title: Twister (1996 film)

text: The real town of Wakita – serving as the hometown of Lois Smith's character, Meg, in the film – was used during filming, and a section of the older part of town was demolished for the scene showing the aftermath of the F4 tornado that devastates the town. This location was selected after scouts discovered leftover debris from a major hailstorm that occurred two years earlier in June 1993. Most of the residents signed up for extra materials and were paid $100 per day. Additional scenes and B-roll were filmed near Ponca City and Pauls Valley, among several other smaller farm towns across the state. However, due to changing seasons that massively transformed the look of Oklahoma's topography, filming was moved to Iowa. The climactic scene with the F5 tornado was almost entirely shot around Eldora, Iowa, with the cornfield the characters run through located near Ames. The "twister hill" scene was shot on 130th Street near the small town of Pilot Mound. Some additional footage was shot north of Pilot Mound, near the town of Dayton. After primary filming had wrapped, additional pick-up shots and reshoots, which included the opening scene and additional footage of the drive-in tornado, took place in Bolton, Ontario and Schomberg, Ontario.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: Halfway through filming, both Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were temporarily blinded by bright electronic lamps used to make the sky behind the two actors look dark and stormy. Paxton remembers that "these things literally sunburned our eyeballs. I got back to my room, I couldn't see". To solve the problem, a Plexiglas filter was placed in front of the beams. The actors took eye drops and wore special glasses for a few days to recuperate. After filming in a particularly unsanitary ditch (for the first tornado chase scene, in which Bill and Jo are forced to shelter from an approaching F1 tornado under a short bridge), Hunt and Paxton needed hepatitis shots. During the same sequence, Hunt repeatedly hit her head on a low wooden bridge, so exhausted from the demanding shoot that she stood up so quickly her head struck a beam. During one stunt in which Hunt opened the door of a vehicle speeding through a cornfield, she momentarily let go of the door and it struck her on the side of the head. Some sources claim she received a concussion in the incident. De Bont said, "I love Helen to death, but you know, she can be also a little bit clumsy". She responded, "Clumsy? The guy burned my retinas, but I'm clumsy ... I thought I was a good sport. I don't know ultimately if Jan chalks me up as that or not, but one would hope so".


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: Some crew members, feeling that De Bont was "out of control", left the production five weeks into filming. The camera crew led by Don Burgess claimed De Bont "didn't know what he wanted till he saw it. He would shoot one direction, with all the equipment behind the view of the camera, and then he'd want to shoot in the other direction right away and we'd have to move [everything] and he'd get angry that we took too long ... and it was always everybody else's fault, never his". De Bont claims that they had to schedule at least three scenes every day because the weather changed so often, and "Don had trouble adjusting to that".


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: When De Bont knocked over a camera assistant in a fit of rage who missed a cue, Burgess and his crew walked off the set, much to the shock of the cast. They remained in place for one more week until Jack N. Green's crew agreed to replace them. Two days before principal filming ended, Green was injured when a hydraulic house set (used in the scene in which Jo and Bill rescue Meg and her dog, Mose, from her tornado-destroyed home in Wakita), designed to collapse on cue, was mistakenly activated with him inside it. A rigged ceiling hit him in the head and injured his back, requiring him to be hospitalized. De Bont took over as his own director of photography for the remaining shots.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: Because overcast skies were not always available, De Bont had to shoot many of the film's tornado-chasing scenes in bright sunlight, requiring Industrial Light & Magic to more than double its original plan for 150 "digital sky-replacement" shots. Principal photography was originally given a deadline to allow Hunt to return to film the fourth season of her NBC sitcom "Mad About You", but when shooting ran over schedule, series creator and actor Paul Reiser agreed to delay the show's production for two-and-a-half weeks so "Twister" could finish filming. De Bont insisted on using multiple cameras, which led to the exposure of of film, compared to the usual maximum of . The tornadoes in the film were not real, but were instead computer-animated. To compose the sound effects of these twisters, De Bont had recorded a variety of combined sound effects, including lion roars, tiger growls, camel moans and jet engine wooshes. Other special effects that were animated with CGI included telephone poles, trees, trucks, tractors and whole houses. The crew used a Boeing 707 airplane engine and smaller fans to generate wind throughout the film. The flying cow was perhaps the most famous scene throughout the film. The CGI cow was originally a CGI zebra from the 1995 film "Jumanji". During the hailstorm scene after locating a particularly juicy storm cell on the radar, Beltzer says "That's no moon, it's a space station!", which is a reference to Obi-Wan Kenobi's quote from the first "Star Wars" movie, "A New Hope". Plus, the gasoline truck seen flying around the F5 tornado has the "Benthic Petroleum" label, bearing the same name of the company from "The Abyss", James Cameron's 1989 20th Century Fox film.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: De Bont claimed that "Twister" cost close to $70 million, of which $2–3 million went to the director. It was speculated that last-minute re-shoots in March and April 1996 (to clarify a scene about Jo as a child) and overtime requirements in post-production and at ILM, raised the budget to $90 million. During post-production of "Twister", Spielberg took over directing duties on "Minority Report" instead of "The Haunting". The film was set to be released on May 17. Warner Bros. eventually made the decision to push forward "Twister"s release date to May 10 in order to avoid audience cannibalization with the release of Paramount's "" two weeks later. The premiere took place at the AMC Penn Square 10, then known as General Cinema Theatres at Penn Square Mall in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma a day prior. Jan de Bont, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were at the mall for interviews.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: Prints of "Twister" came with a note from De Bont, suggesting that exhibitors play the film at a higher volume than normal for full effect.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: "Twister" featured both a traditional orchestral film score by Mark Mancina, and a soundtrack of rock music singles, many of which were exclusive releases for the film. Both the soundtrack and the orchestral score featured an instrumental theme song ("Respect the Wind") composed and performed for the film by Alex and Eddie Van Halen. The film's music was released on CD and cassette tape formats.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: There is also some other music, such as Deep Purple's "Child in Time" (heard when the team takes the road at the beginning and the assistant maximises the volume in his truck). It's later in the scene mixed and beat synced with William Tell Overture.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: There are some orchestrated tracks that were in the film but were not released on the orchestral score, most notably the orchestrated intro to "Humans Being" from when Jo's team left Wakita to chase the Hailstorm Hill tornado. Other, lesser-known tracks omitted include an extended version of "Going Green" (when we first meet Jonas) and a short track from when the first tornado is initially spotted.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: In January 2017, La-La Land Records released a limited edition remastered and expanded album containing Mark Mancina's entire score plus four additional tracks.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: "Twister" opened on May 10, 1996, earning $41.1 million from 2,414 total theaters during its opening weekend, and ranked in the number one spot at the North American box office, taking the spot off of "The Craft". Upon its release, it topped "The Birdcage" to have the biggest 1996 opening. At that time, it had the sixth largest opening weekend of any movie, behind "The Lion King", "Batman", "Batman Returns", "Jurassic Park" and "Batman Forever". Moreover, the film had the largest May opening weekend, dethroning "Lethal Weapon 3" and "The Flintstones". The success of "Twister" helped the blockbusters of May officially begin the summer season. It would follow similar openings of "Deep Impact" in 1998 and "The Mummy" in 1999. Two years later in 2001, "The Mummy Returns" set a new precedent for the frame by unleashing an opening weekend of $68.1 million. Then in 2002, "Spider-Man" took the summer starter films to the next level with its $114.8 million opening weekend.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: During its second weekend, "Twister" managed to dominate "Flipper" with an additional $38.5 million. The film would suffer a 10% second weekend drop, making it the smallest decline for a non-holiday film. For 15 years, "Twister" would achieve that record until it was surpassed by DreamWorks' "Puss in Boots" in 2011. By May 21, it reached the $100 million mark. Not too long after, the number one spot was taken by "", putting "Twister" into second place. Like its predecessor, the film would also have the largest May opening weekend. It would go on to hold this record until 1997 when it was taken by "". As for "Twister", it would continue to stay in second place while beating out "Dragonheart". When "The Rock" was released that June, the film was put into third place. It would then approach $200 million by June 19. "Twister" plunged into fifth place shortly after the releases of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Eraser". After "Independence Day" was released in July, the film crossed over "Ghostbusters" to become the thirteenth-highest domestic grossing film of all time. It would continue to dominate the box office, especially during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: After twelve weeks of release, the film earned $231.3 million. By this point, it had become twelfth-highest domestic grosser, surpassing "The Empire Strikes Back". "Twister" went on to earn a total of $241.7 million at the North American box office, and a worldwide total of $494.5 million during its theatrical run. It became the second-highest-grossing film of 1996, behind "Independence Day", and was the tenth-highest-grossing film in history at the time of its release, making it the most successful Warner Bros. film release, surpassing "Batman". In 2001, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" took "Twister"s record for becoming the highest-grossing Warner Bros. film of all time. The A-level disaster movie right before Hollywood went all-in for a few years to offer the likes of "Independence Day", "Dante's Peak", "Volcano", "Titanic" (which also starred Paxton), "Deep Impact", "Armageddon", "The Core", "The Day After Tomorrow" and "War of the Worlds". As of 2020, "Twister" ranks at #76 among the highest-grossing North American movie releases of all-time; worldwide, it places #105 on the all-time earners list, not adjusted for inflation.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: "Twister" received generally positive reviews, with many critics praising the jaw-dropping special effects that brought the storms to life. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 63% "Fresh" based on 70 reviews, and an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's critics consensus read: "A high-concept blockbuster that emphasizes special effects over three-dimensional characters, "Twister"s visceral thrills are often offset by the film's generic plot." On Metacritic the film had a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "You want loud, dumb, skillful, escapist entertainment? "Twister" works. You want to think? Think twice about seeing it". In her review for "The New York Times", Janet Maslin wrote, "Somehow "Twister" stays as uptempo and exuberant as a roller-coaster ride, neatly avoiding the idea of real danger". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "Yet the images that linger longest in my memory are those of windswept livestock. And that, in a teacup, sums up everything that's right, and wrong, about this appealingly noisy but ultimately flyaway first blockbuster of summer". In his review for the "Los Angeles Times", Kenneth Turan wrote, "But the ringmaster of this circus, the man without whom nothing would be possible, is director De Bont, who now must be considered Hollywood's top action specialist. An expert in making audiences squirm and twist, at making us feel the rush of experience right along with the actors, De Bont choreographs action and suspense so beautifully he makes it seem like a snap." "Time" magazine's Richard Schickel wrote, "when action is never shown to have deadly or pitiable consequences, it tends toward abstraction. Pretty soon you're not tornado watching, you're special-effects watching". In his review for the "Washington Post" Desson Howe wrote, "it's a triumph of technology over storytelling and the actors' craft. Characters exist merely to tell a couple of jokes, cower in fear of downdrafts and otherwise kill time between tornadoes".


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: "Twister" was released on LaserDisc and VHS by Warner Home Video on October 1, 1996. The VHS release contains a "Space Jam" trailer, as well as a "Looney Tunes" cartoon with Bugs Bunny and Taz. As soon as the film finishes, there is a message by Federal Emergency Management Agency with James Lee Witt. By November 1996, it topped the number one spot in "Billboard"s top sales. However, that spot was soon taken by "Toy Story", which put "Twister" into third place. The film was released on DVD on March 26, 1997. It is considered to be the first home release of a movie to use this now widely-used optical media technology. This is also the first THX certified DVD release. The viewer is given the option of viewing the film in widescreen on one side of the disc and pan and scan full screen on the other side. The DVD release occurred eleven days before "Twister" made its pay-cable debut on HBO on April 5, deviating from the then-standard film release "window" that normally placed a four- to six-month gap between a movie's initial home video release—which typically overlapped with its pay-per-view availability period—and premium cable distribution window. "Twister" was then released on VHS by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment through CIC Video in the UK on March 10, 1997 and July 14, 1997.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: The film was released on DVD once again on June 6, 2000. Eight years later on May 6, 2008, a two-disc special edition DVD and Blu-ray were released. An HD DVD was then released on May 27, becoming one of the last HD DVDs to be ever released.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: On May 24, 1996, a tornado destroyed Screen No. 3 at the Can-View Drive-In, a drive-in theater in Thorold, Ontario, which was scheduled to show "Twister" later that evening, in a real-life parallel to a scene in the film in which a tornado destroys a drive-in during a showing of the film "The Shining". The facts of this incident were exaggerated into an urban legend that the theater was actually playing "Twister" during the tornado.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: On May 10, 2010, a tornado struck Fairfax, Oklahoma, destroying the farmhouse where numerous scenes in "Twister" were shot. J. Berry Harrison, the owner of the home and a former Oklahoma state senator, commented that the tornado appeared eerily similar to the fictitious one in the film. He had lived in the home since 1978.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: Bill Paxton would later narrate storm chaser Sean Casey's 2011 documentary "Tornado Alley". After the death of Paxton in February 2017, hundreds of storm chasers and users of the Spotter Network used their markers to spell out his initials across the states of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma in tribute to the actor, citing that the movie was the inspiration for many of them to pursue storm-chasing and meteorology.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: A "Twister" museum located in Wakita, Oklahoma, where much of the particularly destructive scenes of the movie were shot, contains various memorabilia and artifacts related to the film.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: On May 15, 2021, a 25th anniversary party was held in Wakita. Many events included a car show, a "look like a star" contest and several kids games. The lunch break included walking tacos at the Citizens by Community Health Center, sloppy joe sandwiches at Wakita Foodland and hamburgers at the Gazebo. There were several other snacks, such as beef jerky, cinnamon rolls, ice cream, popcorn and snow cones. A week later, the Rodeo Cinema in Oklahoma City played "Twister" on May 22 during the evening.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: On April 3, 1996, Sega Pinball released Twister, a pinball machine themed to the same name of the film. It features modes including Canister Multiball, Chase Multiball, Multibull and more.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: The film was used as the basis for the attraction "Twister...Ride It Out" at Universal Studios Florida, which features filmed introductions by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. The attraction opened on May 4, 1998 and closed on November 1, 2015 to make way for "Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon". In the windows of the New York facade lies a tribute to Twister...Ride it Out with references to the film and Bill Paxton.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: The original screenplay, written by Crichton and then-wife Anne Marie Martin, was released as a mass-market paperback in conjunction with the film.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: The story of Bill's drunken encounter with a tornado is referenced in "" downloadable content when asking the bartender of the Retching Netch in Raven Rock, Geldis Sadri, about how the inn got its name. He explains about a Dark Elf (Dunmer) that was one of his regular customers and very drunk, and naked, offering his drink to a , before tossing the bottle at the . The apparently caught and swallowed some of the alcohol as the bottle never hit the ground, but this caused the to become intoxicated itself, floating crookedly, and this resulted in it throwing up due to the drink making it very sick, releasing a very foul stench from its maw.


title: Twister (1996 film)

text: In June 2020, a remake was announced to be in development from the original film's international distributor Universal Pictures, with Joseph Kosinski in early negotiations to serve as director. Frank Marshall and Sara Scott were set to serve as producers on the project. In June 2021, Helen Hunt expressed interest in developing a sequel to the original film. The studio rejected Hunt's plans for writing and directing it, due to her character being killed off for the sequel. In October 2022, it was announced that the project will be repurposed into a legacy-sequel. Officially titled "Twisters", the script was written by Mark L. Smith with a plot that revolves around Hunt's Dr. Joanne "Jo" Harding character, and the daughter that she had with Dr. William "Bill The Extreme" Harding (portrayed by Bill Paxton), who has also become a storm chaser like her parents. After Steven Spielberg read the script, his enthusiasm contributed to getting the project green-lit. The project will be a joint-venture production between Universal, Amblin, and Warner Bros. Pictures. Lee Isaac Chung is in talks to direct the film with Marshall producing through The Kennedy/Marshall Company banner.


title: Bildungsroman

text: In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman (, plural Bildungsromane, ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is important. The term comes from the German words ("education", alternatively "forming") and ("novel").


title: Bildungsroman

text: The term was coined in 1819 by philologist Johann Karl Simon Morgenstern in his university lectures, and was later famously reprised by Wilhelm Dilthey, who legitimized it in 1870 and popularized it in 1905. The genre is further characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. The term "coming-of-age novel" is sometimes used interchangeably with "Bildungsroman", but its use is usually wider and less technical.


title: Bildungsroman

text: The birth of the Bildungsroman is normally dated to the publication of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1795–96, or, sometimes, to Christoph Martin Wieland's of 1767. Although the "Bildungsroman" arose in Germany, it has had extensive influence first in Europe and later throughout the world. Thomas Carlyle's English translation of Goethe's novel (1824) and his own "Sartor Resartus" (1833–34), the first English "Bildungsroman", inspired many British novelists. In the 20th century, it spread to France and several other countries around the globe.


title: Bildungsroman

text: A "Bildungsroman" is a growing up or "coming of age" of a generally naive person who goes in search of answers to life's questions with the expectation that these will result in gaining experience of the world. The genre evolved from folklore tales of a dunce or youngest child going out in the world to seek their fortune. Usually in the beginning of the story, there is an emotional loss which makes the protagonist leave on their journey. In a "Bildungsroman", the goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a main conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and they are ultimately accepted into society—the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others after having achieved maturity.


title: Bildungsroman

text: Franco Moretti "argues that the main conflict in the "Bildungsroman" is the myth of modernity with its overvaluation of youth and progress as it clashes with the static teleological vision of happiness and reconciliation found in the endings of Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister" and even Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"".


title: Bildungsroman

text: There are many variations and subgenres of "Bildungsroman" that focus on the growth of an individual. An "Entwicklungsroman" ("development novel") is a story of general growth rather than self-cultivation. An "Erziehungsroman" ("education novel") focuses on training and formal schooling, while a "Künstlerroman" ("artist novel") is about the development of an artist and shows a growth of the self. Furthermore, some memoirs and published journals can be regarded as "Bildungsroman" although being predominantly factual (e.g. "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac or" The Motorcycle Diaries" by Ernesto "Che" Guevara). The term is also more loosely used to describe coming-of-age films and related works in other genres.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Deryck Jason Whibley (born 21 March 1980), nicknamed Bizzy D, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and record producer, best known for his work as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, keyboardist, main songwriter, producer, founder and only constant member of the rock band Sum 41.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Whibley formed Sum 41 with drummer Steve Jocz, bassist Richard Roy and vocalist Jon Marshall. They were originally called Kaspir, and were a NOFX cover band. In 1999, the band signed an international record deal with Island Records. The band released their debut album, "Half Hour of Power" in 2000, then "All Killer No Filler" in 2001. The band achieved mainstream success with their first single from the album, "Fat Lip", which reached number-one on the "Billboard Modern Rock Tracks" chart and remains the band's most successful single to date. "All Killer No Filler" was certified platinum in the United States, Canada and in the UK. The band has since released six more studio albums: "Does This Look Infected?" (2002), "Chuck" (2004), "Underclass Hero" (2007), "Screaming Bloody Murder" (2011), "13 Voices" (2016), and "Order in Decline" (2019). The three albums before "Screaming Bloody Murder" have been certified platinum in Canada.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: The band often performs more than 300 times each year and holds long global tours, most of which last more than a year. They have been nominated for seven Juno Awards and have won twice (Group of the Year in 2002 and Rock Album of the Year for "Chuck" in 2005). Their fifth studio album, "Screaming Bloody Murder", was released on March 29, 2011. During the Screaming Bloody Murder Tour, the band added Deryck Whibley's cousin Matt Whibley on keyboard.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Besides Sum 41, Whibley developed a professional career in the music industry as producer and manager. He was part of Bunk Rock Music, a music management and production company. He produced for No Warning with the company as well. Since parting ways with Greig Nori, he sold his part of the company in early 2005.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: During the Sum 41 hiatus in 2005 and 2006, he worked with Tommy Lee on guitar and backing vocals for his album, "", and "" with Iggy Pop.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: He worked as the producer of "We Have an Emergency", the debut album by Sum 41 co-member Jason McCaslin's side project The Operation M.D. In 2007, he mixed the debut album of the band Permanent Me. He was also involved with the Avril Lavigne album, "The Best Damn Thing", where he produced and played guitar.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Besides his musical career, he has worked on occasion as an actor. He portrayed the character Tony in the movie "Dirty Love", and himself as a guest character in "King of the Hill".


title: Deryck Whibley

text: In November 2007, Whibley suffered a herniated disc while drumming on the song "Pain for Pleasure". This happened while Sum 41 was on tour with Finger Eleven, and the remainder of the "Strength in Numbers Tour" was canceled although Finger Eleven did travel to Winnipeg, Manitoba to play the show with Die Mannequin and Inward Eye in replacement of Sum 41.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: On the Operation M.D.'s second album "Birds + Bee Stings", which was released on June 29, 2010, Whibley mixed one track entitled "Sick + Twisted". He also played keyboard and piano on the same track. He also joined the band live, playing guitar on this song, on December 21, 2010, at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Whibley contributed some guitar to Tommy Lee's side project Methods of Mayhem's second album "A Public Disservice Announcement" which was released on September 21, 2010.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: He co-wrote the songs "Broken Pieces", "Over and Out" and "Lost in Reality" with 5 Seconds of Summer, which appeared on their "She's Kinda Hot" EP.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Whibley uses a black customized '72 Fender Telecaster Deluxe live with his well-known red X's for decoration and good luck. He has also put out a signature guitar with Squier, a sub-brand of Fender. The signature Squier comes in black and Olympic white, sports the two red X's and has one humbucking pickup in the bridge position, which is a Seymour Duncan Designed HB-102. It also has his signature "Deryck" written on the headstock. Whibley has used many Gibson guitars such as the Flying V, Les Paul, SG and a Gibson Marauder, which was his first guitar given to him by his mother, and has been used in some of the band's videos such as "Fat Lip" and "In Too Deep". According to the October 2007 issue of "Rock Sound" magazine, he also uses '59 Les Paul Reissues, '52 Telecaster Reissues, Telefunken and Neumann mics, Plexi 100 watt Marshall Heads and Cabinets and Spectraflex cables.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Whibley lived in Ajax, Ontario, and attended Southwood Park Public School. He grew up in a single parent household. Whibley has an interest in architecture and has said he would like to design houses if he was not a musician. As a teenager, he attended Exeter High School. It was there that he and his bandmates were discovered while playing at their War of the Bands. In high school, Whibley was the captain of his basketball team.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Whibley married fellow singer Avril Lavigne in 2006. The couple occasionally performed together and have spoken about their relationship in interviews. Whibley and Lavigne began dating when she was 19 years old, after being friends since she was 17.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: The wedding was held on July 15, 2006. About 110 guests attended the wedding, which was held at a private estate in Montecito, California.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: After a little over three years of marriage Lavigne filed for divorce on October 9, 2009 and the divorce was finalised on November 16, 2010.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: On August 30, 2015, Whibley married model Ariana Cooper in Los Angeles. They have one child, born in March 2020.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: Whibley has chronic back pain due to a series of back injuries, starting with a slipped disc during a 2007 concert.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: On August 5, 2010, Whibley was hospitalized after he was attacked in a bar in Japan late at night by three unknown individuals. After an MRI scan, it was revealed that Whibley herniated a disc in his back for the fourteenth time. Although advised against performing, Whibley rejoined the band on August 8 in Osaka for the Summer Sonic Festival. The back injuries, alongside severe anxiety, caused Whibley to self-medicate with alcohol. Whibley again injured his back in April 2013, causing him to miss shows.


title: Deryck Whibley

text: On May 17, 2014, Whibley announced that, a month earlier, he had been hospitalized for alcoholism with severe liver and kidney damage.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and villain from the James Bond series of novels and films, created by Ian Fleming. A criminal mastermind with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond. Blofeld is head of the global criminal organisation SPECTRE and is commonly referred to by the codename Number 1 within this organisation. The character was originally written by Fleming as a physically massive and powerfully built man, standing around 6' 3" (1.90 m) and weighing 20 st (280 lbs, 127 kg), who had become flabby with a huge belly.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: The most recurring antagonist in the franchise, Blofeld appears or is heard in three novels: "Thunderball", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"; and "You Only Live Twice"; as well as eight films from Eon Productions: "From Russia with Love" (1963), "Thunderball" (1965), "You Only Live Twice" (1967), "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971), possibly "For Your Eyes Only" (1981; the pre-title sequence of which shows an unnamed character resembling Blofeld fall to his death), "Spectre" (2015) and "No Time to Die" (2021). The latter two films are set in a rebooted continuity, which started with "Casino Royale" (2006). Blofeld also appears in "Never Say Never Again" (1983), a remake of "Thunderball" that was not produced by Eon.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld has been played on-screen by Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, Max von Sydow and Christoph Waltz, among others. It was initially a convention of the films not to show Blofeld's face, only a close-up of him stroking his white, blue-eyed Persian cat. His face's first appearance is in "You Only Live Twice" as he introduces himself to Bond (whom he is meeting face-to-face for the first time) after previously appearing in the "traditional" way in earlier parts of the film.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Many of Blofeld's characteristics have become tropes in popular fiction, representing the stock character of the criminal mastermind, with the stroking of his white cat often retained as a parodic allusion to Blofeld's character. This can be seen parodied in the "Austin Powers" film series with the character of Dr. Evil and his cat Mr. Bigglesworth, or in the cartoons "Inspector Gadget", with the character of Dr. Claw, and "Danger Mouse", with the character of Baron Silas Greenback.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Ian Fleming includes information about Blofeld's background in his novel "Thunderball". According to the novel, Blofeld was born on 28 May 1908 (which is also Fleming's birthdate) in Gdingen, Imperial Germany (now Gdynia, Poland); his father Ernst George Blofeld was Polish, and his mother Maria Stavro Michelopoulos was Greek, hence his Greek middle name Stavro. After World War I, Blofeld became a Polish national. As a young man, he was well-versed in the social science disciplines, but also in the natural science and technology disciplines. He first graduated from the University of Warsaw with a degree in Political History and Economics, and then from the Warsaw University of Technology with a degree in Engineering and Radionics. He was then hired by the Polish Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs and appointed to a sensitive communication position, which he used for buying and selling stocks at the Warsaw Stock Exchange.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Foreseeing World War II, Blofeld made copies of top-secret wires and sold them for cash to Nazi Germany. Before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he destroyed all records of his existence, then moved first to Sweden, then to Turkey, where he worked for Turkish Radio and began to set up his own private intelligence organisation. During the war, he sold information to both sides. After the defeat of Erwin Rommel, he decided to back the Allied war effort, and was awarded numerous medals by the Allied powers after the war's end. Blofeld then moved temporarily to South America before founding SPECTRE.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In the John Gardner novel "For Special Services", Blofeld is depicted as having had a daughter, Nena, with a French prostitute.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Although Fleming himself never confirmed it, it is generally thought that the character of Blofeld was based on real-life Greek arms dealer Basil Zaharoff. It is commonly believed that the name Blofeld was inspired by the English cricket commentator Henry Blofeld's father, with whom Fleming went to school. Henry Blofeld offered on the BBC Radio 4 series "Just a Minute" that "Ian took my father's name as the name of the baddie."


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld has three appearances in Ian Fleming's novels. He first appears in a minor role as the leader of SPECTRE in the 1961 novel "Thunderball". The plot that he formulates is carried out by his second-in-command Emilio Largo. Blofeld is described physically as a massive man, weighing roughly 20 st (280 lbs, 140 kg), who had previously been a champion amateur weightlifter in his youth before becoming obese in middle age; he has black crew-cut hair, black eyes (similar to those of Benito Mussolini), heavy eyelashes, a thin mouth, and long pointed hands and feet. He has violet-scented breath from chewing flavored cachous (breath mints), a habit he adopts whenever he must deliver bad news. A meticulous planner of formidable intellect, he seems to be without conscience but not necessarily insane, and is motivated solely by financial gain. Blofeld's lifestyle is described in one chapter in "Thunderball": "For the rest, he didn't smoke or drink and he had never been known to sleep with a member of either sex. He didn't even eat very much."


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: The novel "Thunderball" indicates that Blofeld wants to be a man of honour, or at least pose as one. During a meeting of SPECTRE agents, he refers to the kidnapping of a teenage girl, who was to be returned unharmed once her father paid the ransom. However, he refunded half the money after learning that she had been raped by her abductor, and he kills the agent responsible for this infraction by electrocuting him in his chair. This is the third instance in which Blofeld kills an operative for a breach of discipline; he had earlier shot one through the heart with a needle fired from a compressed-air gun, and strangled another with a garrote. In the movie "Thunderball", Blofeld kills an agent for embezzlement rather than rape.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld is absent from the next novel, "The Spy Who Loved Me", though its events take place while Bond is battling SPECTRE in North America. In "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1963), Bond learns that Blofeld has altered his appearance radicallyhe is now tall and thin, having reduced his weight to ; sports long silver hair, a syphilitic infection on his nose, and no earlobes; and he wears dark green tinted contact lenses to hide his distinctive eyes. Perhaps less calculating than previously, he is notably saddled with the exploitable weakness of snobbery about his assumed nobility, indicating that he is losing his sanity. He is hiding in Switzerland in the guise of the Comte Balthazar de Bleuville and Bond defeats his vindictive plans to destroy Britain's agricultural economy (implied to be carried out on behalf of the Soviet Union). In the final sequence of the novel, Blofeld gets revenge by murdering Bond's new wife, Tracy.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In "You Only Live Twice", published in 1964, Blofeld returns and Bond finds him hiding in Japan under the alias Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. He has once again changed his appearance. He has put on some muscle and has a gold-capped tooth, a fully healed nose, and a drooping grey mustache. Bond describes Blofeld on their confrontation as being "a big man, perhaps six foot three (190 cm), and powerfully built." It is indicated that Blofeld has by now gone completely insane, as he all but admits himself when Bond levels the accusation. Bond strangles him to death in a fit of rage at the end of the novel (something that he had done only once before, to Auric Goldfinger).


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In both "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and "You Only Live Twice", Blofeld is aided in his schemes by Irma Bunt, who is clearly his lover in the latter, and posing as Shatterhand's wife. Bond incapacitates her in their Japanese castle base before it blows up, killing her.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: The final mention of Blofeld is in the beginning of the next novel, "The Man with the Golden Gun", published in 1965.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld's depiction in film influenced with great effect the depiction of supervillains and (together with that of Don Vito Corleone in "The Godfather") that of Mafia bosses both in films and printed media, as, since his first appearance on the big screen in 1963, he established some "standards" imitated for decades, such as mysterious identities, being portrayed stroking a pet and with the face unseen by the spectator or the viewpoint character, and the concept of spectacularly executing underlings who fail to defeat the main protagonist.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In the film series, Blofeld first appears in "From Russia with Love" (credited as "Ernst Blofeld", though the name is never heard), then in "Thunderball" (uncredited). In these two appearances, his name is never spoken, his face is not seen, and only his lower body is visible as he strokes his trademark white cat.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Originally, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was to include the twist that Blofeld was Auric Goldfinger's twin brother, and would be portrayed by Gert Fröbe. However, this plotline was scrapped when it was delayed in favor of "You Only Live Twice". Czech actor Jan Werich was originally cast by producer Harry Saltzman to play Blofeld in "You Only Live Twice". Upon his arrival at the Pinewood set, both producer Albert R. Broccoli and director Lewis Gilbert felt that he was a bad choice, resembling a "poor, benevolent Santa Claus." Nonetheless, in an attempt to make the casting work, Gilbert continued filming. After five days, both Gilbert and Broccoli determined that Werich was not menacing enough, and recast Donald Pleasence in the role – the official excuse being that Werich was ill.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In the third, fourth, and fifth appearances"You Only Live Twice", "On Her Majesty’s Secret Service" and "Diamonds Are Forever"he is the primary antagonist, meeting Bond face-to-face. During the opening sequence of "Diamonds Are Forever", he reveals to Bond that some of his men have undergone plastic surgery to become his decoy duplicates.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In the film version of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", he is not Tracy Bond's (Diana Rigg) actual killer. He drives the car from which Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat) fires the fatal shots at Tracy, minutes after she had married Bond.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In a sixth appearancein the pre-credit sequence of "For Your Eyes Only"he is an anonymous, bald, villain who uses a wheelchair and is trying to kill Bond once again. Blofeld remains unnamed and was listed in the film's end credits as "Bald-Headed Man with White Cat". The only clues to his identity are the trademark white cat, similar clothes to his previous onscreen appearances, the dialogue indicating he and Bond have met before, and the fact that the scene begins with Bond paying his respects at Tracy's grave, often considered by the producers as a means of providing an "immediate continuity link" in the event of a new actor taking the part of Bond (although this was Roger Moore's fifth appearance as Bond). The anonymity of the villain was due to the legal dispute between Kevin McClory and Eon Productions over the "Thunderball" copyrights.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld's appearance changes according to the personifying actor and the production. He has a full head of black hair in "From Russia With Love" and "Thunderball"; a bald head and a facial dueling scar in "You Only Live Twice"; a bald head with no scar or earlobes in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"; and silver-grey hair in "Diamonds Are Forever". This metamorphosing matches Fleming's literary portrayal of a master criminal who will go to great lengths to preserve his anonymity, including the use of plastic surgery. He often wears a jacket without lapels, based loosely either on the Nehru jacket or on the Mao suit, a feature which is used in spoofs like the "Austin Powers" series, though in his early two appearances on film he wears a black business suit.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: By November 2013, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the McClory estate had formally settled the issue with Danjaq and MGM and acquired the full copyright to the characters and concepts of Blofeld and SPECTRE. Blofeld consequently reappeared in "Spectre", played by Christoph Waltz, and with a new background. In this continuity, he was born Franz Oberhauser, the son of Hannes Oberhauser (a character from the original short story "Octopussy", portrayed here in two photographs by Thomas Kretschmann), James Bond's (Daniel Craig) legal guardian after being orphaned at the age of 11, making him and Bond adoptive brothers. As a young man he resented Bond for being his father's favorite, leading him to murder his father, stage his own death, and take on the alias of "Ernst Stavro Blofeld", derived from his mother's lineage. Over time he assembled a global criminal organisation known as Spectre. Additionally, it is revealed that the villains of the previous Craig films – Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), and Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) – were all really working for Spectre.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Bond encounters Blofeld while investigating a worldwide terrorist network, later revealed to be Spectre. Bond discovers that Blofeld is trying to take control of Nine Eyes, a global surveillance program, with help from treasonous Joint Intelligence Service agent Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott), and staging terrorist attacks in order to justify the program's existence. Bond and Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), Mr. White's daughter, confront Blofeld at his desert base, where he gloats about being responsible for several tragedies in Bond's life, including the deaths of his lover Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) and the previous M (Judi Dench). He then tortures his former foster brother by strapping him to a mechanical chair programmed to surgically remove Bond's eyes. At the last second, however, Bond destroys the chair with an exploding watch given to him by Q (Ben Whishaw); the explosion destroys Blofeld's right eye and leaves him with a vertical scar running down the wounded socket. Nevertheless, Blofeld manages to escape. Bond ultimately foils Blofeld's plans and has the opportunity to kill him, but decides to spare his life, and Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the current M, takes Blofeld into custody.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld, again portrayed by Waltz, appears in the 2021 Bond film "No Time to Die". He has been held in solitary confinement at Belmarsh prison for five years since his capture, but has been covertly running Spectre whilst feigning insanity. Blofeld has operatives steal the "Heracles" bioweapon and lure Bond to a meeting of high-ranking Spectre agents in the hopes of infecting and killing him.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: However, Blofeld's plan is sabotaged by Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), whose entire family was murdered by Mr. White on orders from Blofeld. Safin has the bioweapon altered by rogue MI6 scientist Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik) so that it wipes out all the Spectre agents instead of Bond. Safin then coerces Swann to infect Blofeld with a strain of Heracles targeting his DNA. While attending Bond's interrogation of Blofeld, Swann unknowingly passes the bioweapon onto him before abandoning Safin's plan. Blofeld reveals he manipulated Bond into believing Swann had betrayed him five years earlier, resulting in Bond ending their relationship. Bond loses his temper and starts to choke Blofeld. The contact causes Blofeld to succumb to infection within seconds, and he dies shortly afterwards.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: This incarnation wears a jacket without lapels and has a full head of hair, reminiscent of the Donald Pleasence, Charles Gray, and Telly Savalas versions of the character, respectively. His disfigurement later on the film echoes the scar and blind eye of Pleasence's version. He is also briefly shown with a white Persian cat, strikingly similar to the one from the Connery era films.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In the James Bond comic books by Dynamite Entertainment, Blofeld appears as the main antagonist in the "Agent of SPECTRE" arc, which ran between March and July 2021. As in the original Ian Fleming novels, he is the son of a Polish father and a Greek mother; his mother belonged to a family of Greek ship-owners, with Blofeld inheriting a private fleet from her, which he manages to build up into a global shipping empire. His base of operations is the (fictional) Greek island of "Meraki". Behind his veneer of respectability as a shipping billionaire, Blofeld is the leader of the resuscitated "SPECTRE" global criminal organisation, which had been thought dismantled since the end of the Cold War.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld appears in the end of the 2004 video game "", with the likeness of Donald Pleasence, voiced by Gideon Emery. Despite the character being clearly him, as chief of an anonymous but powerful crime syndicate, he is not named because of the then-ongoing copyright controversy that also prevented the open usage of the character in the Moore era films.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld is a playable multiplayer character in the 2010 video game "GoldenEye 007" for the Wii, with the likeness of Charles Gray.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Blofeld is one of the main characters in the 2012 Craig-era video game "007 Legends", featured in the mission based on "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (set between "Quantum of Solace" and "Skyfall"), in which the character is an amalgamation of the first three actors appearing in the official film series. Throughout the game, he is voiced by Glenn Wrage. "Legends", released prior to Blofeld's appearance in "Spectre", portrays a feud with 007 that is not related to the film, thus rendering the video game non-canonical to the cinematic timeline.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Some of Blofeld's characteristics have become supervillain tropes in popular fiction and media, including the parodies Dr. Claw (and his pet cat, M.A.D. Cat) from the "Inspector Gadget" animated series (1983–1986), Team Rocket leader Giovanni and his Persian from the "Pokémon" television series, and Dr. Evil (and his cat Mr. Bigglesworth) from the "Austin Powers" film series (1997–2002). The 1999 "The Powerpuff Girls" episode "Cat Man Do" also features a supervillain with a cat, though it is the feline that turns out to be the criminal mastermind. In "The Penguins of Madagascar", the recurring villain Dr. Blowhole is a parody and homage to Blofeld. The rendition for Lex Luthor in "", and to a certain extent, various entries of the DC Animated Universe, were derived in part from Telly Savalas' portrayal of Blofeld in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". The character The Grand Master (and pet rabbit General Flopsy) from the CBBC series "M.I. High" (2007–2014) are heavily based on characteristics popularised in Blofeld.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In the fourth episode of the first season of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" in 1969, Eric Idle played Arthur Lemming, secret agent for the British Dental Association, who found himself up against the forces of The Big Cheese (Graham Chapman), a diabolical dentist who appeared out of a secret panel in the wall with a stuffed rabbit called Flopsy on his knee.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: In 1987, an edition of "Saturday Night Live" presented a skit called "Bullets Aren't Cheap," featuring Steve Martin as a particularly penurious Bond. That evening's musical guest Sting portrayed a villain called "Goldsting," who wore a Nehru jacket and, like The Big Cheese, carried a stuffed bunny rabbit.


title: Ernst Stavro Blofeld

text: Similar to "The Powerpuff Girls" example, General Viggo (a white Persian cat) is the villain of the video game "Fur Fighters", while his pet is a small mutant human named Fifi.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: The Empty Man is a 2020 supernatural horror film written and directed by David Prior in his feature directorial debut, based on Cullen Bunn and Vanesa R. Del Rey's graphic novel of same name published by Boom! Studios. The film stars James Badge Dale, Marin Ireland, Stephen Root, Ron Canada, Robert Aramayo, Joel Courtney, and Sasha Frolova. It follows an ex-cop who, upon an investigation into a missing girl, discovers a secret cult.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: Originally filmed in August 2017 as an international co-production between the United States, South Africa, and France, the film received poor scores at test screenings and distributor 20th Century Fox lost faith in its commercial prospects. The final product, theatrically released in the United States on October 23, 2020, was still considered a rough edit by Prior. The film initially received mostly negative reviews from critics and audiences at the time of its release. Reception improved after the film came out on home media and streaming services, and it has since gained a cult following.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: In the Ura Valley, Bhutan in 1995, four friends — Greg, Fiona, Ruthie, and Paul — go hiking on a mountain. Paul hears a strange whistling and falls in a crevice. Greg finds him in an almost catatonic state, staring at a massive and strange inhuman skeleton embedded into the cave wall. The group carries him out and take refuge at an empty house as a snowstorm hits. The next day, Ruthie is chased by the spirit of the creature in the cave. That night, Paul, slowly possessed by the evil spirit, whispers something into Ruthie's ear. The group later finds Paul next to the bridge they crossed. Ruthie becomes dazed before stabbing Greg and slicing Fiona's throat and throwing their bodies over the cliff. She shares an entranced look with Paul before throwing herself off too.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: In Missouri 2018, former detective James Lasombra is grieving the death of his wife Allison and their son Henry who died in a car accident a year ago. He is friends with his neighbor Nora, a widowed single mother. Nora's daughter Amanda runs away and they find a message written in blood in the bathroom saying, "The Empty Man made me do it". Amanda's friend Devara reveals that Devara, Amanda and their friends were encouraged by Amanda to summon the Empty Man, a local legend. To summon the Empty Man, you must first find an empty bottle on a bridge, blow into it, and then think of the Empty Man. Each friend in the group did so. The next day at school, Devara witnesses Amanda whispering into friend Brandon's ear, just as Paul had done to Ruthie in Bhutan.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: James investigates the bridge, and finds the empty bottle. He proceeds to blow on it, just as the teens had done previously. He goes underneath the bridge and discovers the hanged bodies of Brandon and the rest of Amanda's friends with the same message found in Amanda's bathroom. Devara is next killed by the spirit, who attacks her in the steam room of a spa with a pair of scissors. The police rule her death a suicide.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: James researches the Pontifex Institute, discovering it is a cult that has beliefs originating from places like Bhutan and in tulpas, which he further researches on Wikipedia. He believes he hears the Empty Man that night and is besieged by nightmares. He travels to the institute and sits in on a talk by cult leader Arthur Parsons. Speaking to Parsons, he is alarmed at the leader's references to the Empty Man, claiming him to be an entity that provides his followers with what they want as long as they do his bidding.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: James begins to think he sees the Empty Man. He follows cult members and investigates a cabin in the woods where he finds files on Amanda, her friends, Paul, and himself. He witnesses the cult performing a fire ritual but is spotted and pursued by the cult. He suspects that Amanda is now a member of the cult and informs Nora that she isn't safe. He takes Nora to a hotel to hide. It is revealed that the pair were having an affair and he was with Nora when Allison and Henry died.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: Suffering from hallucinations, James ambushes cult member Garrett and asks him what is happening before brutally assaulting him. Garrett claims that there is a man in the hospital that the Empty Man is transmitting to the cult from. James discovers that the man is actually Paul, who is in a comatose state and regularly visited by cult members to get messages from the spirit. He finds Amanda in Paul's hospital room and she explains that Paul is dying from the strain of being the Empty Man, and that the cult needs a new vessel. She tells James he is a tulpa, a new vessel for the being, and that his memories and relationships were fabricated by her and the cult to ensure the deity's connection through his pain and loss. According to Amanda, James has only existed for a few days. In disbelief, James calls Nora, but she does not know who he is.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: James breaks down and finds himself in a limbo-like dimension, where the entity enters his body. Back in the hospital, James executes Paul. He finds himself surrounded by several members of the hospital staff. They bow to him.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: On February 9, 2016, it was announced that 20th Century Fox acquired the graphic novel "The Empty Man" from Boom! Studios for a feature film, with David Prior hired to write and direct the film. The supernatural thriller film would be produced by Ross Richie and Stephen Christy. On July 7, 2016, it was announced that James Badge Dale was cast in the lead role as an ex-cop plagued by the violent deaths of his wife and son, who tries to find a missing girl. On September 27, 2016, it was announced that Aaron Poole was cast in the film to play Paul, an outdoorsy adventurer. "The Empty Man" was the last film to feature the original 20th Century Fox logo.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: Creature designer Ken Barthelmey designed and sculpted the cave skeleton and other elements for the film. Prior hired him to work on the designs in 2016. Because the shooting schedule was close, Barthelmey had only a short amount of time to work on the designs. The main qualities Prior was looking for were "ancient age, authority, menace, and subtly more than human". Prior sent him paintings from Polish painter Zdzisław Beksiński and mentioned the Space Jockey in "Alien" for reference. Those inspirations eventually led Barthelmey to the film's final design. Barthelmey sculpted the cave skeleton in 3D. His model was 3D printed and built on set by production designer Craig Lathrop and his team.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: A majority of principal photography took place in South Africa in late 2016. During that final week, production halted due to poor weather conditions. During this time, Fox's executive vice president of production Mark Roybal left the studio. According to director David Prior, Roybal was "essential" towards the greenlighting of the film. Production resumed once a new executive was hired. Approved on a budget of $16 million, Prior said about $11 million was used on the shoot. The final week of production resumed in September 2017 in Edwardsville, Illinois, with some filming done at the Madison County courthouse. Filming also took place at the Chain of Rocks Bridge and moved to another undisclosed location after three days.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: When test screenings occurred, Prior was told to assemble a cut almost immediately after production had ended. Following low test scores, the studio began panicking over losing a tax rebate from South Africa due to impending deadlines. The producers assembled their own 90 minute version of the film (over 45 minutes shorter than Prior's original), which tested even worse. This led Prior to delivering his final cut of the film with six extra minutes (in which he would later consider it a rough edit in an interview) he initially intended to cut out.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: "The Empty Man" was theatrically released on October 23, 2020, by 20th Century Studios (by mistake, the film was released under the 20th Century Fox banner despite the studio's name change on January 17, 2020). The film was originally scheduled for release on August 7, 2020, but was delayed to December 4 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before being moved up to the October date following the shifting of "Death on the Nile".


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: In the United Kingdom, the movie skipped a theatrical release entirely, instead being released on Disney+ via Star Hub and other VOD services on February 19, 2021.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: "The Empty Man" grossed $3 million in the United States and Canada, and $1.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $4.8 million.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: The film grossed $1.3million from 2,027 theaters in its opening weekend, finishing fourth at the box office. 53% of the audience was male, with 53% also being over the age of 25. Analysts blamed the film's low box office performance on the audience's initial assumption of another creepypasta-based supernatural teen horror film in the vein of movies like "Slender Man" and "The Bye Bye Man", and zero marketing push from the studio, with social media analytics corporation RelishMix saying: "The campaign on social for 20th's "The Empty Man" dropped just one week ago on [October] 16. Any normal campaign for an indie, one-off high concept or awards contender will obviously drop at least two months out — at the latest." The film fell 57% in its second weekend to $561,000, then made $294,350 in its third.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: "The Empty Man" was not screened in advance for critics upon its release, and initial reviews were mostly negative. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 77% of 26 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.8/10.


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: Barry Hertz of "The Globe and Mail" gave the film 2/4, writing: "Producers couldn't have picked a better title, though. After I left my Friday afternoon screening, attended by a whopping two other people, I felt far from satisfied. Empty, you might say." Writing for "The Only Critic", Nate Adams gave it a "D−", summarizing that "running an overlong two hours and twenty minutes, "The Empty Man" – probably the bastard cousin twice removed from "The Bye Bye Man" or "Slender Man", not good company – is a total bore".


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: Michael Gingold of "Rue Morgue" gave the film a positive review, saying it's "not at all the movie that its trailers are selling, and in this case, that's a good thing". Brian Tallerico of "RogerEbert.com" gave the film 2.5/4 stars and wrote that "every once in a while, a studio buries a project because they don't get it. How do you sell a film as surreal and unsettling as "The Empty Man"? You don't even try. If you're lucky, the audience finds it on their own."


title: The Empty Man (film)

text: Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale. PostTrak reported 42% of audience members gave the film a positive score, with "an awful" 25% saying they would definitely recommend it. According to several publications, the film had "the makings of a cult classic" and found second life in home media. "The Film School Rejects" wrote: "As happens with most cult movies, "The Empty Man"s audience has started to view the film's alleged weaknesses as its strengths."


title: OGC Nice

text: Olympique Gymnaste Club Nice Côte d'Azur (), commonly referred to as OGC Nice or simply Nice, is a French professional football club based in Nice. The club was founded in 1904 and currently plays in Ligue 1, the top tier of French football. Nice plays its home matches at the Allianz Riviera.


title: OGC Nice

text: Nice was founded under the name "Gymnaste Club de Nice" and is one of the founding members of the first division of French football. The club has won Ligue 1 four times, the Trophee des Champions one time and the Coupe de France three times. It achieved most of its honours in the 1950s with the club being managed by coaches such as Numa Andoire, Englishman William Berry, and Jean Luciano. The club's last honour was winning the Coupe de France in 1997 after defeating Guingamp 4–3 on penalties in the final. Nice's colours are red and black.


title: OGC Nice

text: During the club's successful run in the 1950s, Nice were among the first French clubs to successfully integrate internationals players into the fold. Notable players include Héctor De Bourgoing, Pancho Gonzales, Victor Nurenberg, and Joaquín Valle, the latter being the club's all-time leading goalscorer and arguably greatest player.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed by Jonathan Glazer and written by Glazer and Walter Campbell, loosely based on the 2000 novel by Michel Faber. It stars Scarlett Johansson as an otherworldly woman who preys on men in Scotland. The film premiered at Telluride Film Festival on 29 August 2013. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 March 2014, North America on 4 April 2014, Switzerland on 23 July 2014, and worldwide on 10 August 2014.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Glazer developed "Under the Skin" for over a decade. He and Campbell pared it back from an elaborate, special effects-heavy concept to a sparse story focusing on an alien perspective on the human world. Most of the cast had no acting experience, and many scenes were filmed with hidden cameras.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: "Under the Skin" received acclaim for Johansson's performance, Glazer's direction, and Mica Levi's score. It received numerous accolades and awards; it was named the best film of the year by various critics and publications, was included in many best-of-the-decade lists, and was ranked 61st on the BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century list. It was a box-office failure, grossing around $7 million USD on a budget of $13.3 million.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: In Glasgow, a motorcyclist retrieves an inert young woman from the roadside and places her in the back of a van, where a naked woman dons her clothes. After buying clothes and make-up at a shopping centre, the woman drives the van from town to town, picking up men. She lures a man into a dilapidated house. As he undresses, following the woman into a void, he is submerged in a liquid abyss.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: At a beach, the woman attempts to pick up a swimmer, but is interrupted by the cries of a drowning couple attempting to rescue their dog, as it is pulled out to sea. The swimmer rescues the husband, but the husband rushes back into the water to save his wife and both drown. As the swimmer lies exhausted on the beach, the woman strikes his head with a rock, drags him to the van, and drives away, ignoring the couple's distraught baby. Later that night, the motorcyclist retrieves the swimmer's belongings, ignoring the baby, who is still on the beach.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: The woman visits a nightclub and picks up another man. At the house, he follows her into the void and is submerged in the liquid. Suspended beneath the surface, he sees the swimmer floating naked beside him, alive but bloated and almost immobile. When he reaches to touch him, the swimmer's body collapses and a red mass empties through a trough.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: The next day, the woman receives a rose from a street vendor, purchased from another man in traffic. She listens to a radio report about the missing family from the beach. The woman enters a dark room and is examined by the motorcyclist. She seduces a lonely man with facial tumours but lets him leave after examining herself in a mirror. The motorcyclist intercepts the man and bundles him into a car, then sets out in pursuit of the woman with three other motorcyclists.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: In the Scottish Highlands, the woman abandons the van in the fog. She walks to a restaurant and attempts to eat cake, but retches and spits it out. In a bus, she meets a man who offers to help her. At his house, he prepares a meal for her and they watch television. Alone in her room, she examines her body in a mirror. They visit a ruined castle, where the man carries her over a puddle and helps her down some steps. At his house, they kiss and begin to have sex, but the woman stops and examines her genitals.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Wandering in a forest, the woman meets a commercial logger and shelters in a bothy. She wakes up to find the logger molesting her. She runs into the wilderness but he catches and attempts to rape her; he tears her skin, revealing a black, featureless body. As the woman extricates herself from her skin, the man douses her in fuel and burns her alive. Elsewhere, the motorcyclist stands on a mountaintop and looks out across a snowy field.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Writing for the "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel", Duane Dudek speculated that Johansson's character assumes a human identity to collect information about humans as an alien intelligence might, inducing an identity crisis causing her to "spin out of control like a broken machine". He wrote that the motorcyclist can be interpreted as a companion, enabler, or pursuer, and that the "tar-dark world" where the woman submerges her victims may be a nest, a web, another planet or dimension, or a visual representation of how sex feels to her or them. In the "Guardian", Leo Robson wrote that "Under the Skin" deals with race and immigration. He interpreted Johansson's character as a "kind of immigrant", and that the film's title "seems like part of an anti-racial slogan, a reminder that despite our racial or ethnic differences we share some basic components".


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Critics highlighted the exploration of empathy as a defining human capacity, with Johansson's character coming to share in this over the course of the film. Noting that a turning point occurs during Johansson's character's encounter with the man with facial tumours (played by Adam Pearson), the philosopher Colin Heber-Percy wrote: "The film suggests it is our very weakness which we value, which makes us us. [...] [The alien] recognises herself in the world, in the middle of things; she recognises herself as subject among subjects. In short, she chooses (or cannot fail to choose) to become human, to empathise, to be weak as flesh." The lecturer Maureen Foster, who highlights Johansson's character's examination of herself in the mirror before releasing Pearson's character, writes that the film presents empathy as "a definition for what is human", with the alien discovering "something in herself that was either lost or had never been there in the first place."


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Though Glazer said he wanted to make a film "more about a human experience than a gender experience", several critics identified feminist and gender themes. The "Economist" wrote that "there is some aggressive sexuality in the film: women seem very vulnerable but then men's desires are punished". In "The Mary Sue", Kristy Puchko wrote that "Under the Skin" "creates a reverse of contemporary rape culture where violence against women is so common that women are casually warned to be ever alert for those who might harm them ... By and large men don't worry about their safety in the same way when walking home late at night. But in the world of "Under the Skin", they absolutely should."


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Robson wrote that Johansson's character is "both a watcher and predator of men. In the society she enters, and to which she brings nothing besides a body, [she] is a sex object, in dress and demeanour a kind of sex toy; she might have come to Earth to prove a point about male expectations of women ... If "Under the Skin" communicates any gender-politics message, it does so through the disparity in excitement between the male characters' reaction to [Johansson] and that of the camera." The "Atlantic" journalist Noah Gittell noted how little hype Johansson's nude scenes attracted, despite her status as a Hollywood sex symbol, and wrote: "The way the film frames it — with Johansson having removed almost all of her personality from the character — it doesn't play as even remotely sexual, and the scene, remarkably, barely attracted any hype."


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Director Jonathan Glazer decided to adapt Michel Faber's novel "Under the Skin" (2000) after finishing his debut film "Sexy Beast" (2000), but work did not begin until he had finished his second film, "Birth" (2004). Glazer's producer James Wilson sent him a script that closely adapted the novel; Glazer admired the script but had no interest in filming it, saying: "I knew then that I absolutely didn't want to film the book. But I still wanted to make the book a film."


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Glazer and co-writer Milo Addica, later replaced by Walter Campbell, spent several years writing and rewriting the story. They conceived an elaborate high-budget film, and produced a script about two aliens disguised as husband-and-wife farmers. Brad Pitt was cast as the husband, but progress was slow. Glazer eventually decided to make a film that represented an alien perspective of the human world and focused only on the female character. He and Campbell deleted every scene in their script that did not involve her and deleted the elaborate special effects sequences, a process Glazer likened to "a big, extravagant rock band turning into PJ Harvey". The film also removes the character names. Whereas the novel is explicit that the main character is an alien processing humans for meat, the film is more ambiguous.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Glazer shot commercials while the film was in pre-production, which he used to "sketch" ideas and test equipment. "Under the Skin" was jointly financed by Film4 Productions, the British Film Institute, Scottish Screen, Silver Reel, and FilmNation Entertainment. Glazer secured final backing after cutting the elaborate special effects scenes from the script.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Gemma Arterton, Eva Green, January Jones, Abbie Cornish and Olivia Wilde were considered for the lead. In 2015, Arterton said that she had been Glazer's first choice but the film had needed a bigger star to get funding. The role went to Scarlett Johansson, who remained committed to the project for four years before it was made. Johansson was known for her roles in blockbusters such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. Glazer said: "It made a great deal of sense to cast somebody very well known out of context. I remember seeing her walking along the street in a pink jumper on a long lens and she looks like an exotic insect on the wrong continent." Despite her fame, Johansson was rarely recognised, as members of the public did not believe it could be her. For the role, she learnt to drive a van and mastered an English accent.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Jeremy McWilliams, a championship road racer, was cast as the motorcyclist, as the film required a skilful motorcyclist who could ride through the Scottish Highlands at high speeds in bad weather. The logger was played by the owner of a location researched for the film. For the man with disfigurement, Glazer did not want to use prosthetics; the production team contacted the charity Changing Faces, which supports people with facial disfigurements. The role went to Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis and had worked in television production. Pearson's suggestions about how Johansson's character could lure his character were used in the script.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: As Glazer wanted the film to feel realistic, most characters were played by non-actors. Many scenes, such as those set in the nightclub and shopping centre, and the scenes in which Johansson's character picks up men in the van, were unscripted sequences filmed with hidden cameras. Afterwards, the production team informed the subjects that they had been filmed and asked permission to use the footage. Glazer said the men were "talked through what extremes they would have to go to if they agreed to take part in the film once they understood what we were doing".


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: The crew built their own cameras to shoot some scenes. Johansson drove the van with the crew inside, and towed a trailer containing a generator for their equipment. To create the black room in which her character traps men, the crew built a set with a reflective floor, blackout and custom lighting. The men were filmed walking into a pool whose floor sank as they walked, submerging them. The scenes were finished with computer graphics.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Filming locations included Argyle Street, Glasgow, Buchanan Galleries, Auchmithie Beach, Arbroath, Almondvale, Livingston, Loch Restil and Lochgoilhead, Cairndow, Wanlockhead, Dumfries & Galloway, Tantallon Castle, North Berwick, Port Glasgow, Wishaw, Kilsyth and the vicinity of Celtic Park.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: "Under the Skin"s soundtrack was composed by Mica Levi and produced by Peter Raeburn. The soundtrack consisted of minimalistic instruments, mostly recorded using viola, while strings, percussion and other instruments were accompanied in the score. The album was released on 28 March 2014 by Rough Trade Records, and received positive response with several websites and publications called it as "one of the best musical scores". In addition, Levi's score also received rave response from musical artists.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: "Under the Skin" screened for the first time on 29 August 2013 at the Telluride Film Festival. It had its official world premiere at the 70th Venice International Film Festival on 3 September 2013, and screened on 9 September 2013 at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 March 2014 and the United States on 4 April 2014. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 15 July 2014.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: "Under the Skin" was a box-office failure. With a production budget of $13.3 million, it grossed $2,614,251 in the US and Canada and $4,615,682 in other countries for a worldwide total of $7,229,933. In the United States, it opened with $140,000 in four theatres; despite earning the highest per-theatre average of all films playing that weekend, above " ("which also stars Johansson), it failed to make the list of top-grossing films in the US speciality box office. In the UK, "Under the Skin" opened with a gross of £239,000. According to "Guardian" writer Phil Hoad, the "Under the Skin" budget was in "the danger zone: not in the ultra-low bracket that can make a sharply executed future vision ultra-profitable ... [nor] the $30m-plus range where marketing begins to snag mass audiences".


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes shows that 84% of 254 critic reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.90/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Its message may prove elusive for some, but with absorbing imagery and a mesmerising performance from Scarlett Johansson, "Under the Skin" is a haunting viewing experience." On Metacritic, which assigns a rating from top critics, the film has a score of 80 out of 100 based on 44 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Metacritic also listed the film as the fourth best of 2014 based on its appearance in critics' top-ten lists.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: Xan Brooks of "The Guardian" gave "Under the Skin" five out of five and called it "far and away the best picture" to play at the Venice Film Festival. Peter Bradshaw, also of "The Guardian", described the film as "visually stunning and deeply disturbing" and also awarded it five out of five. Robbie Collin of "The Telegraph" wrote: "If my legs hadn't been so wobbly and my mouth so dry, I would have climbed up on my seat and cheered." Matt Zoller Seitz gave the film four out of four, describing it as "hideously beautiful ... its life force is overwhelming." Richard Roeper gave the film four out of four, stating: "This is what we talk about when we talk about film as art." Christy Lemire also gave the film four out of four, calling it an "undeniably haunting, singular experience" and naming it one of the best films of 2014. Andrew Lowry of "Total Film", Dave Calhoun of "Time Out London", Kate Muir of "The Times", and Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" all gave the film five out of five.


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: However, Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote: "The film provides too little for even relatively adventurous specialised audiences to latch onto." Kaleem Aftab of "The Independent" stated that "Glazer simply gave up on trying to find a cohesive story." Henry Fitzherbert of "The Daily Express" awarded the film two out of five and wrote: "It didn't get under my skin, just on my nerves."


title: Under the Skin (2013 film)

text: "Under the Skin" was named the best film of 2014 by numerous critics and publications, and was included in many best-of-the-decade lists. In France, the prestigious "Cahiers du Cinéma" ranked "Under the Skin" third on its 2014 top ten chart (behind "P'tit Quinquin" and "Goodbye to Language"). The same magazine ranked "Under the Skin" ninth on its 2010s chart. In 2015, "The Guardian" named it one of the top 50 films of the decade so far. It received multiple accolades, including the London Film Critics Circle Award for British Film of the Year and the European Film Award for Best Soundtrack. In 2016, it was ranked 61st on the BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, an international poll of 177 top critics. In 2019, it was ranked the fourth-best film since 2000 by the critics of "The Guardian". "IndieWire" named it one of "25 great films that bombed at the box office".


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal is a cross-platform centralized encrypted instant messaging service developed by the non-profit Signal Foundation and its subsidiary, the Signal Messenger LLC. Users can send one-to-one and group messages, which can include files, voice notes, images and videos. It can also be used to make one-to-one and group voice and video calls. The Android version also optionally functions as an SMS app, but this functionality will be removed in 2023.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal uses standard cellular telephone numbers as identifiers and secures all communications to other Signal users with end-to-end encryption. The client software includes mechanisms by which users can independently verify the identity of their contacts and the integrity of the data channel.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal's software is free and open-source. Its mobile clients are published under the GPL-3.0-only license, while the desktop client and server are published under the AGPL-3.0-only license. The official Android app generally uses the proprietary Google Play Services (installed on most Android devices), though it is designed to still work without them installed. Signal also has an official client app for iOS and desktop programs for Windows, macOS and Linux (although registration requires an iOS or Android device).


title: Signal (software)

text: The non-profit Signal Foundation was launched in February 2018 with initial funding of $50 million from Brian Acton. , the platform had approximately 40 million monthly active users. , it was downloaded more than 105 million times.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal is the successor of the RedPhone encrypted voice calling app and the TextSecure encrypted texting program. The beta versions of RedPhone and TextSecure were first launched in May 2010 by Whisper Systems, a startup company co-founded by security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson. Whisper Systems also produced a firewall and tools for encrypting other forms of data. All of these were proprietary enterprise mobile security software and were only available for Android.


title: Signal (software)

text: In November 2011, Whisper Systems announced that it had been acquired by Twitter. Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the deal. The acquisition was done "primarily so that Mr. Marlinspike could help the then-startup improve its security". Shortly after the acquisition, Whisper Systems' RedPhone service was made unavailable. Some criticized the removal, arguing that the software was "specifically targeted [to help] people under repressive regimes" and that it left people like the Egyptians in "a dangerous position" during the events of the Egyptian revolution of 2011.


title: Signal (software)

text: Twitter released TextSecure as free and open-source software under the GPLv3 license in December 2011. RedPhone was also released under the same license in July 2012. Marlinspike later left Twitter and founded Open Whisper Systems as a collaborative Open Source project for the continued development of TextSecure and RedPhone.


title: Signal (software)

text: In February 2014, Open Whisper Systems introduced the second version of their TextSecure Protocol (now Signal Protocol), which added end-to-end encrypted group chat and instant messaging capabilities to TextSecure. Toward the end of July 2014, they announced plans to merge the RedPhone and TextSecure applications as Signal. This announcement coincided with the initial release of Signal as a RedPhone counterpart for iOS. The developers said that their next steps would be to provide TextSecure instant messaging capabilities for iOS, unify the RedPhone and TextSecure applications on Android, and launch a web client. Signal was the first iOS app to enable end-to-end encrypted voice calls for free. TextSecure compatibility was added to the iOS application in March 2015.


title: Signal (software)

text: From its launch in May 2010 until March 2015, the Android version of Signal (then called TextSecure) included support for encrypted SMS/MMS messaging. From version 2.7.0 onward, the Android application only supported sending and receiving encrypted messages via the data channel. Reasons for this included security flaws of SMS/MMS and problems with the key exchange. Open Whisper Systems' abandonment of SMS/MMS encryption prompted some users to create a fork named Silence (initially called SMSSecure) that is meant solely for the exchange of encrypted SMS and MMS messages.


title: Signal (software)

text: In November 2015, the TextSecure and RedPhone applications on Android were merged to become Signal for Android. A month later, Open Whisper Systems announced Signal Desktop, a Chrome app that could link with a Signal mobile client. At launch, the app could only be linked with the Android version of Signal. On 26 September 2016, Open Whisper Systems announced that Signal Desktop could now be linked with the iOS version of Signal as well. On 31 October 2017, Open Whisper Systems announced that the Chrome app was deprecated. At the same time, they announced the release of a standalone desktop client (based on the Electron framework) for Windows, macOS and certain Linux distributions.


title: Signal (software)

text: On 4 October 2016, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Open Whisper Systems published a series of documents revealing that OWS had received a subpoena requiring them to provide information associated with two phone numbers for a federal grand jury investigation in the first half of 2016. Only one of the two phone numbers was registered on Signal, and because of how the service is designed, OWS was only able to provide "the time the user's account had been created and the last time it had connected to the service". Along with the subpoena, OWS received a gag order requiring OWS not to tell anyone about the subpoena for one year. OWS approached the ACLU, and they were able to lift part of the gag order after challenging it in court. OWS said it was the first time they had received a subpoena, and that they were committed to treat "any future requests the same way".


title: Signal (software)

text: In March 2017, Open Whisper Systems transitioned Signal's calling system from RedPhone to WebRTC, also adding the ability to make video calls with the mobile apps.


title: Signal (software)

text: On 21 February 2018, Moxie Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton announced the formation of the Signal Technology Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is "to support, accelerate, and broaden Signal's mission of making private communication accessible and ubiquitous". Acton started the foundation with $50 million in funding and became the foundation's executive chairman after leaving WhatsApp's parent company Facebook in September 2017. Marlinspike continued as Signal Messenger's first CEO. , Signal ran entirely on donations, as a nonprofit.


title: Signal (software)

text: Between November 2019 and February 2020, Signal added iPad support, view-once images and videos, stickers, and reactions. They also announced plans for a new group messaging system and an "experimental method for storing encrypted contacts in the cloud."


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal was reportedly popularized in the United States during the George Floyd protests. Heightened awareness of police monitoring led protesters to use the platform to communicate. Black Lives Matter organizers had used the platform "for several years". During the first week of June, the encrypted messaging app was downloaded over five times more than it had been during the week prior to the murder of George Floyd. In June 2020, Signal Foundation announced a new feature that enables users to blur faces in photos, in response to increased federal efforts to monitor protesters.


title: Signal (software)

text: On 7 January 2021, Signal saw a surge in new user registrations, which temporarily overwhelmed Signal's capacity to deliver account verification messages. CNN and MacRumors linked the surge with a WhatsApp privacy policy change and a Signal endorsement by Elon Musk and Edward Snowden via Twitter. International newspapers reported similar trends in the United Arab Emirates. Reuters reported that more than 100,000 people had installed Signal between 7 and 8 January.


title: Signal (software)

text: Between 12 and 14 January 2021, the number of Signal installations listed on Google Play increased from over 10 million to over 50 million.


title: Signal (software)

text: On 15 January 2021, due to the surge of new users, Signal was overwhelmed with the new traffic and was down for all users. On the afternoon of 16 January, Signal announced via Twitter that service had been restored.


title: Signal (software)

text: On 10 January 2022, Moxie Marlinspike announced that he was stepping down from his role as CEO of Signal Messenger. He continues to remain on the Signal Foundation's board of directors and Brian Acton has volunteered to serve as interim CEO during the search for a new CEO.


title: Signal (software)

text: In August 2022, Signal notified 1900 users that their data had been affected by the Twilio breach including user phone numbers and SMS verification codes. At least one journalist had their account re-registered to a device they did not control as a result of the attack.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal's userbase started in May 2010, when its predecessor TextSecure was launched by Whisper Systems. According to App Annie, Signal had approximately 20 million monthly active users at the end of December 2020. In January 2022, the BBC reported that Signal was used by over 40 million people.


title: Signal (software)

text: The development of Signal and its predecessors at Open Whisper Systems was funded by a combination of consulting contracts, donations and grants. The Freedom of the Press Foundation acted as Signal's fiscal sponsor. Between 2013 and 2016, the project received grants from the Knight Foundation, the Shuttleworth Foundation, and almost $3 million from the US government–sponsored Open Technology Fund. Signal is now developed by Signal Messenger LLC, a software company founded by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton in 2018, which is wholly owned by a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation called the Signal Technology Foundation, also created by them in 2018. The Foundation was funded with an initial loan of $50 million from Acton, "to support, accelerate, and broaden Signal's mission of making private communication accessible and ubiquitous". All of the organization's products are published as free and open-source software.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal allows users to make one-to-one and group voice and video calls with up to 40 people on iOS, Android, and desktop. All calls are made over a Wi-Fi or data connection and (with the exception of data fees) are free of charge, including long distance and international. Signal also allows users to send text messages, files, voice notes, pictures, GIFs, and video messages over a Wi-Fi or data connection to other Signal users on iOS, Android and a desktop program. The platform also supports group messaging.


title: Signal (software)

text: All communications between Signal users are automatically end-to-end encrypted (the encryption keys are generated and stored on the phones, not on the servers). To verify that a correspondent is really the person that they claim to be, Signal users can compare key fingerprints (or scan QR codes) out-of-band. The platform employs a trust-on-first-use mechanism in order to notify the user if a correspondent's key changes.


title: Signal (software)

text: On Android, users can opt into making Signal the default SMS/MMS application, allowing them to send and receive unencrypted SMS messages in addition to the standard end-to-end encrypted Signal messages. Users can then use the same application to communicate with contacts who do not have Signal. As of October 2022, this feature has been deprecated due to safety and security concerns, and will be removed in the near future.


title: Signal (software)

text: TextSecure allowed the user to set a passphrase that encrypted the local message database and the user's encryption keys. This did not encrypt the user's contact database or message timestamps. The Signal applications on Android and iOS can be locked with the phone's pin, passphrase, or biometric authentication. The user can define a "screen lock timeout" interval, providing an additional protection mechanism in case the phone is lost or stolen.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal also allows users to set timers to messages. After a specified time interval, the messages will be deleted from both the sender's and the receivers' devices. The time interval can be between five seconds and one week long, and the timer begins for each recipient once they have read their copy of the message. The developers have stressed that this is meant to be "a collaborative feature for conversations where all participants want to automate minimalist data hygiene, not for situations where your contact is your adversary".


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal also includes a cryptocurrency wallet functionality that allows users to store, send and receive in-app payments. Apart from certain regions and countries, the feature was enabled globally in November 2021. , the only supported payment method is MobileCoin.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal requires that the user provides a phone number for verification, eliminating the need for user names or passwords and facilitating contact discovery (see below). The number does not have to be the same as on the device's SIM card; it can also be a VoIP number or a landline as long as the user can receive the verification code and have a separate device to set up the software. A number can only be registered on one mobile device at a time. Account registration requires an iOS or Android device.


title: Signal (software)

text: This mandatory connection to a phone number (a feature Signal shares with WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, and others) has been criticized as a "major issue" for privacy-conscious users who are not comfortable with giving out their private phone number. A workaround is to use a secondary phone number. The ability to choose a public, changeable username instead of sharing one's phone number is a widely-requested feature.


title: Signal (software)

text: Using phone numbers as identifiers may also create security risks that arise from the possibility of an attacker taking over a phone number. A similar vulnerability was used to attack at least one user in August 2022, though the attack was performed via the provider of Signal's SMS services, not any user's provider. The threat of this attack can be mitigated with the use of Signal's registration lock, which, when enabled, requires the user to enter a PIN to register the phone number on a new device.


title: Signal (software)

text: When linking Signal Desktop to a mobile device, the conversations history will not be synced, only the new messages will be shown on Signal Desktop.


title: Signal (software)

text: In July 2016, the Internet Society published a user study that assessed the ability of Signal users to detect and deter man-in-the-middle attacks. The study concluded that 21 out of 28 participants failed to correctly compare public key fingerprints in order to verify the identity of other Signal users, and that most of these users believed they had succeeded, while they had actually failed. Four months later, Signal's user interface was updated to make verifying the identity of other Signal users simpler.


title: Signal (software)

text: Signal messages are encrypted with the Signal Protocol (formerly known as the TextSecure Protocol). The protocol combines the Double Ratchet Algorithm, prekeys, and an Extended Triple Diffie–Hellman (X3DH) handshake. It uses Curve25519, AES-256, and HMAC-SHA256 as primitives. The protocol provides confidentiality, integrity, authentication, participant consistency, destination validation, forward secrecy, backward secrecy ( future secrecy), causality preservation, message unlinkability, message repudiation, participation repudiation, and asynchronicity. It does not provide anonymity preservation, and requires servers for the relaying of messages and storing of public key material.


title: Signal (software)

text: The Signal Protocol also supports end-to-end encrypted group chats. The group chat protocol is a combination of a pairwise double ratchet and multicast encryption. In addition to the properties provided by the one-to-one protocol, the group chat protocol provides speaker consistency, out-of-order resilience, dropped message resilience, computational equality, trust equality, subgroup messaging, as well as contractible and expandable membership.