Latest news with #ManOfSteel
Geek Tyrant
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
James Gunn Announces Global SUPERMAN Tour With New Promo and David Corenswet Tells His Fun Casting Story — GeekTyrant
James Gunn is taking Superman on the road. With anticipation building for the debut of the new DCU, Gunn just announced an international 'World Tour' for Superman , sharing the news through a new promo video posted on his X and Instagram accounts. The short teaser promotes the global fan events and premieres that will roll out across the world in the weeks leading up to the movie's release. Alongside the announcement came a brand-new poster featuring David Corenswet's Man of Steel front and center, standing in the same classic pose we first saw in the teaser poster. The dates included on the image show which countries will host stops along the tour. No full itinerary just yet, but expect major cities and fan celebrations as Gunn and the cast go all in on getting people hyped. We're also getting a new featurette offering a glimpse at Corenswet's transformation into Superman including some behind-the-scenes footage and fresh shots from the film. There's also a tight little preview that gives fans a sense of the tone Gunn is going for and the physical and emotional journey Corenswet went through to step into the red boots. Corenswet recently shared a few personal moments about landing the role in an interview with Wonderland, and they're pretty great. 'I stepped away and answered the phone, and [Superman's director] James Gunn said, 'David, it's James Gunn.' And I said, 'Can you prove that?' Because I was in a suspicious mood.' He went on to say: 'I was able to tell my mom, aunt, uncle, sister, and wife before the news was made public. The last person I got to tell, a few hours after it was available publicly, was my high school theatre teacher, who was the one to convince me to audition for The Juilliard School and is a very close friend. 'He texted back, 'I'm doing a radio show for this theatre thing I'm involved with in Philly. I'll call you back.'' Corenswet continued: 'So, when he was done, I called him and asked, 'How's it going?' He replied, 'Oh, it's great! I was talking about this and that David, you know how it is…' I then said, 'Oh, did you tell them what it feels like to have your high school theatre student playing the next Superman?' 'And the phone just went dead. Then he exclaimed—I don't really remember what he said, but it was a really great phone call.' Superman will tell the story of 'Superman's journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas. 'He is the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way, guided by human kindness in a world that sees kindness as old-fashioned. 'It's set in a world very different from ours and far removed from the DCEU. Heroes have been around for ages, and we'll see how it affected this world's history and has shaped the DCU." It will be the first official film in the new DC Universe timeline, kicking off Chapter One: Gods and Monsters, a rollout that will eventually include five films and five shows, among them Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and The Brave and the Bold , Clayface , Swamp Thing , and more. The cast of Superman also includes Nicholas Hoult as Lex, and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois, Skyler Gisondo as Clark's best pal, Jimmy Olsen; Wendell Pierce as The Daily Planet's Perry White; Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl; Isabela Merced as Kendra Saunders, aka Hawkgirl; and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner. It also stars Sean Gunn as Maxwell Lord; Edi Gathegi as Michael Holt, aka Mister Terrific; Maria Gabriela de Faria as Angela Spica, aka The Engineer; Sara Sampan as Eve Teschmacher; Anthony Carrigan as Rex Mason, aka Metamorphosis; Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr.; Neva Howell as Martha Kent; and Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathan Kent. The movie is scheduled for a theatrical release on July 11, 2025.
Japan Times
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
AI resurrecting the dead threatens our grasp on reality
A cruel twist of fate led Jason Gowin to make a novel parenting decision. Days after his wife gave birth to their twin boys in 2019, she had a stroke. The doctors gave her two or three years to live. Gowin and his oldest son were devastated, but worse was to come. Months later, Gowin found out he had stomach cancer. Facing the prospect of leaving three children without parents, he got an idea from watching the Superman movie "Man Of Steel," where the caped hero walks into the Fortress of Solitude and talks to a simulation of his father. There was something comforting about that possibility, of he and his wife leaving behind talking replicas of themselves for their children. "I thought, I bet someone has already come up with this,' he remembers. A Google search led Gowin, a 47-year-old actor in Pennsylvania, to about 10 different companies offering to train AI models on personal data — text messages, videos and other digital traces — to create virtual likenesses of people. He signed up as a beta tester with a provider called "You, Only Virtual,' and today his 9-year-old son occasionally talks to a chatbot they call Robo Dad, an AI simulation that sounds eerily like Gowin. Recently, when his wife mentioned something about putting the dishes away, Robo Dad made the same joke moments after Gowan himself did. Artificial intelligence is beginning to offer a startling new proposition: the chance to keep talking to the dead. While only a small subset of people have tried so-called grief tech tools so far, the technology heralds a profound and disturbing shift in how we process loss. The price of the comfort from these tools could be a further erosion of our collective grip on what's real and what isn't. Despite AI's explosive growth, digital resurrections remain rare. "You, Only Virtual' has about 1,000 users, according to Chief Executive Officer Justin Harrison. A similar firm called "Project December' reports 3,664 people have tried its service. A few thousand in China have "digitally revived' their loved ones through an AI firm called "Super Brain,' using as little as 30 seconds of audiovisual data. These numbers pale against ChatGPT's 300 million weekly users. But as AI becomes cheaper and more sophisticated, these early adopters may signal a change in how we deal with death. The idea isn't totally unprecedented. Millions already seek companionship from chatbots like Replika, Kindroid and drawn by one of generative AI's most surprising capabilities: simulated empathy. These interactions have proven so emotionally compelling that users have fallen in love with their AI companions or, in extreme cases, allegedly been driven to suicide. Others have tried speaking to digital simulations of their older selves to help plan for their future, with more than 60,000 people now using one such tool called Future You. It's easy to see the allure when so much of our communication today is text-based and AI has become so fluent. If Gowin's story doesn't move you, ask yourself: Would you chat with a digitized version of a deceased friend or relative if it was trained on their speech? I would struggle to resist the opportunity. But using generative AI to process grief also encroaches on something inviolate in our values as humans. It's not just the potential of muddying our memories with those of a "fake' loved one: Did Grandma really say she loved pumpkin pie or just her avatar? The risks include consent: What if Grandma would have hated being recreated in this way? And it's not just about impermanence or the idea that, when we die, we leave space for the next generation to fill the public discourse with their own voices. The core danger is how grief tech could accelerate our growing disconnect from the present, a phenomenon already fueled by social media's quantified metrics of human worth and the rise of fake news and echo chambers. Now comes an assault on our appreciation of finality, as technology encroaches on yet another corner of our most personal experiences. Grief tech betrays "our fundamental commitment to reality,' says Nathan Mladin, a senior researcher at Theos, a London-based think tank. He argues that while humans have always kept relics of the dead — like photos and locks of hair — AI simulations cross an existential boundary because they're interactive and underpinned by data from across the internet. In a 2024 study, Mladin also warned about the exploitation of grieving people for profit. "Some people go on these apps for a while, but others stay hooked and continue interacting like that person is still there.' While grief tech remains fringe, its normalization seems plausible. That means it will need guardrails, like temporal limits that make AI replicas fade over time, mirroring natural grief. They could also benefit from being integrated with human counselors to keep an eye out for unhealthy dependency. Gowin is grappling with these boundaries. Robo Dad can't discuss sex, but questions for his family remain over how it will handle future, big-subject conversations about relationships and alcohol or what happens if his son becomes too attached to the system. For now, Robo Dad is good enough for Gowin, even if it does lead to intermingling recollections of the real and digital dad. "Honestly, human memory is so patchy anyway,' he says. "The important thing to me is that I know that my AI model has got my essence at its core.' But preserving someone's essence also risks something fundamental. The Japanese concept of mono no aware suggests that things are beautiful — like cherry blossoms that bloom for just one week each year — precisely because they don't last forever. Stretching out our presence artificially means we don't just lose our appreciation for impermanence, but something even more essential: our collective anchor to what's real. In trying to soften the edges of death through technology, we may gradually weaken our ability to face life itself. [bio]Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. She is author of "Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World.'[bio]
Gulf Today
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
AI resurrecting the dead threatens our grasp on reality
Tribune News Service A cruel twist of fate led Jason Gowin to make a novel parenting decision. Days after his wife gave birth to their twin boys in 2019, she had a stroke. The doctors gave her two or three years to live. Gowin and his oldest son were devastated, but worse was to come. Months later, Gowin found out he had stomach cancer. Facing the prospect of leaving three children without parents, he got an idea from watching the Superman movie Man Of Steel, where the caped hero walks into the Fortress of Solitude and talks to a simulation of his father. There was something comforting about that possibility, of he and his wife leaving behind talking replicas of themselves for their children. 'I thought, I bet someone has already come up with this,' he remembers. A Google search led Gowin, a 47-year-old actor in Pennsylvania, to about 10 different companies offering to train AI models on personal data — text messages, videos and other digital traces — to create virtual likenesses of people. He signed up as a beta tester with a provider called 'You, Only Virtual,' and today his nine-year-old son occasionally talks to a chatbot they call Robo Dad, an AI simulation that sounds eerily like Gowin. Recently, when his wife mentioned something about putting the dishes away, Robo Dad made the same joke moments after Gowan himself did. Artificial intelligence is beginning to offer a startling new proposition: the chance to keep talking to the dead. While only a small subset of people have tried so-called grief tech tools so far, the technology heralds a profound and disturbing shift in how we process loss. The price of the comfort from these tools could be a further erosion of our collective grip on what's real, and what isn't. Despite AI's explosive growth, digital resurrections remain rare. 'You, Only Virtual' has about 1,000 users, according to Chief Executive Officer Justin Harrison. A similar firm called 'Project December' reports 3,664 people have tried its service. A few thousand in China have 'digitally revived' their loved ones through an AI firm called 'Super Brain,' using as little as 30 seconds of audiovisual data. These numbers pale against ChatGPT's 300 million weekly users. But as AI becomes cheaper and more sophisticated, these early adopters may signal a change in how we deal with death. The idea isn't totally unprecedented. Millions already seek companionship from chatbots like Replika, Kindroid and drawn by one of generative AI's most surprising capabilities: simulated empathy. These interactions have proven so emotionally compelling that users have fallen in love with their AI companions or, in extreme cases, allegedly been driven to suicide. Others have tried speaking to digital simulations of their older selves to help plan for their future, with more than 60,000 people now using one such tool called Future You. It's easy to see the allure when so much of our communication today is text-based, and AI has become so fluent. If Gowin's story doesn't move you, ask yourself: Would you chat with a digitized version of a deceased friend or relative if it was trained on their speech? I would struggle to resist the opportunity. But using generative AI to process grief also encroaches on something inviolate in our values as humans. It's not just the potential of muddying our memories with those of a 'fake' loved one: Did Grandma really say she loved pumpkin pie, or just her avatar? The risks include consent: What if Grandma would have hated being recreated in this way? And it's not just about impermanence or the idea that, when we die, we leave space for the next generation to fill the public discourse with their own voices. The core danger is how grief tech could accelerate our growing disconnect from the present, a phenomenon already fueled by social media's quantified metrics of human worth and the rise of fake news and echo chambers. Now comes an assault on our appreciation of finality, as technology encroaches on yet another corner of our most personal experiences. Grief tech betrays 'our fundamental commitment to reality,' says Nathan Mladin, a senior researcher at Theos, a London-based think tank. He argues that while humans have always kept relics of the dead — like photos and locks of hair — AI simulations cross an existential boundary because they're interactive, and underpinned by data from across the internet. In a 2024 study, Mladin also warned about the exploitation of grieving people for profit. 'Some people go on these apps for a while, but others stay hooked and continue interacting like that person is still there.' While grief tech remains fringe, its normalisation seems plausible. That means it will need guardrails, like temporal limits that make AI replicas fade over time, mirroring natural grief. They could also benefit from being integrated with human counselors to keep an eye out for unhealthy dependency. Gowin is grappling with these boundaries. Robo Dad can't discuss controversial topic, but questions for his family remain over how it will handle future, big-subject conversations about relationships and alcohol, or what happens if his son becomes too attached to the system. For now, Robo Dad is good enough for Gowin, even if it does lead to intermingling recollections of the real and digital dad. 'Honestly, human memory is so patchy anyway,' he says. 'The important thing to me is that I know that my AI model has got my essence at its core.' But preserving someone's essence also risks something fundamental. The Japanese concept of 'mono no aware' suggests that things are beautiful — like cherry blossoms that bloom for just one week each year — precisely because they don't last forever. Stretching out our presence artificially means we don't just lose our appreciation for impermanence, but something even more essential: our collective anchor to what's real. In trying to soften the edges of death through technology, we may gradually weaken our ability to face life itself.
