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More than 1,050 people form human shamrock in Dublin, Ohio
March 18 (UPI) — The city of Dublin, Ohio, unofficially broke a Guinness World Record by arranging more than 1,050 people into the shape of a massive shamrock.
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Robert Eggers’ ‘Werwulf’ Brings Scares to CinemaCon
Horror king Robert Eggers is back with another creature feature, which got a special sneak peek at CinemaCon on Wednesday.
Following the success of vampire flick Nosferatu, Eggers has moved onto werewolves with Werwulf, which he co-wrote and directed. During Universal’s presentation to theater owners and distributors in Las Vegas, the first footage was shown with the declaration that it would be “his most terrifying motion picture yet.”
The film is largely black and white, with hints of color; the clips showed Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Lily Rose Depp as a villager couple, trudging along in dirty clothes and dragging a few kids behind. “Do not dread the darkness,” says a husky voiceover, with a supercut of violent images and horses running the forest. The footage ended on a close-up of Taylor-Johnson’s face screaming in horror — and no reveal of the titular monster, much like how Nosferatu‘s monster was hidden in promotional materials.
Taylor-Johnson, Depp and Willem Dafoe star in the movie, which like Nosferatu is set for a Christmas Day (2026) release in an act of counter-programming. It’s set in 13th-century England, where a mysterious creature stalks the foggy countryside, transforming local folklore into terrifying reality for its villagers.
Eggers has a particularly affinity for medieval projects, having said around the release of Nosferatu that “the idea of having to photograph a car makes me ill. And the idea of photographing a cellphone is just death. And to make a contemporary story you have to photograph a cellphone — it’s just how life is” so he did not plan to make any modern-set movies.
Both Eggers and co-writer Sjón are producing alongside Focus Features. Chris and Eleanor Columbus, who worked with Eggers on Nosferatu, serve as executive produce. Nosferatu brought in more than $180 million worldwide, becoming Eggers’ highest-grossing movie to date, and was nominated in four craft categories at the Oscars.
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Steven Spielberg’s ‘Disclosure Day’ Reveals First Look at Alien in New Footage
Steven Spielberg took the stage at CinemaCon for the first time in his career to promote his upcoming Universal release, Disclosure Day.
After an introduction from star Colman Domingo, the filmmaker received rapturous applause from the annual convention of movie theater owners in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Spielberg accepted the Motion Picture Association’s America250 Award from the group’s chair, Charles Rivkin, in celebration of the director’s work that embraces the nation’s wonders.
“I haven’t done a Western yet — that’s next,” the 79-year-old director said. He noted that his first CinemaCon stage appearance had been great: “This will not be my last, I promise.”
He recalled his transformative first visit to the cinema: “Nothing could compete with sitting in the first three rows of a movie palace, watching a Cecil B. DeMille epic with color by Technicolor. Nothing would ever be the same.”
Spielberg admitted, “Sometimes, it feels to me like a cage fight between the small screen and the big screen.” He noted that the theatergoing experience was “clobbered” by COVID but added, “There was reason for hope.” He went on to praise projects like Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, which counted Spielberg as a producer.
Then, the filmmaker sat down on stage with Domingo to discuss the exhibition business, with Spielberg recalling inviting his boyhood friends over to his parents’ home to screen popular titles. “I made money by charging 12 cents on popcorn,” he quipped.
Turning to Disclosure Day, the director explained that he has long been fascinated by the potential for extraterrestrial life. “I’ve been curious ever since I was a little kid about what’s happening in the night sky, what’s happening in the sky during the daytime,” Spielberg said. He remembered his dad telling him about “advanced civilizations” that didn’t exist on Earth.
Spielberg recalled a 2017 New York Times story about a Navy pilot spotting something via camera that could not be explained. “In 2017, I got very curious again,” he said, pointing out that his alien feature Close Encounters of the Third Kind was made 50 years ago. “Half a century later, I made Disclosure Day with certainty that there is a lot more truth than fiction to what you’re going to see on June 12.”
He said of Disclosure Day, “I truly believe that this movie is going to answer questions and cause you to ask a lot of questions.” He also teased, “This movie is an experience, and all you need to get from the beginning to the end is a seatbelt.”
Spielberg introduced new footage from the film, which stars Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor, chronicling what might happen if humanity were to receive proof of non-human intelligent life. Disclosure Day marks Spielberg’s first new movie since 2022’s The Fabelmans and also stars Domingo, Colin Firth, Wyatt Russell and Eve Hewson.
The footage shows Blunt as a meteorologist who finds herself unable to speak during a live segment. In describing the viral footage of Blunt’s weather broadcast, O’Connor notes that he can understand the gibberish that she is saying: “It’s math.”
Viewers see an emotional meeting between O’Connor and Blunt. “I know you,” he says, to which she replies, “I know you, too.” There was also plenty of action in store, as Blunt tries to jump from a car onto a moving train. The footage ends with the movie’s first glimpse at its alien life form.
Disclosure Day represents Spielberg’s return to the UFO genre, and fans have speculated that it could be a closet sequel to 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Blunt recently told Empire magazine, “There are definitely questions posed by Close Encounters that are answered in Disclosure Day.”
When appearing at the South by Southwest Film & TV festival last month, Spielberg said, “I don’t know any more than any of you do, but I have a very strong suspicion that we are not alone here on Earth right now — and I made a movie about that.”
The footage comes one day after Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna’s deadline came and went for the Pentagon to declassify and release several specific video files that she’s requested which purportedly show previously unseen instances of UAP/UFOs activity.
On Tuesday, Luna posted the following update on X: “No one from the Pentagon had responded until we reached out, and it appears that someone did not pass the letter to the appropriate authorities. How convenient. Nonetheless, we will be getting the requested list. We are not waiting for a briefing at some unspecified future date. The Secretary of War is someone I consider a friend and someone who backs the President. The President has authorized the release, so whoever is trying to be cute at the Pentagon can take a hike.”
Universal can only hope any such videos — which would doubtless help generate buzz for the film — will be released in time for the opening weekend of Disclosure Day, which comes out June 12.
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Ethereum DeFi Exchange CoW Swap Pauses Protocol Following Website Compromise
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Trump Is Hosting Another Meme Coin Gala—The Price for VIP Access Is Down 90%
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Honored to support @POTUS and grateful for the invitation from @GetTrumpMemes to attend President Trump’s Gala Dinner as his TOP fan!
As the top holder of $TRUMP, I’m excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/FYb39LTwDz
— H.E. Justin Sun 👨🚀 🌞 (@justinsuntron) May 20, 2025
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What are Iran’s $100bn in frozen assets and where are they held?
As momentum builds for a second round of talks between the United States and Iran aimed at ending their war, one central issue has emerged as a bone of contention: Tehran’s frozen assets held in other countries.
Iran’s economy has been ailing for years due to sanctions imposed on the country by the US and other nations. These sanctions have been imposed since 1979, first over the US hostages held at the American embassy in Tehran following the Islamic revolution, and then amplified over Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programmes. These measures have restricted Tehran’s ability to access its own assets, like revenues from oil sales, which have been frozen in foreign banks.
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On April 10, before the first round of ceasefire talks began in Pakistan, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on X that Iranian frozen assets (revenues frozen in foreign banks) must be released before any negotiations could begin.
A day later at the ceasefire talks in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, some reports emerged suggesting that Washington had agreed to unfreeze at least some of the Iranian assets being held outside the country. But the US government quickly dismissed those reports, insisting that those assets remained frozen.
With talks expected to resume in the coming days, ahead of the expiry of the current US-Iran ceasefire in the early hours of April 22 in the Middle East, that tension is expected to resurface.
But how many Iranian assets are frozen, why is Tehran unable to access them, where are these funds at the moment, and why are they important to Iran?
What’s the volume of Iran’s frozen assets?
While the exact amount of Iran’s frozen assets is unclear, official Iranian reports and experts have set the total amount of frozen Iranian assets overseas at more than $100bn.
Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs told Al Jazeera that these assets are about four times what Iran earns annually from the sale of hydrocarbons.
“This is a very substantial sum, especially for a society that has been suffering under decades of US-led sanctions,” he said.
But he added that it remains unclear whether the US — even if it were to release these assets — would make that conditional on how they are used.
“Iran definitely has a dire need for the assets but given the very chaotic history of sanctions and the lack of specialists on the US side to negotiate the details, Iran is sceptical,” he said.
Jacob Lew, who was secretary of the Treasury under former US President Barack Obama, said in 2016 that Iran would not be able to access all of its assets frozen abroad even if all sanctions were lifted. At the time, Iran had agreed to a landmark deal with the US and other nations, capping its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
Lew had told Congress that in reality, Iran would be able to access only about half of its frozen assets at best, because the rest were already committed to previously promised investments or for loan repayments.
Currently, Tehran’s key demand in the ceasefire talks is to release at least $6bn of its frozen assets, as a confidence-building measure.
What are frozen assets?
When the funds, property or securities of a person, company or country’s central bank are temporarily retained by another nation’s authorities or a global body, that constitutes the freezing of assets.
This restricts the owners’ ability to sell these assets due to sanctions, court orders or other regulatory reasons.
Assets could be frozen by a court, by another country or international body or a banking institution. Officially, countries say that they freeze the assets of another nation or company over accusations of criminal activities, money laundering or violations of international law.
But critics of the practice point to its selective use to target rivals of the West — Israel, for instance, has faced repeated accusations of carrying out rights abuses, waging illegal wars and perpetrating apartheid. Yet its overseas assets have not been frozen by any country.
By contrast, Iran, Russia, North Korea, Libya, Venezuela and Cuba are some of the countries whose assets have been frozen by foreign governments. The common thread that binds them all: they’re opposed — or have been opposed — to the US dominance of the international order.
Why does Iran have frozen assets?
According to US government archives, the first asset freeze took place in November 1979 when the US president at the time, Jimmy Carter, said that Iran “constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States”.
At the time, Iranian students were holding 66 American citizens hostage in the US embassy in Tehran.
The secretary of the Treasury at the time, William Miller, told reporters that Iran’s liquid assets back then amounted to less than $6bn, the largest component of which was $1.3bn in Treasury notes held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In 1981, the Algiers Accords, brokered by Algeria between the US and Iran, resulted in the US unfreezing a significant portion of these assets in return for Iran releasing the 52 American captives who were still being held at that point in Tehran.
In the following years, however, relations between the US and Iran continued to sour, with Washington uneasy over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Iran has always maintained that its uranium enrichment programme is for civilian energy purposes only, despite having enriched uranium far beyond the threshold required for that.
Israel and the US have repeatedly accused Iran of enriching uranium to develop nuclear weapons. The US and its allies, especially Europe, have slapped multiple rounds of sanctions on the country, even though Israel — the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to already hold nuclear weapons built through a clandestine programme — has faced no such scrutiny.
In 2015, Iran struck a pact with world powers negotiated by the US under President Barack Obama, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the pact, Tehran agreed to scale down its nuclear programme and, as a result, regained access to most of its assets abroad at the time.
But in 2018, during his first term as president, Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the pact, calling it “one-sided” and reimposing sanctions on Iran, freezing its foreign assets once again.
In 2023, the US and Iran agreed to a prisoner swap deal, which saw Tehran release five US-Iranian citizens in exchange for the US releasing several Iranians jailed in the country, and giving Iran access to billions of dollars in frozen funds. The funds in question were $6bn in oil revenue that was frozen in South Korea due to US sanctions.
Under the scheme, the money was transferred to Qatar to oversee. But the following year, United States President Joe Biden imposed new sanctions on Iran in response to its missile and drone attack on Israel, leading to Iran’s losing access to these assets in Doha yet again.
Besides the US, the European Union has also partially frozen Iran’s central bank assets on grounds of Iran allegedly committing human rights violations, and over accusations of nuclear-related noncompliance, terrorism and its drones programme supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Which countries hold Iran’s frozen assets?
Iran’s frozen assets are held by multiple countries.
The exact amount each country currently holds is unclear, but Iranian media have previously reported that Japan, another important Iranian oil customer, holds about $1.5bn, Iraq holds around $6bn, China holds at least $20bn and India holds $7bn.
The US also holds approximately $2bn in directly frozen Iranian assets, while EU countries like Luxembourg hold about $1.6bn.
Qatar holds about $6bn — the amount that was moved from South Korea to pay Iran, but subsequently blocked by the US.
Why is unfreezing the assets important to Iran?
Iran’s economy is in crisis, with decades of sanctions limiting its oil exports and stalling its ability to attract investments and modernise its industry and technology.
A surge in inflation and a fall in the value of the currency, the rial, led to massive protests in December and January that then grew into a larger campaign challenging the ruling establishment. Thousands were killed amid a crackdown by security forces. Iranian officials claim that “terrorists” funded and armed by the US and Israel were responsible for the killings. Trump recently confirmed that the US had armed some protesters.
Against this backdrop, the frozen assets are locked cash that Iran could readily use: $100bn represents almost a quarter of the country’s GDP.
Roxane Farmanfarmaian, academic director and lecturer in international politics specialising in Iran at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera that unfreezing Iran’s assets would be significant to the country.
“It would mean being able to repatriate its funds earned in hard currency from oil sales, for example, back into its own economy. It would also give it control over its currency fluctuations, and hence avoid the vulnerability to currency swings that, for example, set off the December 2025 protests,” she said.
She noted that significant industries, including its oil fields, water systems and electricity grids, are facing infrastructure decline and would all benefit from upgrades if the country gets free access to its assets. With the assets, Iran could pay foreign companies and its own industries to begin improving, she said.
“Obviously, it [Iran] will also have to rebuild after the war, and freed-up assets would immediately make that process quicker and more efficient,” she said.
“Having access to its frozen funds will also jump-start the economic growth it needs, improving the government’s relationship with the public and begin the long process of draining out the corruption that is the inevitable accompaniment to sanctions regimes,” she added.
The US decision on whether to unfreeze Iranian assets would also serve as a critical diplomatic message, Chris Featherstone, a political scientist at the University of York, told Al Jazeera.
“Internationally, unfreezing the assets could signal a lessening of the US pressure on the Iranian economy,” Featherstone said. “This could enable increased engagement from other international actors and regional neighbours, developing trade and integration.
“However, with the Trump administration’s unpredictable approach to international politics and the war with Iran, this could also be interpreted as further evidence of how difficult it is for allies and enemies of the US to predict the Trump administration’s next move.”
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US-Iran talks: What’s the latest on mediation efforts?
A renewed diplomatic push is under way to revive talks between the United States and Iran amid a fragile two-week ceasefire agreed last week following nearly six weeks of fighting in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The truce, which expires on April 22, has created a small window for negotiations to end the war, which has killed more than 4,000 people across the Middle East, overwhelmingly in Iran and Lebanon.
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The first round of talks was held on Saturday in Islamabad under Pakistani mediation, but failed to secure an understanding or agreement between Tehran and Washington.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is on tour this week, making a flurry of stops including in Saudi Arabia and Turkiye, to shore up support for the process and prevent a return to all-out war.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump says the war is “very close to being over” and has signalled that a second round of talks could resume within days, again potentially in the Pakistani capital.
Here is what we know about the latest mediation efforts:
What happened in the first round?
The first round of high-level talks took place in Islamabad on April 11 and 12, and marked the most significant direct engagement between the US and Iran in decades.
Mediated by Pakistan, the talks lasted more than 20 hours and included both indirect and direct exchanges between delegations led by US Vice President JD Vance and senior Iranian officials.
According to reports, the discussions focused on several core issues, including Iran’s nuclear programme, sanctions relief, Iran’s frozen assets, and control of the Strait of Hormuz.
The talks concluded without a resolution or memorandum of understanding, with Vance claiming Iran chose “not to accept our terms”, adding that the US needs to see a “fundamental commitment” from Tehran not to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the leader of Tehran’s delegation, said it raised “forward-looking” initiatives, but the US had failed to gain the trust of his delegation in the talks.
What do we know about the next round of potential talks?
Reports in US and international media suggest there are growing prospects for a second round that could take place in a matter of days.
On Wednesday, the AP news agency reported that Washington and Tehran had given an “in principle agreement” to extend the ceasefire to allow for diplomatic overtures, citing unnamed regional officials.
However, a US official was quoted by Reuters as saying that Washington has not formally agreed to the extension of its ceasefire with Iran. There is “continued engagement between the US and Iran to reach a deal”, the US official said.
Meanwhile, world leaders have made differing statements over the past week about the ceasefire and the chance for further talks.
On Tuesday, US President Trump suggested talks could resume within days. “You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there [Islamabad],” he told a New York Post reporter in Islamabad.
However, Pakistan’s PM Sharif began a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye on Wednesday to rally support for the negotiations, making it unlikely that talks could be held in the timeframe Trump was suggesting.
On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was hopeful about negotiations despite roadblocks.
“We are conveying the necessary suggestions and carrying out initiatives to ease tensions, extend the ceasefire and maintain talks. There can be no negotiating with clenched fists,” Erdogan said.
While reports, including Trump’s own remarks, suggest that Islamabad would be the likely host, no announcement has been made.
What are the main sticking points in negotiations?
Nuclear programme
The thorniest issue remains Iran’s nuclear programme. In particular, the US and Israel are pushing for complete restrictions on uranium enrichment, and have accused Iran of working towards building a nuclear weapon, while providing no evidence for their claims. In March 2025, Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of National Intelligence, testified to Congress that the US “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”.
Iran insists its enrichment effort is for civilian purposes only. It is a signatory to the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
In 2015, the US was a signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under then-US President Barack Obama. In that agreement, Iran pledged to limit its uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent and to comply with inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in return for the removal of international sanctions.
However, in 2018, during his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA despite the IAEA saying Iran had complied with the agreement up to that point.
Strait of Hormuz
Access to and control of the vital waterway connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea remains a major flashpoint. One-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies are shipped through the Strait of Hormuz in peacetime. Since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February, shipping through the passage has fallen by 95 percent as Iran has threatened to target tankers. During the conflict, Iran has allowed some ships it sees as friendly, as well as others that pay a toll, to pass.
The US wants free passage through the waterway, while Iran insists on its sovereignty over the strait, saying all “non-hostile” ships can pass through.
Moreover, Iranian officials insist on having the authority to levy tolls on ships passing through the strategic strait, including after the war concludes.
In a further escalation, Trump imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports on Monday, creating another obstacle to the prospects of talks restarting.
(Al Jazeera) Lebanon
A key demand from Iran is that Israel end its offensive against Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tehran said the ceasefire agreed last week included the war in Lebanon, but the US and Israel have both rejected that. Trump has called Israel’s assaults on its neighbour “a separate skirmish” even though Hezbollah entered the war in defence of Iran.
An initial social media post by Pakistani PM Sharif announcing the ceasefire included Lebanon. Following that announcement, however, Israel launched its most widespread attacks since March, when fighting with Hezbollah began, striking more than 100 targets across the country in just one day – Wednesday – last week.
Hezbollah is Tehran’s most powerful regional ally and a central part of the “axis of resistance”, a network of armed groups across the Middle East aligned with Iran against Israel, including Yemen’s Houthis and a collection of armed groups in Iraq.
While Israel and Lebanon held direct talks in Washington on Tuesday, the first formal meeting between the two countries, Israel says it will not stop its attacks on Hezbollah.
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Following the US Department of Commerce, European giants also announced partnerships with the popular altcoin!
In a landmark move towards the convergence of traditional finance and blockchain, European exchange operator SIX Group announced a significant integration with Chainlink ($LINK).
Accordingly, SIX Group announced that Switzerland’s SIX Swiss Exchange and Spain’s BME Exchange will transfer exchange data to the blockchain via Chainlink nodes.
Through Chainlink, SIX is expanding its reach in blockchain market infrastructure by making stock data from its Swiss and Spanish exchanges available to over 2,600 applications across more than 75 blockchains.
This will allow smart contracts to access this data directly, supporting blockchain applications such as tokenized exchange indices and structured products.
According to the company’s statement, real-time data from these exchanges in Switzerland and Spain can be hosted on the blockchain via the Chainlink infrastructure. This opens up new use cases, including tokenized indices, structured products, compatible DeFi applications, prediction markets, and new trading fundamentals based on high-quality stock market data.
With the combined market capitalization of the two exchanges reaching €2 trillion, this step highlights the growing importance of tokenization in the financial world.
As is known, Chainlink is among the most preferred cryptocurrencies by institutions. In this regard, the US Department of Commerce also partnered with Chainlink. According to the partnership announcement made last August, the US Department of Commerce stated that macroeconomic data such as GDP, Personal Consumption Expenditures Index (PCE), and US Domestic Demand Strength would be transmitted to many blockchain networks via “oracle” providers Chainlink and Pyth.
Related News JUST IN! US Department of Commerce Partners with Two Surprise Altcoins! Prices Soar!
In addition, Deutsche Börse Market Data Services, a division of Deutsche Börse Group, one of Germany’s largest stock exchanges, announced a partnership with the leading oracle platform Chainlink ($LINK).
*This is not investment advice.
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‘From’ Renewed For Fifth and Final Season (Exclusive)
For From, the beginning of the end is … well, beginning.
MGM+ has renewed From, the supernatural thriller series starring Oz and Lost alum Harold Perrineau, for a fifth and final season, The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively confirm.
Filmed on location in Halifax, Canada in what the production refers to as “From Town” (an actual town built from the ground up specifically for the show), From centers on a nightmare town with no discernible way in or out. Monsters roam the streets at night, spiders and cicadas and worse stalk the surrounding forest, and existential dread permeates all the townspeople trapped within. What is this place? Why is this place? And is there really no way to escape? With more mysteries than you can comfortably fit into a box, From fans (lovingly known as the “Fromily” within the fandom) finally stand ready to receive those answers, beginning with season four, premiering April 19.
As the most-watched show on Amazon-owned MGM+, the decision to conclude From doesn’t come lightly. In fact, according to creator John Griffin, there was some temptation to extend the narrative to a sixth season.
“There was a fair amount of soul-searching,” he tells THR. “But we all came to the realization that if we made that sixth season, it would be for us, because it’s just too hard to say goodbye.”
The long goodbye is already underway, as the writers room is currently open for the final season, with production expected to begin this summer. As that work begins, THR checked in with the three creative forces who call the shots on all things From Town: creator and executive producer Griffin, executive producer Jeff Pinkner, and executive producer and director Jack Bender. Ahead, they weigh in on the decision to put From to rest, what fans can expect from the coming fourth season, and more.
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John, why is now the right time to wind down From?
John Griffin: In full transparency, five seasons was always the goal, but we always wanted to let the story tell us when it was time to end. When we reached the end of season three and the death of Jim (Eion Bailey), it felt like we reached the end of the beginning. Similarly, season four very naturally feels like the beginning of the end. We’ve had the opportunity to tell this story from the beginning the way we really wanted to tell it, with the full support of Michael Wright and everybody over at MGM. It’s rare you get to tell this type of story and give it the life you feel it needs, to let the story decide when it’s time to end.
Jeff, you have worked on some of TV’s most beloved mythology-driven shows: Alias, Lost, Fringe, just to name a few. With that experience in mind, what’s your perspective on bringing From to an end?
Jeff Pinkner: A very smart friend of mine, very early in my career, told me: “TV is about making the audience fall in love with characters, and then watching them suffer.” I think she was right. It’s the foundation of this story, and a lot of the more mythologically-centered television shows I’ve been really fortunate to work on. There’s always a balance between what’s the plot, what are the questions and answers that the audience is asking and seeking, that the characters are asking, and then there’s the emotional journeys the characters are enduring. What I’ve learned is as much as the audience is watching for the answers to those questions, if a show is only built around that, there’s going to be dissatisfaction at the end. Either the answers are too elusive and frustrating for the audience, or they were too obvious. Ultimately, then, these shows succeed or fail largely on making you fall in love with the characters and where their journeys end up. We’ve designed From to force these characters to suffer, and they have, and whether they end up victorious — who’s going to live, who’s going to die, and in what manner are they going to live or die — I’m unbelievably gratified that the audience has stuck with us to the point that we can tell this tale through to its conclusion.
Similar question for you, Jack. You had your boots on the ground in Hawaii leading Lost, and your boots are on the ground in Halifax where you film From. When you look at your time with this show, can you pinpoint what’s made it creatively satisfying for you?
Jack Bender: I remember my first phone call with John and Jeff, back when they asked me to join this party. I asked them, “Okay, well, what’s the deal with this town?” And Mr. Griffin, who I had not yet met, started off with a description that made me go, “Oh my god, the amount of specificity in his head in terms of what and how and why…” There was one point after about 30 minutes of his nonstop, really smart monologue, where I said, “Okay, here’s my task. I know that we will go down that journey, that all will be revealed, and we have all of that architecture to build on. My job is to make sure we have characters we care about, who we are scared shitless for.” And we ended up doing that. I think that’s one of the reasons people care so much about these kinds of shows, going back to what Jeff said.
Before the show ends, we’re getting ten new episodes here in season four. What can you say about what’s ahead?
Pinkner: I think season four is our strongest season in every way. From storytelling, performances, the direction, the presentation… we’re wildly proud of it. What I’ve observed in streaming television as a viewer, is when you watch a narratively driven show, you’re so invested and then so afraid that this story we love may get canceled or end prematurely. Now, allowing our audience to know that they are going to get the ending, it’s only going to increase people’s enjoyment of season four.
Griffin: This season brings our characters closer to the truth than they ever have been before. In fact, it doesn’t bring them closer. It brings them the truth. We see this place push back than it ever has before to direct them down the wrong path.
Let’s check in on some of the biggest plot points right now. Season three ends with the reveal that even if the characters manage to kill one of the monsters, the monsters will find a way to come back to life. Boyd (Harold Perrineau) is a firsthand witness to that. Where does that leave him?
Griffin: Boyd has to come to terms with the realization that he’s no longer a peace-time leader. He’s a war-time leader now, because they really are at war with this place, and going home may require sacrifices he’s not altogether willing to make, because it’s not only himself he’s having to sacrifice — it’s also the people around him. That’s a struggle that comes with leadership, and it’s a struggle he has to face this season like he never has before.
Season three also ended with a massive reveal: two of the townspeople, Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and Jade (David Alpay), have been here before in previous lives, all the way to the very beginning. How does that reveal inform the narrative this season?
Griffin: Jade and Tabitha are realizing their central role in this place. They both feel a great deal of guilt and responsibility, and those feelings manifest in very different ways for both of them. We’ll see them try to find a way to come together with this knowledge they discovered, to put it to good use.
In the season three finale, you killed off your biggest character yet, Jim, by way of introducing a new villain, the Man in Yellow (Douglas E. Hughes). What changes about From now that you have an official big bad on the board?
Griffin: For three seasons, we’ve wandered through the dark with our characters, wondering when the boogeyman was going to show himself. To have that happen during such a critical shift, where Jade and Tabitha discovered this knowledge, costing the life of Jim … the fact that the Man in Yellow steps out of the shadows in that moment not only provides us with a wonderful antagonist, but also, mythologically, it gives us this question: why did he choose that moment to step forward? Why were those memories for Tabitha and Jade the catalyst for the Man in Yellow’s arrival? This season’s going to answer that.
I’m fortunate enough to have spent some time on the From set, which is so immersive. Jeff, who do we need to talk to in order to keep the town open for visitors after the show ends?
Pinkner: The Canadian Prime Minister.
Bender: If we were a Disney show, you know there would be a From Land!
Pinkner: You know, this question assumes From Town is going to survive season five…
High stakes! Are you feeling those stakes yourselves, as you prepare for this final phase of From? Are there any questions you feel you absolutely have to answer before the timer runs out?
Pinkner: We set so much into motion in season one. A lot of seasons four and five are continuing those things we set up, many of which are obvious to the audience, and some of which is not. There are a lot of inevitabilities coming into season five. Our challenge is making sure we tell those stories in the best way we know how. Creating stories is intuitive, it’s done as a team, where the best idea wins. It’s a matter of subjectivity. There’s luck involved. There are things you end up leaving on the table. It’s going to be imperfect, and we will surely have some regrets about what we missed at the end of the day. But our job is to do this as well as we can, forgiving ourselves of the requirement to be perfect. But I’ll say, based on the weeks we have already spent talking in the writers room, I feel very confident the audience will feel honored and respected by the way these stories end. It’s feeling both surprising and inevitable, and we’re being very mindful about the things the audience is curious about, and all the questions that need to be answered.
Griffin: We love this show. We love the questions the fans have, because we’re asking those same questions ourselves. We’re as excited about answering them as you are about getting the answers. And so I don’t mean this as a cop out: I’m not worried about any one particular reveal or answer. At the end of the day, what I want to ensure is that you miss these characters once they’re gone. When I think about finales, I think about Six Feet Under and Friday Night Lights, these shows that live on for you as a viewer after they’re done. There’s a moment in our show where Tian-Chen (Elizabeth Moy) says, “We’ll never have these days again.” I’m thinking a lot about that. I want to ensure the emotional experience of season five is not just about “the ending,” but also about truly saying goodbye to this show.
Bender: And it really does feel like the right time, for all the reasons John articulated. There’s always a goodbye. And the goodbye on the things I’ve loved the most that I have worked on, always comes as a mixed blessing. I feel like we’ve told a wonderful story with an exceptional cast and crew. Now, it’s time to tell another story.
The fourth and penultimate season of From begins April 19 on MGM+.
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Clavicular Speaks Out After Being Hospitalized for Overdose: “That Was Brutal”
“Looksmaxxing” influencer and streamer Clavicular is speaking out after being hospitalized on Tuesday for a suspected overdose.
“Just got home, that was brutal. All of the substances are just a cope trying to feel neurotypical while being in public, but obviously that isn’t a real solution. The worst part of tonight was my face descending from the life support mask,” he tweeted alongside a photo of himself.
The “looksmaxxing” influencer and online streamer, whose real name is Braden Peters, was taken to the hospital on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, the influencer was livestreaming on Kick while he was at a mall and restaurant with two other influencers, when it abruptly cut off, sparking concern among fans. In the livestream, the 20-year-old influencer was seen slurring his words, repeating phrases while talking with a young woman and passing out. Video later shared on X showed the streamer being carried by several people to a black car as an ambulance arrived at the scene.
Influencer Androgenic, who was with Clavicular at the time of the incident, addressed the situation on X writing, “I hadn’t seen him in this state before and he went from speaking to being fairly unresponsive in mere seconds. Within a minute we all realized the situation, turned the stream off, picked him up and rushed him to the hospital.”
Clavicular has gained recognition for promoting extreme “looksmaxxing” due to a self-obsession with being aesthetically pleasing. “Looksmaxxing” is known as an online trend, popular among young men, that focuses on maximizing physical attractiveness. The strive to maximize their attractiveness is done in often extreme ways that ranges from healthy grooming to dangerous practices, such as bone-smashing using a hammer to enhance facial features, which Clavicular has advocated.
When one follower replied to the content creator’s recent message, “Just autistmaxx in public, who gives af what others think,” he responded, “If i wasnt a livestreamer id agree with you.”
The controversial streamer’s hospitalization follows his recent headlines after he walked out of a 60 Minutes Australia interview after correspondent Adam Hegarty asked him if he identifies as an incel and about his connection to Andrew Tate. Clavicular is also reportedly being investigated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for a video appearing to show him shooting an alligator. He was also arrested last month in Florida on misdemeanor battery charges after authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. The New York Times reported that the influencer provoked a fight between two women and exploited them by posting it online.