional golf career. He golfed frequently with top players, including Gene Sarazen. Hughes rarely played competitively and gradually gave up his passion for the sport to pursue other interests.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes played golf every afternoon at LA courses including the Lakeside Golf Club, Wilshire Country Club, or the Bel-Air Country Club. Partners included George Von Elm or Ozzie Carlton. After Hughes hurt himself in the late 1920s, his golfing tapered off, and after his F-11 crash, Hughes was unable to play at all.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes withdrew from Rice University shortly after his father's death. On June 1, 1925, he married Ella Botts Rice, daughter of David Rice and Martha Lawson Botts of Houston, and great-niece of William Marsh Rice, for whom Rice University was named. They moved to Los Angeles, where he hoped to make a name for himself as a filmmaker.


title: Howard Hughes

text: They moved into the Ambassador Hotel, and Hughes proceeded to learn to fly a Waco, while simultaneously producing his first motion picture, "Swell Hogan".


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes enjoyed a highly successful business career beyond engineering, aviation, and filmmaking; many of his career endeavors involved varying entrepreneurial roles.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Ralph Graves persuaded Hughes to finance a short film, "Swell Hogan", which Graves had written and would star in. Hughes himself produced it. However, it was a disaster. After hiring a film editor to try to salvage it, he finally ordered that it be destroyed. His next two films, "Everybody's Acting" (1926) and "Two Arabian Knights" (1927), achieved financial success; the latter won the first Academy Award for Best Director of a comedy picture. "The Racket" (1928) and "The Front Page" (1931) were also nominated for Academy Awards.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes spent $3.5 million to make the flying film "Hell's Angels" (1930). "Hell's Angels" received one Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.


title: Howard Hughes

text: He produced another hit, "Scarface" (1932), a production delayed by censors' concern over its violence.


title: Howard Hughes

text: "The Outlaw" premiered in 1943, but was not released nationally until 1946. The film featured Jane Russell, who received considerable attention from industry censors, this time owing to her revealing costumes.


title: Howard Hughes

text: From the 1940s to the late 1950s, the Hughes Tool Company ventured into the film industry when it obtained partial ownership of the RKO companies, which included RKO Pictures, RKO Studios, a chain of movie theaters known as RKO Theatres and a network of radio stations known as the RKO Radio Network.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1948, Hughes gained control of RKO, a struggling major Hollywood studio, by acquiring the 929,000 shares owned by Floyd Odlum's Atlas Corporation, for $8,825,000. Within weeks of acquiring the studio, Hughes dismissed 700 employees. Production dwindled to 9 pictures during the first year of Hughes's control; previously RKO had averaged 30 per year.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes shut down production at the studio for six months, during which time he ordered investigations into the political leanings of every remaining RKO employee. Only after ensuring that the stars under contract to RKO had no suspect affiliations would Hughes approve completed pictures to be sent back for re-shooting. This was especially true of the women under contract to RKO at that time. If Hughes felt that his stars did not properly represent the political views of his liking or if a film's anti-communist politics were not sufficiently clear, he pulled the plug. In 1952, an abortive sale to a Chicago-based group connected to the mafia with no experience in the industry disrupted studio operations at RKO even further.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1953, Hughes became involved with a high-profile lawsuit as part of the settlement of the "United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc." Antitrust Case. As a result of the hearings, the shaky status of RKO became increasingly apparent. A steady stream of lawsuits from RKO's minority shareholders had grown to become extremely annoying to Hughes. They had accused him of financial misconduct and corporate mismanagement. Since Hughes wanted to focus primarily on his aircraft manufacturing and TWA holdings during the years of the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, Hughes offered to buy out all other stockholders in order to dispense with their distractions.


title: Howard Hughes

text: By the end of 1954, Hughes had gained near-total control of RKO at a cost of nearly $24 million, becoming the first sole owner of a major Hollywood studio since the silent-film era. Six months later Hughes sold the studio to the General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million. Hughes retained the rights to pictures that he had personally produced, including those made at RKO. He also retained Jane Russell's contract. For Howard Hughes, this was the virtual end of his 25-year involvement in the motion-picture industry. However, his reputation as a financial wizard emerged unscathed. During that time period, RKO became known as the home of classic "film noir" productions, thanks in part to the limited budgets required to make such films during Hughes's tenure. Hughes reportedly walked away from RKO having made $6.5 million in personal profit. According to Noah Dietrich, Hughes made a $10,000,000 profit from the sale of the theaters and made a profit of $1,000,000 from his 7-year ownership of RKO.


title: Howard Hughes

text: According to Noah Dietrich, "Land became a principal asset for the Hughes empire". Hughes acquired 1200 acres in Culver City for Hughes Aircraft, bought 7 sections [4,480 acres] in Tucson for his Falcon missile-plant, and purchased 25,000 acres near Las Vegas. In 1968, the Hughes Tool Company purchased the North Las Vegas Air Terminal.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Originally known as Summa Corporation, the Howard Hughes Corporation formed in 1972 when the oil-tools business of Hughes Tool Company, then owned by Howard Hughes Jr., floated on the New York Stock Exchange under the "Hughes Tool" name. This forced the remaining businesses of the "original" Hughes Tool to adopt a new corporate name: "Summa". The name "Summa"Latin for "highest"was adopted without the approval of Hughes himself, who preferred to keep his own name on the business, and suggested "HRH Properties" (for Hughes Resorts and Hotels, and also his own initials). In 1988 Summa announced plans for Summerlin, a master-planned community named for the paternal grandmother of Howard Hughes, Jean Amelia Summerlin.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Initially staying in the Desert Inn, Hughes refused to vacate his room, and instead decided to purchase the entire hotel. Hughes extended his financial empire to include Las Vegas real estate, hotels, and media outlets, spending an estimated $300 million, and using his considerable powers to acquire many of the well-known hotels, especially the venues connected with organized crime. He quickly became one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas. He was instrumental in changing the image of Las Vegas from its Wild West roots into a more refined cosmopolitan city. In addition to the Desert Inn, Hughes would eventually own the Sands, Frontier, Silver Slipper, Castaways and Landmark and Harold's Club in Reno. Hughes would eventually become the largest employer in Nevada.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Another portion of Hughes's commercial interests involved aviation, airlines, and the aerospace and defense industries. A lifelong aircraft enthusiast and pilot, Hughes survived four airplane accidents: one in a Thomas-Morse Scout while filming "Hell's Angels", one while setting the airspeed record in the Hughes Racer, one at Lake Mead in 1943, and the near-fatal crash of the Hughes XF-11 in 1946. At Rogers Airport in Los Angeles, he learned to fly from pioneer aviators, including Moye Stephens and J.B. Alexander. He set many world records and commissioned the construction of custom aircraft for himself while heading Hughes Aircraft at the airport in Glendale, CA. Operating from there, the most technologically important aircraft he commissioned was the Hughes H-1 Racer. On September 13, 1935, Hughes, flying the H-1, set the landplane airspeed record of over his test course near Santa Ana, California (Giuseppe Motta reaching 362 mph in 1929 and George Stainforth reached 407.5 mph in 1931, both in seaplanes). This marked the last time in history that an aircraft built by a private individual set the world airspeed record. A year and a half later, on January 19, 1937, flying the same H-1 Racer fitted with longer wings, Hughes set a new transcontinental airspeed record by flying non-stop from Los Angeles to Newark in seven hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds (beating his own previous record of nine hours, 27 minutes). His average ground-speed over the flight was .


title: Howard Hughes

text: The H-1 Racer featured a number of design innovations: it had retractable landing gear (as Boeing Monomail had five years before), and all rivets and joints set flush into the body of the aircraft to reduce drag. The H-1 Racer is thought to have influenced the design of a number of World War II fighters such as the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and F8F Bearcat, although that has never been reliably confirmed. In 1975 the H-1 Racer was donated to the Smithsonian.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1932 Hughes founded the Hughes Aircraft Company, a division of Hughes Tool Company, in a rented corner of a Lockheed Aircraft Corporation hangar in Burbank, California, to build the H-1 racer.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Shortly after founding the company, Hughes used the alias "Charles Howard" to accept a job as a baggage handler for American Airlines. He was soon promoted to co-pilot.


title: Howard Hughes

text: During and after World War II Hughes turned his company into a major defense contractor. The Hughes Helicopters division started in 1947 when helicopter manufacturer Kellett sold their latest design to Hughes for production. Hughes Aircraft became a major U.S. aerospace- and defense contractor, manufacturing numerous technology-related products that included spacecraft vehicles, military aircraft, radar systems, electro-optical systems, the first working laser, aircraft computer systems, missile systems, ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), commercial satellites, and other electronics systems.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1948 Hughes created a new division of Hughes Aircraft: the Hughes Aerospace Group. The Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division were later spun off in 1948 to form their own divisions and ultimately became the Hughes Space and Communications Company in 1961. In 1953 Howard Hughes gave all his stock in the Hughes Aircraft Company to the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Institute, thereby turning the aerospace and defense contractor into a tax-exempt charitable organization. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for $5.2 billion. In 1997 General Motors sold Hughes Aircraft to Raytheon and in 2000, sold Hughes Space & Communications to Boeing. A combination of Boeing, GM, and Raytheon acquired the Hughes Research Laboratories, which focused on advanced developments in microelectronics, information & systems sciences, materials, sensors, and photonics; their work-space spans from basic research to product delivery. It has particularly emphasized capabilities in high-performance integrated circuits, high-power lasers, antennas, networking, and smart materials.


title: Howard Hughes

text: On July 14, 1938, Hughes set another record by completing a flight around the world in just 91 hours (three days, 19 hours, 17 minutes), beating the previous record of 186 hours (7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes) set in 1933 by Wiley Post in a single-engine Lockheed Vega by almost four days. Hughes returned home ahead of photographs of his flight. Taking off from New York City, Hughes continued to Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, and Minneapolis, then returning to New York City. For this flight he flew a Lockheed 14 Super Electra (NX18973, a twin-engine transport with a crew of four) fitted with the latest radio and navigational equipment. Harry Connor was the co-pilot, Thomas Thurlow the navigator, Richard Stoddart the engineer, and Ed Lund the mechanic. Hughes wanted the flight to be a triumph of U.S. aviation technology, illustrating that safe, long-distance air travel was possible. Albert Lodwick of Mystic, Iowa, provided organizational skills as the flight operations manager. While Hughes had previously been relatively obscure despite his wealth, better known for dating Katharine Hepburn, New York City now gave him a ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes. Hughes and his crew were awarded the 1938 Collier Trophy for flying around the world in record time. He was awarded the Harmon Trophy in 1936 and 1938 for the record-breaking global circumnavigation.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1938 the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas—known at the time as Houston Municipal Airport—was renamed after Hughes, but the name was changed back due to public outrage over naming the airport after a living person. Hughes also had a role in the financing of the Boeing 307 Stratoliner for TWA, and the design and financing of the Lockheed L-049 Constellation.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Other aviator awards include: the Bibesco Cup of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1938, the Octave Chanute Award in 1940, and a special Congressional Gold Medal in 1939 "in recognition of the achievements of Howard Hughes in advancing the science of aviation and thus bringing great credit to his country throughout the world".


title: Howard Hughes

text: President Harry S. Truman sent the Congressional medal to Hughes after the F-11 crash. After his around-the-world flight, Hughes had declined to go to the White House to collect it.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Development of the D-2 began around 1937, but little is known about its early gestation because Hughes' archives on the aircraft have not been made public. Aircraft historian René Francillon speculates that Hughes designed the aircraft for another circumnavigation record attempt, but the outbreak of World War II closed much of the world's airspace and made it difficult to buy aircraft parts without government approval, so he decided to sell the aircraft to the U.S. Army instead. In December 1939, Hughes proposed that the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) procure it as a "pursuit type airplane". It emerged as a two or three-seat twin-boom aircraft powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-2800-49 engines and constructed mostly of Duramold, a type of molded plywood. The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF, successor to the USAAC) struggled to define a mission for the D-2, which lacked both the maneuverability of a fighter and the payload of a bomber, and was highly skeptical of the extensive use of plywood; however, the project was kept alive by high-level intervention from General Henry H. Arnold. The prototype was brought to Harper's Dry Lake in California in great secrecy in 1943 and first flew on June 20 of that year. The initial test flights revealed serious flight control problems, so the D-2 returned to the hangar for extensive changes to its wings, and Hughes proposed to redesignate it as the D-5. However, in November 1944, the still-incomplete D-2 was destroyed in a hangar fire reportedly caused by a lightning strike.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In the spring of 1943 Hughes spent nearly a month in Las Vegas, test-flying his Sikorsky S-43 amphibious aircraft, practicing touch-and-go landings on Lake Mead in preparation for flying the H-4 Hercules. The weather conditions at the lake during the day were ideal and he enjoyed Las Vegas at night. On May 17, 1943, Hughes flew the Sikorsky from California, carrying two Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) aviation inspectors, two of his employees, and actress Ava Gardner. Hughes dropped Gardner off in Las Vegas and proceeded to Lake Mead to conduct qualifying tests in the S-43. The test flight did not go well. The Sikorsky crashed into Lake Mead, killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline and Hughes's employee Richard Felt. Hughes suffered a severe gash on the top of his head when he hit the upper control panel and had to be rescued by one of the others on board. Hughes paid divers $100,000 to raise the aircraft and later spent more than $500,000 restoring it. Hughes sent the plane to Houston, where it remained for many years.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Acting on a recommendation of the president's son, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who had become friends with Hughes, in September 1943 General Arnold issued a directive to order 100 of a reconnaissance development of the D-2, known as the F-11 (XF-11 in prototype form). The project was controversial from the beginning, as the USAAF Air Materiel Command deeply doubted that Hughes Aircraft could fulfill a contract this large, but Arnold pushed the project forward. Materiel Command demanded a host of major design changes notably including the elimination of Duramold; Hughes, who sought $3.9 million in reimbursement for sunk costs from the D-2, strenuously objected because this undercut his argument that the XF-11 was a modified D-2 rather than a new design. Protracted negotiations caused months of delays but ultimately yielded few design concessions. The war ended before the first XF-11 prototype was completed and the F-11 production contract was canceled. The XF-11 emerged in 1946 as an all-metal, twin-boom, three-seat reconnaissance aircraft, substantially larger than the D-2 and powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-4360-31 engines, each driving a set of contra-rotating propellers. Only two prototypes were completed; the second one had a conventional single propeller per side.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes was almost killed on July 7, 1946, while performing the first flight of the XF-11 near Hughes Airfield at Culver City, California. Hughes extended the test flight well beyond the 45-minute limit decreed by the USAAF, possibly distracted by landing gear retraction problems. An oil leak caused one of the contra-rotating propellers to reverse pitch, causing the aircraft to yaw sharply and lose altitude rapidly. Hughes attempted to save the aircraft by landing it at the Los Angeles Country Club golf course, but just seconds before reaching the course, the XF-11 started to drop dramatically and crashed in the Beverly Hills neighborhood surrounding the country club.


title: Howard Hughes

text: When the XF-11 finally came to a halt after destroying three houses, the fuel tanks exploded, setting fire to the aircraft and a nearby home at 808 North Whittier Drive owned by Lt Col. Charles E. Meyer. Hughes managed to pull himself out of the flaming wreckage but lay beside the aircraft until rescued by Marine Master Sgt. William L. Durkin, who happened to be in the area visiting friends. Hughes sustained significant injuries in the crash, including a crushed collar bone, multiple cracked ribs, crushed chest with collapsed left lung, shifting his heart to the right side of the chest cavity, and numerous third-degree burns. An oft-told story said that Hughes sent a check to the Marine weekly for the remainder of his life as a sign of gratitude. Noah Dietrich asserted that Hughes did send Durkin $200 a month, but Durkin's daughter denied knowing that he received any money from Hughes.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Despite his physical injuries, Hughes took pride that his mind was still working. As he lay in his hospital bed, he decided that he did not like the bed's design. He called in plant engineers to design a customized bed, equipped with hot and cold running water, built in six sections, and operated by 30 electric motors, with push-button adjustments. Hughes designed the hospital bed specifically to alleviate the pain caused by moving with severe burn injuries. Although he never used the bed that he designed, Hughes's bed served as a prototype for the modern hospital bed. Hughes's doctors considered his recovery almost miraculous.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Many attribute his long-term dependence on opiates to his use of codeine as a painkiller during his convalescence. Yet Dietrich asserts that Hughes recovered the "hard way—no sleeping pills, no opiates of any kind". The trademark mustache he wore afterward hid a scar on his upper lip resulting from the accident.


title: Howard Hughes

text: The War Production Board (not the military) originally contracted with Henry Kaiser and Hughes to produce the gigantic HK-1 Hercules flying boat for use during World War II to transport troops and equipment across the Atlantic as an alternative to seagoing troop transport ships that were vulnerable to German U-boats. The military services opposed the project, thinking it would siphon resources from higher-priority programs, but Hughes's powerful allies in Washington, D.C. advocated for it. After disputes, Kaiser withdrew from the project and Hughes elected to continue it as the H-4 Hercules. However, the aircraft was not completed until after the end of World War II.


title: Howard Hughes

text: The Hercules was the world's largest flying boat, the largest aircraft made from wood, and, at , had the longest wingspan of any aircraft (the next-largest wingspan was about ). (The Hercules is no longer the longest nor heaviest aircraft ever built - surpassed by the Antonov An-225 "Mriya" produced in 1985.)


title: Howard Hughes

text: The Hercules flew only once for one mile (1.6 km), and above the water, with Hughes at the controls, on November 2, 1947.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Critics nicknamed the Hercules the "Spruce Goose", but it was actually made largely from birch (not spruce) rather than from aluminum, because the contract required that Hughes build the aircraft of "non-strategic materials". It was built in Hughes's Westchester, California, facility. In 1947, Howard Hughes was summoned to testify before the Senate War Investigating Committee to explain why the H-4 development had been so troubled, and why $22 million had produced only two prototypes of the XF-11. General Elliott Roosevelt and numerous other USAAF officers were also called to testify in hearings that transfixed the nation during August and November 1947. In hotly-disputed testimony over TWA's route awards and malfeasance in the defense-acquisition process, Hughes turned the tables on his main interlocutor, Maine Senator Owen Brewster, and the hearings were widely interpreted as a Hughes victory. After being displayed at the harbor of Long Beach, California, the Hercules was moved to McMinnville, Oregon, where it features at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.


title: Howard Hughes

text: On November 4, 2017, the 70th anniversary of the only flight of the H-4 Hercules was celebrated at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum with Hughes's paternal cousin Michael Wesley Summerlin and Brian Palmer Evans, son of Hughes radio technology pioneer Dave Evans, taking their positions in the recreation of a photo that was previously taken of Hughes, Dave Evans and Joe Petrali on board the H-4 Hercules.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1939, at the urging of Jack Frye, president of Transcontinental & Western Airlines, the predecessor of Trans World Airlines (TWA), Hughes began to quietly purchase a majority share of TWA stock (78% of stock, to be exact); he took a controlling interest in the airline by 1944. Although he never had an official position with TWA, Hughes handpicked the board of directors, which included Noah Dietrich, and often issued orders directly to airline staff. Hughes Tool Co. purchased the first six Stratoliners Boeing manufactured. Hughes used one personally, and he let TWA operate the other five.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes is commonly credited as the driving force behind the Lockheed Constellation airliner, which Hughes and Frye ordered in 1939 as a long-range replacement for TWA's fleet of Boeing 307 Stratoliners. Hughes personally financed TWA's acquisition of 40 Constellations for $18 million, the largest aircraft order in history up to that time. The Constellations were among the highest-performing commercial aircraft of the late 1940s and 1950s and allowed TWA to pioneer nonstop transcontinental service. During World War II Hughes leveraged political connections in Washington to obtain rights for TWA to serve Europe, making it the only U.S. carrier with a combination of domestic and transatlantic routes.


title: Howard Hughes

text: After the announcement of the Boeing 707, Hughes opted to pursue a more advanced jet aircraft for TWA and approached Convair in late 1954. Convair proposed two concepts to Hughes, but Hughes was unable to decide which concept to adopt, and Convair eventually abandoned its initial jet project after the mockups of the 707 and Douglas DC-8 were unveiled. Even after competitors such as United Airlines, American Airlines and Pan American World Airways had placed large orders for the 707, Hughes only placed eight orders for 707s through the Hughes Tool Company and forbade TWA from using the aircraft. After finally beginning to reserve 707 orders in 1956, Hughes embarked on a plan to build his own "superior" jet aircraft for TWA, applied for CAB permission to sell Hughes aircraft to TWA, and began negotiations with the state of Florida to build a manufacturing plant there. However, he abandoned this plan around 1958, and in the interim, negotiated new contracts for 707 and Convair 880 aircraft and engines totaling $400 million.


title: Howard Hughes

text: The financing of TWA's jet orders precipitated the end of Hughes's relationship with Noah Dietrich, and ultimately Hughes's ouster from control of TWA. Hughes did not have enough cash on hand or future cash flow to pay for the orders and did not immediately seek bank financing. Hughes's refusal to heed Dietrich's financing advice led to a major rift between the two by the end of 1956. Hughes believed that Dietrich wished to have Hughes committed as mentally incompetent, although the evidence of this is inconclusive. Dietrich resigned by telephone in May 1957 after repeated requests for stock options, which Hughes refused to grant, and with no further progress on the jet financing. As Hughes's mental state worsened, he ordered various tactics to delay payments to Boeing and Convair; his behavior led TWA's banks to insist that he be removed from management as a condition for further financing.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1960, Hughes was ultimately forced out of the management of TWA, although he continued to own 78% of the company. In 1961, TWA filed suit against Hughes Tool Company, claiming that the latter had violated antitrust law by using TWA as a captive market for aircraft trading. The claim was largely dependent upon obtaining testimony from Hughes himself. Hughes went into hiding and refused to testify. A default judgment was issued against Hughes Tool Company for $135 million in 1963 but was overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1973, on the basis that Hughes was immune from prosecution. In 1966, Hughes was forced to sell his TWA shares. The sale of his TWA shares brought Hughes $546,549,771.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes acquired control of Boston-based Northeast Airlines in 1962. However, the airline's lucrative route authority between major northeastern cities and Miami was terminated by a CAB decision around the time of the acquisition, and Hughes sold control of the company to a trustee in 1964. Northeast went on to merge with Delta Air Lines in 1972.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1970, Hughes acquired San Francisco-based Air West and renamed it Hughes Airwest. Air West had been formed in 1968 by the merger of Bonanza Air Lines, Pacific Air Lines, and West Coast Airlines, all of which operated in the western U.S. By the late 1970s, Hughes Airwest operated an all-jet fleet of Boeing 727-200, Douglas DC-9-10, and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 jetliners serving an extensive route network in the western U.S. with flights to Mexico and western Canada as well. By 1980, the airline's route system reached as far east as Houston (Hobby Airport) and Milwaukee with a total of 42 destinations being served. Hughes Airwest was then acquired by and merged into Republic Airlines (1979–1986) in late 1980. Republic was subsequently acquired by and merged into Northwest Airlines which in turn was ultimately merged into Delta Air Lines in 2008.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes had made numerous business partnerships through industrialist and producer David Charnay. Their friendship and many partnerships began with the film "The Conqueror", which was first released to the public in 1956. The film caused many controversies due to its critical flop and radioactive location used in St. George, Utah, that eventually led to Hughes buying up nearly every copy of the film he could, only to watch the film at home repeatedly for many nights in a row.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Charnay later bought Four Star, the film and television production company that produced "The Conqueror."


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes and Charnay's most published dealings were with a contested AirWest leveraged buyout. Charnay led the buyout group that involved Howard Hughes and their partners acquiring Air West. Hughes, Charnay, as well as three others, were indicted. The indictment, made by U.S. Attorney DeVoe Heaton, accused the group of conspiring to drive down the stock price of Air West in order to pressure company directors to sell to Hughes. The charges were dismissed after a judge had determined that the indictment had failed to allege an illegal action on the part of Hughes, Charnay, and all the other accused in the indictment. Thompson, the federal judge that made the decision to dismiss the charges called the indictment one of the worst claims that he had ever seen. The charges were filed again, a second time, by U.S. Attorney DeVoe Heaton's assistant, Dean Vernon. The Federal Judge ruled on November 13, 1974, and elaborated to say that the case suggested a "reprehensible misuse of the power of great wealth", but in his judicial opinion, "no crime had been committed." The aftermath of the Air West deal was later settled with the SEC by paying former stockholders for alleged losses from the sale of their investment in Air West stock. As noted above, Air West was subsequently renamed Hughes Airwest. During a long pause between the years of the dismissed charges against Hughes, Charnay, and their partners, Howard Hughes mysteriously died mid-flight while on the way to Houston from Acapulco. No further attempts were made to file any indictments after Hughes died.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1953, Hughes launched the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Miami, Florida, (currently located in Chevy Chase, Maryland) with the expressed goal of basic biomedical research, including trying to understand, in Hughes's words, the "genesis of life itself", due to his lifelong interest in science and technology. Hughes's first will, which he signed in 1925 at the age of 19, stipulated that a portion of his estate should be used to create a medical institute bearing his name. When a major battle with the IRS loomed ahead, Hughes gave all his stock in the Hughes Aircraft Company to the institute, thereby turning the aerospace and defense contractor into a for-profit entity of a fully tax-exempt charity. Hughes's internist, Verne Mason, who treated Hughes after his 1946 aircraft crash, was chairman of the institute's medical advisory committee. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute's new board of trustees sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for $5.2 billion, allowing the institute to grow dramatically.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1954, Hughes transferred Hughes Aircraft to the foundation, which paid Hughes Tool Co. $18,000,000 for the assets. The foundation leased the land from Hughes Tool Co., which then subleased it to Hughes Aircraft Corp. The difference in rent, $2,000,000 per year, became the foundation's working capital.


title: Howard Hughes

text: The deal was the topic of a protracted legal battle between Hughes and the Internal Revenue Service, which Hughes ultimately won. After his death in 1976, many thought that the balance of Hughes's estate would go to the institute, although it was ultimately divided among his cousins and other heirs, given the lack of a will to the contrary. The HHMI was the fourth largest private organization and one of the largest devoted to biological and medical research, with an endowment of $20.4 billion .


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1972, during the cold war era, Hughes was approached by the CIA through his longtime partner, David Charnay, to help secretly recover the Soviet submarine "K-129", which had sunk near Hawaii four years earlier. Hughes's involvement provided the CIA with a plausible cover story, conducting expensive civilian marine research at extreme depths and the mining of undersea manganese nodules. The recovery plan used the special-purpose salvage vessel "Glomar Explorer". In the summer of 1974, "Glomar Explorer" attempted to raise the Soviet vessel. However, during the recovery a mechanical failure in the ship's grapple caused half of the submarine to break off and fall to the ocean floor. This section is believed to have held many of the most sought-after items, including its code book and nuclear missiles. Two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodies of six Soviet submariners who were subsequently given formal burial at sea in a filmed ceremony. The operation, known as Project Azorian (but incorrectly referred to by the press as Project Jennifer), became public in February 1975 after secret documents were released, obtained by burglars of Hughes's headquarters in June 1974. Although he lent his name and his company's resources to the operation, Hughes and his companies had no operational involvement in the project. The "Glomar Explorer" was eventually acquired by Transocean and was sent to the scrap yard in 2015 during a large decline in oil prices.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes dated many famous women, including Joan Crawford, Billie Dove, Faith Domergue, Bette Davis, Yvonne De Carlo, Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr, Ginger Rogers, Janet Leigh, Pat Sheehan, Mamie Van Doren and Gene Tierney. He also proposed to Joan Fontaine several times, according to her autobiography "No Bed of Roses". Jean Harlow accompanied him to the premiere of "Hell's Angels", but Noah Dietrich wrote many years later that the relationship was strictly professional, as Hughes disliked Harlow personally. In his 1971 book, "Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes", Dietrich said that Hughes genuinely liked and respected Jane Russell, but never sought romantic involvement with her. According to Russell's autobiography, however, Hughes once tried to bed her after a party. Russell (who was married at the time) refused him, and Hughes promised it would never happen again. The two maintained a professional and private friendship for many years. Hughes remained good friends with Tierney who, after his failed attempts to seduce her, was quoted as saying "I don't think Howard could love anything that did not have a motor in it". Later, when Tierney's daughter Daria was born deaf and blind and with a severe learning disability because of Tierney's exposure to rubella during her pregnancy, Hughes saw to it that Daria received the best medical care and paid all expenses.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1933, Hughes made a purchase of a luxury steam yacht named the "Rover", which was previously owned by Scottish shipping magnate Lord Inchcape. "I have never seen the "Rover" but bought it on the blueprints, photographs and the reports of Lloyd's surveyors. My experience is that the English are the most honest race in the world." Hughes renamed the yacht "Southern Cross" and later sold her to Swedish entrepreneur Axel Wenner-Gren.


title: Howard Hughes

text: On July 11, 1936, Hughes struck and killed a pedestrian named Gabriel S. Meyer with his car at the corner of 3rd Street and Lorraine in Los Angeles. After the crash, Hughes was taken to the hospital and certified as sober, but an attending doctor made a note that Hughes had been drinking. A witness to the crash told police that Hughes was driving erratically and too fast and that Meyer had been standing in the safety zone of a streetcar stop. Hughes was booked on suspicion of negligent homicide and held overnight in jail until his attorney, Neil S. McCarthy, obtained a writ of "habeas corpus" for his release pending a coroner's inquest. By the time of the coroner's inquiry, however, the witness had changed his story and claimed that Meyer had moved directly in front of Hughes's car. Nancy Bayly (Watts), who was in the car with Hughes at the time of the crash, corroborated this version of the story. On July 16, 1936, Hughes was held blameless by a coroner's jury at the inquest into Meyer's death. Hughes told reporters outside the inquiry, "I was driving slowly and a man stepped out of the darkness in front of me".


title: Howard Hughes

text: On January 12, 1957, Hughes married actress Jean Peters at a small hotel in Tonopah, Nevada. The couple met in the 1940s, before Peters became a film actress. They had a highly publicized romance in 1947 and there was talk of marriage, but she said she could not combine it with her career. Some later claimed that Peters was "the only woman [Hughes] ever loved", and he reportedly had his security officers follow her everywhere even when they were not in a relationship. Such reports were confirmed by actor Max Showalter, who became a close friend of Peters while shooting "Niagara" (1953). Showalter told an interviewer that because he frequently met with Peters, Hughes's men threatened to ruin his career if he did not leave her alone.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Shortly before the 1960 Presidential election, Richard Nixon was alarmed when it was revealed that his brother, Donald, received a $205,000 loan from Hughes. It has long been speculated that Nixon's drive to learn what the Democrats were planning in 1972 was based in part on his belief that the Democrats knew about a later bribe that his friend Bebe Rebozo had received from Hughes after Nixon took office.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In late 1971, Donald Nixon was collecting intelligence for his brother in preparation for the upcoming presidential election. One of his sources was John H. Meier, a former business adviser of Hughes who had also worked with Democratic National Committee Chairman Larry O'Brien.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Meier, in collaboration with former Vice President Hubert Humphrey and others, wanted to feed misinformation to the Nixon campaign. Meier told Donald that he was sure the Democrats would win the election because Larry O'Brien had a great deal of information on Richard Nixon's illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released; O'Brien did not actually have any such information, but Meier wanted Nixon to think that he did. Donald told his brother that O'Brien was in possession of damaging Hughes information that could destroy his campaign. Terry Lenzner, who was the chief investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee, speculates that it was Nixon's desire to know what O'Brien knew about Nixon's dealings with Hughes that may have partially motivated the Watergate break-in.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Dietrich wrote that Hughes always ate the same thing for dinner; a New York strip steak cooked medium rare, dinner salad, and peas, but only the smaller ones, pushing the larger ones aside. For breakfast, he wanted his eggs cooked the way his family cook, Lily, made them. Hughes had a "phobia about germs", and "his passion for secrecy became a mania."


title: Howard Hughes

text: While directing "The Outlaw", Hughes became fixated on a small flaw in one of Jane Russell's blouses, claiming that the fabric bunched up along a seam and gave the appearance of two nipples on each breast. He wrote a detailed memorandum to the crew on how to fix the problem. Richard Fleischer, who directed "His Kind of Woman" with Hughes as executive producer, wrote at length in his autobiography about the difficulty of dealing with the tycoon. In his book "Just Tell Me When to Cry", Fleischer explained that Hughes was fixated on trivial details and was alternately indecisive and obstinate. He also revealed that Hughes's unpredictable mood swings made him wonder if the film would ever be completed.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1958, Hughes told his aides that he wanted to screen some movies at a film studio near his home. He stayed in the studio's darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving. He ate only chocolate bars and chicken and drank only milk, and was surrounded by dozens of boxes of Kleenex that he continuously stacked and re-arranged. He wrote detailed memos to his aides giving them explicit instructions neither to look at him nor speak to him unless spoken to. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continuously watching movies. When he finally emerged in the summer of 1958, his hygiene was terrible. He had neither bathed nor cut his hair and nails for weeks; this may have been due to allodynia, which results in a pain response to stimuli that would normally not cause pain.


title: Howard Hughes

text: After the screening room incident, Hughes moved into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel where he also rented rooms for his aides, his wife, and numerous girlfriends. He would sit naked in his bedroom with a pink hotel napkin placed over his genitals, watching movies. This may have been because Hughes found the touch of clothing painful due to allodynia. He may have watched movies to distract himself from his pain—a common practice among patients with intractable pain, especially those who do not receive adequate treatment. In one year, he spent an estimated $11 million at the hotel.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes began purchasing restaurant chains and four-star hotels that had been founded within the state of Texas. This included, if for only a short period, many unknown franchises currently out of business. He placed ownership of the restaurants with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and all licenses were resold shortly after.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Another time, he became obsessed with the 1968 film "Ice Station Zebra", and had it run on a continuous loop in his home. According to his aides, he watched it 150 times. Feeling guilty about the failure of his film "The Conqueror", a commercial and critical flop, he bought every copy of the film for $12 million, watching the film on repeat. Paramount Pictures acquired the rights of the film in 1979, three years after his death.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes insisted on using tissues to pick up objects to insulate himself from germs. He would also notice dust, stains, or other imperfections on people's clothes and demand that they take care of them. Once one of the most visible men in America, Hughes ultimately vanished from public view, although tabloids continued to follow rumors of his behavior and whereabouts. He was reported to be terminally ill, mentally unstable, or even dead.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Injuries from numerous aircraft crashes caused Hughes to spend much of his later life in pain, and he eventually became addicted to codeine, which he injected intramuscularly. He had his hair cut and nails trimmed only once a year, likely due to the pain caused by the RSD/CRPS, which was caused by the plane crashes. He also stored his urine in bottles.


title: Howard Hughes

text: The wealthy and aging Hughes, accompanied by his entourage of personal aides, began moving from one hotel to another, always taking up residence in the top floor penthouse. In the last ten years of his life, 1966 to 1976, Hughes lived in hotels in many cities—including Beverly Hills, Boston, Las Vegas, Nassau, Freeport and Vancouver.


title: Howard Hughes

text: On November 24, 1966 (Thanksgiving Day), Hughes arrived in Las Vegas by railroad car and moved into the Desert Inn. Because he refused to leave the hotel and to avoid further conflicts with the owners, Hughes bought the Desert Inn in early 1967. The hotel's eighth floor became the nerve center of Hughes's empire and the ninth-floor penthouse became his personal residence. Between 1966 and 1968, he bought several other hotel-casinos, including the Castaways, New Frontier, the Landmark Hotel and Casino, and the Sands. He bought the small Silver Slipper casino for the sole purpose of moving its trademark neon silver slipper which was visible from his bedroom, and had apparently kept him awake at night.


title: Howard Hughes

text: After Hughes left the Desert Inn, hotel employees discovered that his drapes had not been opened during the time he lived there and had rotted through.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes wanted to change the image of Las Vegas to something more glamorous. He wrote in a memo to an aide, "I like to think of Las Vegas in terms of a well-dressed man in a dinner jacket and a beautifully jeweled and furred female getting out of an expensive car." Hughes bought several local television stations (including KLAS-TV).


title: Howard Hughes

text: Eventually the brain trauma from Hughes's previous accidents, the effects of neurosyphilis diagnosed in 1932 and (undiagnosed) obsessive-compulsive disorder considerably affected his decision-making. A small panel, unofficially dubbed "The Mormon Mafia" because of the many Latter-day Saints on the committee, was led by Frank William Gay and originally served Hughes's "secret police" headquartered at 7000 Romaine. Over the next two decades, however, this group oversaw and controlled considerable business holdings, with the CIA anointing Gay while awarding a contract to the Hughes corporation to acquire sensitive information on a sunken Russian submarine. In addition to supervising day-to-day business operations and Hughes's health, they also went to great pains to satisfy Hughes's every whim. For example, Hughes once became fond of Baskin-Robbins's banana nut ice cream, so his aides sought to secure a bulk shipment for him, only to discover that Baskin-Robbins had discontinued the flavor. They put in a request for the smallest amount the company could provide for a special order, 350 gallons (1,300 L), and had it shipped from Los Angeles. A few days after the order arrived, Hughes announced he was tired of banana nut and wanted only French vanilla ice cream. The Desert Inn ended up distributing free banana nut ice cream to casino customers for a year. In a 1996 interview, ex–Howard Hughes Chief of Nevada Operations Robert Maheu said, "There is a rumor that there is still some banana nut ice cream left in the freezer. It is most likely true."


title: Howard Hughes

text: As an owner of several major Las Vegas businesses, Hughes wielded much political and economic influence in Nevada and elsewhere. During the 1960s and early 1970s, he disapproved of underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. Hughes was concerned about the risk from residual nuclear radiation and attempted to halt the tests. When the tests finally went through despite Hughes's efforts, the detonations were powerful enough that the entire hotel in which he was living trembled from the shock waves. In two separate, last-ditch maneuvers, Hughes instructed his representatives to offer bribes of $1m to both Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1970, Jean Peters filed for divorce. The two had not lived together for many years. Peters requested a lifetime alimony payment of $70,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, and waived all claims to Hughes's estate. Hughes offered her a settlement of over a million dollars, but she declined it. Hughes did not insist on a confidentiality agreement from Peters as a condition of the divorce. Aides reported that Hughes never spoke ill of her. She refused to discuss her life with Hughes and declined several lucrative offers from publishers and biographers. Peters would state only that she had not seen Hughes for several years before their divorce and had dealt with him only by phone.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes was living in the Intercontinental Hotel near Lake Managua in Nicaragua, seeking privacy and security, when a magnitude 6.5 earthquake damaged Managua in December 1972. As a precaution, Hughes moved to a rather large tent facing the hotel; after a few days, he moved to the Nicaraguan National Palace and stayed there as a guest of Anastasio Somoza Debayle before leaving for Florida on a private jet the following day. He subsequently moved into the penthouse at the Xanadu Princess Resort on Grand Bahama Island, which he had recently purchased. He lived almost exclusively in the penthouse of the Xanadu Beach Resort & Marina for the last four years of his life.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1972, author Clifford Irving caused a media sensation when he claimed he had co-written an authorized Hughes autobiography. Irving claimed he and Hughes had corresponded through the United States mail, and offered as proof handwritten notes allegedly sent by Hughes. Publisher McGraw-Hill, Inc. was duped into believing the manuscript was authentic. Hughes was so reclusive that he did not immediately publicly refute Irving's statement, leading many to believe that Irving's book was genuine. However, before the book's publication, Hughes finally denounced Irving in a teleconference attended by reporters Hughes knew personally: James Bacon of the Hearst papers, Marin Miles of the "Los Angeles Times", Vernon Scott of UPI, Roy Neal of NBC News, Gene Handsaker of AP, Wayne Thomas of the "Chicago Tribune", and Gladwin Hill of the "New York Times".


title: Howard Hughes

text: The entire hoax finally unraveled. The United States Postal Inspection Service got a subpoena to force Irving to turn over samples of his handwriting. The USPS investigation led to Irving's indictment and subsequent conviction for using the postal service to commit fraud. He was incarcerated for 17 months. In 1974, the Orson Welles film "F for Fake" included a section on the Hughes autobiography hoax, leaving a question open as to whether it was actually Hughes who took part in the teleconference (since so few people had actually heard or seen him in recent years). In 1977, "The Hoax" by Clifford Irving was published in the United Kingdom, telling his story of these events. The 2006 film "The Hoax", starring Richard Gere, is also based on these events.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes is reported to have died on April 5, 1976, at 1:27 p.m. on board an aircraft, Learjet 24B N855W, owned by Robert Graf and piloted by Jeff Abrams. He was en route from his penthouse at the Acapulco Princess Hotel (now the Fairmont Acapulco Princess) in Mexico to the Methodist Hospital in Houston.


title: Howard Hughes

text: His reclusiveness and possibly his drug use made him practically unrecognizable. His hair, beard, fingernails, and toenails were long—his tall frame now weighed barely , and the FBI had to use fingerprints to conclusively identify the body. Howard Hughes's alias, John T. Conover, was used when his body arrived at a morgue in Houston on the day of his death.


title: Howard Hughes

text: An autopsy recorded kidney failure as the cause of death. In an eighteen-month study investigating Hughes's drug abuse for the estate, it was found "someone administered a deadly injection of the painkiller to this comatose man ... obviously needlessly and almost certainly fatal". He suffered from malnutrition and was covered in bedsores. While his kidneys were damaged, his other internal organs, including his brain, which had no visible damage or illnesses, were deemed perfectly healthy. X-rays revealed five broken-off hypodermic needles in the flesh of his arms. To inject codeine into his muscles, Hughes had used glass syringes with metal needles that easily became detached.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Following his death, Hughes was subject to several widely rebuked conspiracy theories that he had faked his own death. A notable allegation came from retired Major General Mark Musick, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, who claimed Hughes went on to live under an assumed identity, dying on November 15, 2001, in Troy, Alabama.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Approximately three weeks after Hughes's death, a handwritten will was found on the desk of an official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah. The so-called "Mormon Will" gave $1.56 billion to various charitable organizations (including $625 million to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute), nearly $470 million to the upper management in Hughes's companies and to his aides, $156 million to first cousin William Lummis, and $156 million split equally between his two ex-wives Ella Rice and Jean Peters.


title: Howard Hughes

text: A further $156 million was endowed to a gas station owner, Melvin Dummar, who told reporters that in 1967, he found a disheveled and dirty man lying along U.S. Route 95, just north of Las Vegas. The man asked for a ride to Vegas. Dropping him off at the Sands Hotel, Dummar said the man told him that he was Hughes. Dummar later claimed that days after Hughes's death a "mysterious man" appeared at his gas station, leaving an envelope containing the will on his desk. Unsure if the will was genuine and unsure of what to do, Dummar left the will at the LDS Church office. In 1978, a Nevada court ruled the Mormon Will a forgery and officially declared that Hughes had died intestate (without a valid will). Dummar's story was later adapted into Jonathan Demme's film "Melvin and Howard" in 1980.


title: Howard Hughes

text: Hughes's $2.5 billion estate was eventually split in 1983 among 22 cousins, including William Lummis, who serves as a trustee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Hughes Aircraft was owned by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which sold it to General Motors in 1985 for $5.2 billion. The court rejected suits by the states of California and Texas that claimed they were owed inheritance tax.


title: Howard Hughes

text: In 1984, Hughes's estate paid an undisclosed amount to Terry Moore, who claimed she and Hughes had secretly married on a yacht in international waters off Mexico in 1949 and never divorced. Moore never produced proof of a marriage, but her book, "The Beauty and the Billionaire," became a bestseller.


title: Howard Hughes

text: The moving image collection of Howard Hughes is held at the Academy Film Archive. The collection consists of over 200 items including 35mm and 16mm elements of feature films, documentaries, and television programs made or accumulated by Hughes.


title: Mandy Moore

text: Amanda Leigh Moore (born April 10, 1984) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She rose to fame with her debut single, "Candy", which peaked at number 41 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Her debut studio album, "So Real" (1999), received a platinum certification from the RIAA. The title single from her reissue of "So Real", "I Wanna Be With You" (2000), became Moore's first top 40 song in the US, peaking at number 24 on the Hot 100. Moore subsequently released the studio albums "Mandy Moore" (2001), "Coverage" (2003), "Wild Hope" (2007), "Amanda Leigh" (2009), "Silver Landings" (2020), and "In Real Life" (2022). Overall Moore has sold 2.7 million albums in the US according to Billboard.


title: Mandy Moore

text: Moore made her feature film debut in 2001, with a minor voice role in the comedy film "Dr. Dolittle 2", before starring as Lana Thomas in the comedy film "The Princess Diaries". She received recognition for her starring role as Jamie Sullivan in the romantic drama film "A Walk to Remember" (2002), and starred in the films "Chasing Liberty" (2004), "Saved!" (2004), "Racing Stripes" (2005), "Because I Said So" (2007), "License to Wed" (2007), "Love, Wedding, Marriage" (2011), "47 Meters Down" (2017), "The Darkest Minds" (2018), and "Midway" (2019). Moore also voiced Princess Rapunzel in the Disney animated fantasy musical comedy film "Tangled" (2010) and her later appearances in Disney media.


title: Mandy Moore

text: From 2016–2022, Moore starred as Rebecca Pearson in the NBC family drama series "This Is Us". For her performance, she won two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. In 2019, Moore was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Mandy Moore

text: Moore was born on April 10, 1984, in Nashua, New Hampshire, to Stacy (née Friedman), a former news reporter who once worked for the "Orlando Sentinel", and Donald Moore, a pilot for American Airlines. Moore was raised Catholic, but stopped practicing by 2004 and has since developed a "hotchpotch of things" that she believes. Moore is of Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, Scottish and Irish descent. She has an older brother, Scott, and a younger brother, Kyle. When Moore was two months old, she and her family moved to Longwood, Florida, outside of Orlando, because of her father's job. From 1998 to 1999, Moore went to the Bishop Moore Catholic High School in Orlando.


title: Mandy Moore

text: Moore became interested in singing and acting at a young age, and called her British maternal grandmother, Eileen Friedman, a professional ballerina in London, one of her inspirations. Moore said "My parents thought it was just a phase I'd grow out of. But I stuck to it and begged them for acting lessons, for voice lessons."


title: Mandy Moore

text: Moore began acting in lead roles in a number of local productions and performing the national anthem at a number of events in Orlando. She was only twelve years old when she went to the Stagedoor Manor performing arts camp, where other celebrities including actress Natalie Portman had attended. Production director Konnie Kittrell said about Moore "She was a quiet, sweet girl", and said that she earned a number of solos, but "She wasn't a spotlight seeker."