عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Entertainment

Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles-Themed Las Vegas Show Will End after 18-Year Run

A file photo of Beatles member John Lennon is projected on the screen during the preview of "Love", a new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, Jun 27, 2006. (AP)
A file photo of Beatles member John Lennon is projected on the screen during the preview of "Love", a new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, Jun 27, 2006. (AP)
TT
TT

Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles-Themed Las Vegas Show Will End after 18-Year Run

A file photo of Beatles member John Lennon is projected on the screen during the preview of "Love", a new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, Jun 27, 2006. (AP)
A file photo of Beatles member John Lennon is projected on the screen during the preview of "Love", a new Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, Jun 27, 2006. (AP)

The final curtain will come down this summer on Cirque du Soleil's long-running show "The Beatles Love," a cultural icon on the Las Vegas Strip that brought band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together for public appearances throughout its 18-year run.

Cirque announced on Tuesday that the show housed at the Mirage will end on July 7, part of the iconic hotel-casino's major renovation plan to rebrand itself into the Hard Rock Las Vegas.

Stéphane Lefebvre, CEO of the Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, said in a statement that more than 11.5 million people have seen the show — an energetic portrayal of the Fab Four's history and music with aerial stunts and whimsical dance numbers on a colorful, 360-degree stage.

"We are grateful to the creators, cast, crew and all involved in bringing this show to life," Lefebvre said, "and we know The Beatles LOVE will live on long after the final bow."

In a separate statement, Joe Lupo, president of the Mirage, thanked the Cirque performers and crew members working behind the scenes "who played a part in entertaining guests and bridged generations" for nearly two decades.

The production premiered in the summer of 2006, with red carpet appearances by both McCartney and Starr, as well as Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, wife of the late Beatle George Harrison. They reunited a year later to celebrate the show's first anniversary.

According to Cirque, the show was born out of the friendship between its founder Guy Laliberté and Harrison, the Beatles' lead guitarist who died in 2001. John Lennon was killed in 1980.

The show is set to a specialized soundtrack that earned Cirque two Grammy Awards in 2008, a first for the entertainment company. Cirque said the Beatles’ original producer, George Martin, and his son produced and mixed the 26-song soundscape, pulling from 130 songs from the Beatles’ powerhouse music catalog and archives.

The current cast includes 11 original members from the show's inception, according to Cirque. More than 11,000 costume pieces are worn on show night, including 250 pairs of shoes and 225 wigs. Audiences throughout the show’s run, Cirque said, have been showered with 13.5 tons of confetti during the final act, which closes with the Beatles' 1967 hit "All You Need is Love."

"Beatles Love" is one of six Cirque productions on the Las Vegas Strip. Tickets for the final shows in July will go on sale in the coming weeks.

Most Viewed

 
 
Entertainment

Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
TT
TT

Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.