Latest news with #RobertZemeckis'
7NEWS
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
What lies beneath this real-life horror story
The 2000 Hollywood thriller What Lies Beneath might not have been Robert Zemeckis' finest work — a few cheap jump scares, quickly forgotten. But the real horror playing out beneath South Australia's normally pristine waters is far from fiction. It's truly terrifying. Aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, it's hard to recall a crisis in our state of this scale and gravity. A kilometres-long stretch of coastline is blanketed in thick brown foam and sludge. Entire beaches — usually teeming with swimmers, walkers, frolicking dogs and kids building sandcastles — now sit empty (because, let's face it, most of us are avoiding them like the plague). But dive deeper and the true devastation emerges. Below the surface, marine life is suffocating. Choking. Dying. Our ocean has become an underwater graveyard. Marine ecosystems so devastated, any sign of recovery seems to be drifting further away by the day. The images pouring into the Channel 7 newsroom in Adelaide are nothing short of heartbreaking. Our cameras are documenting the carnage and South Australians are sending us more every single day. Photos and videos of fish, dolphins, rays, crabs, penguins and even sharks washed up lifeless on our shores. And don't get me started on that poor fur seal found slumped gasping for air on the footpath in Brighton. Was it was trying to flee rough seas or was it another casualty of the algal bloom? We're told it's a natural event. We know it's a disaster. But somehow, in this case, one plus one doesn't equal two. Canberra still refuses to formally declare this crisis a natural disaster. The mind boggles. The blood boils and what about the South Australians whose livelihoods depend on the ocean? Our tourism operators, commercial fishers, fishmongers. They're not just watching the environment collapse, they're feeling the financial impact. And they're hurting. Will it get worse? Will our beaches be off-limits this summer? Can we safely eat what's left of the catch? Will government inaction today haunt us tomorrow? Past mismanagement, present crisis and a community demanding answers. What lies beneath? The truth, still buried.
Los Angeles Times
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘How to Train Your Dragon' remake soars at the box office as family films dominate
Universal Pictures' 'How To Train Your Dragon' soared over the competition this weekend, as family-friendly films continued their dominance at the box office. The live-action adaptation of the animated franchise from DreamWorks Animation grossed $83.7 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates. It beat out fellow live-action remake 'Lilo & Stitch' from Walt Disney Co., which hauled in $15 million over the weekend for a cumulative total of $366 million so far after 24 days. Expectations were high for Universal film, which revives a profitable franchise for the studio. The original animated movie was released in 2010 and grossed nearly $495 million in global box office revenue. A sequel soon followed in 2014 and brought in more than $621 million worldwide. The most recent film in the trilogy, 'How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World' came out in 2019 and made almost $540 million globally. 'How to Train Your Dragon' comes at an opportune time for family films. After a lackluster first quarter at the box office, theater attendance has been turbocharged, at least in part by the success of kid-friendly movies such as Warner Bros. Pictures 'A Minecraft Movie' and Disney's 'Lilo & Stitch.' Though family audiences were initially slow to return after the pandemic, movies that appeal to those theatergoers have proven to be box office juggernauts. Last summer, Disney and Pixar's 'Inside Out 2' and Universal and Illumination Entertainment's 'Despicable Me 4' drove theater revenues at a time when the industry was collectively wringing its hands after a slow Memorial Day weekend. This summer, 'How to Train Your Dragon' and 'Lilo & Stitch' are demonstrating the power of the hybrid film, which combines live actors with computer-animated creatures — a strategy that has proved valuable, said David A. Gross, who writes movie industry newsletter FranchiseRe. The trend began back in 1988 with Robert Zemeckis' 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit,' but has seen recent success with films like Paramount's 'Sonic the Hedgehog' franchise and StudioCanal's 'Paddington' movies. 'It's just a logical step in computer filmmaking,' Gross said. 'It's a very powerful storytelling tool.'
