Jurassic World’s Classy Nod to Force Awakens’ Box Office Records
Star Wars: The Force Awakens' worldwide debut set a new record high—eclipsing Jurassic World's $525 million figure—and in response, the people behind the film have offered their congratulations.
Jurassic World producer Frank Marshall took to Twitter to celebrate The Force Awakens' success, congratulating director J.J. Abrams, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and the rest of crew involved.
Cheers to J.J., Kathy, the cast and crew, and DIS/LFL marketing teams! #TheForceAwakens @Disney @StarWars @Bad_Robot pic.twitter.com/oa0zwuAb2Q
Force Awakens Final Opening Totals Break More Records
The initial weekend box office estimate suggested record-breaking earnings for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with an expected $238 million debut. Now, however, it appears that number is even larger than reports predicted.
Disney has adjusted the film's Sunday earnings, increasing the already monstrously-large figure by $9 million. This not only means The Force Awakens made a whopping $247m during its opening weekend, as it also broke Sunday's box office record with $61 million.
Also, when factoring in the extra $9m made domestically and additional $2m internationally, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has a new worldwide total of $529 million, eclipsing Jurassic World's impressive global debut.
Old Man Logan #1 Cover Pays Homage to the Dark Knight Returns
Marvel showed a preview of Old Man Logan #1 and one of the variant covers is an homage to Batman's The Dark Knight Returns with Wolverine.
Old Man Logan displaces a future and further grizzled James Howlett (a.k.a. the former Wolverine) from his alternate timeline to mainstream Marvel continuity.
With the prime Logan now dead, and his title of Wolverine passed on to clone Laura Kinney, this new, old Logan gives Marvel a means to bring the character back without treading into resurrection territory. In this way it shares something in common with The Dark Knight Returns, which itself featured an aged and failed Bruce Wayne returning to his role as Batman.
New to Netflix for January
If you thought that Netflix had a lot of original programming already, wait until it doubles in 2016. Just in the first month here, Netflix has a new Chelsea Handler docu-series, a new Degrassi season, kid-oriented programming featuring characters from Ever After High and DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon, and a comedy special from Tom Segura.
Also, Constantine, Training Day, the final season of Parks and Rec, Meet the Parents, Swordfish, The Rundown, and more.
Here's the full Netflix list for January...
IGN SPOTLIGHT
- Constantine (2005)
Here’s What’s Leaving Netflix in January
Netflix is purging its catalogue big time come January as the start of the new year means no more Rocky movies, Rambo films, Lara Croft adventures, Zoolander, The Nightmare Before Christmas, the first two Bournes, the first two Mission Impossibles, and much more. Yes, it's farewell to A Clockwork Orange, Gladiator, Rosemary's Baby, There Will Be Blood, and Serpico.
Call of Duty Black Ops 3 Awakening DLC Release Date
Call of Duty: Black Ops III's first DLC map pack, Awakening, is slated to release on February 2 on PlayStation 4, Treyarch and Activision announced today.
The new maps are highlighted in a video released today—there's Gauntlet, a map based around a military facility with a few different environments; Splash, a playful, colorful abandoned waterpark; Rise, a snowy and deserted construction facility; and Skyjacked, a re-imagined version of the Black Ops II map Hijacked.
Awakening will also include the fourth episode of Black Ops III's zombies story, Der Eisendrache. This installment is set in a medieval castle built on a creepy ancient site.
Awakening is the first in a set of four map packs, and as Sony confirmed at PlayStation Experience, the maps will be exclusive to PlayStation 4 for the first 30 days, with PC and Xbox players able to download them later.
Out This Week: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
With so many new games and movies coming out, it can be hard to keep up. Lucky for you, IGN is here to help with a weekly round-up of the biggest releases each and every week. Check out the latest releases for this week, and be sure to come back next Monday for a new update.
Note: The prices and deals compiled below are accurate at the time we published this story, but all are subject to change.
Amplitude Tunnel Mode Unveiled
Harmonix announced today that Amplitude will have a new gameplay mode called FreQ mode. Inspired by Harmonix's first major release, FreQuency, the mode will allow players to skip flat tracks and instead play along tracks "continuously wrapped around tunnels," which makes for trippy gameplay, Harmonix audio lead Pete Maguire says.
The original Amplitude flattened the tracks and moved away from FreQuency's tunnel design, "allowing the player to have a better mental map of the music," with the goal of improved track recognition. In addition to allowing "players to recognize that, in a certain song, the drums were always the leftmost track," flat tracks also let Harmonix explore new world environments.
Lexus Outfits One of Its NX Cars With Wheels Made of Ice
Lexus is used to doing unique things with their vehicles, as shown by the cardboard car they made, but now the carmaker has decided to do something smaller, but still just as impressive: a Lexus car riding on wheels of ice.
The specific car used was the Lexus NX, and its cooler wheels were painstakingly made to resemble the real thing, with each wheel taking four sculptors 36 hours to finish. That's after the three months of research and development, according to Car and Driver, and the five days the wheels and car were frozen in -22° Fahrenheit (-30° Celsius) temperatures.
Survey: Half of America Plays Games, 10% Admit It
The good news in a survey conducted by Pew Research is that more people than ever are gaming; the bad news is only a fraction of them are willing to admit it.
According to the survey entitled Gaming and Gamers, 50% of American men and 48% of women play games, but only 10% self-identify as "gamers."
While the report doesn't directly theorize why such a small portion are willing to consider themselves gamers, it does note that "among the general public, attitudes towards games are complex and often uncertain." The survey shows equal percentages of respondents being diametrically opposed on questions like "are videogames a waste of time?" with 26% saying "true for most games," while 24% say "untrue for most games" and whether “people who play violent video games are more likely to be violent themselves,” with 40% of all adults agreeing with that statement and 53% disagreeing.