Good morrow, cousin. Welcome to this Monday’s edition of The Monitor, WIRED’s pop culture news roundup. What’s happening in the news today? For starters, Disney might have finally learned how to mint money. Also, Fortnite debuted some exclusive Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker footage this weekend. Here we go.
If you weren’t logged into Fornite this past weekend, you might’ve missed something truly sensational: a brand-new scene from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The scene, which you can watch below, played in-game in the Risky Reels section of Fortnite at around 2:10 pm Eastern on Saturday after a short delay to allow more players into the game. The in-game promotion was, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the first of its kind for both Fortnite and Disney.
Over the weekend, Frozen 2 hit $1 billion in global ticket sales. That officially makes it Disney’s sixth movie to surpass the billion-dollar mark in 2019. The others? Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, The Lion King, Captain Marvel, and Toy Story 4. Overall, the studio has made $10 billion this year—and it hasn’t even released Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker yet.
Did you think you’d lost that loving feeling (for high-flying fighter jet action) forever? Guess what? That feeling is back! The latest trailer for the Top Gun sequel Maverick is here and it has everything: dog-fighting planes, shirtless dudes, volleyball, bros fighting bros, motorcycles, and that dude who played John Glenn in Hidden Figures. Watch it in all its glory below.
- The strange life and mysterious death of a virtuoso coder
- A remote Tanzanian village logs onto the internet
- Teaching self-driving cars to watch for unpredictable humans
- A journey to Galaxy's Edge, the nerdiest place on earth
- Burglars really do use Bluetooth scanners to find laptops and phones
- 👁 Will AI as a field "hit the wall" soon? Plus, the latest news on artificial intelligence
- ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers.
