En quoi les succès de “Skyfall” et du dernier “Twilight” influent-ils sur les ventes des livres, DVD et autres produits dérivés liés à ces films ? ebay nous éclaire sur cette question en nous révélant qui, du célèbre espion ou des vampires, s’en sort le mieux !
Au moment où Twilight 5 bat des records en salles et où Skyfall est devenu le plus lucratif des films consacrés au célèbre agent, il est plus que jamais intéressant de se poser la question suivante : en quoi ces succès influent-ils sur les ventes des livres, DVD et autres produits dérivés propres à ces deux films ? eBay France a mené son enquête, et le match 007 vs Twilight promet d’être acharné ! Voici le décompte (depuis le jour de sortie des films) :
James Bond :
6 fois plus d’articles en vente (plus de 110 000 articles disponibles depuis le 26 octobre, vs 17 700 produits disponibles par mois en moyenne).
Des ventes multipliées par 3 (alors que ce sont en moyenne 460 produits estampillés James Bond qui se vendent en un mois sur eBay, 1 440 articles ont été achetés depuis le lancement du film).
Un cumul de 3 612 enchères sur des articles liés aux termes “James Bond”, “Skyfall”, et “007”.
Twilight :
Près de 2 fois plus d’articles en vente (plus de 75 000 articles disponibles depuis le 7 novembre, vs 39 200 produits disponibles par mois en moyenne).
Des ventes multipliées par 2 (avec une moyenne mensuelle de 251 articles estampillés Twilight qui se vendent chaque mois, la sortie du 5è opus booste les vente pour les faire grimper à 570 sur le mois de novembre).
Un cumul de 1 112 enchères sur des articles liés aux termes “Twilight” “Robert Pattinson” et “Kristen Stewart”.
Le vainqueur est donc 007 !! En effet, l’engouement qu’il suscite a beaucoup augmenté depuis la sortie du dernier volet de la saga, ce qui a insufflé (et insuffle encore) un sérieux coup de boost aux ventes de différents produits liés au film.
La bande-annonce de “Skyfall” et “Twilight – Chapitre 5 : Révélation 2e partie”
Réussite totale lors des Grammy Awards pour le duo français qui a récolté les quatre Grammys pour lesquels il était nommé, ainsi qu’un cinquième dans les catégories techniques.
La soirée tant attendue par le monde de la musique s’est déroulée comme prévue dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi au Staples Center de Los Angeles. Des Grammy Awards aux reflets bleu, blanc, rouge pour cette 56e édition des récompenses honorant les meilleurs artistes et techniciens dans le domaine de la musique. Beaucoup d’artistes américains devaient penser avoir leur chance mais ils ont finalement été relégués au rang de témoins impuissants de l’hégémonie française.
Nommés dans quatre catégories, en compagnie de leur ingénieur du son lui-même nommé dans une catégorie technique, les deux bonshommes casqués n’ont pas fait de quartier. Deux amis qui ont ainsi raflé trois des Grammys les plus convoités: l’album de l’année, le meilleur enregistrement et la meilleure performance duo pop. Une mainmise assurée par le succès de leur tube Get Lucky avec Pharrell Williams et de leur album Random Acces Memories sorti en mai 2013. Ce n’est pas tout puisque les Frenchies en ont profité pour s’accaparer la récompense du meilleur album dance/electro tandis que leur ingénieur du son s’est lui vu gratifié d’un prix pour son travail technique sur l’album.
Un retour en fanfare pour les Daft Punk qui n’étaient plus apparus à la télévision depuis six ans. Le duo toujours aussi peu attiré par le feu des projecteurs continue au fil des ans à protéger son identité. Pas de dérogation à la règle, même lorsque qu’ils reçoivent leurs Grammys. Les Français, casqués comme à leur habitude et tout de blanc vêtus, ont en effet choisi de laisser Pharrell Williams s’exprimer à leur place. L’artiste américain qui avait eu la bonne idée d’accepter l’association avec ces extraterrestres pour interpréter le morceau Get Lucky devenu depuis un succès planétaire, s’est prêté au jeu. Vêtu d’une tenue faisant légèrement penser à celle d’un officier de la police montée canadienne, Pharrell Williams a glissé «Je parie que la France est très fière de ces gars maintenant».
Pas un mot des intéressés présents à ses côtés. Une soirée de succès pour Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo et Thomas Bangalter qui n’ont pas quitté le Staples Center avant d’avoir offert un show digne de ce nom au public. Là encore les deux stars de la soirée n’ont pas fait dans la demi-mesure, s’associant à Stevie Wonder, Nile Rodgers et bien entendu Pharrell Williams pour interpréter Get Lucky, Freak out et Another Star.Une coopération qui, bien qu’annoncé à l’avance, n’a pas déçu. Carton plein pour les Daft Punk qui disparaîtront peut-être pour 10 ans… avant de revenir avec un nouvel album qui révolutionnera à nouveau le monde de la musique.
Il y a fort à faire quand on se frotte aux légendes: Dwayne Johnson, toujours connu sous son pseudonyme The Rock, en a fait les frais. Il ne s’attendait pas à ce que devenir Hercule pour les besoins de son prochain film soit si intense –interviewé par le magazine Premiere, il a expliqué que le tournage avait constitué un véritable challenge.
«Ça n’a pas été facile.» Quand Dwayne Johson, ancien catcheur et véritable montagne de muscles, décrit ainsi sa préparation pour un rôle physique, on ne peut qu’être surpris. Surtout quand il ajoute qu’il a même «dû prendre du muscle pour jouer Hercule.»
L’acteur, qui avait coaché Hugh Jackman pour qu’il soit «bien féroce» dans Wolverine, a donc dû retourner à la salle de sport pour ce nouveau rôle mythologique. En cause: sa musculature, qui ne correspondait pas à l’image du héros antique. «Hercule devait être plus affiné, plus naturel, plus affamé. C’était le but, et j’ai souffert pour l’atteindre.»
Le résultat, visible dans la première bande-annonce du film, est impressionnant. The Rock, barbu et généralement vêtu d’un simple pagne, semble plus puissant que jamais.
Hercule, péplum moderne sortira en salles à la fin du mois de juillet. Dwayne Johnson retrouvera par la suite son ami Paul Walker, ressuscité en images de synthèse dans Fast and Furious 7.
Rapper Azealia Banks denigrated Irish people as “inbred leprechauns” in a social media screed on Wednesday, subsequently asking mixed martial artist Connor McGregor — an Irish prize fighter — for “help” in mitigating the backlash she received.
Banks wrote that the Irish lack “white privilege.”
“Because most of you can’t talk or write lol. You lot are a bunch of prideful inbred leprechauns who have ZERO global influence and ZERO white privilege,” the New York rapper said. “The rest of the world’s white folks don’t want to associate you lot at all and it’s because you are barbarians.”
Banks also wrote: “I’m happiest knowing the Irish are all quarantined on an isle so they can continue to inbreed and keep their defective genes from the rest of humanity.”
“Don’t you have a famine to go die in?” asked Banks of a presumably Irish Instagram user.
The Daily Mail reported:
Banks had a contentious exchange with an Aer Lingus — an Irish airline — flight attendant, according to the Daily Mail. A witness claims to have heard Banks say, “I am on this flight and I am famous.”
Banks later wrote of her airline incident:
On Thursday, Azealia Banks posted a video of her disembarking a plane. She did not indicate if the video is from the aforementioned incident with Aer Lingus.
The “Broke with Expensive Taste” singer said she plans to file a complaint against Aer Lingus.
Banks said in an Instagram video, “It’s always the same sh*t when I come to the UK. Getting singled out by the haggard, old white ladies, every f*cking time…they’re like ‘Oh who is this black girl in business class?’…They always trying to play you like ‘It’s not racism’.
The 27-year-old claimed to have been “treated like a wild animal” on a “travel day from hell.”
“I am so over it. This is not what I signed up for when I was a little girl and I wanted to be a superstar,” Banks concluded.
Juncker and his team make clear who they want to be president of France.
There was relief in the European Commission at Emmanuel Macron’s first-place finish in the first round of the French presidential election, with Jean-Claude Juncker congratulating the centrist candidate and wishing him good luck for the runoff on May 7.
The Commission’s chief spokesperson Margaritis Schinas was also happy.
“The choice was rather simple, straightforward. Those who defended what Europe stands for and those who simply want to destroy Europe,” he said.
Asked by reporters to clarify the Commission’s line on the French elections, Schinas said there were “many candidates, one choice.”
Schinas repeated earlier statements that French elections are of central importance to Europe and said the Commission’s office in Paris would be fact-checking statements on the EU made by the candidates.
The Commission doesn’t normally publicly back a candidate before an election is over, and it seems that the French election is an exception to the rule. Asked if the Commission would be taking sides in the British election on June 8, Schinas said it wasn’t going to happen.
“In the U.K. general election at stake is how the Brits want to be governed for the next five years,” Schinas said.
Late-night TV hosts mocked President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday after a judge sentenced him to three years in jail after accepting a plea deal for multiple crimes.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in New York sentenced Michael Cohen to three years in prison Wednesday for crimes including tax evasion, breaking election law, and lying to Congress about previous business dealings in Russia.
The Late Show host Stephen Colbert started by giving Cohen some advice for his time behind bars.
“Now a little tip for Mr. Cohen,” Colbert began. “First day in prison, you walk right up to the biggest guy in the yard, you pay him $130,000. Boom. Boom!”
Colbert followed up with one of Cohen’s statements where he expressed regret for covering up Trump’s alleged “dirty deeds.”
“Recently, the president tweeted a statement calling me weak, and he was correct, but for a much different reason than he was implying,” Cohen said. “It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”
“And evidently, you suck at it,” Colbert responded gleefully.
Over on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the ABC host suggested that Cohen had wrongly taken the blame for Trump’s crimes.
“Just to recap, Donald Trump cheats on his wife while she’s at home with their infant son. Donald Trump has a long-term affair with a Playboy Playmate. Donald Trump illegally pays the both of them off, and Michael Cohen goes to jail for it,” Kimmel said. “That’s like if Johnnie Cochran did time and not OJ.”
“Cohen doesn’t have to report to prison until March 6,” he added. “So he is still available to host the Oscars if they’re looking.”
Over on Late Night, Seth Meyers suggested that rather than running for re-election, Cohen’s sentence may mean he is instead “running from the feds.”
“Forget running from re-election in two years, Trump might be running from the Feds,” Meyers said. “The FBI’s going to bust into a cabin in Montana and find Trump with a Unabomber beard surrounded by Burger King wrappers.”
Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon also joined in the mockery, inferring that Trump’s former staffers tend to be criminals.
“If you’re watching from home, you’re in for a great show,” Fallon said. “If you’re watching from jail, you probably used to work for the president.”
“Cohen said it could have been worse, I could have been sentenced to be White House chief of staff,” he added.
There’s no readily available second chance for the British marriage with Europe.
As surprising as Britain’s election outcome was on Friday, both the humbled Conservatives and resurgent Labour agreed that Brexit must go on.
That’s probably for the best, since the alternative isn’t readily available.
Even if the U.K. did have a change of heart about Brexit — and under the British system only the current elected Parliament is sovereign and isn’t bound by whatever its predecessors decided — it looks both legally and politically challenging, to say the least, to stop the divorce process that began when Theresa May invoked Article 50 this spring and started the clock on a speedy exit from the EU within two years, down to the minute.
The message from legal experts, officials and politicians in Brussels is there’s no turning back on Brexit — except maybe through a humiliating climb-down of such historic proportions that it is all but impossible: A grovelling commitment not to make again for the EU door.
The lack of clarity on this point reflects the unprecedented nature of the entire Brexit exercise.
Article 50, eight sentences in the EU treaties that set out how a European country can untangle itself from economic and legal ties whose depth and complexity, has never been invoked before. And if Article 50 is remarkably vague on what happens during the the two-year exit process, it is wholly silent on whether a country that has set off down the exit path can, well, change its mind.
“It’s a chestnut of the debate,” said Alec Burnside, an EU lawyer with law firm Dechert. “In my view, it depends on whether there is a shared will for it to be done.”
Note the word “shared.”
International law tends to say that the U.K. could reverse course unilaterally. “The [United Nations] convention on the law of treaties [says that] unless the treaties provide otherwise, a notification can be withdrawn,” according to Takis Tridimas, a professor of constitutional law and a lawyer.
It is also a matter of national sovereignty. “The right to withdraw from the EU is a sovereign right, and the other side of the coin is to change your mind. The crossing of the Rubicon occurs only when you leave. Until then you are a member of the EU,” Tridimas said.
That outcome would likely have to concur with the general EU spirit of more, not less, integration. That means it would likely be looked on favorably by national capitals and EU judges, subject to an important condition: No gaming the system.
The European Parliament warned against such a possibility. “A revocation … needs to be subject to conditions set by all [other EU countries], so that it cannot be used as a procedural device or abused in an attempt to improve on the current terms of the United Kingdom’s membership,” a resolution from April reads. By withdrawing and refiling down the road, the U.K. could seek better terms — and plunge Europe once again into uncertainty.
Alain Lamassoure, a senior French MEP aligned with French President Emmanuel Macron, argued the determining factor would be the existence of a “strong political will in London to withdraw Article 50 unconditionally.”
Would anyone be willing to give a commitment not to re-submit? “It would need a re-alignment of British politics to accept those terms,” said Burnside, the lawyer. “It would need a new general election.”
That is not inconceivable. But meanwhile the negotiations stopwatch continues to tick. The current deadline is end of March 2019, although it could be extended with the agreement of all European capitals.
There is one major problem: The end of March 2019 coincides with the next round of European Parliament elections and the selection of a new European Commission.
“It is unimaginable the U.K. elects new MEPs to the EP [and] there will not be another British commissioner,” said Lamassoure, the MEP. “That is non-negotiable.”
That position seems to have a wide support among the power circles in Brussels.
“We don’t know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end,” tweeted Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, who speaks for national capitals.
“Do your best to avoid a ‘no deal’ as result of ‘no negotiations’,” was his friendly advice to the U.K.
Or was that a veiled threat?
For the moment, of course, the consensus in the U.K. remains in favor of Brexit. Prime Minister Theresa May, who said “Brexit means Brexit,” will seek to form a government, while Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, told the BBC this morning: “[The negotiations] are going to have to go ahead.”
Yet the lesson from recent history in the U.K. seems to be: Expect the unexpected.
Actor Damon Wayans Jr. apologized for a number of “hurtful” tweets he says came at the “expense of the LGBTQ community,” days after it was announced he would produce an hour-long drama about a “gender non-conforming” young person.
Last week, The CW Television Network announced that Wayans Jr. would serve as an executive producer for Glamorous, a new series following the life of gender non-conforming high school graduate who lands his dream job interning at a cosmetics company whose products he slated on his YouTube channel.
However, it has now emerged that in tweets posted between 2010 and 2011, the 36-year-old used terms such as “tranny,” “fag,” and “no homo,” something that has caused anger among LGBT activists.
“When I was a young comic trying to find my voice, I made some immature and hurtful tweets that I deeply regret at the expense of the LGBTQ community,” Wayans said in a statement provided to Deadline. “When I tweeted those comments, almost 10 years ago, I was unaware of the emotional impact they could have. I am not excusing that behavior but that is not who I am today. Society evolved and so have I and it is something I will continue to do both personally and professionally.”
“Continued learning, acceptance and thoughtful words are all important actions that will help make society a kinder and safer place for all people,” he continued. “You know better, you do better. I am very proud of the work we are doing at Two Shakes entertainment.
Wayans Jr., who has starred in televisions series including Happy Endings and New Girl, has previously expressed anti-American political views. In July 2017, he mocked those celebrating July 4th Independence Day celebrations, describing them as “Happy white people proud of their racist ancestors day.”
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at [email protected].
Armed police patrol the Champs Elysees in Paris following the shooting of a police officer | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
MIDDAY BRIEF, IN BRIEF
Today at Commission, Paris attack and Soros
Juncker writing to Hollande about Thursday night shooting.
The European Commission on Friday condemned the attack in Paris in which one police officer was killed and two wounded.
At the daily press briefing, spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was writing to French President François Hollande about the attack.
Juncker and his Commission team condemned “the abject attack which targeted French police forces yesterday night as they were fulfilling their duties to protect citizens on the Champs-Élysées. Our thoughts are with the families and relatives of the victims and we express our solidarity with President Hollande, the French government and the people of France,” Andreeva said.
She added that “Europe is determined to continue the fight against terrorism.”
Staying with France, Andreeva said the Commission did not have a plan in place if Marine Le Pen of the National Front wins the French presidential election, the first round of which will be held Sunday.
She also reiterated Juncker’s thoughts on the French election given in an interview to Bild am Sonntag in March. The Commission chief said he believed Le Pen would not win “and even if she did, it would not be the end of the European project. But it would certainly rock the boat. So I hope that pro-European forces will win in France.”
Soros in Brussels
There’s a busy week coming, culminating in a Brexit summit on April 29. Before then, expect lots more talk about the situation in Hungary.
On Thursday Juncker will meet George Soros, the philanthropist and backer of Central European University, which has been targeted by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. A Commission source told POLITICO the meeting was requested by Soros.
The full agenda for all the commissioners next week is here.
Amy Schumer has not yet laid out how she intends to win the peace, but the Hollywood actress is saying that she has won her war against the Super Bowl, and its halftime show.
In October, angered by what she perceived to be the marginalization and punishment of players like Colin Kaepernick who she believes are fighting for minority rights, Schumer called for Maroon 5 to back out of their deal to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. She also called on other musical acts to boycott the event, and pledged that she would not perform in any Super Bowl halftime commercials.
Schumer seems to have been successful in her latter demands. No other musical acts have joined Maroon 5 and, in a matter she has absolute control of, she has not inked any deals to appear in commercials. However, Maroon 5 has not backed out of their agreement to perform.
Nonetheless, Schumer took to social media to declare victory.
On Wednesday, Schumer lashed out at “snooty” sports writers who fail to appreciate her calls for a boycott.
As TMZ reports:
Colin Kaepernick remains unemployed by the NFL. However, the former 49er is still pressing his collusion suit against the league. In which he and fellow petitioner Eric Reid, allege that league owners colluded to keep them out of the league due to their anthem protests.