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Pharrell Williams to Bring Star Power to Web Summit Tech Event

File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)
File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)
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Pharrell Williams to Bring Star Power to Web Summit Tech Event

File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)
File photo: Pharrell Williams upon arrival at the Louis Vuitton Foundation on the eve of Paris Olympics opening ceremony, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP)

Singer Pharrell Williams is due to kick off one of Europe's biggest tech events on Monday, the Web Summit in Lisbon, with organizers keen to move on from last year's edition when several big firms pulled out.
The event will bring together some 70,000 attendees with more than 3,000 startups and 1,000 investors, according to the organizers.
Google, Meta and a string of other firms pulled out of last year's event after Web Summit chief executive Paddy Cosgrave wrote social media posts accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, AFP said.
He was forced to apologize and step down from his role, though he is now back in charge of the organization, which also holds events in other parts of the world.
"Those cancellations revolved more around big tech," Web Summit's head of startups Ricardo Lima told AFP in an interview on Wednesday, stressing the focus on smaller firms and innovation.
"It's safe to say the impacts were felt in 2023 but in 2024 (big tech firms) were all part of the events and part of the discussion."
Trump effect
Google and Meta have a low-key presence this year in Lisbon.
Microsoft President Brad Smith is the highest-profile big tech executive at the event.
He is due to lay out how the software juggernaut envisages the next phase of its artificial intelligence strategy, after spending billions to infuse the technology into most of its products.
AI is expected to be the central theme of the get together.
The conference said in a statement there would be discussions on "the impact of AI on the planet, art, and social interactions, as well as the government's role in regulating technology and the responsibilities of tech giants".
The re-election of Donald Trump as US president, with tech mogul Elon Musk expected to be given a key role in his administration, is also expected to be top-of-mind.
Some of the sessions will deal directly with the election's impact on the tech industry but Lima said it was still too early to judge the reaction.
"I think everyone is still digesting the news, I am also very curious to understand the impact," he said.
The opening night on Monday broadens the agenda with a speaker list that this year includes Pharrell Williams, who is about to star in the latest Lego movie "Piece by Piece".
The summit wrote on its X account that Williams would be talking about "the intersection of culture and commerce".
"Discover how Pharrell's visionary approach has led to extraordinary success across multiple industries," the post said.

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‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles
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‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

“Venom: The Last Dance” enjoyed another weekend at the top of the box office. The Sony release starring Tom Hardy added $26.1 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
It was a relatively quiet weekend for North American movie theaters leading up to the presidential election. Charts were dominated by big studio holdovers, like “Venom 3,” “The Wild Robot” and “Smile 2,” while audiences roundly rejected the Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Robert Zemeckis reunion “Here.” Thirty years after “Forrest Gump,” “Here” opened to only $5 million from 2,647 locations.
“Venom 3” only fell 49% in its second weekend, which is a notably small drop for a superhero film, though it didn’t exactly open like one either. In two weeks, the movie has made over $90 million domestically; The first two opened to over $80 million. Globally, the picture is brighter given that it has already crossed the $300 million threshold.
Meanwhile, Universal and Illumination’s “The Wild Robot” continues to attract moviegoers even six weeks in (and when it’s available by video on demand), placing second with $7.6 million. That's up 11% from last weekend. The animated charmer has made over $121 million in North America and $269 million worldwide, The Associated Press reported.
"'The Wild Robot' has quietly been this absolute juggernaut for the fall season," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “For that film to see an increase after six weeks is astounding.”
“Smile 2” landed in third place with $6.8 million, helping to push its worldwide total to $109.7 million.
The time-hopping “Here,” a graphic novel that was adapted by “Forrest Gump” screenwriter Eric Roth, was financed by Miramax and distributed by Sony’s TriStar. With a fixed position camera, it takes audiences through the years in one living room. Critics were not on board: In aggregate it has a lousy 36% on Rotten Tomatoes.
“It was a slow weekend anyway, but it didn’t resonate in a way that many thought it might," Dergarabedian said. "There are a lot of films out there for the audience that ‘Here’ was chasing."
Despite playing in almost 1,000 more locations, “Here” came in behind Focus Features' papal thriller “Conclave,” which earned $5.3 million. Playing in 1,796 theaters, “Conclave” dropped only 20% from its debut last weekend and has made $15.2 million so far. Two Indian films also cracked the top 10 in their debuts, “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3” and “Singham Again.”
Overall box office continues to lag behind 2023 by almost 12%. But holiday moviegoing will likely give the industry an end-of-year boost with titles like “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” on the way.
“In a couple of weeks, it’ll get a lot more competitive,” Dergarabedian said.
Jesse Eisenberg’s film “A Real Pain,” a comedic drama about cousins on a Holocaust tour in Poland, launched in four theaters this weekend in New York and Los Angeles. It made an estimated $240,000, or $60,000 per screen, which is among the top three highest per theater averages of the year. Searchlight Pictures will be expanding the well-reviewed film nationwide in the coming weeks, going wide on Nov. 15 to over 800 theaters.
Box office charts don’t always paint a full picture of the moviegoing landscape, however. This weekend several relatively high-profile films playing in theaters did not report full grosses for various reasons, including the Clint Eastwood film “Juror #2,” Steve McQueen’s WWII film “Blitz” and the Cannes darling “Emilia Pérez.” Netflix, which is handling “Emilia Pérez,” never reports box office. Apple Original Films is following suit with “Blitz,” a likely awards contender, which is in theaters before hitting Apple TV+ on Nov. 22.
“Juror No. 2” is a Warner Bros. release, and a well-reviewed one at that. The film directed by Eastwood stars Nicholas Hoult as a juror on a murder case who faces a big moral dilemma. Domestic ticket sales were withheld. The studio did say that it earned $5 million from international showings, where it played on 1,348 screens.
Even major studios withhold box office numbers occasionally. Earlier this year, Disney did not report on the Daisy Ridley movie “Young Woman and the Sea.” Results were most notably withheld during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It’s really up to the distributors," Dergarabedian said. “Often times the reason that certain movies may not be reported is that there’s a chance that the quality of the movie will be conflated with the box office number.”