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Tom Cruise at the ”Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" Mexico Red Carpet and Premiere
(Toya Sarno Jordan/Getty Images)
still cruising

Tom Cruise, who turns 63 in July, remains one of Hollywood’s biggest draws

The star’s latest “Mission: Impossible” installment helped boost a record weekend at the Memorial Day box office.

Tom Jones, David Crowther

Last weekend, the US box office had its best Memorial Day on record, helping theater stocks like AMC to soar and Regal Cinemas to shift over 6 million pounds of popcorn

The man at the center of the blockbuster weekend? OK, the man stood next to the blue alien and young Hawaiian girl who were also at the center of the blockbuster weekend? Box office mainstay Tom Cruise

All his own stunts

Not quite as pleasing as “Barbenheimer” but not half as jarring as “Glicked,” “Stitchpossible” — the combination of Disney’s “Lilo and Stitch” live-action remake and Paramount’s eighth installment in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise — looks like it’ll be the next portmanteau gripping global moviegoers, with the films bringing in a whopping $260 million between them at the domestic box office over the long Memorial Day weekend. 

As well as a bumper start and broadly positive reviews behind both films, “Stitchpossible” has another ace up its sleeve in bona fide box office royalty Tom Cruise, who is still, even as he approaches his 63rd birthday, one of the biggest draws in Hollywood.

There’s been much talk about the era of the movie megastar being over; looking at his recent box office hauls, Tom Cruise seems to be an exception that proves the rule. From his earliest features, through to his late 1980s and 90s dominance, and into the franchise-leading, cinema-saving iteration we see before us today, Cruise’s films have grossed a staggering $12 billion at the global box office, per figures from The Numbers.

Still, with the “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun” star reportedly looking towards artier, auteur-driven efforts for his next projects — harking back to the days when he fronted films from Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson — maybe even Tom Cruise is done with the idea of the blockbuster movie star.

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Xbox cuts price of its Game Pass subscription by 23%, removes new “Call of Duty” games

A Halley’s Comet-level event in the world of subscriptions is occurring at Microsoft: the company announced it will lower the price of its Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99.

The move comes a little over a week after reports revealed an internal memo from new Xbox head Asha Sharma in which the exec told employees that Game Pass has “become too expensive.” Back in October, before Sharma’s tenure began, Xbox hiked its Game Pass subscription by 50%.

With the price drop, Game Pass will also see a major shift: new “Call of Duty” titles will no longer be added to the service at launch, instead joining the library about a year later during the following holiday season. The subscription will still cost a bit more than it did before the popular titles were added in 2024.

According to estimates reported by Bloomberg, the decision to put “Call of Duty” on Game Pass cost Xbox more than $300 million.

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The most popular male and female names in the US, according to the latest Census

New data published Tuesday by the US Census Bureau has revealed the most common names provided in the 2020 Census, in the first release to include forename data since 1990.

As described in the brief, Michael was the most popular name for males in the US, with roughly 3.5 million American men reporting having this name or a close variant. This is up from fourth place in the 1990 Census, when the top US male name was James — though there were still 3 million Jameses in 2020’s tally.

Despite a three-decade gap, Mary remained the top name for American females in both censuses, with the 2020 survey counting almost 1.8 million females with this given name. Interestingly, Mary was one of just two predominantly female names that broke the top 10 given names in the US, with the overall list dominated mostly by male monikers.

Most popular names US census 2020 chart
Sherwood News

In all, American females had far more first-name diversity than male counterparts: 16% of US males had one of the top 10 most frequent names among men, compared with 7.8% of women. Zooming out, almost 3x as many given names were needed to cover a quarter of the US female population than that of males.

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6 months after hiking Game Pass prices by 50%, Xbox determines it may be too expensive

Microsoft’s new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, thinks the division’s recent price hikes have been a mistake, per an internal memo to employees seen by The Verge.

“Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation,” Sharma’s memo reportedly read.

It’s an interesting take, given that Xbox hiked the price of its Game Pass subscription by 50% in October, before Sharma took over. The memo is a signal that Sharma’s tenure — which began in February, taking the industry by surprise — will include some big changes for Microsoft’s gaming strategy.

Whether Game Pass prices will drop is not yet clear. Last month, The Information reported that Sharma and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters have “kicked around ideas” about potential bundles. That would fit with Netflix’s renewed gaming ambitions.

Xbox Game Pass Chartr
(Sherwood News)

It’s an interesting take, given that Xbox hiked the price of its Game Pass subscription by 50% in October, before Sharma took over. The memo is a signal that Sharma’s tenure — which began in February, taking the industry by surprise — will include some big changes for Microsoft’s gaming strategy.

Whether Game Pass prices will drop is not yet clear. Last month, The Information reported that Sharma and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters have “kicked around ideas” about potential bundles. That would fit with Netflix’s renewed gaming ambitions.

Xbox Game Pass Chartr
(Sherwood News)

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