title: Battle of Borodino

text: The Russians sent Likhachov's 24th Division into the battle, who fought bravely under Likhachov's motto: ""Brothers, behind us is Moscow!"" But the French troops approached too close for the cannons to fire, and the cannoneers fought a pitched close-order defence against the attackers. General Caulaincourt ordered Watier's cuirassier division to lead the assault. Barclay saw Eugène's preparations for the assault and attempted to counter it, moving his forces against it. The French artillery, however, began bombarding the assembling force even as it gathered. Caulaincourt led Watier's cuirassiers in an assault on the opening at the back of the redoubt; he was killed as the charge was beaten off by fierce Russian musketry.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: General Thielmann then led eight Saxon and two Polish cavalry squadrons against the back of the redoubt, while officers and sergeants of his command actually forced their horses through the redoubt's embrasures, sowing confusion amongst the defenders and allowing the French cavalry and infantry to take the position. The battle had all but ended, with both sides so exhausted that only the artillery was still at work. At 15:30, the Raevsky redoubt fell with most of the 24th Division's troops. General Likhachov was captured by the French.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: The third area of operations was around the village of Utitsa. The village was at the southern end of the Russian positions and lay along the old Smolensk road. It was rightly perceived as a potential weak point in the defense as a march along the road could turn the entire position at Borodino. Despite such concerns the area was a tangle of rough country thickly covered in heavy brush well suited for deploying light infantry. The forest was dense, the ground marshy, and Russian Jaegers were deployed there in some numbers. Russian General Nikolay Tuchkov had some 23,000 troops but half were untrained Opolchenye (militia) armed only with pikes and axes and not ready for deployment.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Poniatowski had about 10,000 men, all trained and eager to fight, but his first attempt did not go well. It was at once realized the massed troops and artillery could not move through the forest against Jaeger opposition so had to reverse to Yelnya and then move eastward. Tuchkov had deployed his 1st Grenadier Division in line backing it with the 3rd division in battalion columns. Some four regiments were called away to help defend the redoubts that were under attack and another 2 Jaeger regiments were deployed in the Utitsa woods, weakening the position.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: The Polish contingent contested control of Utitsa village, capturing it with their first attempt. Tuchkov later ejected the French forces by 08:00. General Jean-Andoche Junot led the Westphalians to join the attack and again captured Utitsa, which was set on fire by the departing Russians. After the village's capture, Russians and Poles continued to skirmish and cannonade for the rest of the day without much progress. The heavy undergrowth greatly hindered Poniatowski's efforts but eventually he came near to cutting off Tuchkov from the rest of the Russian forces.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: General Barclay sent help in the form of Karl Gustav von Baggovut with Konovnitzyn in support. Any hope of real progress by the Poles was then lost.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Towards 15:00, after hours of resistance, the Russian army was in dire straits, but the French forces were exhausted and had neither the necessary stamina nor will to carry out another assault. Both armies were exhausted after the battle and the Russians withdrew from the field the following day. Borodino represented the last Russian effort at stopping the French advance on Moscow, which fell a week later. At this crucial juncture, Murat's chief of staff, General Augustin Daniel Belliard rode straight to the Emperor's Headquarters and, according to General Ségur who wrote an account of the campaign, told him that the Russian line had been breached, that the road to Mozhaysk, behind the Russian line, was visible through the gaping hole the French attack had pierced, that an enormous crowd of runaways and vehicles were hastily retreating, and that a final push would be enough to decide the fate of the Russian army and of the war. Generals Daru, Dumas and Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier also joined in and told the Emperor that everyone thought the time had come for the Guard to be committed to battle.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Given the ferocity of the Russian defense, everyone was aware that such a move would cost the lives of thousands of Guardsmen, but it was thought that the presence of this prestigious unit would bolster the morale of the entire army for a final decisive push. A notable exception was Marshal Bessières, commander of the Guard cavalry, who was one of the very few senior generals to strongly advise against the intervention of the Guard. As the general staff were discussing the matter, General Rapp, a senior "aide-de-camp" to the Emperor, was being brought from the field of battle, having been wounded in action.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Rapp immediately recommended to the Emperor that the Guard be deployed for action at which the Emperor is said to have retorted: "I will most definitely not; I do not want to have it blown up. I am certain of winning the battle without its intervention." Determined not to commit this valuable final reserve so far away from France, Napoleon rejected another such request, this time from Marshal Ney. Instead, he called the commander of the "Young Guard", Marshal Mortier and instructed him to guard the field of battle without moving forward or backward, while at the same time unleashing a massive cannonade with his 400 guns.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Napoleon went forward to see the situation from the former Russian front lines shortly after the redoubts had been taken. The Russians had moved to the next ridge-line in much disarray; however, that disarray was not clear to the French, with dust and haze obscuring the Russian dispositions. Kutuzov ordered the Russian Guard to hold the line and so it did. All of the artillery that the French army had was not enough to move it. Those compact squares made good artillery targets and the Russian Guard stood in place from 4 pm to 6 pm unmoving under its fire, resulting in huge casualties. All he could see were masses of troops in the distance and thus nothing more was attempted. Neither the attack, which relied on brute force, nor the refusal to use the Guard to finish the day's work, showed any brilliance on Napoleon's part.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Both the Prussian Staff Officer Carl von Clausewitz, the historian and future author of "On War", and Alexander I of Russia noted that the poor positioning of troops in particular had hobbled the defense. Barclay communicated with Kutuzov in order to receive further instructions. According to Ludwig von Wolzogen (in an account dripping with sarcasm), the commander was found a half-hour away on the road to Moscow, encamped with an entourage of young nobles and grandly pronouncing he would drive Napoleon off the next day.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Despite his bluster, Kutuzov knew from dispatches that his army had been too badly hurt to fight a continuing action the following day. He knew exactly what he was doing: by fighting the pitched battle, he could now retreat with the Russian army still intact, lead its recovery, and force the weakened French forces to move even further from their bases of supply. The "dénouement" became a textbook example of what a hold logistics placed upon an army far from its center of supply. On September 8, the Russian army moved away from the battlefield in twin columns, allowing Napoleon to occupy Moscow and await for five weeks a Russian surrender that would never come.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Kutuzov would proclaim over the course of several days that the Russian Army would fight again before the walls of Moscow. In fact, a site was chosen near Poklonnaya Gora within a few miles of Moscow as a battle site. However, the Russian Army had not received enough reinforcements, and it was too risky to cling to Moscow at all costs. Kutuzov understood that the Russian people never wanted to abandon Moscow, the city which was regarded as Russia's "second capital"; however he also believed that the Russian Army did not have enough forces to protect that city. Kutuzov called for a council of war in the afternoon of 13 September at Fili village. In a heated debate that split the council five to four in favour of giving battle, Kutuzov, after listening to each General, endorsed retreat. Thus passed the last chance of battle before Moscow was taken.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: It is not unusual for a pivotal battle of this era to be difficult to document. Similar difficulties exist with the Battle of Waterloo or battles of the War of 1812 in North America, while the Battle of Borodino offers its own particular challenges to accuracy. It has been repeatedly subjected to overtly political uses.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Personal accounts of the battle frequently magnified an individual's own role or minimised those of rivals. The politics of the time were complex and complicated by ethnic divisions between native Russian nobility and those having second and third-generation German descent, leading to rivalry for positions in command of the army. Not only does a historian have to deal with the normal problem of a veteran looking back and recalling events as he or she would have liked them to have been, but in some cases outright malice was involved. Nor was this strictly a Russian event, as bickering and sabotage were known amongst the French marshals and their reporting generals. To "lie like a bulletin" was a recognised phrase amongst his troops. It was not just a French affair either, with Kutuzov in particular promoting an early form of misinformation that has continued to this day. Further distortions occurred during the Soviet years, when an adherence to a "formula" was the expectation during the Stalin years and for some time after that. The over-reliance of western histories on the battle and of the campaign on French sources has been noted by later historians.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: The views of historians of the outcome of the battle changed with the passage of time and the changing political situations surrounding them. Kutuzov proclaimed a victory both to the army and to Emperor Alexander. While many a general throughout history claimed victory out of defeat (Ramses II of Egypt did so) and in this case, Kutuzov was commander-in-chief of the entire Russian army, and it was an army that, despite the huge losses, considered itself undefeated. Announcing a defeat would have removed Kutuzov from command, and damaged the morale of the proud soldiers. While Alexander was not deceived by the announcement, it gave him the justification needed to allow Kutuzov to march his army off to rebuild the Russian forces and later complete the near utter destruction of the French army. As such, what was said by Kutuzov and those supporting his views was allowed to pass into the histories of the time unchecked.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Histories during the Soviet era raised the battle to a mythic contest with serious political overtones and had Kutuzov as the master tactician on the battlefield, directing every move with the precision of a ballet master directing his troupe. Kutuzov's abilities on the battlefield were, in the eyes of his contemporaries and fellow Russian generals, far more complex and often described in less than flattering terms. Noted author and historian David G. Chandler writing in 1966, echoes the Soviet era Russian histories in more than a few ways, asserting that General Kutuzov remained in control of the battle throughout, ordered counter-moves to Napoleon's tactics personally rather than Bagration and Barclay doing so and put aside personal differences to overcome the dispositional mistakes of the Russian army. Nor is the tent scene played out; instead Kutuzov remains with the army. Chandler also has the Russian army in much better shape moving to secondary prepared positions and seriously considering attacking the next day. Later historians Riehn and Mikaberidze have Kutuzov leaving most of the battle to Bagration and Barclay de Tolly, leaving early in the afternoon and relaying orders from his camp 30 minutes from the front.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: His dispositions for the battle are described as a clear mistake leaving the right far too strong and the left much too weak. Only the fact that Bagration and Barclay were to cooperate fully saved the Russian army and did much to mitigate the bad positioning. Nothing would be more damning than 300 artillery pieces standing silent on the Russian right.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: The fighting involved around 250,000 troops and left at least 68,000 killed and wounded, making Borodino the deadliest single-day-battle of the Napoleonic Wars and one of the bloodiest single-day battles in the military history until the First Battle of the Marne in 1914.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: The casualties of the battle were staggering: according to French General Staff Inspector P. Denniee, the Grande Armée lost approximately 28,000 soldiers: 6,562 (including 269 officers) were reported as dead, 21,450 as wounded. But according to French historian Aristid Martinien, at least 460 French officers (known by name) were killed in battle. In total, the Grande Armée lost 1,928 officers dead and wounded, including 49 generals. The list of slain included French Generals of Division Auguste-Jean-Gabriel de Caulaincourt, Louis-Pierre Montbrun, Jean Victor Tharreau and Generals of Brigade Claude Antoine Compère, François Auguste Damas, Léonard Jean Aubry Huard de Saint-Aubin, Jean Pierre Lanabère, Charles Stanislas Marion, Louis Auguste Marchand Plauzonne and Jean Louis Romeuf.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Suffering a wound on the Borodino battlefield was effectively a death sentence, as French forces did not possess enough food for the healthy, much less the sick; consequently, equal numbers of wounded soldiers starved to death, died of their injuries, or perished through neglect. The casualties were for a single day of battle, while the Russian figures are for the 5th and the 7th, combined. Using the same accounting method for both armies brings the actual French Army casualty count to 34,000–35,000.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Both the French and Russians suffered terrible casualties during the fighting, losing over a third of their armies. Some 52,000 Russian troops were reported as dead, wounded or missing, including 1,000 prisoners; some 8,000 men were separated from their units and returned over the next few days, bringing the total Russian losses to 44,000. Twenty-two Russian generals were killed or wounded, including Prince Bagration, who died of his wounds on 24 September. Historian Gwynne Dyer compared the carnage at Borodino to "a loaded 747 crashing, with no survivors, every 5 minutes for eight hours." Taken as a one-day battle in the scope of the Napoleonic conflict, this was the bloodiest battle of this series of conflicts with combined casualties between 72,000 and 73,000. The next nearest battle would be Waterloo, at about 55,000 for the day. The French lost about roughly the same number of soldiers. However, the Russian Empire, being a massive country with a huge population, could relieve these losses quickly whilst Napoleon could not. Therefore, both sides had their victories and defeats, with none reaching a decisive goal.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: In the historiography of this battle, the figures would be deliberately inflated or underplayed by the generals of both sides attempting to lessen the impact the figures would have on public opinion both during aftermath of the battle or, for political reasons, later during the Soviet period.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Although the Battle of Borodino is classified as a victory for Napoleon since he and his men managed to capture Moscow, his armies were badly bludgeoned and plundered from the fierce defense of the Imperial Russian army. Also, the city was actually used as bait to lure and trap the French forces. When Napoleon and his men visited the city, he found that it was burnt and abandoned upon his arrival. While Napoleon was in Moscow, he sent a letter to the tsar who was residing in Saint Petersburg demanding that he surrender and accept defeat. Napoleon received no response. Whilst patiently waiting for an answer from the tsar, as soon as the cold winter and snowfall started to form, Napoleon, realizing what was happening, attempted to escape the country with his men. Seeing that they were fleeing, the Imperial Russian army launched a massive attack on the French. Attrition warfare was used by Kutuzov by burning Moscow's resources, guerrilla warfare by the Cossacks against any kind of transport and total war by the peasants against foraging. This kind of warfare weakened the French army at its most vulnerable point: logistics, as it was unable to pillage Russian land, which was insufficiently populated nor cultivated, meaning that starvation became the most dangerous enemy long before the cold joined in.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: The feeding of horses by supply trains was extremely difficult, as a ration for a horse weighs about ten times as much as one for a man. It was tried in vain to feed and water all the horses by foraging expeditions. It also did not help that Napoleon and his men were exhausted and beaten-up by the Imperial Russian resistance that happened at Borodino and thus could not offer much of a fight. Of the 600,000+ soldiers who invaded the Russian Empire, less than 100,000 returned.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: Most scholars and contemporaries describe Borodino as a Pyrrhic victory. Russian historian Oleg Sokolov posits that Borodino constituted a Pyrrhic victory for the French, which would ultimately cost Napoleon the war and his crown, although at the time none of this was apparent to either side. Sokolov adds that the decision to not commit the Guard saved the Russians from an Austerlitz-style defeat and quotes Marshal Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, one of Napoleon's finest strategists, who analyzed the battle and concluded that an intervention of the Guard would have torn the Russian army to pieces and allowed Napoleon to safely follow his plans to take winter quarters in Moscow and resume his successful campaign in spring or offer the Tsar acceptable peace terms. Digby Smith calls Borodino 'a draw' but believes that posterity proved Napoleon right in his decision to not commit the Guard so far away from his homeland. According to Christopher Duffy, the battle of Borodino could be seen as a new Battle of Torgau, in which both of the sides sustained terrible losses but neither could achieve their tactical goals, and the battle itself did not have a clear result, although both sides claimed the battle as their own victory.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: However, in what had become a war of attrition, the battle was just one more source of losses to the French when they were losing two men to one. Both the French and the Russians suffered terribly but the Russians had reserve troops, and a clear logistical advantage. The French Army supplies came over a long road lined with hostile forces. According to Riehn, so long as the Russian Army existed the French continued to lose.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: This victory of Napoleon was not decisive, but it allowed the French emperor to occupy Moscow to await a surrender that would never come. The capture of Moscow proved a Pyrrhic victory, since the Russians had no intention of negotiating with Napoleon for peace. Historian Riehn notes that the Borodino victory allowed Napoleon to move on to Moscow, where—even allowing for the arrival of reinforcements—the French Army only possessed a maximum of 95,000 men, who would be ill-equipped to win a battle due to a lack of supplies and ammunition. The main part of the "Grande Armée" suffered more than 90,000 casualties by the time of the Moscow retreat, see Minard's map; typhus, dysentery, starvation and hypothermia ensured that only about 10,000 men of the main force returned across the Russian border alive. Furthermore, although the Russian army suffered heavy casualties in the battle, it regrouped by the time of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow; it soon began to interfere with the French withdrawal and made it a catastrophe.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: The battle was famously described by Leo Tolstoy in his novel "War and Peace": "After the shock that had been received, the French army was still able to crawl to Moscow; but there, without any new efforts on the part of the Russian troops, it was doomed to perish, bleeding to death from the mortal wound received at Borodino." The battle was depicted on Sergei Bondarchuk's film adaptation of Tolstoy's novel, which on Part III of the film devoted 35 minutes to a monumental depiction of the battle, using 12,000 Soviet troops. The narrator in the movie makes the claim that the moral victory of the Russian side led directly to the end of Napoleon's empire.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: A huge panorama representing the battle was painted by Franz Roubaud for the centenary of Borodino and installed on the Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow to mark the 150th anniversary of the event.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: On the battlefield itself, the Bagration flèches are preserved; a modest monument has been constructed in honour of the French soldiers who fell in the battle.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: A commemorative one-ruble coin was released in the Soviet Union in 1987 to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, and four million were minted.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: A minor planet 3544 Borodino, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1977 was named after the village of Borodino.


title: Battle of Borodino

text: From May 1813 to the present, at least 29 ships have been named "Borodino" after the battle (see ), and many others after participants in the battle: 24 ships in honor of Mikhail Kutuzov, 18 ships in honor of Matvei Platov, 15 ships in honor of Pyotr Bagration, 33 ships in honor of the Cossacks, four ships in honor of Denis Davydov, two ships each in honor of Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Jean-Baptiste Bessières and Michel Ney; and one ship each in honor of the officers of the Marine Guards crew I.P. Kartsov, N.P. Rimsky-Korsakov and M.N. Lermontov; Prince Vorontsov, generals Yermolov and Raevsky, Marshal of the Empire Louis-Nicolas Davout.


title: Bran Castle

text: Bran Castle (; ; ) is a castle in Bran, southwest of Brașov. It is a national monument and landmark in Transylvania. The fortress is on the Transylvanian side of the historical border with Wallachia, on road DN73.


title: Bran Castle

text: Commonly known outside Transylvania as Dracula's Castle, it is marketed as the home of the title character in Bram Stoker's "Dracula". There is no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle, which has only tangential associations with Vlad the Impaler, voivode of Wallachia, who shares his name with Dracula. Stoker's description of Dracula's crumbling fictional castle also bears no resemblance to Bran Castle.


title: Bran Castle

text: The castle is now a museum dedicated to displaying art and furniture collected by Queen Marie. Tourists can see the interior on their own or by a guided tour. At the bottom of the hill is a small open-air museum exhibiting traditional Romanian peasant structures (cottages, barns, water-driven machinery, etc.) from the Bran region.


title: Bran Castle

text: In 1212, the Teutonic Order built the wooden castle of Dietrichstein as a fortified position in the Burzenland at the entrance to a mountain pass through which traders had travelled for more than a millennium. This castle was destroyed by the Mongols in 1242.


title: Bran Castle

text: The castle's original name, Dietrichstein or "lapis Theoderici" in Latin, lit. "Dietrich's Stone", seems to have been derived from the "Comthur" (Commander) and regional Preceptor, "frater Theodericus", mentioned in a 1212 document. This Dietrich is the probable builder of the castle. A 1509 document confirms that the Törzburg county had once belonged to Commander Dietrich of the Teutonic Order.


title: Bran Castle

text: The first documented mention of Bran Castle is the act issued by Louis I of Hungary on 19 November, 1377, giving the Saxons of Kronstadt (modern Brașov) the privilege to build the stone castle at their own expense and labour force; the settlement of Bran began to develop nearby. In 1438–1442, the castle was used in defense against the Ottoman Empire, and later became a customs post on the mountain pass between Transylvania and Wallachia. Although many castles of the time belonged to members of the nobility, it has been established that Bran Castle was built almost exclusively for fortification and protection of German colonists in Transylvania. It is believed the castle was briefly held by Mircea the Elder of Wallachia (r. 1386–95, 1397–1418) during whose period the customs point was established. The Wallachian ruler Vlad Țepeș (Vlad the Impaler; 1448–1476) does not seem to have had a significant role in the history of the fortress, although he passed several times through the Bran Gorge. At some point, Bran Castle belonged to the Hungarian kings, but due to the failure of King Vladislas II (r. 1471–1516) to repay loans, the city of Brașov regained possession of the fortress in 1533. Bran played a militarily strategic role up to the mid-18th century.


title: Bran Castle

text: With the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, Hungary lost Transylvania, and the castle became a royal residence within the Kingdom of Romania after being given to the royal house by the Saxons of Kronstadt-Braşov, who had no more use for it and no interest in financing the time-damaged property. It became the favorite home and retreat of Marie of Romania, who ordered its extensive renovation conducted by the Czech architect . The castle was inherited by her daughter Princess Ileana who ran a hospital there in World War II. It was later seized by the communist regime with the expulsion of the royal family in 1948.


title: Bran Castle

text: In 2005 the Romanian government passed a law allowing restitution claims on properties illegally expropriated, such as Bran, and thus a year later ownership of the castle was awarded to American Dominic von Habsburg, the son and heir of Princess Ileana.


title: Bran Castle

text: On 18 May 2006, after a period of legal proceedings, the castle was legally returned to the heirs of the Habsburg family. However, through the Ministry of Culture, the Romanian state was also to administer it for the next three years.


title: Bran Castle

text: In September 2007 an investigation committee of the Romanian Parliament stated that the retrocession of the castle to Archduke Dominic was illegal, as it broke the Romanian law on property and succession. However, in October 2007 the Constitutional Court of Romania rejected the parliament's petition on the matter. In addition, an investigation commission of the Romanian government issued a decision in December 2007 reaffirming the validity and legality of the restitution procedures used and confirming that the restitution was made in full compliance with the law.


title: Bran Castle

text: On 18 May 2009 administration of Bran Castle was transferred from the government to Archduke Dominic and his sisters, Baroness Maria Magdalena of Holzhausen and Elisabeth Sandhofer. On 1 June 2009, the Habsburgs opened the refurbished castle to the public as the first private museum in the country and presented a joint strategic concept in collaboration with Bran village to maintain their prominent role in the Romanian tourist circuit and to safeguard the economic base in the region.


title: Bran Castle

text: Though many myths have been connected to him in connection with the Dracula myth, most historians agree that Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, never set foot in Castle Bran, which was neither a friendly place for him to visit nor under his rule. It was once believed that he was imprisoned there after he was captured by the Hungarians in 1462, but historians now conclude that he was imprisoned in a fortress in Budapest.


title: Bran Castle

text: Bran Castle is not mentioned in the novel "Dracula", and the novel's description of the castle does not match Bran Castle. The claimed connection between the castle and the Dracula legend is tourism-driven.


title: Bran Castle

text: During Stoker's research on the region of Transylvania, he came across accounts of the atrocities committed by Vlad III, and used the Dracula name after reading on the subject; but his inspiration for Dracula was not solely based on the historical figure. It is largely due to American cinema that Vlad III is considered the inspiration for the Dracula character.


title: Bran Castle

text: Most of Laurie R. King's novel "Castle Shade" (2022), part of her series about Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, is set in and near Bran Castle in 1925.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Lauren Cherie Southern (born 16 June 1995) is a Canadian alt-right YouTuber, political activist and commentator. In 2015, Southern ran as a Libertarian Party candidate in the Canadian federal election. Southern worked for Rebel Media until March 2017, when she began to work independently.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In May 2017, Southern supported Defend Europe in their efforts to obstruct search-and-rescue operations of refugees from North Africa in the Mediterranean Sea. Southern was briefly detained by the Italian Coast Guard for blocking a ship embarking on a search-and-rescue mission. Consequently, crowdfunding website Patreon removed her from the platform, accusing her of engaging in activity "likely to cause loss of life". She was also demonetized by YouTube and banned from payment processors such as PayPal and GoFundMe.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Some academics and journalists have described Southern as a white nationalist for her promotion of the Great Replacement and white genocide conspiracy theories, though she has denied being a white nationalist. Southern promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory via her YouTube video of the same name, released in July 2017; the video was reported to have helped to promote the white nationalist viewpoint, having garnered over 600,000 views by March 2019. She has been described as an advocate of the white genocide conspiracy theory for her documentary "Farmlands" (2018), in which she suggested the imminence of a race war in South Africa in response to supposedly racially motivated South African farm attacks.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In July 2018, she visited Australia for a speaking tour with Stefan Molyneux; that August, the pair were banned from speaking in New Zealand. Southern announced her retirement from political activism on 2 June 2019, but returned to YouTube on 19 June 2020. As of 2021, she is a contributor for Sky News Australia. She has rejected the "far-right" label and said she is not a racist, preferring to be described as a conservative. In 2019, when making such denials to a journalist from "The Times" of London, Southern ended their "conversation by predicting a race war."


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern was born in Surrey, British Columbia. She studied political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, but left after two years.


title: Lauren Southern

text: On 18 October 2015, Southern was a candidate in the 2015 Canadian federal election representing the Libertarian Party in the district of Langley–Aldergrove. She was briefly removed by the party as a candidate but was reinstated with support from "Breitbart News" and The Rebel Media. The election was won by Conservative candidate Mark Warawa. Southern finished last, receiving 535 votes, or 0.9% of the total.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern has been widely described as alt-right, far-right and right-wing. Some academics and journalists have described Southern as a white nationalist, which she has denied. Southern also rejects the label "far-right", preferring to be described as a conservative. The Southern Poverty Law Center has characterized Southern's videos as "anti-feminist, xenophobic, Islamophobic diatribes" which "tiptoe at the precipice of outright white nationalism". She was interviewed by the London "Times" in 2019: "When we speak, Southern flatly denies being racist or even far right, then ends our conversation by predicting a race war and quoting Enoch Powell."


title: Lauren Southern

text: Before she left university, The Rebel Media founder Ezra Levant met Southern at a conference. He had been impressed by the questions she had asked the speakers and asked her to audition. She moved to Toronto to work in the website's offices. Her first video, "Why I Am Not A Feminist", appeared on the website in April 2015. She worked regularly with Milo Yiannopoulos and Faith Goldy while at Rebel Media and made multiple videos with both of them.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In October 2016, Southern had some documentation of her gender legally changed to male as part of a video produced for The Rebel Media to show the ease of Ontario's new gender ID laws.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In December 2016, Southern self-published a short book "Barbarians: How Baby Boomers, Immigrants, and Islam Screwed My Generation". In the book, she wrote: "As far as I'm concerned, Hitler was just a SJW who happened to get freaky amounts of power and actually implement his #KillAllJews (the predecessor to #KillAllMen) worldview". According to her, Hitler "fawned over Muslims more sycophantically than Justin Trudeau." "Barbarians" gained a cover endorsement from Ann Coulter.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In March 2017, Southern announced she would be leaving The Rebel Media to become an independent journalist. In the same month, she gained access to White House press briefings. She has appeared on Lana Lokteff's program "Radio 3Fourteen".


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern is against multiculturalism. She has called the Black Lives Matter movement a "terrorist organisation", and a "divisive, violent movement that has fascistic tendencies", which she has falsely claimed has caused more deaths in 30 years than the Ku Klux Klan.


title: Lauren Southern

text: She has asked whether a multicultural society would require witch doctors at medical conferences, and has claimed that "multiculturalism will inevitably fail unless 50 per cent of the population believes in Western culture". "New Matilda" reported that the core theme of her 2018 speaking tour of Australia was the claim "multiculturalism doesn't work". On the tour, she caused controversy for publicly criticizing an "Asian only" room-share advert that she had photographed and called it "extremely tribalistic". This was an attempt to highlight the supposed failure of multiculturalism, by suggesting that it produced a form of segregation.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Influenced by the French political writer Renaud Camus, Southern is known for her promotion of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which posits that non-white immigration of Muslims will lead to a genocide of white Europeans. She released a YouTube video under this title in July 2017, which was credited with helping to promote a white nationalist viewpoint. By August 2020, the video could only be accessed privately on Southern's home channel. She has described the theory as: "You have one people and in the space of one generation you have a different people".


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern has defended the American neo-Nazi Richard B. Spencer, who has advocated for violence against non-whites on multiple occasions. Southern has said "Richard Spencer is not a white supremacist, he is a white nationalist. He believes in a white ethnostate, he doesn't believe in whites being superior." Spencer has praised Southern's videos.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern has been described as a proponent of the white genocide conspiracy theory. In 2018, Southern produced a documentary called "Farmlands" which falsely claimed that racially motivated farm attacks in South Africa may represent an impending genocide, a common talking point for white nationalists. While producing the documentary, Southern worked with Charlottesville Unite the Right rally attendee Simon Roche, a spokesperson for the ethnonationalist (Völkisch) Afrikaner organization Suidlanders, an organization which predicts a race war.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In May 2017, Southern, along with Martin Sellner and Brittany Pettibone, took part in an attempt organized by the Identitarian group "Génération identitaire" to block the passage of an NGO ship, the "Aquarius" (co-owned by SOS Mediterranée and by Doctors without Borders), which was leaving Sicily for a search-and-rescue mission for ship-wrecked refugees and migrants off the shores of Northern Africa in the Mediterranean Sea. Claiming that the goal of the activists "was to stop an empty boat from going down to Libya and filling up with illegal migrants", Southern was briefly detained by the Italian Coast Guard. NGO ships often rescue migrants and refugees, who disembark from Libyan shores on unsafe makeshift rafts, and bring them to Sicily. Regarding her actions, Southern stated: "if the politicians won't stop the boats, we'll stop the boats."


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern supported similar actions by Defend Europe, which chartered a vessel to track and stop what it claimed was collusion between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human traffickers. In July 2017, Southern reported Patreon had deleted her account citing concerns about her "raising funds in order to take part in activities that are likely to cause loss of life". Southern denied these allegations, stating that Defend Europe's actions were likely to save lives and that none of her funding went towards the group.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In November 2018, Southern released a video that appeared to show an NGO worker admitting that she had coached asylum seekers on how to speak to immigration officials in order to gain refugee status. "BuzzFeed News" reported that a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson said: "Greece has rigorous asylum procedures in place, within a robust legal framework." In May 2019, Southern released a YouTube documentary, "Borderless", about the refugee and migrant crisis. The film was temporarily taken down by YouTube.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern said transgender people have a "genuine delusion", adding "It's body dysmorphia and that is a mental illness". She criticised legal recognition for changing one's gender, because people doing so might be dishonest.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Southern has spoken in opposition to feminism and has said that women are "not psychologically developed to hold leadership positions", and "not going to be as great being CEOs". In a November 2017 YouTube video titled "Why I'm Not Married", Southern said: "I am not trying to sell the idea that myself, as a 22-year-old, needs to be married right now for the sake of traditionalism and not being a degenerate. What is also just completely shocking to me is the utter lack of understanding of nuance." She also said that women should be able to choose their own path in life without being attacked for it.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In June 2015, Southern reported on the Vancouver SlutWalk, a protest march of sexual assault survivors, for The Rebel Media. She said her protest sign stating "There Is No Rape Culture in the West", was torn up. She shouted to the protest in response: "Go to Africa and you will see a real rape culture!". In third world countries, she said, "men can get away with rape". According to Southern: "It's insane to focus on this one issue and say that we are living in a rape culture. Men are getting fired from their jobs just for making rape jokesnot raping". A protester from a Canadian rape crisis centre told her fewer than an estimated 10% of rapes are reported.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In a 2017 YouTube segment titled "How Feminism Made Women Unhappy", Southern said: "Traditionalism offers a lot of stability in people's life, it offers a guide for how to lead them to the happiest life." Together with Tara McCarthy and Brittany Pettibone, she advocated for women to have fewer sexual partners, saying that the left holds "a cultural Marxist agenda that wants to destroy the family."


title: Lauren Southern

text: During March 2016, she visited Vancouver for an event at which Augustus Sol Invictus was due to appear. A fringe candidate for a Florida senate seat, Invictus was banned from entering Canada and was absent. At this event, a protester poured a bottle of urine over Southern's head while she was engaging with LGBTQ protesters at a rally in Vancouver, arguing for two human genders.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In April 2017, Southern was one of several scheduled speakers at a Patriots' Day rally in Berkeley, California. The rally led to a riot between pro-Trump demonstrators and anti-Trump counter-protesters.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In June 2018, she visited Moscow, Russia, to meet Aleksandr Dugin, a political philosopher and proponent of a Russian-dominated Eurasia. A multi-part interview of Dugin, conducted by Southern and Brittany Pettibone, was published on YouTube under the title "From Russia With Love". "It’s incorrect to call him a fascist," Southern tweeted. In the second video, she said Dugin had both "enthralled" and "open[ed] so many doors" for her. Dugin spoke on a panel with the two women in Moscow.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Websites for crowdfunding (GoFundMe) and business services (Patreon) barred Southern from using their services. YouTube demonetized her channel by June 2017 and was no longer running advertisements on it.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In February 2018, Southern, along with Pettibone and Caolan Robertson, distributed flyers in the English town of Luton describing Allah as "gay", as part of a social experiment video.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In March 2018, Southern was denied entry to the United Kingdom while waiting in Calais. It was reported that Southern was due to meet Austrian Martin Sellner and his American partner, Pettibone, both far-right activists, while the three of them were in Britain; the couple were deported from Britain a few days earlier. Southern was questioned under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Her denial of entry was due to her intentions during her visit.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Tucker Carlson of Fox News, describing Southern and the others as reporters, invited Katie Hopkins onto his programme to defend them against supposed political correctness responsible for their non-admission.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Before her period of residency in Australia during her brief retirement and afterwards, Southern planned a speaking tour of Australia in July 2018. Australia's Department of Home Affairs denied Lauren Southern an Electronic Travel Authority visa, saying it was "not a working visa". She intended to charge $79 for a basic ticket and up to $749 for an "intimate dinner". The Australian government allowed her to enter the country once she had the correct visa. Arriving at Brisbane airport, she wore an "It's OK to be white" shirt.


title: Lauren Southern

text: When she asked people on the street in Melbourne "Should we kill Lauren Southern?", many had never heard of her. A speaking event in Melbourne was opposed by more than 100 protesters.


title: Lauren Southern

text: There were no protesters at her event in Sydney, where ticket holders were notified of the venue by receiving a text on the day. The Sydney event included a $200 meet-and-greet, a $500 VIP meet-and-greet and a $750 dinner.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In Brisbane, Southern mentioned bombing the Australian city of Melbourne, citing and expanding upon the Bible story about finding good people in Sodom and Gomorrah. She ended: "We did find a few hundred good ones therethere is a silent majority I believe in Melbourne so we can’t nuke it yet guys I’m sorry." She was opposed by around 60 protesters.


title: Lauren Southern

text: In July 2018, Southern applied for a travel visa to visit New Zealand for a speaking tour with Canadian podcaster and YouTuber Stefan Molyneux. Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway described their views as "repugnant", but said they met immigration character requirements and cleared their entry. The pair had not secured a venue, as Auckland Council had cancelled their initial booking, citing health and safety concerns. The pair briefly cancelled and then resumed the tour over difficulties with the venue. The subsequent booking of a private venue was revoked by its owners. In retaliation, their venue was vandalised. The failure to find a venue was celebrated by around 1,000 protesters, who said the planned event had nothing to do with freedom of speech. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand is "hostile" to the views of the speakers and, "I think you'll see from the reaction they've had from New Zealanders that their views are not those that are shared by this country, and I'm quite proud of that".


title: Lauren Southern

text: In August 2018, the Mayor of Auckland, Phil Goff, tweeted that Council venues should not be used to "stir up ethnic or religious tensions", and that "we've got no obligation at all" to provide a venue for hate speech. For agreeing with the cancellation, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson received death threats.


title: Lauren Southern

text: Tāmaki Anti Fascist Action spokesperson Sina Brown-Davis said her group feared "dehumanising depictions of indigenous people" in New Zealand. Molyneux had called Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people "the lowest rung of civilisation".


title: Lauren Southern

text: Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson added, "Aotearoa does not stand for your messages of racism, hatred and especially white supremacy". Justice Minister Andrew Little said the speakers "clearly have misled people" in trying to secure the venue. TV personality Te Hamua Nikora said the pair were against multiculturalism, unlike New Zealand. The minimum ticket price for the cancelled Auckland event was $99.


title: Lauren Southern

text: , Southern lives in Sydney, Australia, with her Australian husband and their child. Her husband is part Asian and is credited with introducing her to his Catholic faith.


title: Lauren Southern

text: On 2 June 2019, Southern announced her retirement from political activism on her website. She stated that her reasons for leaving were that she needed to move on and find fulfillment in a more private capacity.


title: Lauren Southern

text: On 19 June 2020, Southern announced in a YouTube video her return and new plans, expressing some remorse for her previous hardline stances. Daniel Lombroso, in his article for "The Atlantic", was skeptical of her change, stating: "She kept telling me she had grown more 'compassionate,' but whenever I asked her pointedly if she regretted her past work, I got obfuscation and tactical apologies."


title: Antoni Porowski

text: Antoni Janusz Porowski (born March 14, 1984) is a Canadian television personality, cook, actor, model and author. He is the food and wine expert on the Netflix series "Queer Eye" (2018–present).


title: Antoni Porowski

text: Porowski was born in Montreal, Quebec, to Polish parents after they emigrated to Canada with his two older sisters. His father is a physician. He grew up speaking Polish, English and French. He and his parents moved to Glade Springs, West Virginia, when he was twelve; he resided there and in Montreal throughout his high school years before returning to Montreal to complete his post-secondary education at Marianopolis College.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: After graduating from Concordia University with a bachelor's degree in psychology, Porowski moved to New York City to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, from which he graduated in 2011. He taught himself to cook by referring to his grandmother's cooking techniques.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: Upon moving to New York City, Porowski began auditioning for various acting roles. He has stated that his Polish last name made it difficult for him to find work, which at the time made him consider anglicizing his last name. He has landed roles in movies such as "Elliot Loves" (2012), "Daddy's Boy" (2016), "The Pretenders" (2018), and as the lead officer in a 2014 episode of TV series "The Blacklist". Porowski was also featured in the 2015 short docudrama about the Vinnytsia massacre, "To My Father", as Adam Bandrowski. The short film was part of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival's Short Film Corner.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: In the meantime, he worked in food service to cover his rent, first working as a busboy at a family-run Polish restaurant. He worked his way up in the restaurant industry, working as a waiter and sommelier, eventually managing the sushi restaurant BondSt.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: In December 2017, it was announced that Porowski was hired as the food and wine expert in the Netflix revival of "Queer Eye", which began airing in February 2018.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: In April 2018, Porowski signed a deal with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for his first cookbook, released in Spring 2019. In June 2018, he announced that he would be opening The Village Den, a fast-casual restaurant in New York City's West Village. Additionally, Porowski deals vintage furniture.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: On September 10, 2018, Porowski alongside co-hosts of "Queer Eye" received an Emmy for Outstanding Structured Reality Program.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: Porowski was featured in Taylor Swift's "You Need to Calm Down" music video, released on June 17, 2019.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: In June 2021, Porowski announced he is part of the new Equaversity Foundation, established to organize international fundraising to support the LGBT+ community in Poland.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: He once lived in the same neighborhood as Ted Allen, the original "Queer Eye" food and wine expert and current host of Food Network cooking competition "Chopped." The two became friends, and for a time Porowski worked for Allen and his husband, designer Barry Rice, as their assistant, frequently cooking for the couple and helping them put together events and catering in their home.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: Porowski states that his sexuality is "a little more fluid along the spectrum" and prefers not to label himself. He dated graphic artist Joey Krietemeyer for more than seven years before announcing their split in October 2018.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: In 2019, Porowski and his "Queer Eye" costar Jonathan Van Ness set up a joint Instagram account, and posted seemingly romantic photographs. They later clarified that it was in jest.


title: Antoni Porowski

text: Since 2019, Porowski has been dating advertising executive Kevin Harrington. They announced their engagement in 2022.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Black Lagoon (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rei Hiroe. It has been published in Shogakukan's "seinen" manga magazine "Monthly Sunday Gene-X" since April 2002, with its chapters collected in twelve "tankōbon" volumes as of August 2021. In North America, the manga is licensed for English release by Viz Media.


title: Black Lagoon

text: The series follows the Lagoon Company, a four-member team of pirate mercenaries smuggling goods in and around the seas of Southeast Asia with their PT boat, the "Black Lagoon". The group takes on various jobs, usually involving criminal organizations and resulting in violent gunfights.


title: Black Lagoon

text: The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Madhouse, which was broadcast for two seasons of twelve episodes each in 2006, followed by a five-episode original video animation (OVA) series released from July 2010 to June 2011.


title: Black Lagoon

text: As of January 2022, the "Black Lagoon" manga had over 8.5 million copies in circulation. The series has been overall well received, with critics particularly praising the action sequences.


title: Black Lagoon

text: The story follows a team of pirate mercenaries known as the Lagoon Company, that smuggles goods in and around the seas of Southeast Asia in the early to mid 1990s. The Lagoon Company consists of four members: Dutch, the leader; Revy, the main gunfighter; Benny, the mechanic, computer specialist, and researcher; and Rock, an ex-salaryman hijacked by the team and abandoned by his department chief, eventually becoming their negotiator and "professional" face of the group, retaining his old job skills. Their base of operations is located in the fictional harbor city of Roanapur in east Thailand near the border of Cambodia (somewhere in the Amphoe Mueang Trat district, likely on the mainland north/northeast of the Ko Chang island or on the island itself). The city is home to the Japanese "yakuza", the Chinese triad, the Russian Bratva, the Colombian cartel, the Italian mafia, a wide assortment of pickpockets, thugs, mercenaries, thieves, prostitutes, assassins, and gunmen. The city also has a large Vietnamese refugee population following the Vietnamese refugees exodus after the communist takeover of Vietnam in 1975.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Lagoon Company transports goods for various clients in the American made Elco-type PT boat, "Black Lagoon". It has a particularly friendly relationship with the Russian crime syndicate Hotel Moscow. The team takes on a variety of missions—which may involve violent firefights, hand-to-hand combat, and nautical battles—in various Southeast Asian locations, even going as far as Phu Quoc island of Vietnam. When they are not working, the members of the Lagoon Company spend much of their down time at The Yellow Flag, a bar in Roanapur which is often destroyed in firefights.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Manga author Rei Hiroe said that when he was approached by the publisher Shogakukan to work for a manga project, he offered them different prototype stories that he had planned, including "Black Lagoon", which was finally selected. Hiroe wanted to create an action and crime oriented series. For the basis of the story, he was inspired by watching news about piracy cases in the South China Sea in the 1990s, which he thought that fitted perfectly with his desire to make a "dynamic and original" series, adding that pirates "know no borders and are truly free," and that it seemed interesting to work on the subject. Hiroe also commented that at first, the original idea was about medieval pirates, but he changed his mind and made the story about modern day pirates instead.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe stated that he has been influenced by writers James Ellroy, whom he called his favorite novelist, and Stephen King, stating that he learned how to create the atmosphere of "Black Lagoon" based on his works. Hiroe also called 's manga series "Wild 7" "almost like the DNA of that sort of action genre," and mentioned influence from Akihiro Ito ("Geobreeders" author) and Kenichi Sonoda ("Gunsmith Cats" author). Apart from manga, Hiroe stated that, from a "purely graphic point of view", he was influenced by the Franco-Belgian comic series "Soda", and commented that he liked the atmosphere and storytelling of "Blacksad" by Spanish authors Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe is particularly influenced by films, mentioning influence from directors John Woo, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and by the 1990s Hollywood films and triad Hong Kong films from the 1980s and 1990s. Hiroe mentioned that "Pulp Fiction" and other films from Tarantino inspired him to balance the action and comedy in "Black Lagoon".


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe said that although the series is much influenced by American works, he was not worried about the references being lost on the Japanese readers, stating that it can be sensed when the American culture is coming from a Japanese person, so "there's a style in it that can be sensed by Japanese readers," adding that conversely, if people in America read it, there is "more potential for awkwardness and weird parts."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Regarding accuracy, Hiroe declared that he had not done too much research on modern day pirates, commenting that even on the internet is difficult to find good information on them, also stating that the crew of "Black Lagoon" is "a bit different from what we are used to seeing." Regarding the weapons, on the other hand, Hiroe said that he was a big fan and that he had a personal collection, being well-versed on the subject, adding that he bought encyclopedias in order to benefit from more precise details. Due to the fact that the series is a "period piece of sorts," which features mafia and military themes, Hiroe commented that he did a lot of research for those subjects, watching documentaries and reading books. Hiroe also stated that he would sometimes find some interesting facts that he would like to incorporate into his work, and that he tried not to go towards current events, but use past information for the entertainment value. He said that the setting is loosely based on reality and that it would not be interesting if it were unrealistic, adding that he at least wants to maintain a semblance of realism, emphasizing, however, that the sense of realism is "very subjective," adding that a character like Roberta, a "Terminator-like maid," would not work in a novel, but she will in a comic; "she has to be over-the-top because it's a comic."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe commented that while film is an "active" medium, manga is like having "still frames", so for the action scenes he needs to find the "best moments in time to convey meaning and movement," adding that one of the advantages of manga is that "you're not anchored to reality", commenting that he is able to make guns bigger than their physical counterparts and make explosions "far larger and more gaudy." He said that from the start, it was agreed with the publisher that the series would include action and violence, so there were never issues regarding that, adding that he would "go towards even more sensationalism if it is necessary for the plot," but Hiroe added as well that he does not want it to be confined to its violence either.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe said that from the start, he wanted a story "without nationalities, without specific identities," adding that "we are still in a criminal context," and by mixing different cultures in the story, he wanted to see the reaction of each culture to this "thorny subject," without making any judgment. Referring to whether the manga could be perceived as a political statement, due to actual piracy issues in Africa and elsewhere, and since the manga is about pirates, Hiroe said that "as long as there are various people's opinions being voiced, it won't cease to be political," emphasizing, however, that there is not just one possible way of reading it, such as "America is bad" or "Russia is bad," and that the series is written to be perceived from different perspectives. Although Hiroe noted that his series is entertainment, he commented that he would like to make people who read it feel the backdrops, like characters with poverty backgrounds or living in the world with international conflicts. Hiroe also said that it is fine if the readers only enjoy the series purely for the action, but commented: "[t]here are a few things hidden in there, so I'd be the happiest if on a second or third read-through, those things become apparent."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe said that generally it takes him about a month to produce one chapter, adding that there are a lot of details and he puts a lot of work into it. Regarding the process, Hiroe explained that he has the initial thought, then the publisher would give him input as to "what’s good and what’s bad and what’s good for the audience, what they might like." They discuss it and if something might not work so well, he redoes the plot line. Hiroe commented that while there are a lot of manga artists who do not have good relationship with the publishing company, and they have to do what they are ordered, in his case, it is more mutual and he can do more of what he likes at the same time. Hiroe's editor, Akinobu Natsume, commented that at first, the story was very simple, but that after having introduced more characters, they had to think about their respective stories, as well as the relationships that unite them, commenting that this was in line with the complexity that Hiroe wanted, supporting him and refraining him when the story got too difficult to follow. Hiroe declared that there are no real rules for the variable duration of the story arcs, and that he tries above all to think about the appropriate length to stage all that he had to say on the initial idea, adding that the rest of the story should stay in that direction. He said that since the series is set in the 20th century, he counts on the occasion of the transition to the 21st century to create a "powerful event" that will alter its plot, commenting that if he manages to transcribe his ideas properly, "we will reach the culmination of my story." He affirmed that the had in mind the end of the story and that he knew the conclusion that he needs to make for each character, but that it must be staged in the right direction and in a consistent way.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe said that to keep the manga interesting and exciting for both himself and the readers, he "takes a rest right in the middle. Just stop, take a step back, and relax for a bit so I’m not stuck in the grind," commenting that manga artists who write weekly manga or other long-running series, like those published in "Weekly Shōnen Jump", "don’t have that luxury," and that working on a monthly series gives him the opportunity to work on a different project "to keep things from getting stale." The manga has been on hiatus several times; it went for an almost three-year hiatus from May 19, 2010, to January 19, 2013; it went on a three-year hiatus again from January 18, 2014, to May 19, 2017; it went on hiatus for a year from August 18, 2018, to September 19, 2019. Hiroe has attributed these pauses to his depression, adding that he is doing his best to move forward with the series without rushing too much.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Referring to the creation of the characters, Hiroe stated that he goes backward, imagining how they would think and how they lived, commenting that the process in itself "can be fun." He commented: "I sometimes first decide that this guy is from here, he's ethnically this way, he belongs to this kind of group, then look into historical facts and events. From there I try to tie all threads of those elements together, and when they can be tied organically together it's like, "Yay this is fun!" Hiroe said that the characters are not necessarily based on anyone in particular, but that from watching films in particular, he would arrange things which would "kind of shape the character." He commented, however, that Mr. Chang, the leader of the triads, has a resemblance to Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat. Hiroe claimed that the fact that in the story are women who take up arms, while men have more sedate roles, was not a well-considered choice at the start, but that it naturally "imposed itself over the course of the adventure," noting that this is one of its strong points, expressing happiness to have met women who have enjoyed the series.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Regarding Revy, Hiroe said that he had no particular model in mind, but commented that after watching Robert Rodriguez's film "From Dusk till Dawn", he noticed the "imposing tattoo" on the shoulder of George Clooney's character and thought that it "would be nice" to do such a tattoo on a female body. For her personality, Hiroe first wanted that her dominant character trait was impulsiveness. To accentuate it, he decided to make her grow up in a criminal environment, so that her values were totally different from "ordinary mortals." Hiroe commented that she is a strong woman, good at shooting guns and fighting, but that she is not motivated by justice and that she is just an "ordinary criminal," adding that he placed her in the story because "it is rare to see such a female" and her presence would make it more interesting. Hiroe commented that the reason behind her Chinese-American heritage was because he wanted to make her a minority, adding that she does not look Caucasoid but rather Mongoloid, and that it would make it easier for Japanese readers to identify with her; "easier than if it was a white woman going ballistic." He added that it is interesting when there is a gap between the way she looks and her way of thinking, commenting that people like that "aren't really tied down to a region, like they're rootless wanderers," and that "obviously, she probably faces discrimination in her life," adding that taking all that into account, he thought the character would "stand out more." Hiroe said that Revy is the character that requires most work from a graphic point of view, expressing that he had drawn her countless of times in very different situations and emotions, and that he must be careful to not go in another direction over time, so as to not distort the initial character.


title: Black Lagoon

text: According to Hiroe, at the beginning of the project there were only "bad men," and after discussing it with the editorial staff, they decided to introduce a character who would share the same point of view as the readers, so he added Rock as a businessman to the story. Hiroe commented that there was no particular reason why he is Japanese. Hiroe commented that after Rock was added to the story, "he came to life and started to build his own interesting character." Sunao Katabuchi, director of the anime adaptation, said that Rock is the character that he empathized more with, commenting that while "[w]e live our daily lives as if we are closed inside of a box-like world," Rock "breaks out of such a box," adding that breaking out is not the end for him; "[he senses that] there may yet another box that maybe be broken out of," and he is "pointed in the right direction. The fight is not with the container which encloses the world, but with one's self."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Hiroe stated that he did not dislike "cute girls" or "moe" characters, but that the inclusion of these characters should depend on whether there is a relevancy to use them in what he is creating. He stated that when creating the Colombian maid and former FARC guerrilla, Roberta, her design was slightly influenced from the growing interest in maids at the time, but that he dressed her as such because he imagined that an affluent family in South America "would dress maids that way," adding that her design was not a take on ""moe" culture" as much as it made contextual sense. Katabuchi commented that the anime staff referred to the scene where Roberta's umbrella opens up and spins around the body and fires as "The Evil Mary Poppins", adding that Hiroe also had the idea to use the character as a kind of "Death Poppins." Hiroe commented that at the beginning, Roberta had "a very set character background," but he wanted to see if he could go past that and break it down to see what he could do with it, which is why the character reappeared in the story.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Originally, he had not planned the arc of the Hansel and Gretel twins to be more dark and serious than the rest of the series. He commented that at first he thought that it would be great if there were cute "really loopy" twin kids wielding giant guns, but that he started doing some research, reading about the history of Romania (their home country) and the Cold War/Soviet era, commenting: "[t]hings were really bad back then, so the story became much darker based on what I'd learned. It was…not exactly the happiest place on Earth."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Written and illustrated by Rei Hiroe, the pilot chapter of "Black Lagoon" was published in Shogakukan's "seinen" manga magazine "Monthly Sunday Gene-X" on March 19, 2001. It started its serialization in the same magazine on April 19, 2002. Shogakukan has collected its chapters into individual "tankōbon" volumes. The first volume was released on December 12, 2002. As of August 19, 2021, twelve volumes have been released.


title: Black Lagoon

text: In North America, the manga is licensed for English release by Viz Media. The first volume was released on August 12, 2008. As of January 21, 2020, eleven volumes have been released. Due to copyright-related reasons, the Viz Media edition censors the references to song lyrics and brand names, including the brands of the guns.


title: Black Lagoon

text: A spin-off about Sawyer, titled , illustrated by Tatsuhiko Ida, began in "Monthly Sunday Gene-X" on September 19, 2019. The first "tankōbon" volume was released on July 17, 2020. As of September 16, 2022, five volumes have been released.


title: Black Lagoon

text: A spin-off about Eda, titled "Black Lagoon Eda -Initial Stage-", illustrated by Hajime Yamamura, started in "Monthly Sunday Gene-X" on April 19, 2022. The first "tankōbon" volume was released on September 16, 2022.


title: Black Lagoon

text: The manga was adapted into an anime television series animated by Madhouse, which was broadcast for twelve episodes on Chiba TV (and on other fifteen terrestrial stations) from April 9 to June 25, 2006.


title: Black Lagoon

text: A second season, "Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage", consisting of twelve more episodes, ran for the first time on Sendai Television from October 3 to December 19, 2006.


title: Black Lagoon

text: A five-episode original video animation (OVA), titled "Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail", which covered the "El Baile de la Muerte" arc of the manga, was released from July 17, 2010, to June 22, 2011.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Two light novels written by Gen Urobuchi, with illustrations by Hiroe, have been released under Shogakukan's Gagaga Bunko imprint. was published on July 18, 2008. was published on January 18, 2011.


title: Black Lagoon

text: An illustration book, titled "Onslaught: Black Lagoon Illustrations", was released by Shogakukan on August 19, 2021. It includes the original pilot chapter illustrated pages, key visuals of the 20th anniversary exhibition and unpublished illustrations. The limited edition included a water gun replica of Revy's Beretta 92 FS "Sword Cutlass Special", five autographed illustrations and six bookmarks.


title: Black Lagoon

text: The volumes of "Black Lagoon" have frequently ranked as the best-selling manga volumes on Japan's weekly charts since 2007. The 8th volume was the #14 best-selling manga volume of 2008 in Japan. As of February 2014, the manga had over 6 million copies in circulation. As of November 2018, the manga had over 7 million copies in circulation. As of January 2022, the manga had over 8.5 million copies in circulation.


title: Black Lagoon

text: About.com's Deb Aoki listed Viz Media's English release of "Black Lagoon" as the best new "seinen" manga of 2008, along with "Gantz". Aoki said that even non-manga readers would enjoy it, adding that it is "more like a Hollywood or Hong Kong action flick" than a series with the "pubescent girls and giant robots" formula usually associated with manga, also calling it "a fun fantasy for readers who've outgrown the high seas hi-jinks of "One Piece" but are still pirates at heart." Aoki added that the focus on "whip-smart, sexy and confident women" is one of the best things of the series; "[n]ot girls, but "real" women who can blow up enemies without blinking an eye or breaking a nail." Leroy Douresseaux of ComicBookBin compared it to "The A-Team" and to a "Quentin Tarantino exploitation flick," also calling it an "extra-violent version of "Cowboy Bebop"" and ""Bad Boys II" on paper," stating that the series "will appeal to any male reader old enough to understand big guns, big boobs, and gratuitous pistol-in-crotch shots."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Greg McElhatton of Read About Comics said that the series is "never boring, never wasting time for anything," adding that it is not "all action and nothing else," lauding the way Hiroe was able to bring across Revy's existentialist views of the world "without sounding preachy or bringing the story to a crashing halt," mentioning her disagreements with Rock. McElhatton said that the series is "clever, fast, and fun" and that "isn't a simple shoot-em-up, it's an action comic for people who appreciate a smart script." A.E. Sparrow of IGN made a positive review of the series, stating that it has "[e]verything you love about a bad action movie," but stating that unlike a "bad action movie", the series has "actual character development", commenting that it "veers towards that dynamic that made "Cowboy Bebop" as fun as it was." Isaac Hale of PopCultureShock said that the series reminded him "intensely" of Kouta Hirano's "Hellsing", stating that both series feature "psychotic badasses", "they're all about the fanservice" and they both "shamelessly fetishize violence." Hale also said that the action is "insane, impossible, and drips with overwhelming amounts of cool," praising its artwork as well.


title: Black Lagoon

text: Davey C. Jones of Active Anime praised the series for its action scenes and artwork, stating: "[t]he character designs are grade A. The guns, torpedoes, boats, ships, cars, are all detailed to spec and look fantastic!" recommending as well the series to fans of "Gunsmith Cats" and "Cowboy Bebop". Greg Hackmann of Mania.com wrote that Hiroe "doesn't saddle the over-the-top action with scenes of lingering seriousness or angst," noting that the point of the story is "watch our anti-heroes work together […] to rack up ridiculous body counts and generally kick serious amounts of ass. And you know what? It may sound dumb -- hell, it is dumb -- but it's also incredibly damned entertaining." David Rasmussen of Manga Life compared the series unfavorably to "Cowboy Bebop", stating that while it "doesn't suck," it is not ""Cowboy Bebop" memorable either." Rasmussen called it a "decent enough action drama yarn," but commented: "I never really connected with its characters to the point of saying I really want to rave about this."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Writer Jason Thompson called the series "a high-energy heist manga intended, if the author's in-jokes are any indication, in the collateral-damage spirit of movies like "Rambo" and "The Wild Bunch"." Thompson said that the dialogues are well-written and "Tarantino-ishly foul-mouthed," adding that the action scenes are "more flashy than clear," criticizing the "huge sound effects and closeups of muzzle blasts," which make it "difficult to tell what's happening," but ultimately called the series "a fun ride, and at its best moments it reaches an almost "Hellsing"-like level of mayhem." Writing for Anime News Network (ANN), Thompson stated that the series has superficial similarities to "Gunsmith Cats", including "strong female protagonists, crime/heist stories, and tons of guns," but stated that Hiroe's art style is more similar to the art of Akihiro Ito and Kouta Hirano, commenting, however, that the series does not "feel particularly influenced by manga," but "influenced by everything imaginable and wants to let you know it," mentioning its references from John Woo, "The Magnificent Seven" to Jean-Paul Sartre. Thompson called it "a truly "global manga," with international influences and an international cast, a rainbow of colors."


title: Black Lagoon

text: Theron Martin of ANN commented that the series "should suit any fan of R-rated Hollywood action movies just fine," also praising the artwork and the action scenes, concluding: ""Black Lagoon" offers a healthy, high-octane serving of nearly non-stop violence, scheming, and graphic content. It aspires to be nothing more than a hard-core actioner, and because of that it works extremely well." Reviewing the first volume, Carlo Santos, of the same website, said that it is "the very definition of cinematic: gunplay techniques by John Woo, explosions by Michael Bay, and a host of other visual indulgences that make it a loud, nonstop blockbuster." Santos, however, stated that the story "ripped straight from the plotbook for crime dramas and gang wars," adding that each chapter is paced according to formula, concluding that the series is "[n]ot the greatest, not the deepest, but entertaining enough if you're up for some babes with guns." Reviewing the tenth volume, Rebecca Silverman, of the same website, noted that while the series has physical fanservice, most of it is gun related, "with shots of different firearms and gun battles that rely on difficult angles," commenting that the series' appeal is its "dark, criminal fantasy about a world with few rules, where death is ready to take you the minute you start to think about giving up."


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: Doh Kyung-soo (; born January 12, 1993), also known by his stage name D.O. (), is a South Korean singer and actor, best known as a member of the South Korean-Chinese boy group Exo. Apart from his group's activities, D.O. has starred in various television dramas and movies such as "Pure Love" (2016), "My Annoying Brother" (2016), "Positive Physique" (2016), "Room No.7" (2017), "100 Days My Prince" (2018), "", and "Swing Kids" (2018). In 2021, he debuted as a soloist with his first extended play, "Empathy". In addition, D.O. was selected by the Korean Film Council as one of the 200 Korean actors that best represent the present and future of Korea's movie scene.


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: D.O. was born on January 12, 1993, in Nonhyeon-dong of Gangnam District, Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Ilsandong-gu of Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. He went to Goyang Poongsan Elementary School, Baekshin Middle School, and Baekseok High School. He has an older brother who is three years older than him. D.O. began singing in primary school and was an avid participant in local singing competitions throughout his high school career. After winning one of the competitions, he was advised to audition for SM Entertainment. He performed Na Yoon-kwon's "Anticipation" and Brown Eyed Soul's "My Story" at his audition. D.O. subsequently became a trainee during his last two years of high school.


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: D.O. was formally introduced as the eighth member of Exo on January 30, 2012, with the release of the Korean version of the single "What Is Love", sung by D.O. and Baekhyun. The group debuted on April 8 with the extended play "Mama". In July 2013, he was featured in the song "Goodbye Summer" from f(x)'s second studio album "Pink Tape". In September 2014, D.O. made his acting debut with a supporting role in the movie "Cart", playing a high school student and son of a grocery store worker and union member (played by Yum Jung-ah). The movie premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. He also released an original soundtrack titled "Crying Out" for the movie.


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: Later in 2014, D.O. made his small screen debut playing a supporting role in the SBS drama "It's Okay, That's Love", which starred Gong Hyo-jin and Jo In-sung. D.O. was praised by film critic Heo Ji-woong for his performance in the series, and was later nominated for the Best New Actor award at the 51st Baeksang Arts Awards. In June 2015, D.O. featured in KBS' drama "Hello Monster", playing a psychopath. In November 2015, D.O. was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor award at the 52nd Grand Bell Awards for his role as Tae-young in "Cart".


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: In January 2016, D.O. was announced as one of the cast of voice actors for the feature-length animated film "Underdog", which premiered in 2019. He voiced Moongchi, a stray dog who is separated from his owner. In February 2016, he collaborated with Yoo Young-jin on a duet titled "Tell Me (What Is Love)" for SM Station. He had previously performed a short version of the song as a solo performance throughout Exo's first concert tour. Later in February, D.O. starred as the male lead alongside actress Kim So-hyun in the romantic film "Pure Love".


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: In October 2016, D.O. starred alongside Chae Seo-jin in the web drama "Be Positive". The series became the most watched Korean web drama of all time. In November 2016, D.O. starred alongside Jo Jung-suk and Park Shin-hye in the film "My Annoying Brother", playing a national level Judo athlete. D.O. and Jo Jung-suk also recorded the ending theme song, titled "Don't Worry", for the movie. D.O. was awarded the Blue Dragon Film Awards Best New Actor award a year later for his performance in the film.


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: In 2017, D.O. starred in the comedy thriller film "Room No.7". The same year, he played a supporting role in Kim Yong-hwa's film "", a blockbuster adaptation of the webtoon of the same name, about a court in the afterlife where the deceased undergo multiple trials for 49 days. In 2018, D.O. starred in "Swing Kids", a film set in a prison camp in South Korea during the Korean War. He plays a North Korean soldier who falls in love with tap dancing in the midst of all the chaos. Later that year, he was cast in his first small-screen leading role, playing a crown prince in "100 Days My Prince". The series was a commercial success, becoming the fifth highest-rated Korean drama in cable television history and in 2020, became the first CJ ENM drama to be broadcast in Japan's public television channel, NHK General TV. In December 2017, D.O. attended the Macau International Film Festival alongside director Choi Dong-hoon as a Korean public relations ambassador.


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: Later in May, he announced his upcoming enlistment for South Korea's mandatory military service by posting a handwritten letter on Exo's official fan club. He enlisted as an active duty soldier on July 1, 2019, and served at the Capital Mechanized Infantry Division (Fierce Tiger Division) as a food handler (kitchen police). On the same day, he released the single "That's Okay", a song that he co-wrote, through the SM Station project. In 2020, D.O. made his musical theater debut in a rerun of the original military musical "Return: The Promise of the Day", playing the role of Seungho.


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: After taking his final military vacation leave in December 2020 without returning to his base in compliance with the army's protocols regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, D.O. was discharged on January 25, 2021. Later in February, he was announced to have been cast as the male lead in "Secret", a South Korean remake of the 2007 Taiwanese film of the same name. His role in the movie is a student who plays the piano.


title: D.O. (entertainer)

text: On June 25, 2021, SM Entertainment announced that D.O. would release his first solo album at the end of July 2021. His first extended play "Empathy" was released on July 26, along with its lead single "Rose". The album topped the Gaon Album Chart. In 2022, D.O. made his return to the small screen with the television series "Bad Prosecutor".


title: Film distribution

text: Film distribution (also known as Film exhibition or Film distribution and exhibition) is the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing and release strategy for the film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing and other matters. The film may be exhibited directly to the public either through a movie theater or television, or personal home viewing (including physical media, video-on-demand, download, television programs through broadcast syndication). For commercial projects, film distribution is usually accompanied by film promotion.


title: Film distribution

text: Initially, all mass-marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The identity of the first theater designed specifically for cinema is a matter of debate; candidates include Tally's Electric Theatre, established 1902 in Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon, established 1905. Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years. In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).


title: Film distribution

text: Distributors license films to theaters granting the right to show the film for a rental fee. The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees. The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).


title: Film distribution

text: Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high-quality ""A" picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a lower-quality ""B" picture" rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies (also known as trailers) and paid advertisements.


title: Film distribution

text: The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters. In 1971 U-Matic became the first magnetic format in which movies could be enjoyed in institutions outside the theatre. Later that year, the first videocassettes of movies became available to consumers to watch in their own homes. Recording technology has since enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision – see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and are revenue sources for film production companies.


title: Film distribution

text: Prior to the decline of the Motion Picture Patents Company (Edison Trust) in 1915, there were two main forms of film distribution: "states rights" and "roadshow".


title: Film distribution

text: Under the states rights system, films were sold on a local, territorial basis. The local salesperson would then play the film as often as they desired in an attempt to make as much profit as possible. Film copyright holders would sell rights of a movie directly to the theater or franchise salesperson, typically on a foot-by-foot basis for 10 cents a foot. Absent major studios or national theater franchises, this system was generally the best way to ensure national release of a film, particularly for shorter films. However, in terms of profitability, the states rights system wasn't the most effective way to screen feature-length films since the film's producers only made money on the initial sale of each film copy.


title: Film distribution

text: This method also made it possible to screen films of various genre which may be illegal in one state but legal in another.


title: Film distribution

text: With the roadshow system, the producer would enter into an agreement with each theater, with priority given to large-seating and famous theaters. Money would be made via ticket sales. A movie's showing would be limited to drive up demand and to help create a sense of prestige. Although this method helped increase film earnings for the producer, given its nature, a movie's release would only be at the regional level. Some of the first road show films were the Italian film "Cabiria" (1914) and the American "The Birth of a Nation" (1915).


title: Film distribution

text: The standard release routine for a movie is regulated by a business model called "release windows". The release windows system was first conceived in the 1970s as a strategy to keep different instances of a movie from competing with each other, allowing the movie to take advantage of different markets (cinema, home video, TV, etc.) at different times.


title: Film distribution

text: In the standard process in 1979 in the United States, a movie was first released through movie theaters (theatrical window), then released to pay television for a short run before being re-released in theaters. It then returned to pay television before being made available for free-to-air television.


title: Film distribution

text: Currently, after a movie is released through movie theaters, it is released to home video and VOD services. After an additional period, it is usually released to pay television, and then made available for free-to-air television.


title: Film distribution

text: A simultaneous release takes place when a movie is made available on many media (cinema, DVD, VOD) at the same time or with very little difference in timing.


title: Film distribution

text: Simultaneous releases offer great advantages to both consumers, who can choose the medium that most suits their needs, and production studios that only have to run one marketing campaign for all releases. The flip side, though, is that such distribution efforts are often regarded as experimental and thus do not receive substantial investment or promotion.


title: Film distribution

text: Simultaneous release approaches have gained both praise, with investor Mark Cuban claiming movies should simultaneously be made available on all media allowing viewers to choose whether to see it at home or at the theater, and disapproval, with director M. Night Shyamalan claiming it could potentially destroy the "magic" of moviegoing.


title: Film distribution

text: Cinema owners can be affected if they have to share their opportunity window, especially at the beginning of the movie lifecycle, since, according to Disney, about 95% of all box office tickets for a film are sold within the first six weeks after initial distribution.


title: Film distribution

text: Among relevant simultaneous release attempts are "Bubble" (2006) by Academy Award-winning director Steven Soderbergh, "EMR" (2005) by James Erskine & Danny McCullough, and "The Road to Guantanamo" (2006).


title: Film distribution

text: Between 1967 and 1974, the average theatrical window in the United States between a film's theatrical release and its showing on TV was just over 5 years. By 1979, with the advert of pay television, films were normally made available to pay television in the United States one or two years after theatrical release. With the advent of home video, the National Association of Theatre Owners in the United States passed a resolution in 1980 objecting to the proposed release of video casettes at the same time as a film was released in theaters on the basis that their release would negatively impact theatrical revenues. The window between theatrical release and free-to-air television in the United States at the time was normally three years. By 1983 in the United States, the theatrical window before a film would be made available to other media, (at the time, firstly cable or pay TV) was around a year. In France, with the rise of home video, a law was created to give a theatrical window of one year before a film was made available to home video with it then being available to pay television then free-to-air television two or three years later. By 1985 in the United States, the theatrical window before a film was released on home video was normally four to six months, depending on the performance of the film at the box office. Films in the US were then available for pay-per-view four months later and, approximately two years after its theatrical release date, available for free-to-air television. The reduction in the theatrical window impacted subrun theaters that showed films after they had been screened by first-run theaters. By 2019, the theatrical window had been reduced to an average of three months in the United States. Major movie studios reportedly pushed to shrink the theatrical window in an attempt to make up for the substantial losses in the DVD market suffered since the 2004 sales peak. These attempts have encountered the firm opposition of theater owners, whose profits depend solely upon attendance and therefore benefit from keeping a movie available on their screens.


title: Film distribution

text: In early 2010, Disney announced it would be putting out the DVD and Blu-ray versions of Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" 14 weeks after the movie's release date (instead of the then usual 17) in order to avoid competition from the 2010 World Cup. In response to such statements, theater owners made threats not to show the movie on their screens, but later reconsidered their position before the movie was released. As of 2019, most major theater chains mandated an exclusivity window of 90 days before release on physical home video and rental availability, and 74–76 days before digital sell-through.


title: Film distribution

text: Other strategies are also being deployed in order to make up for slow DVD sales. Most major studios have considered making movies available to VOD services shortly after their theatrical release for a premium price. In July 2010 Netflix secured a deal with Relativity Media in which the latter agreed to distribute a number of major movies to the aforementioned VOD service before Pay TV.


title: Film distribution

text: Producers of relatively smaller-budget movies are also utilizing new release strategies. In 2009, the movie "The House of the Devil" premiered on VOD systems on October 1, and received a limited theatrical release one month later. In August 2010, it was announced that the movie "Freakonomics" would be released on video on demand on September 3, one month before its theatrical release. The British sci-fi movie "Monsters" has also undergone the same release timetable. After Netflix bought the worldwide distribution rights to "Beasts of No Nation", the film was simultaneously released theatrically and online through its subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service on October 16, 2015.


title: Film distribution

text: In late 2018, five of the major Hollywood studios, including Universal and Warner Bros., identified that they were working on an agreement that would see certain movies receive a premium video-on-demand release within weeks of their theatrical premieres. Nothing came out of these discussions, and after the Disney bought 21st Century Fox, then Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that the theatrical window is working for the company and they had no plans to adjust it.


title: Film distribution

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, all the major studios broke the theatrical window due to widespread theatre closings and made several films available on home media shortly after their theatrical debuts, such as Universal releasing "The Invisible Man" for rental 21 days after theatrical release, Sony and Columbia Pictures releasing "Bloodshot" for purchase 12 days after theatrical release, Warner Bros. releasing "The Way Back" 18 days after theatrical release, and Disney releasing "Onward" for purchase 15 days after theatrical release and streaming on Disney+ 29 days after theatrical release. "Sonic the Hedgehog", "I Still Believe", and "The Invisible Man" also became available for in-home on-demand viewing after a theatrical run shorter than usual in the wake of widespread theatre closures. As a result of the controversy surrounding the shrinking and even elimination of the theatrical window, in April 2020 AMC Theatres stated it would no longer screen films made by Universal Pictures after "Trolls World Tour" was made available for video on demand purchases simultaneous to its theatrical release.


title: Film distribution

text: In November 2020, Warner Bros. announced it would release "Wonder Woman 1984" simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max, with theaters granted a higher 60% take of box office sales. In December 2020, Warner Bros. announced it would release its entire 2021 theatrical slate simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max for 30 days. AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron criticized the plan.


title: Film distribution

text: However, this would be short-lived, because in March 2021, it was announced that Warner Bros. would discontinue same-day releases in 2022, as part of an agreement the studio reached with Cineworld (who operates Regal Cinemas) and will instead use a 45-day exclusive release window for theaters.


title: Film distribution

text: Cineworld also announced that it has reached an agreement with Warner Bros. Pictures that would see the studio discontinue their same-day HBO Max and theatrical release model in 2022 in favor of a 45-day theatrical exclusivity window. Most recently, The parent company has reached a agreement for a 17-day and a 31-day theatrical window with Universal Pictures and has agreed on a deal with Walt Disney Pictures to show its movies in U.S. and U.K. theaters.


title: Film distribution

text: Some films may be made specifically for non-theatrical formats, being released as a "television movie" or "direct-to-video" movie. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres; some films that are rejected by their own movie studios upon completion may be distributed through these markets.


title: Film distribution

text: A straight to video (or straight-to-DVD or straight-to-Blu-ray depending on the media upon which the movie is made available) release occurs when a movie is released on home video formats (such as VHS, DVD, etc.) without being released in theaters first, thereby not taking into consideration the "theatrical window".