All posts tagged: Box

Google moves Top Stories box to AI Overviews almost 20% of time

Google moves Top Stories box to AI Overviews almost 20% of time

Published by Sam Flores

Top Stories carousel in AI Overview result for ‘burnham social care’ search in the UK on 30 July 2026 Google has begun giving publishers a prominent “Top Stories” plug above many news-based queries which generate an AI Overview summary. While the move could lead to more referral traffic for publishers, they could lose the opportunity to feature in these snippets if they opt out of allowing their content to be used in AI Overviews. The move is also a sign that AI Overviews are increasingly being deployed by Google to summarise breaking news, an area which had previously been more protected from the disruptive influence of AI-written Google answers. Entertainment is the category of news most likely to generate a Top Stories box within Google AI Overviews, according to analysis from Newzdash. Google began to roll out placing a Top Stories carousel of news website links within the AI summary at the top of search results from June. When this appears, it is instead of – rather than additional to – the classic Top Stories …

Box Office Opening Looks Big for Marvel

Box Office Opening Looks Big for Marvel

Published by Daniella Wilson

Spider-Man: Brand New Day looks to close out the month with a big swing, as Sony Pictures‘ latest superhero feature with Tom Holland and Zendaya eyes an astronomical opening weekend at the box office. With Universal’s The Odyssey having enjoyed quite the successful box office journey without major new competition for the past two weeks, Peter Parker and his pals are poised to land the year’s biggest debut and potentially one of the top-grossing openings ever. The studio is projecting a domestic opening of $195 million from 4,300 North American theaters, which is also in line with third-party tracking services. This would top last month’s launch for Disney‘s Toy Story 5, which opened to $159.6 million domestically, to make Spider-Man: Brand New Day the biggest debut of 2026. This would also put it in the top 10 for domestic opening weekends, topping 2019’s photorealistic The Lion King remake, which holds the No. 10 launch at $191.7 million. The last time a title opened above $200 million domestically was two years ago with Deadpool & Wolverine …

The Odyssey is set to cross Oppenheimer’s domestic box office haul in just 13 days

The Odyssey is set to cross Oppenheimer’s domestic box office haul in just 13 days

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is expected to overtake the final North American box office total of his Oscar-winning drama Oppenheimer just 13 days after opening in cinemas. Released earlier this month, The Odyssey is Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, following Odysseus’s decade-long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Matt Damon stars as the king of Ithaca, with Anne Hathaway as his wife Penelope and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus. The ensemble cast also includes Lupita Nyong’o playing Helen and Clytemnestra, Zendaya as the goddess Athena, Charlize Theron as the nymph Calypso, Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, and Himesh Patel as Odysseus’ second-in-command, Eurylochus. The Odyssey has opened to rave reviews and is expected to be a major Oscar contender, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey calling it Nolan’s “best film to date” in her five-star review. …

Tom Holland Is King of the Summer Box Office. Now It’s Time for Him to Grow Up.

Tom Holland Is King of the Summer Box Office. Now It’s Time for Him to Grow Up.

Published by Sam Flores

A new king has ascended the throne in Ithaca—and the summer movie season as well. Tom Holland, who stars in The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, is having a major moment this summer. The Odyssey is already a critical and commercial smash, raking in more than $650 million globally after just two weekends, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set to make a killing when it hits theaters on Friday, July 31. If prognostications are correct, The Odyssey is on track to earn anywhere from $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion at the box office, while Spider-Man: Brand New Day—the long-awaited follow-up to 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which grossed a massive $1.9 billion—is tracking to make $180 million to $190 million in its opening weekend, which would make it the biggest domestic opening of the year. If everything goes according to plan, Holland could very well be the actor at the center of a $2 billion-plus summer box office haul. Of course, Holland isn’t the only actor who appears in both of these massive …

The Odyssey Holds Strong for Huge Second Weekend at Box Office

The Odyssey Holds Strong for Huge Second Weekend at Box Office

Published by Daniella Wilson

The Odyssey’s box office journey is not slowing down as it sailed past $600 million globally this weekend. After notching $123.5 million domestically last weekend, the Christopher Nolan epic brought in another $87 million million at the domestic box office. That’s a decline of just 30 percent, an extremely good hold for a blockbuster. In terms of holds, that’s the third best ever for a film that opened to more than $100 million, behind only Wicked and Top Gun: Maverick. It’s $87 million sum is the second best weekend two ever for an R-rated film, behind Deadpool & Wolverine‘s $97 million two years ago. It’s domestic total will end the weekend at an estimated $286.4 million, while it’s global total should hit $639.9 million. The news was good for Disney this weekend as well, with holdover Toy Story 5 passed $1 billion, to now rank as the No. 6 Pixar release of all time. No new wide release braved the waters this weekend, with studios preferring to stay out of the wake of Universal and …

In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film, Sheep in the Box, he turns to technology to explore grief

In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film, Sheep in the Box, he turns to technology to explore grief

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter In his latest cinematic offering, acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda delves into the profound depths of grief and technology, presenting a poignant narrative where a bereaved couple seeks solace in a recreated likeness of their lost child. His new film, “Sheep in the Box,” is set to open in U.S. theaters this Friday, promising a deeply emotional exploration of loss and connection. His new film, ‘Sheep in the Box’ is set to open in U.S. theaters this Friday (Neon via AP) The film centers on a married couple grappling with the death of their son, leading them to commission a humanoid crafted in his exact image. The title itself is a nod to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic children’s book, “The Little Prince,” where a sheep is imagined hidden within a box. For Kore-eda, this reference underscores the idea that life’s most …

Can You Eat Berries If Some In The Box Are Mouldy?

Can You Eat Berries If Some In The Box Are Mouldy?

Published by Sam Flores

Raspberries would be the perfect food if they didn’t go off more or less as soon as you bring them home. Most fresh berries are the same way; the average shelf life of a fresh punnet is three to five days. So, if you (like me) are buying for one, that causes furry problems. White specks and blue fur overtake your plastic punnet; sometimes, one berry will weaken and rot, ruining the other berries in a matter of hours. Of course, in an ideal scenario, we’d all have access to a bounty of fresh berries close by. But say for instance you’d just checked your fridge only to realise that half of your raspberries are already gone over to the spore overlords, and can’t be bothered to make it to the shop (asking for a friend, of course). What then? None other than the Mayo Clinic have weighed in on the topic. Dr. Nipunie Rajapakse, a paediatric infectious diseases expert, said that the safe point is around a quarter of the soft fruit population: “If …

Why Christopher Nolan’s Movie Had Huge Box Office Opening

Why Christopher Nolan’s Movie Had Huge Box Office Opening

Published by Daniella Wilson

Christopher Nolan‘s box office journey with The Odyssey has gotten off to an eye-opening start. If there were any questions regarding whether a nearly three-hour, R-rated adaptation of a 2,700-year-old Greek poem — not to mention a movie that initially got caught up in the culture wars — would find success, those concerns were swiftly vanquished. In landing 2026’s biggest live-action opening weekend, The Odyssey brought home $123.5 million domestically with a global launch of $263.7 million, with the latter marking the accomplished filmmaker’s highest-grossing worldwide opening ever. It’s not news that Nolan, hot off his first best director Oscar for 2023’s Oppenheimer, has become a brand unto himself as he continues his run as one of Hollywood’s most sure-thing directors. But the fact that half of the film’s audiences were between the ages of 18 and 34 confirmed that he has captured the excitement of Gen Z and younger millennial filmgoers as much as that of older viewers who might typically be more drawn to an adaptation of classic literature. Audiences cited Nolan as …

The Odyssey’s Epic Box Office Haul Breaks The “Go Woke, Go Broke” Myth

The Odyssey’s Epic Box Office Haul Breaks The “Go Woke, Go Broke” Myth

Published by Sam Flores

Sing, muse, of the cunning Christopher Nolan, who has once again achieved the impossible. His new adaptation of The Odyssey has earned rapturous reviews, a coveted “A” CinemaScore from audiences, and the best non-Batman-related opening of Nolan’s career. It’s on track to net more than $120 million domestically and more than $137 million from international markets, per The Hollywood Reporter. That means the film has earned back its reported $250 million production budget without breaking a sweat, and is on track for its box office to reach Olympus-high heights. Only a cyclops living in a cave could possibly be surprised by this news. Nolan’s been on a hot streak for the past two decades. His last film, a three-hour biopic about a communist-sympathizing physicist losing his security clearance, made nearly $1 billion. The Odyssey—a starry, action-packed, modern spin on one of western civilization’s oldest stories—is both more accessible and more inherently commercial than Oppenheimer was. It would be shocking if Nolan’s latest work didn’t earn even more money than that best picture winner did. That …

The Odyssey is on course to break box office records on opening weekend

The Odyssey is on course to break box office records on opening weekend

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is set to become the biggest box office success of the director’s career. The 55-year-old filmmaker will be celebrating after his epic adaptation of the celebrated work by Ancient Greek poet Homer broke records both domestically and internationally. In the United States, the film earned $51 million on Friday and is predicted to make around $120 million across its opening weekend. That would make the Matt Damon-starring historical drama the biggest live action film of the year, behind only animated hits Toy Story 5 ($159 million) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($131 million) overall. At the global box office, The Odyssey is expected to surpass 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises to give Nolan his biggest ever worldwide opening. Deadline expects the film to make $257.8 million globally, ahead of the $249 million banked by Nolan’s Batman …