English Entertainment
‘America’s Next Top Model’ Adrianne Curry gets digitally cloned
MUMBAI: In a move that should send waves through Hollywood, model and television celebrity Adrianne Curry and NVIDIA, which works in the field of programmable graphics processor technology, have teamed up to create the world’s first real-time virtual 3D celebrity.
This breakthrough, which was created using c and NVidia professional graphics solutions, opens the door for ‘stars’ to create and license detailed replicas of their likeness without ever having to make a physical appearance or take a photograph.
Virtual celebrity licensing will have a multitude of applications, including adapting celebrity characters into newly developed video games, virtual modelling and endorsements, digital appearances in film and television, and virtual hosting on Web sites or traditional broadcast media.
Curry says, ‘I am honoured to have been selected as the first celebrity for this project. The Digital Adrianne is so realistic, it’s really trippy. Lara Croft, eat my shorts!”
Curry, NVidia states, is the ideal choice for this venture as she is on the cutting-edge of this fresh, new trend in Hollywood. In addition to her successful modelling career, which has landed her on the pages of Maxim, Playboy, Sync and Marie Claire magazines. She has appeared in TV shows like America’s Next Top Model.
NVidia senior VP marketing Dan Vivoli says, “The uses for this technological breakthrough are truly endless. The digital Adrianne can demonstrate the same range of emotions, movements, and attitudes and appear just as lifelike as her living, breathing counterpart. It is simply a stunning transformation.”
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
