movie

The highest-grossing superhero movie in history returns to theaters to repeat its success with a longer version

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In 2019, Marvel re-released ‘Avengers: Endgame’ with unreleased footage to take the title of highest-grossing film in history from ‘Avatar’. The crown lasted a year and a half. In 2026 the maneuver is activated again, this time linked to ‘Avengers: Doomsday’. It is the jewel in the crown of the Marvel team and Disney is not going to stop squeezing it. The return Marvel has confirmed that ‘Avengers: Endgame’ returns to theaters on September 25, 2026 under the title ‘Avengers Endgame Encore’. The new version includes a special introduction, additional scenes and a final scene that, for now, will only be seen in IMAX and Infinity Vision screenings, the premium screen system that Disney presented a few months ago. ‘Endgame’ continues to be the ceiling that Marvel Studios has not touched again, neither at the box office nor in the feeling of collective event that surrounded it, and that spirit is what the studio wants to evoke for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’. What’s new? Joe Russo has confirmed that the scenes filmed for this re-release are set in ‘Doomsday’, and describes them as a fundamental piece to build a bridge to the new film. Marvel already used this re-release formula, almost identical, with ‘Endgame’ itself: in June 2019, just two months after its premiere, the film would return to theaters with seven minutes of extra footage and an explicit objective: to surpass ‘Avatar’ at the box office before the premiere of ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’. That maneuver worked. On July 20, 2019, during the Marvel panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the studio confirmed that ‘Endgame’ had surpassed the $2.789 million accumulated by ‘Avatar’ until then, thus becoming the highest-grossing film in history. The celebration was short-lived: in March 2021, ‘Avatar’ was released again in China and regained the title in a single weekend. Since then, the distance between both films has not stopped growing: today ‘Avengers: Endgame’ accumulates 2,799 million dollars compared to 2,923 million for ‘Avatar’. There is almost 124 million difference, much more than what separated both films in 2019. Fall without Avengers. The collections of the ‘Endgame’ films have suffered a constant decline. Let’s remember some cases: ‘Eternals’ raised 402 million dollars with a budget of between 200 and 250 million. ‘Black Widow’ stood at 379 million, weighed down by its simultaneous premiere on Disney+. ‘Quantumania’ suffered the worst second weekend drop in Marvel Studios history. ‘The Marvels’ closed that streak without achieving the financial success that the studio expected. The real goal of ‘Avengers Endgame Encore’ is no longer to recover a record that today seems unattainable, but to rebuild the feeling of an event that Marvel lost years ago: to remind the public, just before December and the premiere of ‘Doomsday’, why they cared about this story. What is played in December. ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ hits theaters on December 18, 2026, the same day as ‘Dune: Part Three’, a coincidence that already has generated friction for the distribution of IMAX screens. Ticket sales for Infinity Vision screenings of ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ start right now, on July 20. Five days later, at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel will show the first official trailer for the film. Depending on how both events are received, we will see if Marvel is in a position to bottle again that seemingly unrepeatable lightning bolt that was ‘Endgame’ In Xataka | In just one month in office and with 1,000 layoffs, Disney’s new CEO dismantles the art department that built the MCU

Today at Lidl (and half price) the Coca-Cola popcorn machine that is ideal for movie nights at home

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If there is something that many of us have wanted to have at home since we were little, it is a popcorn making machine. Today at Lidl we have one available with a Coca-Cola design that is amazing and that you can use every time you want to watch a movie, a series or simply have a visitor at home. The best thing is that it is reduced to 74.99 euros (its price is 169.90 euros). Coca-Cola popcorn machine The price could vary. We earn commission from these links If you can’t get it or you just want an alternative, you have this other popcorn machine from Amazon available for 84.80 euros. It has a similar design (although without the Coca-Cola logo), a warm light to keep the popcorn warm, and the container is easy to remove. Elite Gourmet EPM-250# Classic Carnival 74ml Tabletop Popcorn Machine, Retro Style, Movie Theater Hot Buttery Popcorn, Red The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A Coca-Cola popcorn machine at home This popcorn machine, as we have already said above, has a 55% discountso we are facing a very good purchasing moment. It is true that there are many ways to prepare popcorn at home, even in the microwave. if we do not want to use the bags that we can find in supermarkets. However, one of these machines, in addition to being very cool, has several advantages that make it worth it. The boiler where the popcorn is made is made of stainless steel and has a non-stick coating, which will prevent the popcorn from sticking. Besides, has an integrated stirring systemsomething that mostly prevents them from burning and coming out charred, something that makes them have an unpleasant flavor. Along with all this, it should be noted that it has an integrated lighting system, several accessories such as a measuring spoon and a crank to turn the boiler without burning ourselves. Its capacity is 10 cups of popcorn per serving.so we’re going to be able to make a good amount of these each time. ⚡ IN BRIEF: Coca-Cola popcorn machine offer ✅ THE BEST Costs less than half: Lidl right now has it with a 55% discount, so it’s a very good time to get it. A very cool design: These popcorn machines have a retro design that looks great in any kitchen, but the Coca-Cola logo gives it a special touch. Integrated stirring system: Shaking the popcorn makes it come out better, with a more uniform integration of the seasoning we use and with less probability of burning. ❌ THE WORST It is not a small machine: It measures approximately 49 centimeters high, so it is necessary to have space in the kitchen for it. 💡 BUY IT IF… You are looking for a popcorn machine for your home and you want to get one with a very striking design with the Coca-Cola logo. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You prefer a more compact machine because you have little counter space. You may also be interested Gadgy Retro Popcorn Maker 5 L 800W Non-Stick Red The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Cecotec Fun&Taste P’Corn Lotus Popcorn Making Machine. 1200 W Popcorn Maker, Popcorn Ready in 2 Minutes, includes 4 removable containers with a total capacity of 4.5 L The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Lidl In Xataka | Ninja Crispi Pro vs. Ninja Crispi: the duel for the new glass air fryers is decided on size and power In Xataka | American refrigerator or 70 cm Combi? Be careful with making mistakes when buying liters that you may not be able to use

Tom Hanks assures that “this is the best movie ever made”, even above “Casablanca or Citizen Kane”

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Tom Hanks claims that the best film ever made is not ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Citizen Kane’, nor is it in the canon of absolute Hollywood classics. Nor is it any of his filmography. It is a 1963 title that failed at the box office and was officially vindicated by the actor when at the 1992 Oscars (although it was not on Oscar night itself) an honorary award was given to the person truly responsible for the magic of the film. 1992: the Harryhausen moment. That night, Hanks did not go on stage to compete for anything of his own, but rather to present the Gordon E. Sawyer Award, a technical recognition that the Academy grants outside of the main gala. The recipient was Ray Harryhausen, honored with this lifetime achievement award at a special ceremony held three weeks before the 1992 Oscars. There he uttered the famous phrase: “Some say Casablanca or Citizen Kane.” He prefers ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ Jason is going crazy. It is the best-known film that Ray Harryhausen made. Directed by Don Chaffey, it freely adapts the 3rd century BC Greek poem The Argonauticas, by Apollonius of Rhodes. The film was a box office failure at the time, but time has turned it into a fantasy classic thanks to the magnificent animations in stop motion from Harryhausen and a specific scene, the sword fight against an army of skeletons, which took the technician three months to animate. It is not the only amazing creature in the film: the bronze colossus Talos, the seven-headed hydra and the two Harpies are other mythological monsters in this adventure. It’s the monkey’s fault. Harryhausen knew that he wanted to dedicate himself to the world of effects because stop motion when he saw ‘King Kong’ as a child, and it was in fact the creator of the gigantic gorilla, Willis O’Brien, who advised him to take his first steps, advising him to study anatomy and art. Harryhausen ended up helping him as an apprentice on films like ‘The Big Gorilla’. Starting in the 1950s, he teamed up with producer Charles Schneer and there his key works would begin, which would ensure him a place in the pantheon of classics. With him, Harryhaysen began in science fiction films such as ‘The Beast from Ancient Times’, ‘Humanity in Danger’ or ‘Earth vs. the Flying Saucers’. Then came the fantasy adventures, often with mythological elements, that made him famous: ‘Sinbad and the Princess’, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, ‘The Mysterious Island’, ‘A Million Years Ago’ and, closing his career in the eighties, ‘Clash of the Titans’, with Medusa as one of his most remembered creatures. Harryhausen was not just an animator: he designed the creatures, sculpted them, built the models with articulated metal skeletons and then animated them himself, almost always alone. Stop motion FTW. Some of the genius’s teachings are relevant today. In a 2006 interview he argued that visual effects with excessive realism They were reduced to something mundane, compared to the almost dreamlike quality that, in their opinion, the stop motion. And it is easy to understand why: any film animated with this artisanal technique, like, without going any further, the very recent ‘I’m Frankelda’ It has a texture of pure wonder that CGI simply cannot remotely aspire to. In Xataka | Warner wanted to change the ending of one of Clint Eastwood’s most acclaimed films. Luckily, he stood his ground.

Satellite images revealed that Russia covered a building with an anti-drone cage. Ukraine turned it into an action movie set

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In World War II, the United Kingdom became camouflage entire factories with nets, fake structures and even fictitious neighborhoods built on rooftops to fool German bombers. The idea it was simple– If you can’t stop the attack, make the target disappear from the air. Eight decades later, that logic has returned. Only now the enemy is no longer looking from a bomber, but from a drone. The giant cage. Satellite images made it clear: Russia had done something that until recently seemed unthinkable, wrapping an entire building in a gigantic anti-drone structure. We are not talking about a tank or an armored vehicle, where “cope cages” are already common, but rather about a strategic factory more than 900 kilometers from the front. The facility, part of the VNIIR Progress plant in Cheboksary, had been protected with that kind of metal skeleton for at least a year. Was the test of the extent to which Moscow assumes that Ukraine can strike very deep inside Russia. But it was also a silent admission: the drone threat has already changed even the industrial architecture of warfare. Shield the rear. VNIIR Progress is not just any factory. Produces essential navigation components for a good part of the Russian arsenal: Shahed-136 type drones, Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander ballistic missiles and gliding bombs. It is, in essence, a critical piece of the Russian military gear. Protecting it with a cage of that size reveals something important: it is no longer enough to move factories away from the front. Russian strategic depth has been eroded and the war has meant that once safe places now need permanent physical defenses. Ukraine changed the rules (again). The problem for Russia is that Ukraine no longer only strikes with drones. In the most recent attack, kyiv used its new cruise missiles FP-5 Flamingoa nationally manufactured weapon with more than 2,800 kilometers of range and an explosive warhead weighing more than one ton. That detail completely changes the equation. The anti-drone cage could make sense against small kamikaze drones or light munitions. But faced with a missile of that size, the structure becomes practically in decoration. Ukraine, in essence, demonstrated that the Russian solution was designed for yesterday’s war. What the defense gives away. The most interesting thing is not only the damage caused, but what it means the very existence of that cage. Every new anti-drone net, mesh or cover that appears over Russian refineries, air bases or factories is a sign of vulnerability. For decades, the industrial rearguard was a sanctuary. Now Russia is spending resources to fortify even its production centers. In other words, what you see is a clear symptom that the Ukrainian deep strike campaign is working at least on a psychological and operational level, forcing Moscow to redistribute protection and assume additional costs. The invisible climb. The episode also reflects a broader evolution: the industrial war is becoming a war constant adaptation. Ukraine began using long-range drones to overwhelm defenses and hit critical infrastructure. Russia, like we have been countingresponded with networks, interference and physical structures. Now kyiv goes up a notch with missiles heavier and more precise. Each defensive layer generates a higher offensive layer. And that turns the conflict into a technological race where no solution lasts too long. The lesson of the attack. The image is very powerful because summarizes all the logic of modern warfare: an entire building wrapped in steel to protect electronic parts that then guide precision weapons… and still reached. The conclusion is inevitably uncomfortable for Moscow. If a facility hundreds of miles from the front needs a giant cage and not even that guarantees your safetythen the real frontier of war is no longer in the trenches. It is anywhere on the map where the military industry continues to function. Image | Ventor In Xataka | Ukraine has found Russia’s weak point in Crimea. And now there is a line of Russian trucks that cannot move forward In Xataka | The drone war has left a clear lesson for Ukraine: you can’t leave home without a 100-year-old machine gun

Today on Prime Video, a disaster movie that lost 45 million in theaters but is sweeping streaming

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In January 2026, ‘Greenland 2‘ premiered at number six at the US box office and closed its run in theaters with 44.8 million dollars collected against a budget of 90. The numbers are incontestable: a tremendous failure. Five months later, the sequel starring Gerard Butler tops the most watched lists on HBO Max in the United States, and now lands in Spain in Prime Video. The story of this saga begins with a pandemic and a comet. The first ‘Greenland’ never reached American theaters: COVID-19 forced it to be transferred directly to video on demand in December of that year. In international cinemas it did have a theatrical release, and it worked very well, since the reviews were good despite it being a genre not very popular with specialists. But it was the perfect time for a film of this type. The sequel tried to ride that same wave, but it didn’t turn out so well, although it ended up finding its audience. The family protagonist of the first installment has been in an underground bunker in Greenland for five years after the impact of a comet, but a series of earthquakes destroys the shelter and forces them to evacuate. They will head towards the south of France, where a crater has generated a habitable microclimate, free of electromagnetic storms and radiation. A true epic in which they will have to test their courage, their resistance and their trust in the family unit. The trajectory of ‘Greenland 2’ has parallels with that of ‘Tomorrow’s War’, the science fiction thriller with Chris Pratt that Paramount gave to Prime Video during the pandemic. It passed without pain or glory in theaters, with barely 19 million dollars collected against a budget of 200 million, but it became one of the most viewed films of the year. streaming at that time and one of the first massive successes of the Amazon platform. New dynamics of exploitation, new unexpected successes, and yes, a common point: the destruction of the planet, better to see it comfortably at home. In Xataka | Premiere: Harlan Coben is the real King Midas of Netflix, and he has a new series to confirm it

Police intercept a modified electric scooter after a movie chase

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A souped-up electric scooter starred last Saturday a chase through the center of Benidorm after skipping a police check. The vehicle had been manipulated in such a way that it could reach a speed of about 104 km/h, four times above the legal limit, and ended up colliding with one of the Local Police motorcycles that were trying to intercept it. As expected, the driver has been reported for reckless driving. How it all started. The incident occurred during one of the routine controls that the Benidorm Local Police carries out daily on personal mobility vehicles (VMP). Quique Tortosa, spokesman for the body, explained to Radio Sirena COPE that these devices serve to verify that users circulate in the authorized areas and that their vehicles comply with the required technical conditions. In one of these controls, the agents detected a scooter which was moving at a clearly higher speed. When they tried to stop him, the driver went through everything and chose to flee. Drain. Just like they claim According to the media, the scooter traveled approximately two kilometers through several streets in the urban area before being intercepted. During that journey it reached a top speed of 104 km/h, a figure subsequently verified by Police measurement equipment. The chase took place in the heart of Benidorm, and it all ended when the scooter collided with one of the police motorcycles. Image shared by the Benidorm Local Police on networks Inspection. Once intercepted, the agents subjected the vehicle to a technical inspection. That was when the results confirmed that the scooter had been manipulated to be able to greatly exceed the 25 km/h that the regulations establish as the maximum speed for this type of device. He also did not have civil liability insurance or a homologation certificate, two requirements that are now mandatory to legally drive one of these vehicles. The sanctions that fall on you. The driver thus accumulates several complaints: reckless driving, driving a vehicle with altered technical characteristics and lack of regulatory documentation. The fine for carrying a souped-up scooter can reach 500 euros, but the lack of insurance increases that amount significantly, with penalties that can reach 3,000 euros, depending on the case, according to they point in We Are Electric. The scooter was confiscated. A recurring crime. It is not the first nor will it be the last of this type in Spain. Another recent example was the incident in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria last April. Here, just like point In the middle, an electric scooter also reached 104 km/h, with the added peculiarity that the driver also tested positive for drugs. “VMPs are not toys and their manipulation and improper use is not only prohibited, but can put human lives in danger,” counted Tortosa in the middle of all of Alicante. The use of this type of vehicle has become widespread in Spain, and the fact that it is relatively easy to trick them makes them even more dangerous. Cover image | Yiting He In Xataka | The bridge that Seville has been waiting for for decades: 3.5 kilometers over the Guadalquivir and a height that no other bridge in Europe reaches

A Chinese billionaire bought the most expensive house in London. What happened next is a real estate horror movie

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In 2021, the Evergrande collapse It erased more than $300 billion in liabilities and triggered a real estate crisis that shook all of China. Among his most extravagant assets was a record mansion in London that today remains trapped in lawsuits, divorces and frozen accounts: a financial ruin turned into an empty monument. The perfect purchase that went wrong. Year 2020, a Chinese billionaire buys for 210 million pounds number 2-8A Rutland Gate, then the most expensive home ever sold in the United Kingdom. On paper it was the definitive investment: a palace with 45 rooms, four elevators, an indoor pool, 24 marble bathrooms and privileged views of Hyde Park. But what seemed like a prestige move ended up leading to a chain of misfortunes so strange that it seems written like a thriller. Since then no one has lived inside, the real owner was caught in a financial collapse and the building became an empty shell with only one “tenant”. Palace with a cursed past. The history of the building was already coming loaded with symbolism. For decades it was the London palace of Rafik Haririwho transformed it by joining together several Victorian houses and decorating it with almost obscene luxury, from gold-plated trash cans to bathrooms encrusted with semi-precious stones. Hariri was assassinated in Beirut in 2005 and, after passing through the hands of the Saudi royal family, the interior was auctioned piece by piece in 2015. That left the mansion empty, as if it had been dismantled before its next owner arrived. The Evergrande turn. The official buyer of 2020 appeared to be the Hong Kong tycoon Cheung Chung-kiubut later was discovered that the real owner was Hui Ka Yanfounder from Evergrande and for years the richest man in China. And there the descent began. Just a year later, Evergrande began with non-payment of debtsbecame a symbol of the Chinese real estate collapse and ended up collapsing in 2024. Hui ended up declaring guilty of fraud and other financial crimes, while the mansion was trapped in a legal tangle: registered in the name of his ex-wife, with frozen assets and no possibility of sale. The most expensive house in the United Kingdom lost in limbo and a symbol of the real estate gap. Fernstedt at the entrance to the house The empty house and the Swede on the porch. And it is at this point in history where the image appears that changes everything to this day. While inside the mansion there are dozens of empty rooms and millions of pounds tied up, outside, on the same porch, lives Anders Fernstedta homeless Swede who has been living at the entrance for three years. Your “camp” It is made of umbrellas, flowers, broken bicycles and stuffed animals. The paradox could not be starker, because he sleeps inches from one of the most crazy expensive shelters in Europe, but separated by a door that never opens. Ironically, the only stable inhabitant of the house does not have access to it. The fall of Anders. As to the history of man Swedish, is almost as chaotic as the architecture on which it rests. Andres was a technology journalist, then he worked in horticulture, collaborated with people from the Silicon Valley environment and even worked for The Economist as a freelance fact-checker. However, a chain of failed jobs, evictions, attacks and personal losses dragged him onto the streets. He ended up landing in front of the palace purely by chance: He was looking for a covered shelter and found an empty porch. He has since converted that space into a kind of makeshift garden and permanent bedroom. The symbol of a broken city. It had an extensive Guardian report that the story of Rutland Gate sums up a huge contradiction in London. While more than 300,000 homes remain empty in England and hundreds of thousands are waiting for a house, one of the most luxurious properties in the country has been closed for years because it is, in reality, a frozen financial asset. From that perspective, it is no longer a home, it is a figure trapped in offshore companies, lawsuits and bankruptcies. And in front of that door, every night, a man sleeps what represents just the other end of the system: someone with nothing, living in the shadow of a palace that no one can use. Image | Gareth E. Kegg In Xataka | Now that the Pope is in Spain, he should visit this surgeon’s castle. Inside is the smallest church on the planet In Xataka | In 1972 Italy wanted to put an entire city in a one kilometer building. Half a century later he is still paying the consequences

“Who the hell thought that a movie could be shot here?”

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When the team ‘The Odyssey‘ arrived at the Universal studios in Los Angeles after months of filming in Morocco, Greece, Iceland and Scotland, someone said: “How difficult is it going to be to film in a studio now?” Shortly afterward they were enduring Nolan putting some jet engines very close to them. It’s the Nolan method. And with ‘The Odyssey’ the method has included filming in the most inhospitable places. Who the hell is it going to be? Matt Damon, who plays Ulysses in this adaptation whose premiere will be next July 17, sums up this spirit with the question that was repeated every time they arrived at a new location: “Who the hell thought that a movie could be shot here?” The answer, obviously, was always the same person. It always occurs to him. I hate sets. Nolan seems to choose impossible locations precisely because they are impossible. According to your own philosophy A director’s job is to look for “magical moments in real places: a real sunset, a real castle.” For example: Nolan wanted to film in the Castello di Santa Caterina, in Sicily, as the setting for Ithaca. To reach the top you had to climb 275 meters along a path that was too narrow for the technical team. The solution was, after ruling out building an alternative road on the back slope, to install a scaffolding platform on the slope capable of supporting 200 people. Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland, of course, had to make the climb every day in “Roman clothing.” Any given Tuesday on a Nolan shoot. Ninety-one days, six countries, 610 kilometers of film. The Odyssey was filmed between February and August 2025 in six countries: Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland and the United States. The total footage captured on 70mm IMAX film exceeds 610 kilometers and production wrapped nine days ahead of schedule. Despite this, the tour of different countries was, according to Matt Damon, an eternal unfulfilled promise: “Well, it will be easier in Iceland,” they said to each other. And then it rained heavily and it was bitterly cold. When they arrived in Los Angeles, the only environment they expected to be controlled, good old studio Hollywood, Nolan stuck some jet engines in their faces to simulate a storm. Tied to a boat. One of Matt Damon’s most memorable sequences is the one in which he was tied to a real mast, on a real ship, in the open sea. According to him, these types of challenges did not make him nervous, but rather made it easier for him to prepare: “Knowing that it’s going to be like this is a real gift for an actor because you already know how to prepare. It’s not about arriving on set and being told: ‘Oh, to shoot the scene we’re going to tie you to a mast.’” Bye bye. All the interviews that Matt Damon has been giving for months to talk about ‘The Odyssey’ have a nostalgic tone. He told GQ that this type of production “is disappearing” and that he was aware of having filmed something that would possibly never be repeated, at least for him, and that that made it “something finite, like a gift.” The counterpoint is that of Nolan himself, who claims that he has been hearing the same thing since ‘Inception’ in 2010, when he was told that filming in seven countries was impossible. “I thought we’d find a way to make it happen,” he says. And until now.

It’s about making a movie for a non-existent audience.

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The Masters of the Universe movie It has good reviews, a seemingly infallible fan base and an 87% audience rating. on Rotten Tomatoes. And after its first weekend it is already one of the biggest box office failures of 2026: it seems that the inhabitants of Eternia cannot escape the curse of their audiovisual adaptations, which has followed them since that distant version of the Cannon of 1987. Although more prosaic issues come into play here than an old and endearing evil eye. The figures. On the weekend of June 5 to 7, ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’ raised 29.3 million dollars in the United States and 25 million in the 86 countries where it was released simultaneously, adding a global total of 54.3 million. It is calculated that Amazon MGM invested between 170 and 200 million dollars in production, which would make it necessary for the film, adding marketing expenses, to earn about 425 million just to recover what was invested. For now, Amazon denies the biggest one: Kevin Wilson, head of domestic distribution at Amazon MGM, stated in a statement that the weekend represented “a very solid start” and that the audience response had been “fantastic.” The sights are set, very clearly, on Prime Video. The eighties. The Masters of the Universe have been starring in the same story for about forty years. In August 1987, Cannon Films, the Israeli-American production company known for its films with Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson and other B-movie action stars, released the first live-action adaptation of the franchise, with Dolph Lundgren in the lead role. The budget was 22 million dollars. The final collection, 17.3 million. The failure, added to that of the tremendous ‘Superman IV’, contributed directly to the bankruptcy of Cannon Films. What is the difference. However, the budget differences between the 1987 version and the 2026 version are very noticeable. In the Cannon Wager, for example, budget constraints prevented Orko or Battle Cat from appearing on screen, and most of the story took place in California, rather than Eternia, which was reduced to a couple of wastelands. The 2026 film has a better billing (although if you ask us, the cast of that one is unbeatable: Lundgren was joined by Frank Langella and Meg Foster) and, in fact, this one recovers sequences that were left out in the eighties, such as Beast Man’s attack on Earth. But it has been of no use. Not understanding. What both versions do share is a commercial logic that has failed: a successful toy should produce a successful movie. When ‘Barbie’ raised 1.4 billion dollars globally in 2023Mattel drew a clear lesson: its toy franchises have economic potential on the big screen. The company launched the development of more than 14 films based on their catalog: ‘Hot Wheels’ produced by JJ Abrams, ‘Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots’ with Vin Diesel, ‘Polly Pocket’, ‘Barney’, ‘Magic 8 Ball’… ‘Masters of the Universe’ is the first big bet of this new era. But that reading of ‘Barbie’ ignores why ‘Barbie’ worked. The box office of Greta Gerwig’s film had nothing to do with nostalgia for the original toys, but rather with turning that starting point into a commentary on gender roles that worked even for an audience that had not held a Barbie in their hands in decades, or even that despised the toy for considering that it conveyed a toxic message, precisely the opposite of that of the film. ‘He-Man’, however, appeals to the nostalgia of a very specific segment of the public, adult men who grew up with the animated series in the eighties, without offering anything to those outside that perimeter. Liminals and parodies. A look at last weekend’s box office shows a panorama that Amazon has not been able to interpret. On the one hand there is the success of ‘Backrooms’. The A24 film, directed by Kane Parsons, cost 10 million dollars and has already been 212 million raised in less than two weeks. His film starts from a internet mythology about liminal spaceswithout a franchise to respect by heart, without decades of commercial history to sell. On the other hand, we have ‘Scary Movie’. The sixth installment of the Wayans brothers’ parody franchise, absent from theaters since 2013, grossed 55 million domestics and 105.5 million global with a budget of only 30 million. The first works because Parsons has an organic connection to the material (twenty years old, YouTuber) and an audience that has followed him from the internet to the living room. ‘Scary Movie’ presents a direct proposal, and although it refers to past hits, it does not appeal to nostalgia and its audience knows exactly what they are going to see. Both films, in different ways, respond to a real demand. And ‘Masters of the Universe’, despite its indisputable virtues, seems designed to respond to a non-existent demand. In Xataka | Something is changing in cinema: films by directors trained on YouTube are eating up Disney films

The production of this Disney movie was so chaotic that a documentary detailing how it was made disappeared

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In 1994, the director of ‘The Lion King’ had his next big movie ready: a musical epic about the Inca Empire, with Sting composing the songs and Owen Wilson in the cast. Six years later, what ended up hitting theaters was ‘The Emperor and His Follies’, something radically different: an emperor turned into a llama, a good-natured peasant and meta jokes that broke the fourth wall. Animated on the fly from an unfinished script, all to meet the release deadlines promised to McDonald’s. A real debacle recorded in a completely inaccessible documentary. The successor to ‘The Lion King’. Development of the film began in 1994 under the title ‘Kingdom of the Sun‘ (The Kingdom of the Sun), as an epic and dramatic adventure loosely inspired by ‘The Prince and the Pauper’ by Mark Twain. Its director was Roger Allers, who was coming off the biggest hit in the studio’s recent history, ‘The Lion King’. Allers introduced then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner, a story set at the height of the Inca civilization. What was it about? The premise was ambitious: an arrogant emperor swaps places with a peasant who physically resembles him, while the villainous Yzma wants to destroy the sun to obtain eternal youth. For the soundtrack, following the model of Elton John’s success in ‘The Lion King’Allers signed Sting, who had already written several songs linked to the original plot. The team traveled to Machu Picchu in 1996 to learn about Inca architecture and Andean landscapes. It was exactly the type of production that Disney had been making since ‘The Little Mermaid’: epic, musical and very, very expensive. So much for Disney. After the disappointing box office results of ‘Pocahontas’ and ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’, two films loaded with dramatic elements, studio executives believed that the project was too ambitious and serious, and that it needed more comedy. The solution was to hire Mark Dindal as co-director, and he was tasked with lightening the tone. Allers continued working on his dramatic epic while Dindal pushed toward the absurd. A test screening in 1998 revealed that schizophrenic tone, in two mutually incompatible directions. One of Disney’s executives threatened producer Randy Fullmer with canceling the project. The McDonald’s problem. Added to all this was an extra problem: the film had to be finished in time to be released in the summer of 2000, since the promotional agreements with McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and other companies had already been signed and depended on that date being met. Allers acknowledged that production was delayed, but asked for between six months and a year of extension to solve the problems. It was denied. The director resigned, leaving Disney with at least $20 or $30 million already spent on animation. And no movie for the summer of 2000. Eisner gave Fullmer two weeks to prove the movie was salvageable. If not, the project was closed. Dindal took control alone. He completed ‘The Emperor and His Follies’ in a year and a half, a record for a Disney production, and with an unusual need in the world of animation: it was produced without a finished script. Also in this process the cast changed: Owen Wilson was replaced by John Goodman, because the character of Pacha stopped being a double of the emperor to become a burly family man from the countryside. The hilarious character of Kronk, one of the film’s great discoveries, did not exist until the end: he was added during emergency rewrites. The documentary that Disney doesn’t want you to see. Sting had agreed to compose the songs on one condition: that his wife, documentary filmmaker Trudie Styler, could film the production process. The resulting documentary‘The Sweatbox’, covers the long and troubled production. The title comes from the screening rooms at Disney studios, known for lacking air conditioning. ‘The Sweatbox’ premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2002 and quickly disappeared from circulation: Disney has never released it on DVD or streaming. The documentary includes, among other moments, the call in which Fullmer tells Sting that his eight songs have been eliminated. Only two Sting songs survived on the final soundtrack. The documentary has been compared to ‘Hearts in Darkness’, the making-of of ‘Apocalypse Now’, for its portrait of the human cost in a decaying creative process. And of course, there is a copy of ‘The Sweatbox’ circulating unofficially on the internet. Poor results. The film ended up grossing $169 million worldwide on a budget of $100 million, a disappointing figure compared to Disney’s other hits during the 1990s. The film found some success in the domestic market and became the best-selling DVD of 2001, which would spawn a television series (‘Kuzco: An Emperor in School’) and a direct-to-video sequel (‘The Emperor’s Crazy 2: Kronk’s Big Adventure’). The footprint. Curiously, the influence of ‘The Emperor and His Follies’ is deeper than it seems. The film’s non-stop parody humor anticipated ‘Shrek’, released just a year later, and other animated films with which DreamWorks Animation would find success in subsequent years. This film is quite a visionary and remains one of the most unclassifiable films of modern Disney. In Xataka | The first cartoons were flat and unappealing, until Walt Disney invented something: the multiplane camera.

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