Hollywood is banking on Thanksgiving weekend to rekindle the year’s flagging box office. With the highly anticipated releases of Wicked, Gladiator II, and Moana 2, studios are hoping to emulate some of the buzz that drove the Barbenheimer phenomenon this summer, though the odds of replicating that unique synergy seem slim. As Fandango’s director of movie analytics, Shawn Robbins, observes: “It won’t happen in the same way, but the conversation around Wicked and Gladiator is reminiscent of Barbie and Oppeheimer. [...]

The American Film Market (AFM) has embarked on a new journey. After 43 years in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, AFM is now hosted at Las Vegas’ Palms Casino Resort from November 5-10. This change redefines the event: exhibitor offices, conference rooms, panels, Location Expo, and screenings are all centralized in one location, making shuttles a thing of the past. The Brenden Theatres Las Vegas 14, complete with IMAX, is right inside the Palms, a highlight of the resort’s $600 [...]

Take-Two Interactive, known for producing popular video games like “Grand Theft Auto,” has sold its game development studio, Private Division, which created “Tales of the Shire.” This sale was mentioned in Take-Two’s earnings report for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025. The details of who bought the studio and the sale price were not revealed. Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, said that the company decided to sell Private Division to focus more on its main areas of business for [...]

The Media Rating Council, an organization that sets standards for media audience measurement to ensure data accuracy and reliability, has given Nielsen the green light to include data collected directly from streaming services into its national TV ratings. This approval allows Nielsen to combine first-party streaming data with its traditional panel-based ratings, marking a step forward for measuring TV and streaming viewership. Additionally, the council has renewed its accreditation for Nielsen’s national panel ratings. This endorsement could pave the way [...]

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is challenging Europe to manage power-hungry data centers while staying aligned with strict environmental goals. As companies like Nvidia develop high-performance, energy-intensive chips, European data centers are grappling with the need to cool these devices efficiently, often requiring much lower water temperatures. Steven Carlini of Schneider Electric emphasizes cooling as a major energy factor, second only to the IT load itself. “The energy use will rise” he explains, as Nvidia’s new Blackwell GB200 chips [...]