By Walt HickeyWelcome back!
BowcasterChewbacca’s bowcaster, touted as one of the rarest Star Wars props in existence, sold for US$768,600 (593,985 euros) at auction, smashing pre-auction estimates of between US$250,000 and US$500,000. Auctioneers appear to mistakenly describe the weapon as “a Horton crossbow that was modified for the film.” Obviously, the dual-polarizer bowcaster magnetic acceleration weapon was a crucial set of arms for irregular forces on Kashyyyk as early as the Jedi Civil War, allowing the bearer to take Galactic-standard plasma-enveloped metal quarrels and propel them into imperial forces. While most of them were lost over the course of the conflict, the repairability of the weapon meant that this particular bowcaster utilized not just the hand-woven strap of kshyyy-vine but also incorporated the power pack of an E-11 medium blaster rifle. Anyway, in a messed-up incident of stolen valor, the same auction sold off Luke Skywalker’s Medal of Yavin for US$378,000 (292,124 euros). Casey Cooper-Fiske, The Press Association Working ManJason Statham’s movie A Working Man made $15.2 million in its opening weekend, beating out Snow White, which made just $14.2 million across 4,200 cinemas. The reason for the reversal of fortune for Snow White’s exhumation is unclear. Despite efforts of the producers to throw their popular, young leading lady under the bus, other theories have emerged. For instance, A Working Man was clearly set to appeal to 16 to 29-year-olds and male-skewing action audiences, while the core constituency of a Snow White remake is people looking for a nostalgic reboot of the film they saw when they were children. Currently, that audience would be in their mid-nineties and represent a shrinking demographic of cinema-goers. Also the dwarfs look like crap, no getting around that one. Rebecca Rubin and Brent Lang, Variety Get In The RobotJapan’s Gundam franchise is already one of the most successful in history, with over 70 titles in its library released over the past 45 years, and annual revenues of 148 billion yen (US$983 million). That number has doubled over the past decade, and is behind just the Dragon Ball franchise in terms of revenue at Bandai Namco. The company is positioning the franchise for a potential push, though, as it tees up a Hollywood live-action movie through Legendary Pictures, hoping for international recognition and increasing its notoriety abroad. Just 30 percent of its visual media revenue comes from outside Japan, lagging behind the overall highly international appeal of anime in general. Only one Gundam series has aired with all episodes in North America, and that was back in 2000, indicating that this is still an untapped IP in the U.S. That said, the model kits still do great worldwide, with half of the sales coming from overseas, an indication that there’s still plenty of room to run for Gundam. Takuro Suzuki and Kanon Wakabayashi, Nikkei Asia
OlderCollege basketball is getting older, comically so in some cases. In 2019, the average age of a Sweet 16 starter in the men’s tournament was 20.8, a figure that rose to 21.2 by 2021, and is now at 21.6 years of age. Look at Auburn, a No. 1 seed, where the starting five averaged 23.2 years old. That is older than the starting lineups of 5 whole NBA teams last week and 2 years older than the starting lineup of the Washington Wizards last Wednesday, which came in at 21.2 years old. While the extra year of COVID availability is certainly one element, the transfers are really to blame — one-time transfers getting to play without sitting out a year in 2021 and multi-time transfers getting immediate eligibility in 2024 have upended the game. The exception, however, is Duke, where the starters are 19.4 years of age. Lev Akabas, Eben Novy-Williams and Jacob Feldman, Club Sportico
I Saw A Movie About This OnceA large research expedition to count Uganda’s big cats saw over 100 researchers driving 26,000 kilometers around the country and recording 7,516 camera trap nights across 232 locations over the year to determine the state of lions in Uganda. They found an estimated 240 lions across a 3,200 square kilometer range of Murchison Falls National Park, the highest number in Uganda. However, they also observed a decline of 40 percent in Queen Elizabeth National Park (to just 39 individuals in 2,400 square kilometers) since their last survey in 2018. Leopards are doing well, at high densities in several areas, while hyenas are thriving, occurring at densities of 6.15 to 45.31 hyenas per 100 square kilometers across surveyed sites. Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Arjun M. Gopalaswamy and Duan Biggs, The Conversation
SeafoodSeafood was the only fresh department in grocery stores in the United States to see a sales decrease in 2024, coming in at $23.4 billion, down 1.2 percent year over year. That said, grocery stores are very keen on getting seafood shoppers, who are seen as particularly high-value customers. They tend to have higher incomes, to shop more often and to walk out of grocery stores with baskets twice as large as typical customers. The average customer with seafood in their cart spends $225 per week on groceries compared to non-seafood counterparts ($158 per week). Even if it’s not the fastest-growing segment, stores still really like it. Fake TrailersWhile fake movie trailers have been a hallmark of viral internet videos for years, the aggressive use of AI manipulation and the cavalier attitude towards copyright means that several very large YouTube channels earn a healthy living cranking them out, factory-style. They flood the platform with fraudulent trailers that regularly push down the bona fide articles. For instance, Screen Culture pumped out 23 fake versions of the trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, multiple of which ranked higher than the actual trailer. Riding on the back of this strategy has produced 1.4 billion views and 1.4. million subscribers, which means it’s produced millions of dollars in ad revenue. A Deadline investigation found that one reason for their continued existence is that, for some reason, the studios appear to tolerate them: inconsistent copyright enforcement meant that there were monetization claims on only an estimated 10 percent of Screen Culture’s 2,700 videos. As a result of the investigation, YouTube yanked the monetization for both Screen Culture and KH Studios trailers. Jake Kanter, Deadline and Jake Kanter, Deadline Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today. Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement. Previous Sunday subscriber editions: MCU · Fanfiction · User Magazine · Reentry · Panda Dunks · Net Zero · Spiraled · On The Edge · Luggage · The Editors · Can’t Get Much Higher · Solitaire · Posting Nexus · Memorabilia · Drainage Tile · Desert Surfing · Music · Congestion Pricing · Underwater Sound · Hunts Point · Queer Olympics · Energy Drinks · Baseball Movies · Trillion Trees · Risk Aversion ·Packaging · Ice Cores · Stadium Names · Uncertain · Green Homes · Political Future · UFOs · Antarctica Comms · Rot Economy · The Internationalists · Video Game Funding · BYD · Disney Channel Original Movie · Talon Mine · Our Moon · Rock Salt · Wind TechsSunday Edition Archives: 2022 · 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018
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