'I have been working in the entertainment/film industry for around a decade and a half, and this has NEVER happened to me'

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Officials inside the Secret Service clashed over whether they needed a warrant to use location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on smartphones, with some arguing that citizens have agreed to be tracked with such data by accepting app terms of service, despite those apps often not saying their data may end up with the authorities, according to hundreds of pages of internal Secret Service emails obtained by 404 Media.

The emails provide deeper insight into the agency’s use of Locate X, a powerful surveillance capability that allows law enforcement officials to follow a phone, and person’s, precise movements over time at the click of a mouse. In 2023, a government oversight body found that the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement all used their access to such location data illegally. The Secret Service told 404 Media in an email last week it is no longer using the tool. 

“If USSS [U.S. Secret Service] is using Locate X, that is most concerning to us,” one of the internal emails said. 404 Media obtained them and other documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Secret Service.

Among the most influential and imitated movies of the last 25 years, The Blair Witch Project has never looked right on home video or DVD. That's not us saying it. We love the grainy whip pans and gushes of snot that The Blair Witch uses to burrow into your terror centers. However, thanks to some clarification by co-producer Mike Monello and a re-release from Second Sight, we can finally face the Witch in all her horrible, stand-in-a-corner glory.

Posting on his various social media channels today, Monello explained that the film was never transferred to DVD correctly. Shot on Hi8 video and 16mm black and white film and edited on a Media 100XR, the film wasn't fit for theaters. In the Stone Age of 1999, movie theaters did not have video projectors, so Blair Witch was transferred to 35mm film through a process called "telecine," in which a 35mm camera records the video on a special screen in a controlled environment. When the film's distributor, Artisan, transferred the movie for DVD and video for home release, they "made a huge mistake" and performed the telecine process again, recording the 35mm film back on video.

"This introduced serious motion errors; it gave the Hi8 footage film grain and muddied all the colors with a brown overcast, killing detail," Monello wrote. "The edits of that transfer became 3-frame dissolves rather than hard cuts. Everything about it is wrong, but at the time we were not in a position to demand it be redone."

Thankfully, for those living outside the U.S. or the proud owners of a region-free DVD player, the film has been re-transferred from the original tapes and film. The Blu-ray comes courtesy of the UK's Second Sight imprint. It will only be available in Europe, though Monello suggests requesting an American release from Lionsgate on their social channels.

"We put in a lot of work to make this happen, but none of us earn any money from sales of Blair Witch anything," he writes. "That's just the reality for first-time filmmakers with no leverage cutting a deal with a studio, but that's another story for another time."

"Honestly, I'm just thrilled the proper version is now available, and people can see our original intent for home viewing."

As exciting as it is to finally see the true Blair Witch in all her rock-stacking and map-tossing glory, we'd also like the people who made the film to start getting paid. Conservative estimates put Blair Witch's budget under $500,000, including Artisan's botch job on the home video release. After Artisan bought the movie for $1 million, it grossed $249 million, not including sequels, merchandise, and home video sales. Surely, there's a slice of the pie for the people who made the damn thing.

The new transfer is out now on Second Sight's website. But, in an ironic twist befitting the Witch of Burkittsville, it's currently sold out. We'd like to apologize to Mike's mom, Josh's mom, and our moms for that one.

Employees at Hachette Book Group are protesting after the company announced the launch of a new conservative imprint called "Basic Liberty." Hachette revealed this plan days after the 2024 presidential election, describing the endeavor as "a new conservative imprint that will publish serious works of cultural, social, and political analysis by conservative writers of original thought," according to Publishers Weekly. Thomas Spence, former president of conservative publisher Regnery, has been tapped to lead the new imprint; he's currently a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and published books by Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, among others.

A group of Hachette employees shared the following letter of protest with the Instagram account xoxopublishingg (presented via Publishers Weekly):

"As employees of HBG, we stand together in firm disapprobation of the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, and any conservative movement or thought that strips away sacred rights and the humanity of people. We disavow [HBG and Hachette UK CEO] David Shelley's unsympathetic and insensitive remarks,"—delivered, the letter notes, "shortly after many friends, colleagues, and loved ones were left reeling from election results"—"and maintain that the dignity, rights, and freedoms of all people should be upheld by everyone, especially those in positions of power."

"We condemn HBG's decision to put profit before its own people, to let the promise of financial gain overtake morality and conscience, and to platform a person who contributes to the advancement of the Heritage Foundation's vision for America. We are calling on HBG to recognize the responsibility it has as one of the world's leading publishers, to act with empathy and compassion for all people, and to reevaluate its decision to move forward with the creation of Basic Liberty and the hiring of Thomas Spence."

According to PW, at least one Hachette employee has resigned over Basic Liberty and the hiring of Spence. Workers at Hachette have seen success from collective action in the past; Woody Allen's memoir was dropped from the publisher's roster after a staff walkout. However, HBG has long published conservative writers and politicians. The company's Center Street imprint has published titles by Donald Trump Jr., Newt Gingrich, Vivek Ramaswamy, and, recently, Rob Schneider. 

"Hachette Book Group's mission is to reach a broad spectrum of readers by making it easier for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment, and opportunity. We publish books from all sides of the political debate," a spokesperson for HBG said in a statement to Publishers Weekly. "Since 1950, Basic Books' award-winning titles have helped shape public debate through the academic expertise of their authors, the serious approach to how subject matter is treated, and the rigor of its editorial process. Basic Books continues to build on HBG’s legacy of reaching readers of all backgrounds and beliefs."

Tony Todd has died. A veteran actor with a deep, resonant voice that matched his towering frame, Todd racked up nearly 250 credits across a 40-year film and television career. But while he played superheroes, supervillains, Klingons, soldiers, jazz men, preachers, cops, killers, doctors, monsters, mobsters, generals, aliens, Transformers, and more, Todd will inevitably be remembered best for one role: His title turn in 1992 horror hit Candyman. (Referred to, in mock-hush tones, as "the motion picture" when Todd discussed his legendary career in interviews.) It was the film that catapulted Todd into the blood-streaked limelight, putting him on first-name basis with fellow horror icons like Kane Hodder and Robert Englund; it's the film that most widely showcased his twin gifts for charisma and menace. It was also just a portion of a career that stretched from the jungles of the Philippines for Oliver Stone, to the far reaches of space for his many turns in the Star Trek franchise, and to a hundred other points in between. Per Deadline, Todd's death on Wednesday was confirmed by his representatives this evening. He was 69.

Born in Washington D.C., Todd pursued acting from an early age, achieving a Masters degree in his craft and working as an acting teacher in the early days of his career. A stint in New York theater caught the eye of casting directors working for Oliver Stone, and Todd was offered his first film role in the mid-'80s: A small part in Platoon, which saw Todd travel across the planet to film in the Philippines with a cast of soon-to-be-massive stars. A starring role in Tom Savini's Night Of The Living Dead remake a few years later elevated his profile further, and he became a mainstay doing single-episode stints on TV—including the rare distinction of a guest star turn on Stephen Bochco's deeply bizarre Cop Rock. ("Failed to get the numbers," Todd reminisced with us in a 2010 interview about his career. "Failed to get the ratings. But boy, was it fun!") Notably, this period saw Todd pick up the first of what would eventually be several appearances in Star Trek; after auditioning again, and again for the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation, he eventually landed the role of Kurn, the Klingon brother of Michael Dorn's Worf. Down the line, Todd would go on to appear in different roles in three of the Trek series, including in Deep Space Nine's "The Visitor," generally held up as one of the franchise's finest hours—not least of which because of Todd's performance as an aging, grief-afflicted Jake Sisko.

Back in 1992, though, we come to the dividing line of Todd's career; it's all pre-Candyman, or post-Candyman. Todd had to fight like hell to get the part, despite initially being unsure about what the film even was. ("I get a call from my agent saying 'This director wants to see you, wants to just meet you about this movie called Candyman.' I thought he was fucking joking. I mean, what is that? A Sammy Davis thing? What is that?") But director Bernard Rose was convinced that Todd was the man to play murdered vengeance-seeker Daniel Robitaille, a role that required an actor as seductive as he was terrifying, a figure of sympathy as much as outright horror. (Todd, acknowledging the influences: "I was heavy into the whole Dracula, Phantom Of The Opera thing.") The resulting film was only a modest hit at the box office, but it penetrated deep into the American psyche, driven on by its unique take on urban legends, the rarity of a Black icon in the horror field, and Todd's own on-screen power. (Also, the bees.)

From then on, Todd was "Candyman's Tony Todd," making the rounds of the horror convention circuit, appearing in dozens of small-budget horror films, and returning to the franchise three more times. (Most recently with Nia DaCosta's update of the franchise in 2021.) But he also refused to allow himself to be reduced to a caricature, continuing to offer up performances in need of his gravitas, warmth, and professionalism in everything from micro-budgeted horror movies to giant Michael Bay blockbusters. (It's not surprising Todd became a prolific voice actor in his later years; only that a man with a voice like that took so long to get into the field.) He picked up memorable parts on shows like The X-Files, had a regular stint on 24, and, in what was probably his most famous recurring role outside Candyman, appeared in most of the Final Destination movies as the only guy who usually didn't get knocked off by Death's various Rube Goldberg methods of murder.

As an actor with his stake planted firmly in the world of horror, we'd never argue that Tony Todd wasn't in a lot of movies of the B-grade or lower, low-budget offerings that probably spent more on, well, casting Tony Todd than they did on visuals or scripts. But we would argue that he rarely, if ever, gave a B-movie performance. Even in something like Tubi Original Hellblazers—one of his final screen credits—you can see a man taking his craft seriously, creating characters and imbuing them with dignity and power. You never got anything less, when you brought in Tony Todd.