But not for the usual reasons. "As growing audiences began to avidly consume Tamil (Kollywood), Telugu (Tollywood), Malayalam, Kannad (Sandalwood) and Marathi-language cinema in their homes and post widely about it on social media," Bollywood conventions seemed stale. - The Guardian (UK)
Well yeah: "Women made up 66 percent of the audience, according to Warner Bros., the studio behind the $35 million film, with an unusually large 52 percent of ticket buyers under the age of 25." - The New York Times
The film, Los Reyes del Mundo (The Kings of the World in English), "follows five young men from Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city, trying to get ahead in life." - Bloomberg (AP)
Did all of the rumors, speculation, reports of on-set arguments, and reports of affairs fuel sales for Don't Worry, Darling? You bet: "It’s been a juicy backbiting tabloid celebrity saga in which nobody actually did anything too wrong." - Variety
The 91-year-old actor, who has played the voice of the terrifying villain for decades, apparently "signed over the rights to his archival voice work, allowing the Ukrainian startup Respeecher to leverage AI technology and recreate the sound of his voice." - The Verge
"Bizarro" creator Dan Piraro says, "'Seeing the dominoes begin to fall at such an accelerated pace is scary,' ... noting that he still depends on the income he receives from print newspapers. 'I’ll now need to put more energy into generating income elsewhere.'" - Washington Post
"I was privy to the click maps provided by newsletter services like Mailchimp; I added up likes and comments and shares and divided them by the number of literal eyeballs sliding over a post and thought I’d go crazy as I chased after “key performance indicators,” otherwise known as KPIs." - The Baffler
"It's difficult to cement a medium's sense of identity, culture, and meaning if hardly anybody is talking about the same thing — and that may well have material ramifications for the business in the long run." - New York Magazine
"Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, TikTok announced Wednesday it is banning of campaign fundraising on its platform. It also announced new policies for political accounts, including 'mandatory verification.'" - CBS News
It shouldn’t shock us that many of them had uncomfortable and even traumatic experiences. Memoirs by Sarah Polley and Jennette McCurd force us to confront why we love to see child stars, and what our appetite for cute white kids says about us. - The Conversation
Wading through digital sewage is the upfront cost of using these sites. Less obviously, we pay with our attention and creativity, freely providing the content that expands the fortunes of their founders. And yet social media remains an alluring prospect, especially for the lonely. - The Guardian
"The company, which expects to lose roughly $10 million again this year, needs to build another revenue stream to continue on its path to profitability, (said) CEO Nicholas Thompson. ... The vast majority (around 90%) of The Atlantic's revenue currently comes from advertising and subscriptions." - Axios
"The ceremony will return to the Beverly Hilton in time for its 80th anniversary on Tuesday, Jan. 10." (Does this mean the hosts and presenters will have to drop all the dirty jokes and naughty language?) - Variety
"While the streamers' appetite for documentary content has created a new golden age for nonfiction filmmaking, it's come with transformations that many find worrying: Doc subjects are being paid, timelines are getting scrunched, and the line between premium nonfiction and reality television is blurring." - The Hollywood Reporter
Pressing Don’t Recommend Channel would stop only 43 percent of unwanted video recommendations while the Dislike button stopped only 12 percent of recommendations users did not like. - Wired
