Tag Archives: magnificent

AI Company Aims to Recreate Lost Footage from Orson Welles’ Masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons

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An AI company is set to recreate the missing 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ iconic film, The Magnificent Ambersons.

As reported by the Hollywood Reporter, Showrunner Platform aims to utilize AI technologies for this reconstruction project.

Edward Saatchi, CEO of the interactive AI filmmaking studio Fable, is overseeing the project. In a statement to Indiewire, he stated, “We’re starting with Orson Welles because he is the greatest storyteller of the last two centuries… Many people hold valid concerns about AI’s influence on cinema.”

The report indicates that the showrunner is collaborating with filmmaker Brian Rose, who has been working since 2019 to reconstruct the missing segments through animation and VFX expert Tom Clive.

Welles began production in 1942 on Ambersons, following his Oscar-winning debut with Citizen Kane. He had previously adapted the novel into a radio drama in 1939.

Unfortunately, some footage from the completed film was cut after unfavorable audience test screenings, and Welles lost final cut rights due to negotiations with the studio. While editing the film, he traveled to Brazil and started work on It’s All True, ultimately re-editing Ambersons’ finale. RKO stated that Welles felt “completely betrayed.” The master negative of the excised footage was later destroyed to free up storage space.

Numerous efforts have been made to restore or recreate the film. The working print sent to Welles in Brazil is believed to be lost. Filmmaker Joshua Grossberg is leading the search for this elusive footage. A reconstruction using still photographs was showcased at the Locarno Film Festival in 2005.


However, the search has informed Hollywood reporters that the showrunners do not hold the rights to The Magnificent Ambersons, making it unlikely that the resulting footage will be shown outside of academic settings and exhibitions. “The aim isn’t to monetize the 43 minutes, but to make it available after 80 years of speculation on whether this was the best film in its original form,” they stated.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The Magnificent Giant Flying Squirrel that Roamed North America

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Paleontologists have discovered 4.9 million (Early Pliocene) fossilized ruins of an extinct flying squirrel Myopetaulista Webbi Tennessee, USA. Generation of the genus Myopetaulista Eastern North America is bewildered because it is separated from the known geographical range of the genus and the extent of organisms of its sister species. Petaurista. Researchers assume that Myopetaulista which is linked to a warm forest environment and was dispersed across North America through the Beringland Bridge during the warm phase of the early Pliocene.

The lifespan of a flying fossil squirrel Miopetaurista neogrivensis It indicates that the animal is ready to land on a tree branch. Image credit: Oscasani Sidro / ICP.

Myopetaulista Webbi It jumps over the sky in what is now southern Appalachia, sliding over rhinoceros, mastodons and red pandas.

New materials of this kind have been discovered in Grey Fossil Site In Tennessee.

“discovery Myopetaulista In North America, this genus was very unexpected because it is known only from Eurasia,” said Dr. Isaac Casanovas Bilar, paleontologist at Mikel Crusafont of paleontology at the University of Barcelona. .

“There have been some uncertain reports from Florida, but new specimens from the grey fossil site provide new information, with these giant flying squirrels coming together alongside other mammals around five million years ago. It helped me to make sure I crossed the bridge.”

According to paleontologists, Myopetaulista Webbi Probably closely related Myopetaulista Tarelionly known Pliocene Eurasian species.

“The Appalachians today may try to think of these ancient creatures as closely related to the squirrels that regularly see them,” the researchers said.

“However, their closest relatives are giant flying squirrels from Japan, China, and Indonesia.”

“These giant flying squirrels have a lightweight build, weighing around three pounds, and were pretty agile on the treetop.”

“When they arrived in Tennessee now, the world was much warmer than it is now.”

“Its warm climate allows squirrel ancestors to travel across North America and could slip through dense, damp forests like those preserved in the fossil records of grey sites millions of years ago.”

The new specimen is Myopetaulista A genus of North America.

“As the climate cooled over time, Pleistocene ice age led to the isolation of these giant flying squirrels in warm shelters like Florida, and ultimately contributed to their extinction.” Miquel Crusafont from the University of Barcelona.

“The Last American Myopetaulista It has lived for millions of years since the species of Eurasian of this genus disappeared.

Team's work It was published in Journal of Mammalian Evolution.

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M. Grau-Camats et al. 2025. Intercontinental Sliding: A Review of the North American Records of Giant Flying Squirrels Myopetaulista (Rodentia, Sciuridae) Description of new materials for the grey fossil site (Tennessee). J Mammal Evol 32, 8; doi:10.1007/s10914-025-09751-w

Source: www.sci.news

The real cause of the degradation of Earth’s most magnificent creature

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New study shows that humans, not climate, caused decline of megafauna 50,000 years ago

New research from Aarhus University confirms that it was humans, not climate, that caused the dramatic decline in large mammal populations over the past 50,000 years. Scientists have long debated whether humans or climate were to blame, but new DNA analysis of 139 extant large mammal species shows that climate cannot explain the decline.

About 100,000 years ago, the first modern humans migrated from Africa, settling in every type of terrain and hunting large animals using clever techniques and weapons. Unfortunately, this led to the extinction of many large mammals during the era of human colonization, and new research reveals that the surviving large mammals also experienced a dramatic decline.

According to Jens Christian Svenning, professor and director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for New Biosphere Ecodynamics at Aarhus University, the populations of nearly all 139 species of large mammals declined about 50,000 years ago. DNA analysis shows that the decline is related to human dispersal rather than climate change.

This study used DNA analysis to map the long-term history of 139 large mammal species that have survived without extinction for the past 50,000 years, and scientists were able to estimate the population size of each species over time. The results are conclusive that human dispersal is the most likely cause of the decline in large mammal populations.

The study also showed that woolly mammoths are a poor example for climate-based models of extinction, as the vast majority of megafauna species that went extinct lived in temperate and tropical regions, not mammoth grasslands. Despite ongoing debate, the evidence strongly points to human activity rather than climate change as the main cause of the dramatic decline in large mammal populations.

Source: scitechdaily.com