Fizzles

At one moment in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, characters are running through a mutated jungle, chased by lion-sized cockroaches while avoiding violent, human-eating plants. In another moment, multiple characters are standing around, their hair flowing wildly, delivering wooden dialogue that’s almost as painful for them to say as it is for us to hear. Spoilers of the Week March 7-11That mix of positive and negative is a great representation of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. It’s a movie that tries to be everything at the…

Warner Bros. and DC Studios’ “The Flash” opened in first place at the domestic box office this weekend, grossing $55.1 million, according to estimates from measurement firm Comscore.But the superhero movie — whose marketing campaign has been marred by legal scandals and disturbing allegations surrounding its star, Ezra Miller — fell short of early domestic box office projections in the $70-million to $75-million range.Internationally, the film made $75 million for a global cumulative of $130.1 million.“The Flash” is not…

The world of cryptocurrency is always abuzz with new trends and buzzwords. Recently, the term “Baby Doge” had taken the market by storm, with investors flocking to buy the token in hopes of making a quick profit. However, the hype around Baby Doge seems to have died down, with another cryptocurrency called Bitgert now gaining popularity. Bitgert is a cryptocurrency that is built on a POA (Proof of Authority) blockchain. This means that unlike traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, Bitgert is not mined.…

As Decentraland (MANA) loses its market position, DigiToads (TOADS) becomes investors’ favorite cryptocurrency to buy in 2023 DigiToads is a crypto project based on the meme coin trend of toads, making its way to the top crypto coins. The project is still in its presale phase, with its native TOADS token exploding in the competitive market, raising more than $3.6M in funds. With the rising market demand and practical utilities of DigiToads winning crypto whales over, experts believe it will soon outperform and bring 100X…

This illustration shows NASA’s Lunar Flashlight over the Moon. NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission, launched in December 2022 with the objective of locating surface ice on the Moon’s South Pole, has been ended due to the inability of its miniaturized propulsion system to generate sufficient thrust to achieve lunar orbit. Despite this setback, several technology demonstrations on the mission, including the propulsion system, green fuel, Sphinx flight computer, and upgraded Iris radio, exceeded expectations, providing valuable…

Image: Warner Bros.Superhero fatigue seems to be hitting both Marvel and DC hard. Alongside a kind of mid-level audience response to Quantumania (it did good, like it made money, but it wasn’t great), Shazam! Fury of the Gods is likewise underperforming at the box office. While Variety reports that Shazam 2  opened at number 1 this weekend, early reports say that it’s netted about 30 million domestically against the estimated 35-40 million, against an estimated 210 million production/marketing budget. Compare this to…

There’s a heavy-handed ominousness from the first frame of The Strays, Netflix’s new entry into the stuffed category of social horror. Dissonant music plays over a concrete block apartment building in London, in which Cheryl (Ashley Madekwe), a light-skinned Black woman, appears in distress. There are bank statements crumpled on the counter, a headline blaring “Black kids betrayed by schools”, a mention of credit card debt in a phone call to her sister, a voice-cracking lament of wanting more. It’s the mid-2000s, and…

The new artificial-intelligence tools getting widespread attention for spitting out text, images and computer code are also generating something else: talk of the next technology bubble.Technologists broadly agree that the so-called generative AI that powers systems like ChatGPT has the potential to change how we live and work, despite the technology’s clear flaws. But some investors, chief executives and engineers see signs of froth that remind them of the crypto boom that recently fizzled. Even tech workers who weren’t…

The chief experience officer at the crypto hardware wallet firm Ledger has a message for NFT haters: Eventually you’ll be dead.…

Boxes of Cutwater Tiki Rum Mai Tai canned cocktails in a retail store in Pleasant Hill, California, February 11, 2022.Gado | Archive Photos | Getty ImagesHard seltzer has lost its fizz. Now canned cocktails are all the buzz.Also known as ready-to-drink, or RTD, cocktails, the canned drinks were the fastest-growing spirits category last year, with $1.6 billion in revenue. That's a 42% percent increase from the year before, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. To compare, sales of hard seltzer…