Entertainment

Global gaming giant Aristocrat Leisure Limited reported net profit after tax of AU$1.55 billion (US$1.01 billion) for the year ended 30 September 2025, up 12.2% year-on-year on portfolio-wide market share gains and the inclusion of iGaming platform provider NeoGames for the full 12 months. The FY25 results saw an 11.0% year-on-year increase in group-wide revenue to AU$6.30 billion (US$4.11 billion), including a 9.1% improvement from Aristocrat Gaming to AU$3.96 billion (US$2.58 billion). Group EBITDA also grew by 15.6% to AU$2.63 billion (US$1.72 billion) on 41.7% margin, up 1.6 percentage points on FY24. Aristocrat Gaming’s results were driven by strong share gains in North America and outright sales in Australia in the second half of the year following release of the Baron Upright cabine...

Coming on top of an intense, high-value bidding war, Amazon MGM has landed the movie rights to The Last Letter, a romantic drama novel by Fourth Wing author Rebecca Yarros. Journalist-turned-screenwriter Anna Klassen is in final talks to write the adaptation, with Brian Grazer and Jeb Brody of Imagine Entertainment in talks to produce. Yarros is a phenomenon in the book work, taking the genre of romantasy into the mainstream with her Empyrean book series, which began with 2023’s Fourth Wing and that has now sold over 12 million copies. Letter, which is not a romantic fantasy but is rather a straight-up romance, is one of her earlier books and was re-released this year, hitting best-seller status and re-kindling Hollywood interest. Letter was a weepie (oh, what a wee...

Third Angle New Music and Kim Stafford presented “Evergreen” at World Forestry Center. Photo by Terrellyn Faye. On October 22, Third Angle New Music presented “Evergreen” at the World Forestry Center. The program featured the Third Angle string quartet (Greg Ewer, Ling Ling Huang, Wendy Richman and Valdine Ritchie Mishkin), along with a brief appearance by James Shields. With music by Caroline Shaw, Dai Fujikara, Quinn Mason and a world premiere composed by 3A violist Wendy Richman, “Evergreen” paid a loving tribute to Oregon’s forested landscape with great music.  “Evergreen” was a collaboration between Third Angle and Oregon’s former Poet Laureate Kim Stafford. In between movements Stafford would come up and read a poem to introduce each piece, interleaving words and music. The poem...

ARC Raiders launched on October 30, 2025, and has already climbed to the top of everyone’s most-played list, myself included. It is developed by Embark Studios, the team behind The Finals, and it has moved far faster than anyone expected.According to Nexon, the game has sold more than 4 million units worldwide. On Steam, it has reached a peak of 462,000 concurrent players, which already surpasses its previous record from the week before. Embark also confirmed that ARC Raiders reached more than 700,000 simultaneous players across all platforms combined, covering Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Epic Games Store, and GeForce NOW.What is ARC Raiders, and is it here to stay? ARC Raiders, 700,000 concurrent players (Image credit: Embark Studios)ARC Raiders is a multiplayer co-op extraction shooter ...

Spider-Man has, for the most part, been an infallible IP for Sony. The Spider-Man films have been consistently successful—both critically and financially—making the Wall-Crawler one of Sony's most important brands. Given the character's popularity, Sony decided to try its hand at a superhero universe of its own. Out of that desire came Sony's Universe of Marvel characters, a franchise comprised of spinoffs based on characters from across Spidey's sandbox.The franchise kicked off in 2018 with Venom, starring Tom Hardy. The film became an unexpected hit, grossing over $800 million against a reported $100 million budget. Then, came 2021's Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which was a moderate-yet-impressive success,... Source link

Margo Price is coming to John T. Floore’s Country Store. Credit: Courtesy Photo / Margo Price While we’re guessing lots of SA music fans will be at St. Mary’s stalwart Lonesome Rose’s four-day celebration of its seventh anniversary, it’s certainly not the only thing happening this week. Let’s take a peek at the options. Wednesday, Nov. 12 Ben Kweller Singer-songwriter Ben Kweller started playing music at an early age, covering songs by ’60s acts such as the Beatles and the Hollies with his dentist father nearly every night when he came home from work. These influences later came through when Texas-raised Kweller moved to New York City to pursue a music career at age 19. Bouncy jangle-pop elements and McCartney-esque melodies intermingled with the ’90s milieu generated by the l...

17 years ago, Mirror’s Edge took a gameplay experiment and turned it into a cult classic. From the same studio that would go on to be defined by the Battlefield franchise, Mirror’s Edge was a stylish adventure/platforming game that operated on a singular gameplay thesis: parkour is cool. Players traversed an expansive city looking to upend a conspiracy, surviving perilous drops and trigger-happy cops along the way. The real trick to Mirror’s Edge was the game’s commitment to a first-person perspective POV, with the game never abandoning that approach. The result was a minor hit that quickly developed into a cult classic among gamers taken by the title’s visual aesthetic and entertaining core gameplay. However, given the way technology has advanced in gaming in the years since, it’s a ...

Chris Herrington Chris Herrington has covered the Memphis Grizzlies, in one way or another, since the franchise’s second season in Memphis, while also writing about music, movies, food and civic life. As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association who is also a member of a film critics group and has also voted in national music critic polls for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice (RIP). He and his wife have two kids and, for reasons that sometimes elude him, three dogs. Source link

NEED TO KNOW Jackie Apostel is teasing new musicThe songwriter previously spoke about not wanting to release music as a recording artist and explained her developing thoughts in a new Instagram postHer announcement comes weeks after her boyfriend Cruz Beckham released two new songs, "Optics" and "Lick the Toad" Who's ready to hear some new music from Jackie Apostel? The songwriter took to Instagram on Tuesday, Nov. 11 to inform fans she's looking to release an EP of original material as a duo called The Future Past Romantics Society with a friend who creates under the name Parked Up. Apostel's announcement comes after she previously spoke about not wanting to release music as a recording artist in 2022 — and she explained her developed thoughts in the Instagram post's caption. ...

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts: AppStories This week, John and Federico spin a Saturday morning of iPhone app cleanup into a full blown digital declutter across all devices with the help of some of their favorite apps. Then on AppStories+, Federico has more to share from his ongoing Typing Mind experiments, and John explains how he’s using Claude Code to crunch spreadsheets with one million rows. NPC: Next Portable Console This week on NPC, Brendon, Federico, and John explore where mobile phone gaming is heading and reflect on what Nintendo’s latest earnings report means for the Switch 2, before Brendon shares his first impressions of the Miyoo Mini Flip On NPC XL, Federico, John, and Brendon explore what’s behind the sudden surge of innovation i...