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Employment among those over 65 triples and reaches the maximum in the historical series. There is a good reason: retirement

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The labor market in Spain has recorded several notable milestones in recent months: record contributions, lowest unemployment rate in decades and recovery of youth employment. However, the last annualized EPA data They hide a story that goes beyond global figures. According to Annual average data for 2025 published this week by the INE, the employment rate among those over 65 has reached its historical maximum, and the reason is not that older Spaniards have discovered a sudden love for work. There is something structural behind it that deserves a closer look. An aging workforce. The aging of the population in Spain, and the changes in the pension system that were approved in the 2011 reform, are quietly but very significantly redrawing the Spanish labor map. What a decade ago seemed like a statistical anomaly has today become a consolidated trend with direct consequences on the future and viability of public pensions. The EPA data of the fourth quarter of 2025 indicate that at the end of the year there were 4,926,300 employed people over 55 years of age in Spain. This represents a growth of 23.3% in this age range since the 2022 labor reform, compared to the 11.3% average increase recorded by the rest of the ages. But the most striking thing is that the employment rate among those over 65 years of age has tripled compared to the levels of a decade ago, with 14.25% for men between 65 and 69 years old and 12.29% for women in the same age group, compared to the 5% that was registered in 2015. The employment rate for men between 60 and 64 years old is around 58% in 2025. highest since the early 1980s. All this used to be retirement. What largely explains this rebound in employment among the population over 65 years of age is not a greater demand for experienced workers, but rather the progressive delay in the legal retirement age. In 2026, the legal age for access ordinary retirement For those who have less than 38 years and 3 months of contributions it is 66 years and 10 months. This displacement forces many people to remain active beyond the age of 65 at which they could previously retire. Howeverthe report ‘Quarterly Labor Market Observatory‘ prepared by Fedea and BBVA Research confirms that the increase in senior membership is mainly due to the aging of the population and the delay of retirement agewhich often responds to the need to continue working due to financial difficulties. Staying in the job market at that age is not easy. However, although the data points to record percentages compared to historical figures, the reality is that their employment situation is not a bed of roses. a study of the BBVA and Ivie Foundation has revealed that those over 55 years of age register for the first time an unemployment rate of 9.8%, exceeding the unemployment rate of the group of people between 25 and 54 years of age. Furthermore, six out of ten unemployed of that age group They are long-term unemployed, a percentage that triples that of young people between 16 and 24 years old. The data depict a labor market in which workers over 55 years of age they lose their jobs a decade before their retirement age, and must survive throughout that time either with temporary employment, or in a situation of chronic unemployment due to lack of opportunities. At the other extreme, the employment rate of 14.2% shows those who have managed to stay afloat or get out of that hole. The pension system, the backdrop. Behind all these figures there is a reality that economists have been pointing out for years: the pension system needs people to work longer. to be sustainable. The reforms have been moving incentives in that direction, tightening the requirements for early retirement with greater pension reduction coefficientsand with a progressive increase in the necessary years of contributions. The result is what the data is already showing: there are more and more people who cannot retire at age 65 and must extend their working life until age 67 (effective in 2027) to access their retirement pension. In Xataka | What is the regulatory base: how it is calculated in 2026 with examples Image | Unsplash (Matt Bennett)

The best TVs to play and get the most out of your PS5 or Xbox Series

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You buy a television thinking you’ve hit the nail on the head and suddenly your friend tells you that it’s not good for gaming. That if your screen offers 60 Hz, that if it does not have HDMI 2.1, that the future is in the cloud and the television does not support it… But what is all this? What TV should I buy to have a good experience with PlayStation and Xbox consoles? We’re going to get technical, but we’re going to explain in detail what each thing is so that now you can hit the nail on the head with your purchase. What is necessary to squeeze out the features of the consoles 4K, Full HD or HD resolution. The most important thing when choosing a TV, as long as we do so to take advantage of the features of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series Xis that its screen offers 4K resolution. This should not be a problem if we choose a television larger than 40 inches, since this is normally the resolution that has become the standard for a few years. Although they are gradually disappearing, there are televisions below that diagonal, especially less than 30 inches, that offer Full HD resolution or, where appropriate, HD. In this case, we recommend that beyond 40 inches it be 4K to have better visual quality, so as not to notice the pixels as much. To make everything clearer, both the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X offer: Resolution up to 4K. Support for a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. HDMI 2.1 support. Hertz and the relationship with fps. The second most important thing is that the television is capable of offering a refresh rate of at least 120 Hz. But be careful, not all video games offer a 4K/120 Hz ratio, so you have to pay attention here. In many cases, games allow us to choose various quality/performance modes, which is usually 4K/30 fps or Full HD/120 Hz. But… am I confusing hertz (Hz) with Frames per Second (FPS, frames per second)? It is not the same, but it is closely related. Stay with this: if the console offers 120 fps, but the TV only has 60 Hz, we will only take advantage of the fluidity of 60 fps. On the other hand, if the television offers a rate greater than 120 Hz, we will take advantage of 120 fps. While fps is the amount of images that the console can generate, Hz is the frequency with which the TV updates the image. For this reason, they are different concepts, but they are closely related. HDMI 2.1 or HDMI 2.1b. When buying a television, we should pay attention to the version of its HDMI ports. The consoles are compatible with HDMI 2.1, so the ideal is that we choose this same version if we are looking for the best experience. Now, you may come across a similar version called HDMI 2.1b. It is more designed for very large televisions or screens, such as those in shopping centers, since they offer compatibility with a higher resolution. Keep these differences: HDMI 2.1: supports 8K at 60 Hz and 4K at 120 Hz. HDMI 2.1b: Supports 8K at 60 Hz, 4K at 120 Hz and 10K at 120 Hz. There are more differences, but in practice they are not usually taken advantage of, at least on consoles. Do not buy a television prioritizing this HDMI 2.1b standard, especially if it is more expensive. The important thing here is that it at least has HDMI 2.1 and not HDMI 2.0, which in the latter case offers a lower resolution/hertz ratio, so you would not take advantage of the features of the consoles. HDMI 2.1 at 60Hz. Although the ideal is that we opt for a television that offers 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 120 Hz and that has HDMI 2.1 ports, this is not always the case. My example: I have a TV with HDMI 2.1 and a 4K display, but its refresh rate is 60 Hz. I don’t get the most out of my PS5, so I wouldn’t recommend this TV for gaming. Depending on the prices we see on televisions, it is advisable to spend a little more to have a good resolution/hertz/HDMI 2.1 ratio. Latency or input lag. Although this is something that is usually looked at more closely with monitors, here it is advisable that we take a look at the specifications of the televisions to know what the response time is. In some cases, brands may not mention it, but if they do, at least this latency is less than 5 ms. In this way, when you press a button on the console controller, the video game character will move practically instantly. The higher the latency, the more we will notice the “delay” between pressing the button and the character moving. As a summary, in this table we leave the essentials with a brief explanation of what each thing is: The best option What is it for? Resolution 4K So that the images are of higher quality and the pixels are not noticeable. Hertz 120Hz So that the images look more fluid. HDMI HDMI 2.1 So that televisions can offer higher resolution at a high refresh rate. Latency Less than 5 ms So that there is not too much delay between pressing the button and the action being displayed on the screen. The functions and technologies that are a good addition We have already talked about the essentials, now we are going to give way to those functions or technologies that only add. Variable Refresh Rate. The VRR It is a technology that allows us to adapt the refresh rate of a television or monitor to the fps rate of the game we are running. This ensures a smoother experience. But it does not do it alone, but through two technologies: AMD FreeSync via software. Nvidia G-Sync via hardware or Nvidia G-Sync … Read more

13 premiere movies and series to watch in February 2026 on Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max and streaming

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Christmas is definitely behind us and the platforms greet 2026 with a few powerful premieres, some expected returns and a resurgence of the platform fight. Choose your favorite, because we bring you the juiciest news of February in terms of streaming. The queen of chess If you think that ‘Queen’s Gambit‘ is among the best things Netflix has ever produced, check out this documentary that tells the true story of the legendary Hungarian chess player Judit Polgár. Overcoming the sexism of a space controlled by men, she challenged champions like Garry Kasparov to become a champion of the sport with a career that began when she was only 12 years old, as the result of her parents’ experiment to raise geniuses. On Netflix February 6 Samuel After a triumphant stint on RTVE, this acclaimed Franco-Spanish series comes to Netflix, consisting of a single season of 21 four-minute episodes. An endearing and sometimes somewhat crude vision of the transition from childhood to adolescence through Samuel’s personal diary, which narrates his concerns, fears, goals and feelings, including everything from unrequited love to experiences such as the death of a friend’s grandmother. The minimalist visual style has a spontaneous touch that tends towards graphic experimentation, and gives rise to a little gem that adds to the best of Netflix’s animation section. On Netflix February 5 Stargate SG1 By surprise and in anticipation of the new series that Prime Video will produce, this modern classic of television science fiction arrives on Netflix. Although the platform has not specified what we can expect from this recovery, we trust that we will have at our disposal the ten seasons of which it consisted, no less than 214 episodes in total. A year after Roland Emmerich’s 1994 film tells the story, it starts with the idea that Ra was not the only alien who used stargates to transport human slaves to multiple planets. Let’s hope things go well for Netflix and we can enjoy successive spin-offs like ‘Atlantis’, ‘Universe’ and even the two direct-to-DVD movies. On Netflix February 15 The deception The Russo brothers are behind the production of this film that recovers the trope of the expert assassin retired and far from the madding crowd, but in a pirate key: Ercell “Bloody Mary” Bodden thought she had escaped her violent past, finding peace in the Cayman Islands with her husband, her son and her sister-in-law. But when her infamous ex-captain arrives seeking revenge, her world falls apart and she is forced back into action. The cast is headed by Priyanka Chopra, whom the Russos already showed us in ‘Citadel‘ and the always reliable Karl Urban. On Prime Video on February 25 Ponies Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson star in this spy comedy that promises excitement and entanglement with airs vintage thanks to its setting in the late seventies. In Moscow, two ponies (“people of no interest”) work as secretaries at the United States embassy until their husbands are murdered under mysterious circumstances. That’s when they become CIA agents. One of them is the daughter of Soviet immigrants, speaks Russian and is overqualified. His companion, the complete opposite: a somewhat reckless village girl. Together, they try to uncover a great conspiracy in the middle of the Cold War. Now available on SkyShowtime Neighbors The trendy indie production company in Hollywood, A24, is behind this documentary series that sometimes seems like a sitcom and sometimes like a demented thriller: it examines stories of absurd, scandalous and dramatic residential conflicts, starring a fauna of extravagant characters spread across the United States. Each episode features a group of neighbors in conflict, with protests ranging from property lines to the use of pets or the appearance with which they go out on the street. Surviving Paradise: Beyond Jehovah’s Witnesses For a long time, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been part of the friendlier landscape of Spanish religion. But hidden behind absolute secrecy was what many former members of the organization describe as a much more disturbing reality. This documentary goes into the annulment methods typical of a sect that many former members claim are practiced in secret: three episodes that talk about the passage of these former Witnesses through the group, their abandonment of it and the subsequent organization until reaching the trials in 2022. Rafaela and her crazy world This new series from the Chanante universe, created by Aníbal Gómez and based on his own book ‘The amazing world of Rafaella Mozarella’, promises to be absolutely insane. It is directed by Ernesto Sevilla and on board are many of the usual suspects: Aníbal himself, Ingrid García-Jonsson, Carlos Areces, Joaquín Reyes and Arturo Valls. Surreal and hooligan, it will tell us the life of a teenager who lives immersed in a dysfunctional family accompanied by three friends and a poodle. At Atresplayer on February 15 The Muppet Show (2026) Let’s get rid of comebacks that don’t interest anyone. This is the most anticipated reboot in television history since ‘DuckTales’ returned: all the classic characters in a legendary program with, how could it be otherwise, a special guest. In this case, Sabrina Carpenter with the help of the great comedian Maya Rudolph. Produces a certified Muppet fan, Seth Rogen, on a roll since he made ‘The Studio’. If this turns out half as well, we have Muppets for a while. On Disney+ on February 4 In an instant (In the Blink of an Eye) He directed two of Pixar’s best films, ‘WALL-E’ and ‘Finding Nemo’, and the industry fell on him when he signed a box office disaster that almost took down Disney, the highly underrated ‘John Carter’. It seems that Hollywood has forgiven him, and Andrew Stanton returns with a film that exhibits declared influences from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Interstellar’. The film features three interconnected stories spanning thousands of years exploring the entire history of the world, and was presented at Sundance, where it won the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Award (awarded for the best representation of science, … Read more

Netflix series are becoming more and more similar to each other and Matt Damon knows who is to blame: your cell phone

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Matt Damon has just confirmed one of the most widespread suspicions about Netflix. In one almost three hour conversation with Joe Roganwhere he appeared alongside Ben Affleck to promote ‘The Loot’, his new film, the actor revealed that the platform requires scriptwriters to constantly repeat the plot in the dialogues. The reason is that the platform assumes that the viewer is with their cell phone in hand while watching its content. Affleck went further and pointed out that streaming has built its entire business model on the assumption that no viewer pays full attention to the screen. Partial attention. Damon didn’t mince his words: if you write for Netflix, you assume from the beginning that your viewer has Instagram open in another tab or is answering WhatsApps. Affleck mentioned the concept of “partial attention,” a term that technology and behavioral studies have been dissecting for years and that now sets the rules for how to construct a dialogue. For the two actors, this has nothing to do with a conspiracy theory or union complaint: it is the real editorial policy of the platform. New era. The leap compared to traditional cinema is brutal. In a dark room there is no escape: the cell phone is silent (or it should be), the giant screen takes up the entire field of vision and the fact of being surrounded by people forces you not to get lost. Netflix plays in another league: it competes with notifications, with getting up to get something from the refrigerator, with someone commenting out loud about what just happened. And instead of standing up to this dispersion, it has chosen to adapt: ​​every five minutes someone recapitulates who is who and what the hell is going on. Netflix vs. Hollywood. This is not the first time that Hollywood has attacked streaming, although it is perhaps the most specific in technical terms. Spielberg already said in 2019 that Netflix movies should compete for Emmys instead of Oscars, and his argument was exactly this: that where you watch something determines what that something is. Scorsese went further that same yearjust as Netflix was paying him for ‘The Irishman’, and talked about the erosion of what he called the concept of “revelation”, those moments that only work if the viewer is completely immersed in the film. What Damon and Affleck bring to the table is the practical detail: we’re not talking about aesthetics or philosophy, but rather literal instructions that screenwriters receive in development meetings. In Rogan. Almost three hours of conversation where there is time for everything. Joe Rogan’s format (long conversations, no commercial breaks, no rush) allows two guys used to reciting friendly anecdotes on Jimmy Fallon’s shows to develop complex ideas. And therein lies the surprise: Affleck and Damon are not just familiar faces who sell movies, they have been inside the machinery for thirty years and know exactly how every gear works. The contrast with the usual promotional circuit is devastating: these two actors, whom many know mainly as movie stars, turn out to be sharp analysts of an industry in the midst of an existential crisis. A narrative change. What Damon and Affleck say is not an isolated case: it confirms a trend that the industry has been tracking for years. Deloitte documented in its annual report on digital trends Doing other things while watching a series is no longer the exception, it is the norm. The leap compared to the prestige television of two decades ago is evident: before the series constructed scenes without words, they left narrative gaps that the viewer had to fill in on their own, they introduced secondary characters whose importance was not clear until later seasons. David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, said who had designed the series like a visual novel: each episode required total concentration because crucial information could appear at any moment. The Netflix change. The platform works differently. Provides showrunners accurate data about the exact minute viewers leave a series or pause to do something else. Those metrics set the development notes: If the data shows that audiences lose interest in scenes without dialogue or complex subplots, subsequent seasons simplify the structure and multiply the verbal exposition. ‘Wednesday’ and the fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’ are recent examples of this process. Completion rate (how many users actually finish a series) has become the criterion that dictates creative decisions unthinkable a decade and a half ago. A paradox without a solution. What Damon says contains a contradiction: the technology that has allowed millions of people to access content previously reserved for movie theaters or physical distribution is changing what type of content is produced. Netflix reaches 260 million subscribers; HBO never went over 150 million in its best era. But this increase in audience comes at a cost: the narrative is simplified to accommodate viewers whose attention is divided. Can both models coexist? Recent series like ‘The Bear’ or ‘Succession’ have achieved million-dollar audiences without sacrificing ellipses, long silences or plots that demand attention. Damon’s comment perhaps functions more as a diagnosis than as a definitive sentence: it shows a tension that Hollywood has not resolved for years, the clash between the logic of streaming based on metrics and the persistence of narratives that demand concentration. If viewers look at their phones while watching series, Netflix simply recognizes that behavior and adjusts its production accordingly. But… do we want him to do it? In Xataka | lhe creative death of Marvel’s MCU left a huge hole. One that in my case is filling WWE on Netflix

The fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’ is the worst of the series by far. Netflix doesn’t care

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Few series better illustrate the dissociation between popularity and prestige than the fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’. The numbers are overwhelming: the closing of the saga accumulated 105.7 million views on Netflixconsolidating itself as the ninth most viewed English series in the entire history of the platform. However, the critical reception and even some increasingly disappointed fans With the conclusion they leave the franchise in an uncomfortable no man’s land that, for the moment, refuses (very much) to die. Audience bomb. The numbers are impressive: the conclusion of the last season propelled Netflix to its best viewership on a New Year’s Day. Furthermore, in an unprecedented experiment, the platform released the final two-hour episode in theaters and raised $25 million at the box office in just 48 hours. It was a very limited distribution of only 600 rooms, in a period of 36 hours and without traditional ticket sales (20 dollars in food and drink were purchased that gave the right to a seat), due to the actors’ royalty contracts: the collection was entirely for the theaters of the chain that had exclusive distribution, AMC. And critical disappointment. On Rotten TomatoesFor example, the audience score has suffered an unprecedented drop in the franchise: from 96% for the first season in 2016 to the current 54% for the fifth, after 90% for the second, 86% for the third and 89% for the fourth. It’s a forty-point drop that reflects more than just viewer fatigue. TIME He explained it in an article about the phenomenon: in 2016 the series was an irresistible nostalgic toy. Nine years later, it’s a content factory. Nine years ago it redefined streaming and entertainment; Now he is another victim of Hollywood franchise machinery. Why didn’t you like it? The criticism of the fifth season is not limited to the disappointment of the fans. It has been said that the series has failed to delve into its characters as they grew. In the technical sectionit has been commented that it is a sloppy production, in the worst Netflix style: excessive lighting, abuse of background blur, obvious color schemes… The aforementioned TIME article also alluded to its pace, with an excess of exposition and verbalization, since this season is the conclusion of a decadent trend for the series that started in season 4. Critical point. The episode in which all these tensions crystallized It was the penultimate of the series, whose IMDb score plummeted to 5.4 out of 10, becoming the lowest rated episode of the entire franchise, and the only one below 7.8, when most episodes range between 8.6 and 9.2. The episode accumulated more than 96,000 ratings, double that of the rest of the season’s episodes, which is why it is suspected of a campaign of review bombing due to its central scene; In any case, some of the criticism pointed to legitimate writing and pacing problems. The unstoppable franchise. If the quality has dropped, why does Netflix insist on milking the series? The answer lies in analysis as this parrot which speaks of more than a billion dollars in revenue since 2020, that is, not counting the first three seasons. To this we must add more than two million new subscribers directly attributable to the franchise. And above all, something intangible: the series consolidated the current model of streaming and gave Netflix executives confidence that they could launch franchises capable of competing with rivals like Marvel. What does it grow with? The company has designed an expansion plan that will keep the Hawkins universe alive for years. The first major spin-off was a play (‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’), which premiered in London’s West End in 2023 and jumped to Broadway in 2025, exploring the origins of Vecna ​​and the first experiments of Project Indigo. ‘Tales from ’85’, an animated series set in the winter between the second and third seasons, is planned for 2026. The main characters (Once, Hopper, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Will, Max) will return in an animated version, which will allow you to touch with your fingertips that impossible treasure that is that children never age. Beyond animation, Netflix is ​​developing an as yet untitled live-action spin-off that will rethink the series from scratch: new characters, probably another decade, and without directly entering the Upside Down. It will work more as an anthology connected to the mythology and tone of the original than as a typical sequel. To this we must add the comics, which Norma Editorial has published in Spain since 2018, immersive experiences in Abu Dhabi and Mexico City, collaborations with Fortnite and extensive merchandising. And although the Duffers have an exclusive contract with Paramount, they will maintain creative supervision of everything related to the series. The underlying problem. With the conclusion of ‘Stranger Things’, Netflix is at a strategic crossroads. There is currently no original production on the platform that is so attractive and, above all, so generationally transversal, something in which ‘The Squid Game’, ‘Wednesday’ or ‘The Bridgertons’ fail. As El País points out, one of the reasons why Netflix has shown interest in acquiring Warner It is precisely because of the need to access a catalog of expandable properties in the style of DC, Harry Potter or ‘Game of Thrones’. The machine does not stop or wait for anyone. In Xataka | The best Netflix series that you can currently watch on the platform

13 premiere movies and series to watch in January 2026 on Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max and streaming

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New year, new recommendations. We come with an impressive avalanche of recommendations for you to start the year audiovisually. All platforms, all genres and all tastes. Don’t let 2026 catch you at a different pace, here are our proposals of all kinds for the month of January. him and her Promising six-episode psychological thriller starring Tessa Thompson (who also serves as executive producer) and Jon Bernthal, which follows a former news anchor who returns to her hometown to cover a crime. A detective suspects her involvement, pursuing her until he places her at the center of his own investigation. The twist: they were married, and they both knew the victim. A story full of twists and surprises that has a most attractive cast. On Netflix from January 8 Agatha Christie: The Seven Spheres He whodunit is, without a doubt, in fashion: the success of ‘Daggers in the Back’ or ‘Only Murders in the Building’ corroborate this, so Netflix has decided to resort to the sourdough of all this: three episodes based on one of Agatha Christie’s least adapted works. In a luxurious rural mansion, a high society party turns into tragedy when a practical joke against a known sleepyhead who is given eight alarm clocks set for 6:30 in the morning triggers a murder. In the cast, Mia McKenna Bruce, Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman. Behind the scenes, Chris Chibnall, creator of ‘Broadchurch’, produces and writes. It includes scenarios filmed in Ronda, with the Real Maestranza bullring, the Puente Nuevo and the Palace of the Moro King. On Netflix from January 15 The loot Police thriller directed and written by Joe Carnahan (‘White Hell’, ‘The A-Team’), which reunites Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as protagonists and represents the first collaboration between Netflix and Artists Equity, the production company founded by the two actors. Inspired by true events, it follows a group of Miami agents who during a raid discover $20 million hidden in an abandoned safe house. The discovery unleashes a spiral of mistrust, ambition and moral dilemmas. Carnahan talks about the film as an homage to classic seventies crime thrillers like ‘Serpico’. Firm candidate to be one of Netflix’s first hits by early 2026. On Netflix from January 16 The Bridgertons – S4 New season of the hit series romantic, this time based on the third novel by Julia Quinn, which focuses on Benedict Bridgerton, the second and bohemian son of the family, and who has resisted marital conventions while his brothers have found marital happiness. It will premiere divided into two parts: Part 1 arrives on January 29 with four episodes and Part 2 on February 26 with the remaining four. The season promises a visual tone inspired by fairy tales, with an emphasis on the masked ball as a dream setting, and combining romance, secret identities, class tensions and the classic visual elegance of ‘The Bridgertons’. On Netflix from January 29 Beauty Science fiction and body horror at the hands of Ryan Murphy, with two FBI agents sent to Paris to investigate the mysterious and grotesque deaths of international supermodels in the world of haute couture. His research reveals the existence of a sexually transmitted virus that gives physical perfection to ordinary people, but with lethal consequences. The trail leads directly to a tech billionaire who has secretly designed a miracle drug. A reflection on the cult of the physical, in a film where performers like Isabella Rossellini stand out in a role that dialogues with her witch from ‘Death suits you so well’. On Disney+ from January 21 wonder man A bit of cover (and with a format binge watchingas already proven with ‘Echo’) the new Marvel series arrives at the end of January. With a meta point and some humor, it tells the story of Hollywood actor Simon Williams, who is trying to get his career off the ground. After a chance meeting with another actor, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley, the fake Mandarin from ‘Iron Man 3’), Simon discovers that a remake of ‘Wonder Man’, a classic superhero film, is being prepared. The two actors, at opposite ends of their careers, will try to get a role. Developed by Destin Daniel Cretton, director of ‘Shang-Chi’, it is the first live-action project of Phase 6 in 2026. On Disney+ from January 27 The Death of Bunny Munro Six-episode British miniseries based on the novel of the same name by Nick Cave published in 2009. Matt Smith plays a sex-addicted beauty product salesman who, after the suicide of his wife, embarks on a chaotic road trip through the south of England with his nine-year-old son while a serial killer disguised as a demon stalks the area. A dark comedy about toxic masculinity and grief where Smith’s performance and his commitment to a repulsive character stand out. On Showtime starting January 30 The Demolition Brothers Action comedy directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (‘Blue Beetle’) that brings together two Hollywood action heavyweights: Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista. The film features two estranged half-brothers, an impulsive police officer and a disciplined Marine, forced to reunite after the mysterious death of their father in Hawaii. What begins as a family reunion quickly turns into a dangerous investigation. Explosive action, characteristic humor of its heroes and setting in the exotic streets of Hawaii. On Prime Video from January 28 crazy old woman Psychological horror that marks the directorial debut of Argentine screenwriter Martín Mauregui. Produced by JA Bayona, it stars Carmen Maura in one of the darkest and most disturbing roles of her career, and in it we will meet a boy who receives a message from an ex-girlfriend asking him to temporarily take care of her mother, who has senile dementia. What seems like a simple act of compassion quickly transforms into a claustrophobic nightmare that addresses, according to Bayona, how violence is transmitted from one generation to another. On Prime Video from January 14 The Pitt – T2 Nine months after the end of its acclaimed first season, … Read more

Netflix entrusted him with more than 70 million for a series. He came with zero episodes and a luxury mattress bill of $638,000

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Carl Rinsch, director of the semi-unknown Keanu Reeves film ’47 Ronin’ has been convicted of defrauding $11 million to Netflix. For the production of a science fiction series that was never made… nor was it planned to be made. Electronic fraud, money laundering and illegal transactions are the charges for this ingenious scoundrel who dared to tease one of the giants modern audiovisual corporations. What happened. The ‘White Horse’ project, later renamed ‘Conquest’, started in 2018 as an ambitious science fiction series about an artificial humanoid species that rebels against its creators. Netflix beat out Amazon, Apple and HBO in a bidding war for the rights to the series, disbursing more than 61 million dollars and granting Rinsch final creative control. 44 million dollars later and after filming in Uruguay, Brazil and Hungary, there was nothing on Mr. Netflix’s table. Crazy investments. In March 2020, as the pandemic spread, Rinsch requested an additional 11 million to, supposedly, complete the series. For some reason, Netflix agreed: Rinsch transferred the funds directly to personal accounts and speculated with stock options for Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company that wanted to end COVID-19 (and COVID finished with her), losing approximately half of the capital in weeks. He later invested in Dogecointurning 4 million into 27. With the profits he unleashed a consumerist hurricane that resulted in five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari worth 2.4 million dollars, two Hästens mattresses handcrafted in Sweden valued at 638,000 dollars, Swiss watches worth 387,000 and antique furniture valued at 3.3 million. Netflix canceled the project in 2021 after receiving only some promotional fragments of the hypothetical series. The sentence. In an unusual strategy, Rinsch chose to testify in his own defensemaintaining that the 11 million constituted a legitimate reimbursement for own capital invested in the project, and that the material already shot served as a negotiation tool to secure a second season that Netflix would never formally authorize. The prosecution presented bank statements showing direct transfers from the production budget to Rinsch’s personal accounts. Why did it happen? To understand this series of misfortunes for Netflix’s pocket, we must contextualize when it occurred: between 2018 and 2020, Netflix was at the center of a kind of streaming “gold rush”, with spending on content that reached $17.3 billion in 2020. The platform then accumulated 45% of global spending on streaming content since 2010, doubling the investment of your closest competitorAmazon Prime Video. The war for creative talent intensified with the launch of Disney+ in November 2019, followed by HBO Max, Apple TV+ and Peacock. Those were the times when, seeking to create a consistent catalog, Netflix prioritized quantity over quality. In this context, Netflix gave Rinsch that final cut for fear of losing the project to rivals. Other frauds. Rinsch is not an isolated case in an industry increasingly vulnerable to fraud. David Ozer, producer with credentials at Starz Media and Sony Pictures Television, serves sentence after diverting more than $200,000 from the ‘Safehaven’ budget. More recently, in August 2025, David Raymond Brown was accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme for 12 million dollars: the producer created a fictitious company that issued invoices for non-existent or already paid services and falsified his profile on IMDb to attract more investors. Header | Dima Solomin in Unsplash

The cosmos has sent us a series of blue flashes for more than a decade. We now have a clue as to what they really are.

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For more than a decade, the cosmos has been sending us mysterious flashes of ultra-bright blue light that appear out of nowhere and disappear in a matter of days. This phenomenon has a strange little name, but they are known as ‘luminous fast blue optical transients’ (LFBOTs), and have baffled astronomers since its discovery. Now, thanks to the analysis of one that has become the brightest ever detected, scientists believe they have solved the enigma: they are black holes devouring companion stars, and the process is extremely violent. The discovery. The team led by researchers from the University of California at Berkeley analyzed a LFBOT discovered in 2024 and named ‘AT 2024wpp’. The phenomenon turned out to be between five and ten times more luminous than any other of its kind previously observed. Astronomers used a range of space and ground-based telescopes (including Chandra, Swift, NuSTAR, ALMA, and the Keck and Gemini observatories) to study it at multiple wavelengths, from X-ray to radio. The data revealed that the energy released by AT 2024wpp was 100 times greater than that of a normal supernova. As Natalie LeBaron, a graduate student at Berkeley and first author of one of the studies, explains, “the absolute amount of energy radiated by these bursts is so large that you can’t feed them with the collapse and explosion of a massive star, or with any other type of normal stellar explosion.” An extreme cosmic feast. The researchers they propose that these flashes are produced by what they call “extreme tidal disruption.” This process occurs when a black hole (with a mass up to 100 times that of our Sun) completely destroys its companion star in a matter of days. According to the team’s reconstructions, the black hole had been absorbing material from its companion for a long time, surrounding itself with a halo of gas. In the case studied, the scientists report that, when the star got too close and was torn apart, the new material violently collided with the pre-existing gas as it fell towards the black hole, generating the intense blue and ultraviolet light characteristic of LFBOTs. According to account Robert Sanders, a researcher at the University of Berkeley, Some of the gas was ejected in jets from the poles of the black hole at about 40% of the speed of light, producing the radio emissions that scientists later detected. Intermediate mass black holes, a separate enigma. The black hole’s inferred mass places these objects in a particularly interesting category: intermediate-mass black holes. Although experiments like LIGO Black hole mergers of more than 100 solar masses have been detected, they have never been directly observed and their formation process remains a mystery. “Theorists have proposed many ways to explain how we get these large black holes,” points out Raffaella Margutti, associate professor of astronomy and physics at Berkeley and lead author of both studies. “LFBOTs allow us to approach this question from a completely different angle. They also allow us to characterize the precise location where these things occur within their host galaxy, which adds more context to trying to understand how we ended up with this configuration: a very large black hole and a companion.” A family of phenomena with curious nicknames. The first LFBOT with sufficient data for analysis was detected in 2018 and received the official designation ‘AT 2018cow’. His name led researchers to nickname him “the Cow”, a tradition that continued with later events: the Koala, the Tasmanian Devil and the Finch. AT 2024wpp, the subject of this study, has already been informally named the Woodpecker. To date, just over a dozen of these events have been identified, all located in galaxies with active star formation at distances of hundreds of millions and billions of light years. The companion star destroyed in AT 2024wpp was more than 10 times the mass of the Sun and could have been a Wolf-Rayet starthat is, very hot and evolved objects that have already consumed much of their hydrogen. TO hunting for LFBOTs. Researchers hope that the upcoming ultraviolet space telescopes, ULTRASAT and UVEX, scheduled to launch in the coming years, will revolutionize the detection of these phenomena. “Right now we find only one LFBOT a year or so. But once we have UV telescopes in space, finding LFBOTs will become routine, like detecting gamma ray bursts today,” explains Nayana AJ, researcher at Berkeley and first author of X-ray and radio analysis. In Xataka | When nuclear energy orbited the Earth: the day a Soviet satellite with a reactor fell in Canada and sparked a crisis

has become a “series to watch in the background”

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The expected ending of ‘Stranger Things’ has unleashed a wave of criticism unusual among his followers. The fifth season, which Netflix launched on November 27, is being pointed out for presenting excessively basic and explanatory dialogues, among other problems derived from an excessive simplification of the series. Not understanding what this is about drop in the quality of the seriesfans have searched for possible explanations and believe they have found it: the “casual viewing” philosophy. What do people complain about? Social networks have been filled with fragments that illustrate a certain decline in writing from the series: scenes where the characters constantly verbalize What they are doing or feeling has generated ridicule and parodies. It has been said of the series slow down the pace “to offer hyper-detailed explanations of what is happening and what will happen next,” robbing viewers of the ability to construct the narrative for themselves. Added to this is a certain drop in the technical level and special effects, which has been seen in sequences such as the one at the beginning of the season, in which Will Byers moves in a completely digital environment and that produces an uncanny valley effect that many believed had already been overcome. Result: on Rotten Tomatoes, this season has barely scratched 84%the lowest score in the history of the franchise. What could have happened. Some fans have traced the possible causes to an extensive report by N+1 Magazine January 2025. Several scriptwriters who had worked for the platform revealed that Netflix executives regularly request that “the characters describe out loud what they are doing, thus allowing viewers who watch the series in the background to follow the plot without problems.” This practice responds to a category that Netflix calls casual viewing or casual viewing. It’s not just a ‘Stranger Things’ thing. There are studies They already talk about Netflix taking into account that we watch many of its series on our mobile screens. And several European producers already they received in 2022 Similar requests: programs that are understandable without having to look at the screen. For practical purposes, dialogues are more descriptive about what the characters are doing and easier to follow without the support of images. Series as popular as ‘Emily in Paris’ have already been described as ‘ambient television’ for having these characteristics. Beyond a specific problem. The demotion of ‘Stranger Things’ goes beyond a simple creative stumble: it represents a fundamental change in how streaming platforms streaming they conceive audiovisual production. The problem now lies in determining whether Netflix is ​​only adapting certain content to allow this viewing in the background, or if this aesthetic is here to stay… and spread. ‘Stranger Things’, symbol of things. But perhaps not what its creators would like. ‘Stranger Things’ closes its career not as the promised cultural event, but as an involuntary emblem of an industry that has decided to optimize content for viewers who, paradoxically, barely look at the screen. A decade later, the iconic Netflix series culminates in the form of a product designed to be watched without paying attention to it. In Xataka | All the unanswered questions left by Netflix’s purchase of Warner: a huge mess

Warner series, franchises and business units that will be owned by Netflix

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Netflix did not need to demonstrate creative capacity: its own production had become the reference for global streaming. However, the announced agreement to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business introduces a change in scale if regulators end up approving the operation. It is not about adding a few more series, but about integrating a studio with decades of history, the area where HBO is located and a very relevant part of its catalog, in addition to several franchises that have marked popular culture. Faced with such a move, the inevitable question is what, exactly, will become under the control of Netflix, without this meaning that everything will appear tomorrow in its application. The agreement is not closed yet and depends on several formal steps. Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have announced that the operation, valued at $72 billion in capital and some $82.7 billion in enterprise value, can only be completed after spinning off the new Discovery Global company. From there, the process will be in the hands of the regulators, which could take between 12 and 18 months to review an integration of this magnitude and could impose additional conditions or, in the worst case scenario, block it. The perimeter of the deal: what actually goes into the package. Official communications and media analysis agree that the operation covers the historical core of the study. That includes Warner Bros. Pictures, responsible for its film catalog, and Warner Bros. Television, the basis for some of the most influential series of recent decades. Added to that block are HBO and the HBO Max platform, which are part of the streaming business that Netflix intends to integrate, as well as DC Studios. The inclusion of Warner Bros. Games is not detailed in the first press release. What’s left out: the new Discovery Global. The operation does not cover the entire Warner Bros. Discovery. Before completion, the company must spin off a block of channels and services that will not come under Netflix control. Warner Bros. Discovery’s corporate plans indicate that this group will be integrated into the new Discovery Global, an independent company that will maintain assets such as CNN, Discovery Channel, TBS, TNT in the United States, Food Network, HGTV, Discovery+ and part of the sports operations, including TNT Sports US. Film franchises: from Hogwarts to Gotham. Netflix and Warner’s own joint communication serves as a guide to understanding the caliber of the film franchises involved. It mentions specific titles such as ‘Harry Potter’, the DC Universe, ‘The Wizard of Oz’, ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Citizen Kane’, along with television brands such as ‘Friends’, ‘The Big Bang Theory’, ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Game of Thrones’, as a sample of the archive that accompanies the study. From that base, media like Newsweek and What’s on Netflix broadens the focus and they point out that, within Warner’s recent filmography, sagas such as ‘Dune’ or ‘The Matrix’ also appear as part of the fund that would remain under the management of the studio controlled by Netflix, always with the caution that it is not an official list title by title. Warner’s animated treasure. Among the assets least visible to the general public, but widely cited in coverage of the agreement, There is the extensive animation catalog that accompanies the Warner studio. There, icons like ‘Looney Tunes’, ‘Tom and Jerry’ and ‘Scooby-Doo’ are mixed with series that defined Cartoon Network’s identity, from ‘The Powerpuff Girls’ and ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’ to ‘Adventure Time’, ‘Regular Show’ and ‘Steven Universe’. The interactive leg of the deal is best understood if we look at what it means, in practice, for Warner Bros. Games to change ownership. Although the first corporate communication did not go into that level of detail, specialized media such as GameDeveloper have cited to a company spokesperson to confirm that the video game division is entering into the operation with Netflix. What is confirmed and what remains unknown. At this point we can draw a relatively clear line between what is confirmed and what still depends on third parties. The perimeter of the agreement falls into the first group: Netflix and Warner have explained that the package includes film and television studiosthe area where HBO and HBO Max and the video game division are included, while the linear channels are grouped into Discovery Global. We also know that franchises such as ‘Harry Potter’, the DC Universe, ‘Friends’ or ‘Game of Thrones’ are mentioned by the parties themselves as examples of the archive they provide. What remains open is when and how this will be reflected in the catalog of each country, what will happen with co-productions and previous licenses already signed and to what extent regulators will impose additional conditions or, in the most extreme scenario, decide to stop the operation. The real impact of this operation will be noticed over time, not from one day to the next. If the agreement receives the approval of regulators, Netflix will manage a studio with a historical weight that is difficult to replicate and a library that has defined much of recent audiovisual culture. What the viewer will see will be a gradual transition, marked by pre-existing licenses and agreements that must be respected, with different schedules depending on the country and type of content. Even so, the movement anticipates a stage in which the platform will stop depending so much on third parties and will consolidate its own base of content that, until now, it could only license. Images | Netflix | Warner In Xataka | All the unanswered questions left by Netflix’s purchase of Warner: a huge mess

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