The modern financial system was never designed for machines. It was built around the constraints of human life: geography, sleep cycles, paperwork, and physical presence. But as AI agents begin to act as economic participants, that human-centric design is starting to look less like a feature, and more like a bottleneck, said the co-founder of crypto firm Alchemy.
“You can argue that crypto was built for AI agents, not humans,” said Alchemy CEO and co-founder Nikil Viswanathan.
The mismatch is everywhere. Banks have operating hours because humans do. Payments are tied to countries because people live in them. Credit cards assume physical identity and presence, he said.
AI agents operate differently. They don’t sleep. They don’t live anywhere. They don’t walk into banks or carry cards. And increasingly, they don’t just assist with tasks, they transact.
“All transactions for agents are online. They’re inherently global,” Viswanathan, who will be speaking at Consensus Miami next month, told CoinDesk in an interview.
That’s where crypto starts to look less like an alternative financial system and more like the native infrastructure for a new kind of economic actor, he said.
Alchemy is a crypto infrastructure company that provides the underlying tools and services developers need to build blockchain-based applications. It offers APIs, node infrastructure, and data services that power everything from financial apps to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and games, enabling companies to build and scale onchain products without managing the complexity of blockchain systems themselves.
Built for the wrong user
Traditional finance assumes friction. Paying someone in another country involves currency exchanges, intermediaries, delays and fees. For humans, that’s normal. But for AI agents, it’s unusable.
Agents need to transact seamlessly across borders, at any time, often in tiny increments. They need programmability, direct control over money via code, and systems that don’t depend on physical infrastructure or identity.
Crypto offers exactly that: a global, always-on financial layer where value moves as easily as data, he said.
“Crypto is the global infrastructure for money that agents need,” Viswanathan said.
Complexity flips
What has long made crypto difficult for humans, including seed phrases, private keys and interacting directly with code, is exactly what makes it powerful for machines, Viswanathan said.
Unlike humans, agents operate natively in code.
“Agents read in zeros and ones. That’s their native language,” he said. “That’s also the language of crypto.”
For years, crypto has tried to abstract itself into something more human-friendly. But its underlying architecture was never really built for humans in the first place.
Viswanathan compared the shift from crypto tools being built primarily for humans to crypto tools being used by AI agents to an earlier epochal shift from the postal system to the internet. While people once had to physically write out a letter, buy a stamp and mail it to share messages across the globe, communication in the modern era is much faster.
“Email is far more powerful than the postal system because it’s designed for computers,” Viswanathan said. “Crypto is similar.”
Agent-run financial system
Viswanathan said that moving forward, AI agents will sit on top of crypto infrastructure, handling complexity automatically, managing wallets, executing transactions and optimizing flows of capital in real time, letting people control their own funds more easily.
“You can write code to manage a crypto wallet,” Viswanathan said. “You can’t write code to manage a bank account in the same way.”
The result would be a financial system that is more global, more programmable, and more autonomous.
Viswanathan said he sees a layered future: traditional finance and crypto as the base, an agent layer operating on top and a human interface above that.
“Just like computers operate the internet and humans use it, agents will operate finance,” he said.
Read more: Sam Altman’s World project launches major upgrade to fight deepfakes and bots
A few hundred of the top $TRUMP memecoin holders were treated to some personal time with U.S. President Donald Trump and his high-profile guests on Saturday at an event at his Florida club in which Trump warned bankers against getting in the way of crypto legislation.
Speaking at the private Mar-a-Lago gathering in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump took up the stance his White House crypto advisers had occupied on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. He pushed back against the bank lobbyists who’d stalled the legislation — the crypto industry’s primary policy aim.
The White House won’t let the banks ruin the crypto market structure legislation, Trump said at the event, a finance-focused gathering billed as “the most exclusive conference in the world.”
In negotiations over recent months, banking groups had won over some senators over their concerns about how U.S. regulations would pave the way for stablecoin rewards programs that the bankers argued could threaten their traditional deposit accounts. The objection derailed Senate progress on the effort to win a new U.S. regulatory regime for crypto, though recent discussions suggest the bill could still get back on track and has a potential path to survive a tightening lawmaking calendar this year. Trump has signaled that’s a priority.
The president’s event featured a roster of crypto executives and investors, including Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood and Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley. Boxer Mike Tyson was also in attendance.
Beyond crypto, Trump touched on foreign policy issues including Iran, Venezuela and NATO, which he described as a “paper tiger” that is “never there for us.”
As for the digital asset industry, Trump stuck to his usual script: “We are the leader in crypto. It’s become mainstream,” he said.
The conference comes as Trump continues to back crypto ventures tied to his name, drawing both industry support and political scrutiny. His close personal connections to digital assets businesses has been among the other sticking points on passing the Clarity Act, as Democratic negotiators have insisted that senior government officials, including the president, be banned from profiting off of the industry.
A previous event he appeared at for his memecoin investors last year touched off protests and Democratic criticism that his policy aims benefit his own business interests in an example of government corruption that needs to cease. He was also criticized for meeting privately with unnamed foreign business figures who’d effectively paid for their attendance.
A 38% Rotten Tomatoes score has landed with a familiar critique: The film avoids the most controversial chapters of Michael Jackson’s life. But with a projected $85 million or more global opening, the film has secured its place in the cultural zeitgeist, and the harsh reviews it suffered won’t doom its awards prospects.
Despite the critical lashing, the audience score has been propped up by faithful fans and is sitting at 96%. It’s worth going over some recent awards history to contextualize those numbers. Adam McKay’s allegorical satire “Don’t Look Up” (2021) was deemed rotten by critics, with a 55% Tomatometer, but earned an audience score of 78%. The film went on to land four Oscar nominations, including best picture and original screenplay. The Academy has nominated other movies with low critical consensus for best picture, including “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (2011).
That type of disparity goes both ways. Rian Johnson’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2017) landed an impressive 91% critics’ score but sits at a measly 42% audience score. But Rotten Tomatoes scores are averaged from professional film critics, while Academy voters are film professionals — two disparate groups. The two are often out of sync, and over a long enough timeframe, the Academy remembers what critics dismiss, and vice versa.
Owen Gleiberman, Variety’s chief film critic, was positive on the film, writing: “Jaafar Jackson gets Michael’s tentative high sugary voice just right, but he also shows us how that famous personality evolves.”
By many critics’ standards, modern music biopics just aren’t holding up, but “Michael” isn’t an outlier.
Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 music biopic “Elvis” sidestepped one of the most uncomfortable truths of its subject’s personal life. Elvis Presley, then 24, met a then-14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu and began dating her when she was 17. That film still made its way to eight Oscar nominations and didn’t generate much in the way of backlash over what it left out of the singer’s life.
Bryan Singer controversies aside, the 2018 Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” was criticized for downplaying singer Freddie Mercury’s bisexuality. It earned a barely fresh 60% Rotten Tomatoes score and four Academy Awards, including one for Rami Malek, despite criticism over his lip-syncing.
Even Dexter Fletcher’s jukebox musical “Rocketman” was widely praised at 89%, though it effectively ignored many chapters of Elton John’s life (including the singer’s Madonna feud, Princess Diana’s death and his work on “The Lion King”), ending instead in the 1980s with “I’m Still Standing.”
Colman Domingo stars as Joe Jackson in “Michael.”
Lionsgate
Selective storytelling isn’t a glitch in the biopic formula. Often, it is the formula, especially when the subjects or their estates are involved. As Variety reported, the intended version of the film included the exploration of the impact of the allegations on Jackson’s life. However, the third act finale was scrapped after attorneys for the Jackson estate, who also served as a producer, realized there was a clause in a settlement with one of the singer’s accusers, Jordan Chandler, that barred the depiction or mention of him in any movie. Rewrites and reshoots would follow. Critics might feel the allegations are the whole story of the Jackson legacy, but without definitive proof, or a guilty verdict, any version of a “Michael” movie becomes an artist’s interpretation for what they believe to be true. This isn’t the first artistic exploration of the complicated music figure, and surely, will not be the last.
Nonetheless, this is what makes the critical response to “Michael” feel less like an analysis of director Antoine Fuqua’s interpretation and more a reaction to the expectations of what the story should have been.
The film ends in 1988, staging “Bad” as its creative crescendo (the best sequence in the film, by the way). For audiences expecting a cradle-to-grave reckoning, that cutoff can feel abrupt. For the filmmakers, the potential sequel could address the controversies of the 1990s.
The real issue isn’t that “Michael” doesn’t cover everything. It’s that, in sidestepping those later chapters, it struggles to replace them with equally compelling narrative tension. That’s a storytelling problem, but it’s not the same as a moral or cinematic failure. That also doesn’t mean “Michael” scribe John Logan will be ignored. “Bohemian Rhapsody,” after all, was nominated for original screenplay.
And if Oscar history has shown anything, these kinds of critical issues are not disqualifying. Remember Rule No. 1? Critics are not Oscar voters.
Where “Michael” may find an awards-season narrative is if it becomes a box-office juggernaut, on par with or surpassing “Bohemian Rhapsody’s” $910 million global haul. Its awards footing, however, lies in the performances — and this is where the industry should be paying closer attention.
Jaafar Jackson, the real-life nephew of the King of Pop (and son of his brother Jermaine), delivers a masterful performance that goes beyond “oh, he looks like him.” The “Bad” sequence alone demonstrates a command of physicality and presence that suggests a breakout moment, even if the film around him wavers. That kind of star turn has a long precedent for receiving awards love, particularly when biopics become showcases for actors. All I can say is, at minimum, watch out for Jaafar Jackson at the Golden Globes.
Equally compelling is the discovery of 12-year-old Juliano Krue Valdi, who plays Michael during the Jackson 5’s formative years. He avoids caricature, bringing emotional clarity to those early years. That showmanship should not go unnoticed. His road may go as far as the Critics Choice nom for young performer (under 23), but will mostly stop at those gates (although they shouldn’t).
Is this the summer of Colman Domingo? Alongside “Michael,” he’ll appear in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming “Disclosure Day,” and enter the Emmy conversation with the final season of HBO Max’s “Euphoria” and the second season of the Tina Fey Netflix comedy “The Four Seasons,” for which he was nominated last year. There’s also the possibility of a guest comedy actor run for hosting “Saturday Night Live.” When an actor has that kind of momentum, the Academy often looks for a performance to crown the moment (see Jessica Chastain in “The Help” or Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”).
The film also serves as a reminder of the depth of talent among ’90s-era Black actors. Nia Long brings much-needed grounding to the story and could have been a viable supporting actress player with one or two more scenes. Larenz Tate (seemingly ageless) shines as Motown legend Berry Gordy, while Kendrick Sampson captures the smooth authority of the late Quincy Jones. KeiLyn Durrel Jones, as security chief Bill Bray, is a quiet, commanding presence. These are actors, part of an ensemble that also includes Miles Teller, Mike Myers and more, who elevate uneven material, and whose opportunities have too often been limited. That could be “Michael’s” advantage, and make it a threat for a spot at The Actor Awards for cast ensemble.
None of this is to suggest that criticism of “Michael” is unwarranted. Multiple factors will cap the Lionsgate film’s awards prospects (i.e., inconsistent makeup, flat narrative beats). Adding to the previous abuse allegations against the King of Pop are newly-resurfaced allegations that came to light on Friday — clearly an issue that could keep industry voters away.
Nonetheless, the idea that a biopic must function as a definitive, all-encompassing account or be deemed a cinematic failure isn’t a standard the industry has ever consistently applied — nor should it be. If it were, many Oscar-winning films wouldn’t exist.
What “Michael” ultimately reveals is a growing tension between critics and audience expectations regarding biographical storytelling. The gap between those sensibilities is where most biopics live.
Something notable happened on Friday, indicating the accelerating institutionalization of the bitcoin market, which has been pioneered by everyday people for years.
This is because options, or hedging instruments, linked to BlackRock’s bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), IBIT, have grown slightly larger on Nasdaq than total bitcoin options trading on the offshore giant Deribit. It is particularly striking that IBIT options have, in just two years, closed the gap with Deribit’s bitcoin options market, which has been operating since 2016.
On Friday, the dollar value of open or active IBIT options contracts on Nasdaq, the so-called open interest (OI), was $27.61 billion, slightly higher than the $26.90 billion in Deribit’s bitcoin options, according to data tracked by decentralized crypto volatility protocol Volmex.
This milestone indicates that the regulated, institutional-grade bitcoin investment and derivatives infrastructure in the U.S. is no longer second fiddle to the offshore market. Moreover, a booming, regulated market in the U.S. could embolden more Wall Street institutions to explore digital assets, ultimately leading to more mature price discovery.
Deribit’s Global Head of Retail Sales and Business, Sidrah Fariq, described IBIT’s rise as a net positive for the broader crypto derivatives ecosystem.
“US retail can’t onboard platforms like Deribit, so iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) options give them direct access to regulated leverage and options exposure. This is further supported by the current macro environment with supply chain uncertainty, energy shocks, and broader geopolitical risks, which naturally drives demand for hedging and options strategies,” Fariq told CoinDesk.
What are options?
Options are derivative contracts that give the purchaser the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price at a later date. Think of it as paying a token price to reserve the right to buy or sell the property at a pre-agreed specific price in the future. A call option gives the right to buy and represents a bullish bet, while a put option gives the right to sell.
Analysts use open interest as the measure of market size and participation – the higher the open interest, the deeper and more liquid the market.
Traders use options to hedge existing positions in the spot and futures markets, speculate on price direction, and generate additional income on coin/ETF holdings.
One of the most preferred income-generating strategies involving IBIT ETF and IBIT options is the covered call strategy. It allows investors to profit from $BTC‘s implied volatility by simultaneously holding the ETF and shorting IBIT calls at levels well above the ETF’s current market price.
Traders holding actual $BTC have been doing this via Deribit for years.
Same in size but different in shape
The two markets, though, now match each other in scale but are positioned differently, revealing a lot about trader sentiment in each.
According to Volmex, the bulk of open interest in IBIT call options points to expectations of an ETF rallying to levels equivalent to $BTC trading at $109,709 in the near-term. That’s roughly 41% higher than the current market price of $77,400.
Positioning in Deribit options is bullish but slightly measured, suggesting expectations of a rally to $106,000.
“Onshore call OI is concentrated roughly 4 percentage points further out-of-the-money than offshore, and the onshore average delta is slightly lower. This is consistent with onshore flow being dominated by retail upside speculation and systematic call overwriting programs, both of which concentrate OI in further-OTM strikes,” Volmex said in a report shared with CoinDesk.
ETF holders are more patient
Options have expiry dates – the point at which contracts are settled, depending on where IBIT or spot $BTC is trading at that time.
Analysis of activity across both markets suggests that, on average, October 2026 expiries are preferred in IBIT, while August expiries dominate on Deribit.
“IBIT options are approximately two months longer-dated on an OI-weighted basis. The gap is roughly symmetric across puts and calls, suggesting it reflects the underlying holder base, longer-horizon ETF investors onshore versus more tactical positioning offshore, rather than asymmetric demand for protection or upside,” Volmex noted.
Lastly, IBIT’s implied volatility – a metric that measures expected swings in the $BTC-linked ETF over the next four weeks – is higher than the implied volatility derived from Deribit’s $BTC options.
Volmex attributes this premium to a structural quirk: Because ETF holders cannot easily short (express a bearish view) bitcoin directly, they buy put options as their only available hedge. This demand for put options is keeping IBIT’s implied volatility slightly elevated.
All things considered, IBIT’s rapid rise in the options market is striking and, in many ways, now appears to rival Deribit in scale. However, the two are not direct substitutes, as IBIT options primarily cater to regulated, onshore investors accessing bitcoin exposure through traditional brokerage channels, while Deribit remains the go-to place for global investors.
“I don’t see this as competition. If anything, it expands the market. As more participants get comfortable trading options via IBIT, it ultimately feeds into the broader ecosystem, and venues like Deribit benefit from increased sophistication and flow,” Fariq said.
The Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons are battling in Game 3 of their 2026 NBA Playoffs first round series on NBC Sports Network and Peacock.
We’re bringing you the best of the 2026 NBA Playoffs, presented by Google, with the NBA.com live blog, featuring all of the meaningful moments, performances, observations, news, notes and highlights from Saturday’s action.
Our slate today begins with Paolo Banchero and the Orlando Magic hosting Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons (1 ET) on NBC Sports Network and Peacock, followed by Thunder-Suns (3:30 ET), Knicks-Hawks (6 ET), both on NBC and Peacock, and Nuggets-Timberwolves (9 ET) on ABC.
What we know about Saturday’s games:
Teams that earn a 2-1 lead go on to win an NBA Playoffs series 80% of the time.
With a 3-1 lead, it’s 95.6% of the time, with 13 teams recovering from such a gap in NBA history.
With a 3-0 lead, it’s been 100% — no team has ever come back to overcome that deficit, with the 2023 Boston Celtics being the last team to tie things up. The 2003 Trail Blazers, 1994 Nuggets and 1951 Knicks also forced a seventh game.
APRIL 25, 2026 / 1:55 ET
Magic step into the lead
48-44 with 4:44 to go in the first half, as the Magic earn a small advantage.
Desmond Bane (14 pts) leads all scorers so far, while Jalen Suggs (5 pts) hit this one from Fort Lauderdale.
18-all with 4:56 to go in the first, as the Pistons use a 10-2 to tie the game up.
Detroit’s shooting 57.1% from the field so far, while Orlando’s at 41.2%. Can the Magic offense hold up under the Pistons’ defensive pressure?
APRIL 25, 2026 / 12:30 ET
Cade Cunningham and the Detroit Pistons are seeking to reclaim homecourt advantage in Game 3 of their 2026 NBA Playoffs first round series with the Orlando Magic.
All stats from Thursday’s Game 2, which the Pistons won 98-83.
Detroit (1-1):
PG Cade Cunningham (27 pts, 6 reb, 11 ast)
SG Duncan Robinson (10 pts, 3 3PM)
SF Ausar Thompson (11 pts, 8 reb, 2 stl, 1 blk)
PF Tobias Harris (16 pts, 11 reb)
C Jalen Duren (11 pts, 9 reb)
Orlando (1-1):
PG Jalen Suggs (19 pts, 6 reb, 4 ast)
SG Desmond Bane (12 pts, 4 reb, 2 ast)
SF Franz Wagner (12 pts, 7 reb)
PF Paolo Banchero (18 pts, 8 reb)
C Wendell Carter Jr. (3 pts, 2 blk)
Keep an eye on Anthony Black off the Magic bench. He was held to 5 pts on 1-of-6 shooting in Game 2, as the team was kept to 33% from the field — well below his season average of 15.0 ppg.
APRIL 25, 2026 / 12:15 ET
Saturday’s injury report
Jonathan Isaac remains out for the Magic.
Isaiah Joe is doubtful for the Thunder, while Thomas Sorber and Jalen Williams are out.
Grayson Allen and Jordan Goodwin are questionable for the Suns, while Mark Williams is out.
Jock Landale is out for the Hawks.
Aaron Gordon is questionable for the Nuggets, while Peyton Watson is out.
That famous playoff saying, “A series doesn’t begin until each team has won on the other’s floor” needs a corollary. What sage observation can similarly be applied to a best-of-seven confrontation in which one team has lost two in a row and is on the verge of falling into the pit of 3-1 victimhood?
“A series is all but over when …?” It wouldn’t exactly trip off the tongue, but there’s no denying the veracity. In NBA history, 298 teams have fallen into a 3-1 hole – 285 of them (95.6%) never climbed out.
Of those that did, climbing out sometimes took a toll. The 2020 Denver Nuggets twice faced and survived 3-1 deficits against the Utah Jazz and LA Clippers, only to fall in five games in the Western Conference Finals to the Lakers, all in the Orlando “bubble” postseason.
The 2026 Nuggets would rather not put their resilience to the test in Game 4 of their first-round series against Minnesota tonight (8:30 ET, ABC). But it might not be their call, given how the Timberwolves have dealt with them the past two meetings.
Here are three things to watch for with the cranky/feisty rivals back in Target Center.
1. Jokić dialing in at one end
When a team’s best player doesn’t excel in a playoff series, a certain calm eventually can settle in, a shoulder shrug from the “Well, what can you expect?” school that explains and eases everything. The tough part is getting to that eventually.
The Nuggets and their fans aren’t there yet with Nikola Jokić, their three-time Kia MVP and unquestioned leader. Frankly, they hope they don’t get there and that Jokić turns things around in Game 4.
What we’ve seen through three games has been some of Jokić’s biggest struggles at both ends in his personal playoff history. Defense has never been prominent in his quiver of marvelous skills, and Minnesota paint- and rim-attackers have been on a mission to remind the world. Knowing that the Denver big man has dual responsibilities there – avoiding foul trouble first, thwarting the scorer second – the Wolves have put him to the test, which he and any helpers mostly have failed.
Consider: The Nuggets have been outscored so far in the series by 11 points. But Minnesota has dominated in paint points, 174-116, making 61.3% (87 of 142) shots from so close.
Look, the Nuggets have enough of a chore dealing with their star’s breather minutes. They don’t need to add “while yanked for foul trouble” to their to-do list. Besides, they have won plenty with the big guy being an average defender.
Picking up Jokić’s slack on offense, though, is a task largely foreign to Denver. His reign as arguably the NBA’s best talent dates back to the start of this decade. So his relative struggle right now probably is best corrected by Jokić himself.
Top priority: Hit the shots Minnesota wants to give him. A 40% shooter from the arc the past two seasons, Jokić is 5-of-24 on 3-pointers in this series (that includes 2-for-10 in Game 3). He was only 5-of-16 on 2-pointers, too. And Jokić’s passing acumen suffered – with fewer assists (three) than turnovers (four) – because he wasn’t putting enough stress on the Wolves’ defense to open up teammates.
“If I make all the shots, then the defense is going to react,” Jokić said. “So I think that’s why I couldn’t get anybody involved. … I think I needed to do a bit better job scoring.”
Seems unfair to ask a player who does so much so well to do more. But the NBA postseason is all about “more.”
2. Nuggets’ role players in spotlight
Denver has another star, guard Jamal Murray, coming off his best season. He’ll be asked for more, too – mostly, playing more efficiently after shooting 35.9% through three games and 25.3% on 3-pointers to get his 25.3 ppg.
Then there are the others. Consider this: No Denver starter in Game 3 besides Jokić and Murray even managed one field goal in the first half, by the end of which their team trailed 61-39. That’s a terminal scoring imbalance.
Christian Braun finished the night with two points on free throws, period. Cam Johnson, the questionable replacement for Michael Porter Jr. from recent seasons, was 2-of-6 for six points. Spencer Jones, subbing for injured Aaron Gordon, also scored six.
And they contributed to their own meager output, according to coach David Adelman, by not doing enough other things on offense – cutting, screening – to create openings.
3. Wolves keep buying Edwards time
Sometimes the cameras catch Anthony Edwards limping. Sometimes the Wolves’ normally dynamic scorer isn’t. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter how much his sore right knee bothers him because a fleet of teammates has stepped into the breach on his behalf.
The latest was Ayo Dosunmu, the February acquisition from Chicago. He revved up Minnesota’s pace and led off the bench in Game 3 with 25 points (all 10 buckets in the paint) and nine assists. At other times, ace defender Jaden McDaniels has covered at both ends – he was in attack mode on Thursday vs. Murray while adding 20 points and 10 rebounds.
Donte DoiVincenzo is the Wolves’ whirling-and-diving dervish who provides hustle plays on top of, in Game 3, his 15 points. And center Rudy Gobert has made some voters for Kia Defensive Player of the Year look silly by leaving him off their three-spot award ballot, based on his work vs. Jokić in this series.
The good news for Minnesota is that Edwards wasn’t even on the injury list as Game 4 neared. The better his knee feels, the better he’ll probably shoot (just 39% overall and 25% on threes in the series). And the more dangerous Edwards will become, with Denver looking so newly vulnerable.
Donnie Wahlberg says he went as far as offering up a significant portion of his paycheck in an effort to film “Boston Blue” in his hometown, but the economics of television production ultimately won out.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy, Wahlberg detailed his push to keep the “Boston Blue” spinoff authentic to its setting. The series, a continuation of his long-running “Blue Bloods” character Danny Reagan, is set in Boston but largely filmed in Toronto due to cost considerations.
“When I got offered the job, I’m like, ‘This is a dream come true.’ I thought, I’ll do a spinoff in L.A. or Vegas or Texas, somewhere hot,” Wahlberg said during the interview. “And they were like, ‘How about Boston?’ I was like, ‘Ahhhh.’ They hooked me. And I was like, ‘Alright, let’s do it in Boston.’”
However, he said producers quickly made clear that filming there wasn’t financially viable. “And they were like, ‘But we can’t afford to shoot it in Boston, we’re gonna shoot it in Toronto.’ I was like, ‘No, no.’ So, I said, ‘Listen, I’ll give back 50% of my paycheck if we can go to Boston.’ I did,” Wahlberg continued. “And they said, ‘You can give back 100% and so can the rest of the cast, we cannot film this show in Boston.’ It’s so expensive. For the most part, we shoot in Toronto.”
Wahlberg added that even beyond cost, filming in Boston presents logistical challenges, noting that crowds and tour groups frequently disrupt shoots.
“Boston Blue” has already been renewed for a second season. Season 1 is currently streaming on Paramount+.
[This story contains spoilers for the 30-year-old Sleepers.]
Nearly 30 years later, Sleepers director Barry Levinson still believes that the discourse surrounding his star-studded drama lost the plot.
Based on Lorenzo Carcaterra’s book of the same name, Sleepers begins in the late 1960s, chronicling four teenage friends whose mischievous quest for a free hot dog goes terribly awry when they nearly kill an innocent bystander. Consequently, they’re sent to the Wilkinson Home for Boys where they endure 6 to 18 months of sexual and physical abuse by four guards.
The New York-based film then jumps to 1981. Two of the four friends — John Riley (Ron Eldard) and Tommy Marcano (Billy Crudup) — spot their former lead abuser, Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon), in a restaurant and gun him down on the spot. Their remaining friends — Lorenzo “Shakes” Carcaterra (Jason Patric), now a low-level clerk at The New York Times, and Assistant District Attorney Michael Sullivan (Brad Pitt) — vow to exonerate the imprisoned pair and expose the corrupt institution that ruined their lives.
In today’s context, a 1996 film that brings down a dangerous ring of child predators feels ahead of its time, but at the time of its release, there was more emphasis on poking holes in Carcaterra’s claim that Sleepers is based on his own true life story. The author maintained that the core of the tale is authentic despite fictionalizing names and dates. In any event, Levinson still believes that this inquisition undermined the larger point being made about institutional abuse.
“Why does film get caught in this cycle of whether something happened or didn’t happen? It’s a story. It wasn’t the craziest, weirdest thing you’ve ever imagined,” Levinson tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Sleepers‘ brand-new 4K/Blu-ray release. “I never quite got that noise that was made at that time. It, in some ways, took away from what the piece was. It doesn’t need to be authenticated in that regard for us to pay attention.”
The other controversial aspect involved Robert De Niro’s Father Bobby and the false alibi he gave on the witness stand to help the childhood friends he mentored. A number of critics rejected the idea that a priest would ever lie, especially after putting his left hand on the Bible and swearing an oath. But one of the film’s often-overlooked details is that Father Bobby and his best friend also spent time at Wilkinson in their youth. If Bobby wasn’t a victim himself, his friend certainly was. So his reluctant commitment to perjury was not just about helping two men get away with vigilante justice; it was equally about bringing down anyone that had anything to do with covering up Wilkinson’s ongoing abuse.
“[The discourse] got caught up in whether or not a priest would ever lie on the stand. You can certainly have that, but that’s not the point of the movie. It was a much broader piece than that,” Levinson says. “It’s not a film that was trying to advocate this or that.”
Below, during a conversation with THR, Levinson also discusses the major studios’ deprioritization of mid-budget movies like Sleepers, as well as whether he sees himself making another movie.
***
Do you remember what pulled you in the direction of Sleepers after releasing two films (JimmyHollywood and Disclosure) in 1994?
[Co-founder of Propaganda Films] Steve Golin gave me the book. He wanted me to take a look at it and see if I was interested in developing it. That’s really where it began.
Geoffrey Wigdor’s Young John, Joe Perrino’s Young Shakes, Jonathan Tucker’s Young Tommy, Brad Renfro’s Young Michael in Sleepers.
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Given how heavy the material is, was Sleepers a tough sell to the studio?
I don’t remember it as being that, but I can’t give you the details thinking back 30 years.
There are countless reasons why you’d hire John Williams, but was part of the idea that he’d be able to provide glimmers of hope within this dark story?
I didn’t think of it in those terms. He’s a great composer, obviously. I thought that he could do quite well with this material, and I felt it needed a touch of [Leonard] Bernstein in a way. It needed just a little hint of it in the air, thinking of New York. So I had a conversation with him, then he responded to the material, and I was thrilled. He’s really a marvel.
Did you cast the kids or the adults first?
It’s a good question because I can’t remember specifically. We most likely looked for the adult versions of the characters first, and then figured out what kids could play the young versions of them.
Brad Pitt as Assistant DA Michael Sullivan in Barry Levinson’s Sleepers
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Brad Pitt was in high-demand coming off of 12Monkeys and David Fincher’s Seven. With Fincher being a co-founder at Propaganda alongside Golin, did his involvement give you the inside track on casting Pitt?
I don’t think it was related, as I remember. But again, looking back 30 years, I can’t give you the real scoop in that regard.
Sleepers was your first of five collaborations with Robert De Niro. Did you sense pretty quickly that you’d be working together for many years to come?
To be honest, no. I was thrilled to use him, but I didn’t foresee beyond the first time we worked together. It was great, but I didn’t know what I would be doing and how that would fit into what Bob would be up to. So it was somewhat by chance that we started to connect. And then, on occasion, he would mention something just as he and his [producing partner] Jane Rosenthal did about Wag the Dog [the following year]. So it was just something that began to fall together periodically. The work that came up just made sense for Bob.
Robert De Niro as Father Bobby in Sleepers.
Sleepers was the second of four films that you and Dustin Hoffman made together. Had the two of you been looking for the perfect follow-up to Rain Man?
No, we weren’t looking. I wasn’t looking and neither was he. When I wrote the screenplay, I just thought, “Dustin would be a good choice here. I’ll see if he wants to do it.” Again, it was so long ago, but I think we had to find this window that he could work in. He might have been about to go do something else, or he was working on something else just prior to this. But I just thought that there was something for him here.
In contrast with Pitt’s stillness, I love how he’s constantly flipping pages and walking around and fidgeting in the courtroom. It was a nice touch considering the character was in the throes of an alcoholism and wanted no part of this highly orchestrated case.
Yeah, the physicality of it — as opposed to just sitting there — shows that the guy’s got some issues. How do you do that without somehow spelling it out in some grand fashion? So it’s a physicality that seemed appropriate to what we were doing.
Kevin Bacon as Nokes in Sleepers
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
The timing of Nokes’ (Kevin Bacon) killing is such an interesting choice. Most movies would’ve saved their villain’s comeuppance for last and made a meal out of it. I’m assuming you were staying faithful to Lorenzo Carcaterra’s book, but did you ever receive a note about killing a different guard first before working your way up to Nokes?
I don’t remember that, no. When I wrote it, it somehow just seemed appropriate. You could certainly do another version, but then you would have more murders in the piece, as opposed to happenstance. [John and Tommy] happened to be in the same bar where Nokes was eating. So if there had been another killing to set up the later killing [of Nokes], then you’re going to go down the road of revenge. That cycle wasn’t the point of it all.
I read some old reviews that questioned Father Bobby’s decision to lie, and they didn’t point out that he, too, had spent time at the Wilkinson Home for Boys as an adolescent. He saw firsthand how that place destroyed his best friend. So his eventual lie on the stand wasn’t just about John (Ron Eldard) and Tommy (Billy Crudup) beating a murder charge; it was about exposing this evil institution. I think that motivation got lost in some of the reviews.
Yeah, it did. They didn’t focus on the overall piece. They went into one corner and missed the overall thematic design to the whole film.
When the film came out, there were a lot of things that came to light, in general, about child abuse at some of these facilities. But [the discourse] got caught up in whether or not a priest would ever lie on the stand. You can certainly have that, but that’s not the point of the movie. It was a much broader piece than that, and you can make your own judgment on it.
Sometimes, you do a movie, and it gets caught up in a stream of things that go all over the place, and they don’t focus on what the movie is. It’s not a film that was trying to advocate this or that. It’s an overall story that you get involved in, and you can discuss the pluses and negative aspects of what took place.
The film ends with a legal disclaimer that calls into question the validity of what we watched. Do you still believe the author of the source material?
I think for the most part. But why does film get caught in this cycle of whether something happened or didn’t happen? It’s a story. It doesn’t need to say “this is a true story” at the beginning, but that was from the book. It didn’t have to have that. But to say that none of these things could ever happen? It wasn’t the craziest, weirdest thing you’ve ever imagined. So I never quite got that noise that was made at that time. It, in some ways, took away from what the piece was. You don’t have to agree with it. It’s not advocating anything other than, “This is the story that’s being told.” It doesn’t need to be authenticated in that regard for us to pay attention.
Even if it’s not literally true, there have been countless cases of institutional abuse to where it’s spiritually or emotionally true.
Right. Films get caught up in certain things, periodically, for reasons that you question, and that happened when Sleepers came out. It still did very well here. In Europe, it was huge because it didn’t get caught up in any of the controversy. I’m still not even sure why there was a real controversy.
The majority of your films including Sleepers fall in the mid-budget range that the major studios no longer make at the volume they once did. Has it been tough for you to watch your bread and butter disappear over the years?
Yeah. In general, taking me out of the mix, what’s happening right now is that there’s too much emphasis on the blockbuster, as opposed to, This [smaller] movie can make some money for us, and we can keep moving along. Instead, they’re going for the extravagant piece that costs $150 million or more, but that zone of movies around $40 million can ultimately succeed. It can also expand your audience rather than sharpening the audience to a smaller number. So my take on it is that I don’t think you can survive by just working in one area predominantly. It narrows your audience year by year. That’s a mistake.
I’m just somebody who’s trying to write and do movies. I’m not an executive who has to look at the economics of the business. But certain people I’ve spoken to haven’t been to a movie in four years because they’re not interested in the movies that do well. Therefore, they’re looking for something else. So there’s pros and cons, but I just don’t know how you survive when you start limiting your audience.
The loss of the mid-budget film has also been cited as one of the reasons why younger movie stars haven’t emerged in droves. That range used to be a launchpad or proving ground for a lot of future stars. Well-established stars like Pitt still have their place, but now the IP or the high concept is the star.
I think that’s a good argument. I mean, what’s the other reason? I’m not sure. There are television people that emerge, as opposed to in the past, but it’s true. Where’s a breakout movie star? There are not many compared to what there used to be, that’s for certain.
The movie business is also facing [streaming series] and the internet. Those are two other entertainment areas where a lot of people spend hours and hours. And they’re not paying close attention to whatever they’re watching or doing on the internet [due to cell phones]. You’re not going to get storytelling if you’re texting for hours at a time. Sometimes, you go into a restaurant, and you’ll see two people on their cell phones at the same table. They’re with each other, but they’re elsewhere at the same time. So I can’t figure out that whole behavior, and we’re looking at a breakdown of sorts.
Hollywood, in general, has a problem with all of those other devices at work, but I still think you cannot function in one [budget] area alone, which is where the emphasis is.
Do you have another movie in you?
Yeah, there’s two or three projects that I have. We’re ready to go out and see if we can make them. They’re not particularly expensive films, one is probably $20 million and the other is $15 million. I can work quickly. I made TheHumbling with Al Pacino for $2 million, and we shot it in my house. I shot another film, The Bay, for $2 million. So I have no problem working in all ways as long as I know the story that I want to tell. So we’ll see what’s going to happen. The business is going through a radical shift, and whether or not all these takeovers take place, it’s a big guessing game of what’s beneficial or not. These are the times we’re in.
There’s a notable director who insists that filmmaking is a younger man’s game. I presume you reject that notion?
Well, I don’t think age is the issue. It’s the ideas. What ideas do you want to do? Are they completely out of fashion? But if you’re basically dealing with the world we’re in, what’s the story that you want to tell? I don’t think it’s based on anything other than that.
Alicia Keys recently told The Times of London that the music industry can feel like a boys’ club, and that it is difficult for women, particularly if they are working as producers or studio engineers, to break in.
“The music world becomes a good old boy network and all the incredible women working as engineers and producers are not given an open door,” Keys says. “Women make up 2 per cent of the entire business. I’m a producer and here we are, doing a bunch of work, killing it, so it’s shocking that the number is so small. Rather than just being pissed off about that, it was time to create opportunities.”
While acknowledging some of her tracks contain feminist messages, Keys said they weren’t overtly intentional, and instead naturally arose from her own pursuit of empowerment.
“I didn’t aim to come up with feminist message songs, and most of them were written because I wasn’t feeling that strong so I had to give myself a pep talk to keep going, but it is a thread through my work,” she said.
Earlier in the interview, when asked to share advice for up-and-coming artists, Keys said she would tell them “to think about how to become the owners of their own creations.” The 17-time Grammy winner added that becoming your own advocate is key to thriving on the business side of the music industry, which is particularly difficult to navigate.
“No one tells you these things,” she said. “You deal with all these executives and lawyers who love to take their percentages and overcharge you, but they never say, ‘How can we ensure you’re here to stay?’”
Fu Peng, the new chief economist at Xinhuo Group, known for its assessments of cryptocurrency markets, shared a remarkable analysis of Bitcoin’s fundamental dynamics.
In statements made via the X platform, Fu stated that Bitcoin’s evolving structure, particularly through futures and ETFs, is increasingly resembling some models in traditional financial markets.
According to Fu Peng, the logic behind Bitcoin perpetual contracts and ETFs largely overlaps with the “carrying cost” or “overnight fee” mechanisms seen in gold and industrial commodity markets. This structure points to a model where large investors generate income through long positions while creating a stable cash flow in the market. In this context, funding fees paid by individual investors for leveraged transactions stand out as the system’s primary source of revenue.
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According to the analysis, large-scale spot investors are not simply classic “long” players who take positions solely on the expectation of price increases. Instead, these investors act almost like “householders,” protecting their long-term positions and accumulating funding income through hedging strategies. In this way, large whales reduce their position costs over time, and under certain conditions, can even reach “zero cost” or “negative cost” levels.
Fu Peng argues that the common perception in the market that “large investors are shorting” is not true. According to the economist, the real role of these whales is to be “rent collectors” who regularly earn income from the market. Indeed, the premium and discount structure in CME Bitcoin futures is said to be a reflection of these cost and return dynamics.
