After Manchester City crashed out of the Club World Cup 4-3 to Al-Hilal in Orlando, Pep Guardiola blamed a lack of ruthlessness, and said Rodri had sustained an injury setback.
City were eliminated by Marcus Leonardo’s 112th-minute winner on Monday night at the Camping World Stadium in the shock result of the inaugural 32-team Club World Cup. Guardiola’s team wasted a number of chances, with Jérémy Doku, Erling Haaland, Josko Gvardiol, Rúben Dias and Savinho among those who failed to put City out of sight in the opening half.
Guardiola said: “In the end we have to score and be clinical. They did not create much in the first half, we did but could not finish it. I had a feeling we could go through. We allow them to make transitions [but] we created a lot. It is a pity, we have been on an incredible journey together [here] and in a good place. The vibe was really good, I cannot thank Manchester City enough and especially the players for training and how they have been playing.”
Rodri came on in the 53rd minute but was forced off in the 100th. The midfielder was making only a fifth appearance since returning from a serious knee injury. The manager said Rodri “complained about his situation”.
City opened the scoring on nine minutes through Bernardo Silva, then goals on 46 and 53 minutes from Leonardo and Malcom gave Al-Hilal the lead. Haaland equalised two minutes later to take the tie into extra time and after Kalidou Koulibaly’s strike was answered by Phil Foden, Leonardo got the winner.
Guardiola said: “We would have loved to have continued, it is only here every four years. We had a feeling that the team is doing well but now we go home and it is time to rest [physically] and rest our minds for the new season.”
The manager was asked whether enough has been seen for him to believe City can challenge again next season, having cast doubt on that before the match. “It is too early to say,” Guardiola replied. “But there have been so many good things I did not see in the [recent] past. The relationship between the players, our captain [Silva] helped a lot and the standards from our staff. I felt we were happy here, the training sessions have been really good. [But] Al-Hilal has a lot of quality. They are a complete team that can run and run – I have a big opinion of them but we [still] did a good game.”
The frustration shows as Pep Guardiola speaks to the media after Manchester City’s defeat by Al-Hilal. Photograph: Héctor Vivas/Fifa/Getty Images
The club’s elimination closed a torrid campaign which featured a dismal Premier League title defence and an FA Cup final defeat by Crystal Palace. A defiant Silva said: “When we start the Premier League, we will forget and focus on having a great season. We’ve had a lot of frustrations in the past as well, and we managed to come back. We’re going to try and do that again, knowing that we have a lot of competition.”
skip past newsletter promotion
after newsletter promotion
Silva, who said the players were waiting to be told when they must report again for training, believes the defeat by Al-Hilal shows the strength of the global game. “Football has never been only in Europe,” the Portugal international said.
The Al-Hilal manager, Simone Inzaghi, was full of praise for his side: “Tonight we had to do something extraordinary because we knew how good Manchester City are. We knew we had to climb Mount Everest without oxygen and we were great. Guardiola is the best coach in the world but tonight we did our best and we deserved the result.”
Sega president and COO Shuji Utsumi recently spoke about the company’s push for making its Games as a Service (GAAS) business model global, as it’s a sign of a company’s “good record.”
In an interview with The Game Business, Utsumi said that game companies with “a good record tend to have a strong [global] GAAS business.” In regards to Sega, while the console and PC standalone business is “getting better,” the publisher and developer is still working on making its GAAS business global. “That’s one of the biggest challenges,” he added.
Currently, Sega’s GAAS focus is on free-to-play mobile games, including the likes of Sonic Rumble, which is free to play but offers in-app purchases. In a 2024 interview with Automaton, which was translated from Japanese, game director Makoto Tase said that “monetization models that use gacha mechanics have not been very successful when it comes to games targeted towards worldwide audiences of all ages,” and that these mechanics “tend to be shunned overseas,” leading to ultimately deciding not to include them in Rumble.
While Utsumi didn’t specifically mentioned gacha mechanics, he sees developer Rovio, which Sega acquired back in August 2023, as the candidate for this business push. “Rovio has deep knowledge of the global mobile business, and very strong IP with Angry Birds,” Utsumi said. “We feel like the fit between Rovio and Sega is good. We are working closely with Rovio to have a Sonic mobile game, and we are giving them access to IPs, including Sonic, to come up with nice, welcoming GAAS titles.”
Related:Unity senior client partner Rod Stafford jailed for 22 years over sexual offenses
Sega’s plans of expansion also include developing properties beyond games, with Utsumi referencing the success of the Sonic movies, which topped $1 billion at the global box office on January of this year. According to the president, the films have had a major impact on the franchise, leading to a significant boost to Sonic game sales.
“When I started to get involved in the video game business, I picked up Crash Bandicoot and started asking some of the movie studios if they were interested in turning that property into a movie,” he said. “But I was treated like… ‘hey, video games is like a toy business’. They didn’t really take it seriously.”
Live service games aren’t going through a healthy phase
Even though Utsumi said that game companies with strong GAAS business show a good record, studios have been struggling around live service launches.
Sony reportedly poured $200 million into live service shooter Concord, which was released late last year and pulled from sale within weeks, shuttering the studio behind it in the process. In January of this year, it canceled two first-party live service titles in development at Bluepoint Games and Bend Studio. Weeks later, contractors were reportedly cut at the latter.
Related:Nintendo is about to alter the price of the original Switch in Canada
Mere weeks later, Warner Bros. Games announced it would be shutting down free-to-play brawler Multiversus on May 30. There’s still an interest around live-service models—Pragma, a backend engine for live-service games like Spectre Divide and Predecessor, secured a $12.75 million investment in March. Despite the decisions in the preceding months, previous PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst said that Bungie’s upcoming live-service shooter, Marathon, won’t be making the same mistakes as Concord.
“I think that some really good work went into that title,” Hulst said during a fireside chat aimed at investors. “Some really big efforts. But ultimately that title entered into a hyper-competitive segment of the market. I think it was insufficiently differentiated to be able to resonate with players. So we have reviewed our processes in light of this to deeply understand how and why that title failed to meet expectations—and to ensure that we are not going to make the same mistakes again.”
Related:The Alters developer apologizes for not disclosing use of generative AI
A scientific team from the University of Liège has just developed an innovative polymer, PHOx, which could significantly improve the safety of implantable medical devices, while being more environmentally friendly. This invention is the subject of an international patent application.
Every year, millions of patients receive medical devices inserted or implanted in the cardiovascular system: arterial and venous catheters, cardiac devices, pacemaker leads, artificial hearts, vascular prostheses, etc. These devices, often made from polyurethane (PU), perform vital functions, but are not without defects. PU production relies on toxic chemicals called isocyanates, and PU is also partly responsible for serious complications in patients, such as blood clots and infections.
Faced with these limitations, a team of chemists and cardiologists at the University of Liège has come up with a promising alternative: PHOx, a thermoplastic elastomer without isocyanate PU (NIPU), which is therefore less toxic to produce and much better tolerated by the human body.
“PHOx (Poly Hydroxy-Oxazolidone) is a flexible, transformable plastic that can be moulded, pressed, spun into fibres or 3D printed,” explain Anna Pierrard and Christine Jérôme, chemists. It can thus be used to produce a variety of personalised medical devices. Better still, its manufacture is based on ‘greener’ raw materials, derived in particular from carbon dioxide, reducing the environmental impact of the process.
Extensive laboratory tests have shown that PHOx outperforms PU in several key respects,” enthuse Sofia Melo, bioengineer, and Cécile Oury, Head of the Cardiology Laboratory at ULiège.” PHOx is more compatible with blood. In particular, it reduces the adhesion of platelets (essential cells in the formation of blood clots) and the activation of coagulation, limiting the risks of clot formation. It is also thought to inhibit the adhesion of bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus, which is often implicated in implant infections. No toxicity was observed, either for human cells or during implantation, and the material did not cause excessive inflammation, degradation or rejection.
3D printable implants
Another major advantage of PHOx is that it can be easily 3D printed. “This means that we could eventually produce custom-made devices for each patient, reducing waste and at lower cost,” explains Patrizio Lancellotti, Head of Cardiology at Liège University Hospital.” Tailor-made implants, heart valves adapted to the anatomy of each individual: the applications are numerous.
Thanks to its mechanical (flexibility, strength) and biological (biocompatibility, compatibility with blood, stability) properties, PHOx could well replace PUs in many medical applications. This is a major step towards medical devices that are safer for patients, more environmentally friendly, and potentially more economical thanks to customised manufacturing and reduced healthcare costs associated with fewer complications.
The researchers stress that this is the first time that a NIPU (non-isocyanate polyurethane) material has demonstrated such performance in critical medical applications. An international patent application (WO2025082761) has already been filed.
/Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is not the first time an entire motion picture has been digitized and then converted back to film for distribution. Gary Ross did it on Pleasantville (shot by John Findley, ASC; AC Nov. ’98), and Jon Shear color-timed Urbania, a Super 16 film, in a digital suite (Shane Kelly; AC May ’00). George Lucas digitized The Phantom Menace (David Tattersall, BSC; AC Sept. ’99), but his purpose was to integrate visual effects and live action components in literally hundreds of shots.
Although O Brother, Where Art Thou? contains a number of visual effects shots, those scenes were incidental to the decision to digitize the film. In fact, the Coen brothers saw the computer as just another tool for extending the art and craft of cinematography. There is more than a little irony in that decision, however, since neither the Coens nor Deakins think of themselves as digital mavens. In fact, the Coens still edit on a traditional flatbed console because they feel that it gives them more tactile control of the film.
Writer-producer Ethan and writer-director Joel began making movies in 1984 with the acclaimed thriller Blood Simple (which was recently rereleased in theaters in a special “director’s cut”). Their films typically explore the dark side of humanity and feature characters who stick in viewers’ memories long after the last flickering images have disappeared from the screen. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is Deakins’ fifth collaboration with the brothers, following Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and The Big Lebowski. (He is currently shooting the sixth, The Barber Project [The Man Who Wasn’t There].) Other notable credits in Deakins’ body of work include Sid and Nancy, Thunderheart, Stormy Monday, The Secret Garden, 1984 and The Hurricane. He earned a 1994 ASC Award and an Oscar nomination for The Shawshank Redemption, as well as both Academy and ASC Award nominations for Fargo and Kundun.
Also Read: Photographing The Shawshank Redemption
“Before I read the script [for O Brother, Where Art Thou?] Joel and Ethan told me they had a film they wanted to shoot in the South,” Deakins recalls. “They imagined something dry, dusty and very hot.” Texas was initially chosen as the primary location, but the filmmakers eventually switched to Mississippi. “I’ve worked in Louisiana and Alabama [on Passion Fish and The Long Walk Home,] so I knew that the region would be wet and the foliage would be various shades of lush green — and about half the picture would take place in exteriors.”
Shielded from the Mississippi sun by some stylish chapeaus, the Coens and Deakins assess their next setup.
The filmmakers briefly considered changing locations again, but Mississippi’s unique delta landscapes drew them back. “It would have been a different scenario if we had been shooting in the winter or if we’d been able to take in fall colors, but our film was scheduled for a summer shoot,” Deakins recalls. “I had to find a way to desaturate the greens and give the images we were going to shoot the feeling of old, hand-tinted postcards, [which was the look] favored by Joel and Ethan.”
To prepare for the production, the filmmakers shot some footage at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where the trees were particularly green and therefore similar to those they were about to be surrounded by in Mississippi. This footage was then subjected to a series of tests by Beverly Wood at Deluxe Laboratory. According to Deakins, tests such as bleach-bypass and ACE produced interesting desaturation but could not be applied in a selective way. The most promising option was a bi-pack system combining a black-and-white panchromatic dupe with the original color negative. Deakins notes that although this technique provided a great deal of control over saturation, it was not selective enough. “I remembered that some years ago, when we shot 1984, we’d had a similar problem,” he says. “We originally wanted to shoot in black-and-white, but the project’s backers wouldn’t allow it. Instead, we decided to go for a harsh, desaturated look using a bleach-bypass system at Kays Laboratory in Great Britain, where the staff was performing tests for us. The challenge was to create the very golden, colorful looks for the scenes that required them as a counterpoint to the starkness of the main body of the film. On those few scenes, we wound up using very heavy filtration to counteract the bleach-bypass.”
While doing tests at Deluxe for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Deakins began to consider the new digital technology at his disposal. He was aware of Lindley’s experience on Pleasantville and knew of Cinesite in Hollywood, which handled all of the film scanning and recording on that project. He thought that if he could scan the entire film into digital format, he would have infinite control over the look in the digital suite, but he wasn’t sure it would be affordable. Deakins discussed the concept with the Coen brothers, who were familiar with the technique, and they asked him to conduct more tests.
Deakins is dollied past a chain gang toiling away in the sweltering heat.The same scene after desaturation.
Some of the negative from the Griffith Park tests was scanned into digital format with a Philips Spirit DataCine at 2K resolution using a proprietary look-up table developed for this application. Deakins viewed the digital images with Cinesite colorist Julius Friede. Together, they worked on manipulating the saturation of the images, and in particular selecting the greens of the trees and grass and turning them into dry browns and yellows. At that point, Cinesite recorded the digital file onto the same 35mm Eastman EXR color intermediate film (5244) that labs use for making internegative and interpositive masters for release printing. A Kodak Lightning film recorder with a high-intensity laser light source was used to convert the digital files to analog images on the intermediate film. The film was then processed by Deluxe in Los Angeles, which also made a work print.
The tests convinced Deakins and the Coen brothers. “They like to try new things,” the cinematographer says. “We knew it would be taking a risk, but Cinesite gave us a good price, and quite honestly it was the only way we could see of achieving the look that all three of us wanted.”
O Brother, Where Art Thou? was also the Coen brothers’ first experience shooting in a widescreen format (2.4:1 aspect ratio), which Deakins had suggested because of the importance of the landscapes and the epic nature of the story. He recommended shooting in the Super 35 format, in part because he liked the perspective rendered by the spherical lenses he’d used on Kundun. “Every film defines its own palette of colors and textures,” he says. “I didn’t want glossy images. The spherical lenses have the effect of pulling the audience closer to the characters; it’s more intimate [than anamorphic]. To my mind, the feeling of depth recorded on Super 35 would augment the picture-book quality of the story.”
Deakins worked mainly with a single Arri 535 camera and the new Cooke S4 prime lenses. “I think it’s important to work with the sharpest lenses you can get — especially if you’re going to convert the film to digital format — but that’s what I typically do anyhow. I rarely use filters to soften a look, so it didn’t affect my decisions [regarding] lenses and filtration.” The cinematographer notes that the Cooke lenses record “very clean” images with very little flare. A number of times he shot directly into the sun without any glare. There also were a number of night shots motivated by very bright flames, including burning torches. He says the pictures were sharp and clean with no double images or kickbacks.
After testing, Deakins settled on three film stocks. He used Kodak Vision 500T 5279 for night interior and exterior scenes, and Eastman’s EXR 5248 100-speed emulsion for most daylight exteriors. While shooting daylight sequences in shadowy forest locations, he sometimes opted for the 200-speed Eastman EXR 5293, which he also used for recording bluescreen elements of composite shots.
The entire film was storyboarded, right down to exact angles of coverage. Deakins says there was considerable discussion about the boards during preproduction. “We stayed pretty close to the plan, veering from it only when something spontaneous presented an unexpected opportunity.”
The locations in and around Jackson, Mississippi, were relatively bare, though there were some shacks and buildings that could have passed for 1930s structures. “We built a couple of sets in a warehouse, because the weather is a bit unpredictable in that part of the country at that time of year,” Deakins says. “But we were only rained out once — lucky, I guess!”
The camerawork in the film is more objective than subjective, revealing the story to viewers as if they are spectators rather than participants. Deakins offers that the result is almost like watching a play, although he notes that the picture also has moments that are like musical interludes verging on fantasy (a tactic previously employed by Deakins and the Coens in The Big Lebowski). “Those moments aren’t structurally necessary for the plot,” he says. “It is almost an operatic or circus experience, like a Fellini film in many ways.”
The camera is almost constantly in motion, though not as much as it was in, say, Barton Fink. “I generally prefer to be on a crane arm with a remote head, but sometimes it proved more practical to use a Steadicam over rough ground,” Deakins says. Much of the film was shot utilizing a Power Pod remote head and an Aerocrane jib arm. “ [That rig] allows a lot of flexibility in terms of camera movement, and it’s often a great time-saver. For one campfire scene, which leads the three main characters into a baptism ceremony, we shot all five setups with the Aerocrane on the same piece of track. We had been rained out all morning, but it brightened up enough in the afternoon to start shooting. We were in very thick forest; I knew it would be getting dark very early, so we had to work quickly.
HOUSTON—As the B612 Foundation marked the annual Asteroid Day on June 30, the private nonprofit presented its 2025 Schweickart Prize to four academics who propose the creation of a Panel on Asteroid Orbit Alteration (PAOA). The collection of global experts would focus on future space exploration…
Mark Carreau
Mark is based in Houston, where he has written on aerospace for more than 25 years. While at the Houston Chronicle, he was recognized by the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation in 2006 for his professional contributions to the public understanding of America’s space program through news reporting.
Subscription Required
Academics Win Prize For Asteroid Risk Proposal is published in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, an Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) Market Briefing and is included with your AWIN membership.
Already a member of AWIN or subscribe to Aerospace Daily & Defense Report through your company? Login with your existing email and password.
Not a member? Learn how you can access the market intelligence and data you need to stay abreast of what’s happening in the aerospace and defense community.
Mohali: Three men involved in a brazen robbery case in which they threw chilli powder into a woman’s eyes to incapacitate her before snatching a bag containing cash have been arrested. The crime, which triggered panic in the city, occurred near Mohali’s Kamla Market in Phase 1. Those arrested have been identified as Parvinder Singh, Chandan Gupta and Sachin Kumar. Police have recovered Rs 1.6 lakh from the three, SSP Harmandeep Singh Hans said.Deputy Superintendent of Police (City-1) Prithvi Singh Chahal, while addressing the media, said that under the directions of the SSP, Mohali Police launched a special drive to clamp down on thefts and snatching incidents in the city. As part of this initiative, Police Station Phase-1 cracked the high-profile chilli powder robbery case within days of its occurrence.The incident took place when Jamuna Devi was returning home after helping her niece, Anjala Sarma, close their confectionery shop in Kamla Market. While they were walking near the Mechanic Market area in village Mohali, three unidentified men on a motorcycle attacked them. One of them threw chilli powder in Anjala’s eyes, after which they snatched the cash bag and fled.Based on Jamuna Devi’s complaint, Police Station Phase-1 initially registered a case under Section 304 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against unknown persons. The case caused widespread fear among residents, especially women.Inspector Sukhbir Singh, SHO of Police Station Phase-1, led the team that traced and arrested the accused. During interrogation, the trio confessed to their involvement and revealed that they had initially identified the victims while travelling in an auto-rickshaw. After spotting the women walking alone, they planned and executed the snatching using a motorcycle.Police said the case has since been updated to include Sections 309(4) and 317(2) of the BNS based on further investigation. The trio are now in police custody, and further interrogation is underway to determine their involvement in other similar crimes. MSID:: 122185760 413 |
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg confirmed that the company is no longer working on migrating its Tumblr blogging platform to WordPress, as previously announced. The exec shared the news on The Verge’s Decoder podcast, published on Monday, saying that the project is “on hold” for an indefinite period.
“What we decided is that we want to focus as much on the things that are going to be noticeable to users and that users are asking for,” he told the site. “This was more like an infrastructure thing, kind of like any big re-architecture. I still want to do it. It’s just cleaner. But right now, we’re not working on it.”
The announcement also raises questions about what this means for Tumblr’s integration with the open social web, known as the fediverse. By migrating its infrastructure to WordPress, it would have become a federated app. Mullenweg admits that was one of the arguments for making the move, but hints that it’s no longer a priority.
“…in the meantime, I think if there was a big push to implement fediverse, we would just do it on the Tumblr code base,” he said.
Mullenweg also reiterated that Tumblr is not profitable, and is sustained from the profits of other Automattic products. Still, he said he believed in Tumblr’s future and plans to give it the runway it needs to figure things out.
The Trump administration has raised the possibility of stripping Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral candidate for New York, of his US citizenship as part of a crackdown against foreign-born citizens convicted of certain offences.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, appeared to pave the way for an investigation into Mamdani’s status after Andy Ogles, a rightwing Republican congressman for Tennessee, called for his citizenship to be revoked on the grounds that he may have concealed his support for “terrorism” during the naturalization process.
Mamdani, 33, who was born in Uganda to ethnic Indian parents, became a US citizen in 2018 and has attracted widespread media attention – and controversy – over his vocal support for Palestinian rights.
Controversy over his immigration status follows a chorus of Islamophobic attacks on his Muslim faith following his apparent victory in last week’s New York mayoral primary, when he finished first in a field that included Andrew Cuomo, the former New York state governor and favored candidate of the Democratic establishment.
It also comes after the Trump administration instructed attorneys to prioritize denaturalizing foreign-born US citizens who had committed specified crimes. A justice department memo instructs lawyers to institute proceedings against naturalized citizens who ares suspected of having “illegally procured” naturalization or having done so by “concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation”.
Ogles wrote to Pam Bondi, the attorney general calling for an investigation into Mamdani after his Democratic mayoral primary victory on the grounds that “he may have procured US citizenship through willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism.”
As evidence, he cited a rap song by Mamdani, entitled my love to the Holy Land five, in which he called members of a foundation convicted of supporting Hamas “my guys”. He also referred to Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada”.
In an accompanying post on X, Ogles wrote: “Zohran ‘little muhammad’ Mamdani is an antisemitic, socialist, communist who will destroy the great City of New York. He needs to be deported.”
Asked about Ogles’s call, Leavitt said: “I have not seen those claims, but surely if they are true, it’s something that should be investigated.”
The justice department has confirmed receiving Ogles’s letter but has not commented further.
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator for Connecticut who has become one of the Trump administration’s most effective critics, called the demand to denaturalize Mamdani “racist bullshit”.
“Trump will stop at nothing to protect billionaires and price gouging corporations, even racist bullshit like this,” he wrote.
“Zohran won because he ran a campaign laser focused on putting power back in the hands of working people. And that’s a threat to the Mar-a-Lago crowd.”
Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, has had his social media posts and previous political activism fiercely scrutinized since last week’s election victory, which was accompanied by promises of leftwing populist policies for New York if he is eventually elected mayor.
Amid a chorus of rightwing vitriol, Donald Trump has called him “a pure communist” and has threatened to cut off funds to New York if Mamdani becomes mayor and “doesn’t behave himself”.
At a news conference at the official unveiling of a new detention centre for immigrants in Florida’s Everglades, Trump reiterated his communist remark and referred to allegations that Mamdani had obtained his citizenship “illegally”.
“We don’t need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I’m going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation. We send him money, we send him all the things that he needs to run a government,” Trump said.
“We’re going to be watching that very carefully. A lot of people are saying, he’s here illegally. We’re going to look at everything, but ideally, he’s going to turn out to be much less than a communist. Right now he’s a communist, that’s not a socialist.”
It’s no surprise that the final season of Squid Game attracted a huge worldwide audience — it’s the biggest show Netflix has ever hosted, after all — but the scale of the Korean hit continues to impress.
The third and final season of the series amassed 60.1 million views worldwide from June 27-29, the largest three-day tally Netflix has ever recorded in its internal rankings. Season two, which premiered on Dec. 26, 2024, had a higher opening-week total of 68 million views, but those came over four days. Both seasons made Netflix’s all-time top 10 for non-English language shows in their first week, the only times that has happened on either the English or non-English series charts.
Season three’s 60.1 million views equates to 368.4 million hours of watch time, per Netflix. At a little more than six hours, it’s the shortest of the three Squid Game seasons, which will allow it to rack up view numbers (total viewing time divided by run time) a little faster than the previous two installments
Squid Game ranked No. 1 for the week of June 23-29 in every country that Netflix tracks, also a first for one of the streamer’s shows. The final season sees Player 456/Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) make a final attempt to bring down the deadly game from within — while also hinting in its last scene that the games are global in scope.
Another title with roots in Korean culture, KPop Demon Hunters, also had a big week for Netflix. The animated film moved up to No. 1 on the English-language movie chart in its second week with 24.2 million views (or the equivalent of that many complete runs of the movie).
The first season of Squid Game remains Netflix’s most-watched series to date with 265.2 million views over its first 13 weeks of release (the cutoff time for the streamer’s all-time top 10 lists). Season two is currently second among non-English language series with 192.6 million views, and season three sits ninth — with the potential to move into the top five in another week.
