title: Adult Swim

text: On March 4, 2019, Teletoon and YTV's current parent company, Corus Entertainment, announced the launch of a full-time 24/7 Adult Swim network on April 1, 2019, as a rebrand of Action. This marks the first time an international version of Adult Swim was launched as its own television channel. With the channel's launch, the Canadian block, as well as Teletoon at Night, were both discontinued as both channels would now focus exclusively on age-appropriate programming. The Canadian Adult Swim block was dropped on March 3, 2019, and Teletoon at Night closed on March 31, 2019.


title: Adult Swim

text: The block was launched on March 4, 2011, and airs nightly from 11p.m. to 6a.m. on Cartoon Network France. It has aired "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law", "Metalocalypse", "Moral Orel", "Robot Chicken" and "Squidbillies". Like most international Adult Swim blocks, it does not air Fox and action shows. Most of the block's programming is not dubbed and airs with English audio and French subtitles.


title: Adult Swim

text: In the early 2000s, there was a late-night block called "DZAQC" (pronounced "Désaxé"), which carried the 2001 Adult Swim look, but did not have any adult shows, except for "Home Movies" and "Captain Linger". "Case Closed" was aired on Cartoon Network and Toonami. DZAQC aired random Cartoon Network shows and old promos in English with French subtitles.


title: Adult Swim

text: On May 15, 2019, Warner Media France announced through a Twitter post that Season 4 of "Rick and Morty" would air exclusively on Adult Swim in November. In the same post, they announced that a new Adult Swim block would launch in France in July 2019.


title: Adult Swim

text: On July 24, 2019, Adult Swim France announced on Twitter that the block would return at 11p.m. CET on Toonami. From this day on, Adult Swim's French counterpart airs each night on Toonami between 11p.m. and 2a.m. with on-demand services available on French online TV and on-demand provider .


title: Adult Swim

text: The Adult Swim block was launched on January 28, 2009, on TNT Serie (now known as WarnerTV Serie). In 2016, TNT Glitz became TNT Comedy (now known as WarnerTV Comedy) and took over Adult Swim. Programs on the block include "American Dad", "Assy McGee", "Lucy, The Daughter of the Devil", "Metalocalypse", "Moral Orel", "Robot Chicken", "Rick and Morty", "Stroker and Hoop", "The Brak Show", "Venture Bros.", "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and "The Eric Andre Show".


title: Adult Swim

text: In Italy, several Adult Swim series such as "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Robot Chicken", "China, IL", "" and "Mr. Pickles" are available on-demand via TIMvision and, since 2021, on Amazon Prime Video. "Rick and Morty" and "Final Space" were also dubbed in Italian for release on Netflix, "The Boondocks" aired on Comedy Central and MTV, while "The Oblongs" aired on Italia Teen Television and All Music. On Facebook, Adult Swim Italy has confirmed the possibility of airing on Cartoon Network and Boing. In 2018, "Robot Chicken" and "Rick and Morty" were released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc from Eagle Pictures in that country.


title: Adult Swim

text: In Latin America, an Adult Swim block aired during the overnight hours on Cartoon Network beginning on October 7, 2005. It was originally carried on the regional version of the channel, when it was pulled off and picked up by I.Sat on November 19, 2007, another Turner Broadcasting System Latin America-owned-and-operated network, due to the fact that it was received with negative reviews from parents.


title: Adult Swim

text: On December 1, 2010, I.Sat revealed that it was cutting Adult Swim programming due to low ratings, adding: "No matter if we add new shows, it would not work". Adult Swim once had a SAP audio in early 2007.


title: Adult Swim

text: In 2014, it was announced that Adult Swim would return to Latin America that same year. Adult Swim premiered on the Brazilian feed of TBS on November 3, 2014. Adult Swim relaunched in Latin America on April 3, 2015, on I.Sat, in English with Spanish subtitles, premiering "Rick and Morty" and many other shows for the first time on the region.


title: Adult Swim

text: On January 6, 2018, the block began broadcasting throughout Latin America on TBS. Unlike I.Sat, this block was being broadcast in Spanish.


title: Adult Swim

text: After ceasing broadcasts on I.Sat and TBS, Warner Channel began airing the block on May 2, 2020, for Latin America and Brazil, now showing the [as] logo and new content, such as "Final Space" and the rest of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and "Robot Chicken" series.


title: Adult Swim

text: The block lost the schedule from Monday to Thursday and Saturdays on September 14, airing only on Mondays at midnight, and the following month, it stopped releasing new bumpers. On November 15, Adult Swim dropped out of Warner Channel's programming, being its last broadcast on November 8, 2021.


title: Adult Swim

text: On June 24, 2021, HBO Max announced a list of some original Adult Swim content that will be available since the platform's launch, including: "Rick and Morty", "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Robot Chicken", "Primal", "Squidbillies", "The Shivering Truth" and "Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell". Its launch took place on June 29, 2021.


title: Adult Swim

text: From its relaunch in March 2007 to March 2021, 2X2, a Russian channel specializing in animation, aired Adult Swim's original series. There was a separate Adult Swim block, and also an English-language block, where shows were broadcast in English without dubbing, both now being defunct. Adult Swim–produced shows that have aired include "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Robot Chicken", "Moral Orel", "Sealab 2021", "12 oz. Mouse", "The Venture Bros.", "The Brak Show", "Stroker and Hoop", "Tom Goes to the Mayor", "Squidbillies", "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law", "Space Ghost Coast to Coast", "Frisky Dingo", "Perfect Hair Forever", "Metalocalypse", "Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil" and others. 2×2 also broadcast many of the anime that premiered in the U.S. on Adult Swim, although not on 2×2's Adult Swim's schedule. Some shows including "The Boondocks" and "Rick and Morty" also premiered outside Adult Swim's block.


title: Adult Swim

text: On November 1, 2019, 2x2 announced an addition of the Adult Swim section on its site with library containing selected Adult Swim series broadcast earlier on the channel and also new series, like "The Heart, She Holler", "Off the Air", "The Eric Andre Show", "Dream Corp LLC" and "Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter", premiering directly on the site uncut. After the discontinuation of Adult Swim shows on 2x2 in March 2021, the shows were removed from the site. "Rick and Morty" is available on another streaming service, "KinoPoisk", although 2x2 still maintains TV broadcast rights and has the last premiered episode available for a small amount of time after the premiere.


title: Adult Swim

text: In Spain, Adult Swim was a programming block that aired on Fridays from midnight on the TNT channel, between 2007 and 2012. Despite the fact that the block no longer exists in Spain, several of its original series have their own section on the HBO streaming platform.


title: Adult Swim

text: In December 2020, Adult Swim returned alongside Toonami as a premium pack of the Orange TV service. In it, there are more than 600 episodes of 19 different series such as "Rick and Morty", "Metalocalypse", "Robot Chicken", among others.


title: Adult Swim

text: In 2002, CNX was launched in the United Kingdom as a spin-off of Cartoon Network. It featured much of the content found on Adult Swim and Toonami, anime shows and adult action films, but closed operations after a year in 2003.


title: Adult Swim

text: A nightly Adult Swim channel was launched on July 8, 2006, on the now defunct Bravo owned by Virgin Media Television, generally starting at midnight. Shows that were previously a part of the UK's Adult Swim block are "Robot Chicken", "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", "Sealab 2021", "The Brak Show", "Tom Goes to the Mayor", "Space Ghost Coast to Coast", "The Venture Bros.", "Moral Orel", and "Metalocalypse", Non-Williams Street shows on the block include "Stripperella" and "Kid Notorious". The first "action" series was the anime "Afro Samurai", which aired on May 4, 2007, alongside a new UK animated show "Modern Toss". On July 7, 2008, Adult Swim ceased to broadcast on Bravo.


title: Adult Swim

text: Former Sony Pictures Television channel TruTV started airing Adult Swim shows every night from 11 pm to around 3 am in November and December 2016. It broadcast episodes of "Rick and Morty", "Robot Chicken", "Mr. Pickles" and "Squidbillies".


title: Adult Swim

text: The UK Adult Swim website offers free access to full episodes of shows including "Squidbillies", "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law", "Tom Goes to the Mayor", "Minoriteam", "Stroker and Hoop", "Moral Orel", "12 oz. Mouse", "Perfect Hair Forever", "Metalocalypse", and "Frisky Dingo". Revolver Entertainment began distributing original Adult Swim series on DVD in the UK and Ireland.


title: Adult Swim

text: FX aired "Robot Chicken", "Titan Maximum", "Venture Brothers" and "Metalocalypse". These shows were advertised with [adult swim] branding. They began airing on June 5, 2010, in conjunction with the channel's regular schedule and ended on November 27, 2010. On December 14, 2011, the "" trilogy appeared on Syfy at 10 pm. The block began airing on TCM 2 starting on January 4, 2012.


title: Adult Swim

text: Adult Swim returned to UK and Irish television starting with a new block on the FOX channel on September 4, 2015. This was discontinued in September 2017, and Adult Swim was then not broadcast on television, although "Rick and Morty" has since moved to Comedy Central and is available to stream on Netflix in the UK and Ireland.


title: Adult Swim

text: Adult Swim once again returned to the UK with a new block on E4 in February 2019. This block shows Adult Swim shows as well as some other shows being able to stream on All 4 such as "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!", "Rick and Morty" and much more.


title: Adult Swim

text: A high-definition feed of Adult Swim is available on many subscription-television providers, and is shared with its daytime counterpart Cartoon Network. The high definition feed broadcasts in 1080i high-definition on nearly all providers, and was launched on October 15, 2007 along with Cartoon Network HD. Like all WarnerMedia networks, -sourced content is stretched on the high definition feed to fill the aspect ratio. Exceptions include 4:3-sourced content that has been remastered to high definition, such as "Dragon Ball Z Kai", "Cowboy Bebop" (since 2015), "Samurai Jack" (since 2018), "Home Movies", "King of the Hill", and "Futurama" (all three since 2021), and any recent programming that intentionally uses the 4:3 aspect ratio for its visual style, such as season 1 of "The Eric Andre Show" and "Jack Stauber's OPAL". Network bumpers and promos were still made in the 4:3 aspect ratio until 2010, and therefore also appeared stretched on the high definition feed. The network's HD content airs with letterboxing on the standard definition channel. As of 2013, many subscription providers carry the high definition feed (along with Cartoon Network HD) and downscale it for the standard definition feed.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Growing up in Kobe before moving to Tokyo to attend Waseda University, he published his first novel "Hear the Wind Sing" (1979) after working as the owner of a small jazz bar for seven years. His notable works include the novels "Norwegian Wood" (1987), "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" (1994–95), "Kafka on the Shore" (2002), and "1Q84" (2009–10), with "1Q84" ranked as the best work of Japan's Heisei era (1989–2019) by the national newspaper "Asahi Shimbun" survey of literary experts. His work spans genres including science fiction, fantasy, and crime fiction, and has become known for its use of magical realist elements. His official website lists Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut, and Richard Brautigan as key inspirations to his work, while Murakami himself has cited Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy, and Dag Solstad as his favourite currently active writers. Murakami has also published five short story collections, including his most recently published work, "First Person Singular" (2020), and non-fiction works including "Underground" (1997), inspired by personal interviews Murakami conducted with victims of the Tokyo subway sarin attack, and "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" (2007), a series of personal essays about his experience as a marathon runner.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: His fiction has polarized literary critics and the reading public. He has sometimes been criticised by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, leading to Murakami's recalling that he was a "black sheep in the Japanese literary world". Meanwhile, Murakami has been described by Gary Fisketjon, the editor of Murakami's collection "The Elephant Vanishes" (1993), as a "truly extraordinary writer", while Steven Poole of "The Guardian" praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his oeuvre.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami was born in Kyoto, Japan, during the post-World War II baby boom and raised in Nishinomiya, Ashiya and Kobe. He is an only child. His father was the son of a Buddhist priest, and his mother is the daughter of an Osaka merchant. Both taught Japanese literature. His father was involved in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and was deeply traumatized by it, which would, in turn, affect Murakami.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Since childhood, Murakami, like Kōbō Abe, has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western as well as Russian music and literature. He grew up reading a wide range of works by European and American writers, such as Franz Kafka, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, Kurt Vonnegut, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Richard Brautigan and Jack Kerouac. These Western influences distinguish Murakami from the majority of other Japanese writers.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met Yoko, now his wife. His first job was at a record store. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened a coffee house and jazz bar, Peter Cat, in Kokubunji, Tokyo, which he ran with his wife, from 1974 to 1981. The couple decided not to have children.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami is an experienced marathon runner and triathlon enthusiast, though he did not start running until he was 33 years old, after he began as a way to stay healthy despite the hours spent at his desk writing. On June 23, 1996, he completed his first ultramarathon, a 100 km race around Lake Saroma in Hokkaido, Japan. He discusses his relationship with running in his 2007 memoir "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami began to write fiction when he was 29. "Before that," he said, "I didn't write anything. I was just one of those ordinary people. I was running a jazz club, and I didn't create anything at all." He was inspired to write his first novel, "Hear the Wind Sing" (1979), while watching a baseball game. He described the moment he realized he could write as a "warm sensation" he could still feel in his heart. He went home and began writing that night. Murakami worked on "Hear the Wind Sing" for ten months in very brief stretches, during nights, after working days at the bar. He completed the novel and sent it to the only literary contest that would accept a work of that length, winning first prize.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami's initial success with "Hear the Wind Sing" encouraged him to continue writing. A year later, he published a sequel, "Pinball, 1973". In 1981, he co-wrote a short story collection called "" with author and future Earthbound/Mother creator Shigesato Itoi. In 1982, he published "A Wild Sheep Chase", a critical success. "Hear the Wind Sing", "Pinball, 1973", and "A Wild Sheep Chase" form the "Trilogy of the Rat" (a sequel, "Dance, Dance, Dance", was written later but is not considered part of the series), centered on the same unnamed narrator and his friend, "the Rat". The first two novels were not widely available in English translation outside Japan until 2015, although an English edition, translated by Alfred Birnbaum with extensive notes, had been published by Kodansha as part of a series intended for Japanese students of English. Murakami considers his first two novels to be "immature" and "flimsy", and has not been eager to have them translated into English. "A Wild Sheep Chase", he says, was "the first book where I could feel a kind of sensation, the joy of telling a story. When you read a good story, you just keep reading. When I write a good story, I just keep writing."


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 1985, Murakami wrote "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", a dream-like fantasy that took the magical elements of his work to a new extreme. Murakami achieved a major breakthrough and national recognition in 1987 with the publication of "Norwegian Wood", a nostalgic story of loss and sexuality. It sold millions of copies among young Japanese.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: "Norwegian Wood" propelled the barely known Murakami into the spotlight. He was mobbed at airports and other public places, leading to his departure from Japan in 1986. Murakami traveled through Europe, lived in the United States and currently resides in Oiso, Kanagawa, with an office in Tokyo.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami was a writing fellow at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During this time he wrote "South of the Border, West of the Sun" and "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" (1995) fuses the realistic and fantastic and contains elements of physical violence. It is also more socially conscious than his previous work, dealing in part with the difficult topic of war crimes in Manchukuo (Northeast China). The novel won the Yomiuri Prize, awarded by one of Murakami's harshest former critics, Kenzaburō Ōe, who himself won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: The processing of collective trauma soon became an important theme in Murakami's writing, which had previously been more personal in nature. Murakami returned to Japan in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake and the Aum Shinrikyo gas attack. He came to terms with these events with his first work of non-fiction, "Underground", and the short story collection "After the Quake". "Underground" consists largely of interviews of victims of the gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami himself mentions that he changed his position from one of "detachment" to one of "commitment" after staying in the United States in 1991. "His early books, he said, originated in an individual darkness, while his later works tap into the darkness found in society and history," wrote Wendy Edelstein in an article for UC Berkeley News.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: English translations of many of his short stories written between 1983 and 1990 have been collected in "The Elephant Vanishes". Murakami has also translated many works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, Truman Capote, John Irving, and Paul Theroux, among others, into Japanese.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami took an active role in translation of his work into English, encouraging "adaptations" of his texts to American reality rather than direct translation. Some of his works that appeared in German turned out to be translations from English rather than Japanese ("South of the Border, West of the Sun", 2000; "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle", 2000s), encouraged by Murakami himself. Both were later re-translated from Japanese.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: "Sputnik Sweetheart" was first published in 1999, followed by "Kafka on the Shore" in 2002, with the English translation following in 2005. "Kafka on the Shore" won the World Fantasy Award for Novels in 2006. The English version of his novel "After Dark" was released in May 2007. It was chosen by "The New York Times" as a "notable book of the year". In late 2005, Murakami published a collection of short stories titled "Tōkyō Kitanshū", or 東京奇譚集, which translates loosely as "Mysteries of Tokyo". A collection of the English versions of twenty-four short stories, titled "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman", was published in August 2006. This collection includes both older works from the 1980s as well as some of Murakami's more recent short stories, including all five that appear in "Tōkyō Kitanshū".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2002, Murakami published the anthology "Birthday Stories", which collects short stories on the theme of birthdays. The collection includes work by Russell Banks, Ethan Canin, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Claire Keegan, Andrea Lee, Daniel Lyons, Lynda Sexson, Paul Theroux, and William Trevor, as well as a story by Murakami himself. "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running", containing tales about his experience as a marathon runner and a triathlete, was published in Japan in 2007, with English translations released in the U.K. and the U.S. in 2008. The title is a play on that of Raymond Carver's short story collection, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Shinchosha Publishing published Murakami's novel "1Q84" in Japan on May 29, 2009. "1Q84" is pronounced "ichi kyū hachi yon", the same as "1984", as "9" is also pronounced "kyū" in Japanese. The book was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011. However, after the 2012 anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, Murakami's books were removed from sale there, along with those of other Japanese authors. Murakami criticized the China–Japan political territorial dispute, characterizing the overwrought nationalistic response as "cheap liquor" which politicians were giving to the public. In April 2013, he published his novel "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage". It became an international bestseller but received mixed reviews.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: "Killing Commendatore" ("Kishidancho Goroshi") is Murakami's most recent work as of 2018. Published in Japan on February 24, 2017 and in the US in October 2018, the novel is a historical fiction that has caused controversy in Hong Kong. The novel was labeled under "Class II – indecent" in Hong Kong. This classification led to mass amounts of censorship. The publisher must not distribute the book to people under the age of 18, and must have a warning label printed on the cover.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Most of Haruki Murakami's works use first-person narrative in the tradition of the Japanese I-novel. He states that because family plays a significant role in traditional Japanese literature, any main character who is independent becomes a man who values freedom and solitude over intimacy. Also notable is Murakami's unique humor, as seen in his 2000 short story collection, "After the Quake". In the story "Superfrog Saves Tokyo", the protagonist is confronted with a 6-foot tall frog that talks about the destruction of Tokyo over a cup of tea. In spite of the story's sober tone, Murakami feels the reader should be entertained once the seriousness of a subject has been broached. Another notable feature of Murakami's stories are the comments that come from the main characters as to how strange the story presents itself. Murakami explains that his characters experience what he experiences as he writes, which could be compared to a movie set where the walls and props are all fake. He has further compared the process of writing to movies: "That is one of the joys of writing fiction—I'm making my own film made just for myself."


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Many of his novels have themes and titles that evoke classical music, such as the three books making up "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle": "The Thieving Magpie" (after Rossini's opera), "Bird as Prophet" (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as "The Prophet Bird"), and "The Bird-Catcher" (a character in Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute"). Some of his novels take their titles from songs: "Dance, Dance, Dance" (after The Dells' 1957 B-side song, although it is often thought it was titled after the Beach Boys' 1964 tune), "Norwegian Wood" (after The Beatles' song) and "South of the Border, West of the Sun" (after the song "South of the Border").


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Some analyses see aspects of shamanism in his writing. In a 2000 article, Susan Fisher connected Shinto or Japanese shamanism with some elements of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle", such as a descent into a dry well. At an October 2013 symposium held at the University of Hawaii, associate professor of Japanese Nobuko Ochner opined "there were many descriptions of traveling in a parallel world as well as characters who have some connection to shamanism" in Murakami's works.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami was also awarded the 2007 Kiriyama Prize for Fiction for his collection of short stories "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman", but according to the prize's official website, Murakami "declined to accept the award for reasons of personal principle".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In September 2007, he received an honorary doctorate of Letters from the University of Liège, one from Princeton University in June 2008, and one from Tufts University in May 2014.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In January 2009, Murakami received the Jerusalem Prize, a biennial literary award given to writers whose work deals with themes of human freedom, society, politics, and government. There were protests in Japan and elsewhere against his attending the February award ceremony in Israel, including threats to boycott his work as a response against Israel's recent bombing of the Gaza. Murakami chose to attend the ceremony, but gave a speech to the gathered Israeli dignitaries harshly criticizing Israeli policies. Murakami said, "Each of us possesses a tangible living soul. The system has no such thing. We must not allow the system to exploit us."


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2011, Murakami donated his €80,000 winnings from the International Catalunya Prize (from the Generalitat de Catalunya) to the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and to those affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Accepting the award, he said in his speech that the situation at the Fukushima plant was "the second major nuclear disaster that the Japanese people have experienced ... however, this time it was not a bomb being dropped upon us, but a mistake committed by our very own hands". According to Murakami, the Japanese people should have rejected nuclear power after having "learned through the sacrifice of the hibakusha just how badly radiation leaves scars on the world and human wellbeing".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In recent years, Haruki Murakami has often been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nonetheless, since all nomination records are sealed for 50 years from the awarding of the prize, it is pure speculation. When asked about the possibility of being awarded the Nobel Prize, Murakami responded with a laugh saying "No, I don't want prizes. That means you're finished."


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In April 2015, Murakami was named one of the TIME 100's most influential people. In November 2016, he was awarded the Danish Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, an award previously won by British author JK Rowling.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2018 he was nominated for the New Academy Prize in Literature. He requested that his nomination be withdrawn, saying he wanted to "concentrate on writing, away from media attention."


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2018 Waseda University in Tokyo agreed to house the archives of Haruki Murakami, including his manuscripts, source documents, and music collection. The collection is intended to be open to scholars, and is set to open in October 2021.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In September 2021, architect Kengo Kuma announced the opening of a library dedicated entirely to Murakami's works at Waseda University. It will include more than 3,000 works by Murakami, including translations into more than 50 other languages.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami's first novel, "Hear the Wind Sing" ("Kaze no uta o kike"), was adapted by Japanese director Kazuki Ōmori. The film was released in 1981 and distributed by Art Theatre Guild. Naoto Yamakawa directed two short films, "Attack on the Bakery" (released in 1982) and "A Girl, She is 100 Percent" (released in 1983), based on Murakami's short stories "Bakery Attack" and "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning", respectively. Japanese director Jun Ichikawa adapted Murakami's short story "Tony Takitani" into a 75-minute feature. The film played at various film festivals and was released in New York and Los Angeles on July 29, 2005. The original short story, translated into English by Jay Rubin, is available in the April 15, 2002 issue of "The New Yorker", as a stand-alone book published by Cloverfield Press, and part of "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" by Knopf. In 1998, the German film "The Polar Bear" (), written and directed by Granz Henman, used elements of Murakami's short story "The Second Bakery Attack" in three intersecting story lines. "The Second Bakery Attack" was also adapted as a short film in 2010, directed by Carlos Cuarón, starring Kirsten Dunst.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami's work was also adapted for the stage in a 2003 play entitled "The Elephant Vanishes", co-produced by Britain's Complicite company and Japan's Setagaya Public Theatre. The production, directed by Simon McBurney, adapted three of Murakami's short stories and received acclaim for its unique blending of multimedia (video, music, and innovative sound design) with actor-driven physical theater (mime, dance, and even acrobatic wire work). On tour, the play was performed in Japanese, with supertitle translations for European and American audiences.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Two stories from Murakami's book "After The Quake""Honey Pie" and "Superfrog Saves Tokyo"have been adapted for the stage and directed by Frank Galati. Entitled "after the quake", the play was first performed at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in association with La Jolla Playhouse, and opened on October 12, 2007, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In 2008, Galati also adapted and directed a theatrical version of "Kafka on the Shore", which first ran at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company from September to November.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: On Max Richter's 2006 album "Songs from Before", Robert Wyatt reads passages from Murakami's novels. In 2007, Robert Logevall adapted "All God's Children Can Dance" into a film, with a soundtrack composed by American jam band Sound Tribe Sector 9. In 2008, Tom Flint adapted "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning" into a short film. The film was screened at the 2008 CON-CAN Movie Festival. The film was viewed, voted, and commented upon as part of the audience award for the movie festival.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: It was announced in July 2008 that French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung would direct an adaptation of Murakami's novel "Norwegian Wood". The film was released in Japan on December 11, 2010.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2010, Stephen Earnhart adapted "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" into a two-hour multimedia stage presentation. The show opened January 12, 2010, as part of the Public Theater's "Under the Radar" festival at the Ohio Theater in New York City, presented in association with The Asia Society and the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The show had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival on August 21, 2011. The presentation incorporates live actors, video projection, traditional Japanese puppetry, and immersive soundscapes to render the surreal landscape of the original work.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: "Memoranda", a 2017 video game had been inspired by several Murakami short stories, mainly from "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" and "The Elephant Vanishes", and features several Murakami characters, including Mizuki Ando.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2018, "Barn Burning""" from Murakami's short story collection "The Elephant Vanishes" was adapted into a film titled "Burning" by director Lee Chang-dong. The film was awarded the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Prize for best film, receiving the highest score to date. It was also South Korea’s submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in 2019.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: A film based on the short story "Drive My Car" premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where it won Best Screenplay, the FIPRESCI Prize, and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. The film went on to win the Academy Award for Best International Feature and received three other nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, it also takes inspiration from Chekhov's play "Uncle Vanya" as well as "Scheherazade" and "Kino," two other stories in the collection "Men Without Women".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2022, "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" was translated into Yorùbá by Nigerian linguist Kola Tubosun, making it the first time a Murakami story would be translated into an African language.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: After receiving the Gunzo Award for his 1979 literary work "Hear the Wind Sing", Murakami did not aspire to meet other writers. Aside from Sarah Lawrence's Mary Morris, whom he briefly mentions in his memoir "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" alongside Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison, Murakami was never a part of a community of writers, his reason being that he was a loner and was never fond of groups, schools, and literary circles. When working on a book, Murakami states that he relies on his wife, who is always his first reader. While he never acquainted himself with many writers, among the contemporary writers, he enjoys the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy, Lee Child and Dag Solstad. While he does not read much contemporary Japanese literature, Murakami enjoys the works of Ryū Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami enjoys baseball and describes himself as a fan of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. In his 2015 essay for Literary Hub 'The Moment I Became a Novelist', Murakami describes how attending a Swallow's game in Jingu Stadium in 1978 led to a personal epiphany in which he decided to write his first novel.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Haruki Murakami is a fan of crime novels. During his high school days while living in Kōbe, he would buy paperbacks from second hand book stores and learned to read English. The first book that he read in English was "The Name is Archer", written by Ross Macdonald in 1955. Other writers he was interested in included Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami also has a passion for listening to music, especially classical and jazz. When he was around 15, he began to develop an interest in jazz after attending an Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers concert in Kobe. He later opened the Peter Cat, a coffeehouse and jazz bar. Murakami has said that music, like writing, is a mental journey. At one time he aspired to be a musician, but because he could not play instruments well he decided to become a writer instead.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In an interview with "The Guardian", Murakami stated his belief that his surreal books appeal to people especially in times of turmoil and political chaos. He stated that "I was so popular in the 1990s in Russia, at the time they were changing from the Soviet Union – there was big confusion, and people in confusion like my books" and “In Germany, when the Berlin Wall fell down, there was confusion – and people liked my books.”


title: Haruki Murakami

text: Murakami told the "New York Times" in 2011, "I think of myself as a political person, but I don’t state my political messages to anybody." Comparing himself to George Orwell, he views himself as standing "against the system." In 2009, whilst accepting an award in Israel, he expressed his political views as:If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg. Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals.Murakami stated that it is natural for China and Koreas to continue to feel resentment towards Japan for its wartime aggressions. "Fundamentally, Japanese people tend not to have an idea that they were also assailants, and the tendency is getting clearer," he said. In another interview, Murakami stated: "The issue of historical understanding carries great significance, and I believe it is important that Japan makes straightforward apologies. I think that is all Japan can do – apologise until the countries say: 'We don't necessarily get over it completely, but you have apologised enough. Alright, let's leave it now.'"


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In January 2015, Murakami expressed support for same-sex marriage, which is not recognised in Japan, when responding to a reader's question about his stance on the issue.


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In August 2021, during one of his radio shows, Murakami criticized prime minister Yoshihide Suga over the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Murakami quoted Suga as saying "an exit is now in our sight after a long tunnel" and added, in criticism, that "If he really saw an exit, his eyes must be extremely good for his age. I’m of the same age as Mr. Suga, but I don’t see any exit at all."


title: Haruki Murakami

text: In 2022 during Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is part of Russian-Ukrainian war, Murakami supported Ukraine. He prepared a special radio program calling for peace. Murakami featured there around ten musical pieces that encourage to end the war and "focus on the preciousness of life".


title: Haruki Murakami

text: This is an incomplete bibliography as not all works published by Murakami in Japanese have been translated into English. Kanji titles are given with Hepburn romanization. (Original titles entirely in transcribed English are given as "katakana / romaji = English".)


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula—to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. It also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and is designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95. Being declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco and California. It was initially designed by engineer Joseph Strauss in 1917. The bridge was named for the Golden Gate strait, the channel that it spans.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Frommer's travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world." At the time of its opening in 1937, it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of and a total height of .


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. A ferry service began as early as 1820, with a regularly scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for the purpose of transporting water to San Francisco.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Sausalito Land and Ferry Company service, launched in 1867, eventually became the Golden Gate Ferry Company, a Southern Pacific Railroad subsidiary, the largest ferry operation in the world by the late 1920s. Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacific's automobile ferries became very profitable and important to the regional economy. The ferry crossing between the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco and Sausalito Ferry Terminal in Marin County took approximately 20 minutes and cost $1.00 per vehicle, a price later reduced to compete with the new bridge. The trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building took 27 minutes.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Many wanted to build a bridge to connect San Francisco to Marin County. San Francisco was the largest American city still served primarily by ferry boats. Because it did not have a permanent link with communities around the bay, the city's growth rate was below the national average. Many experts said that a bridge could not be built across the strait, which had strong, swirling tides and currents, with water deep at the center of the channel, and frequent strong winds. Experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and operation.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Although the idea of a bridge spanning the Golden Gate was not new, the proposal that eventually took hold was made in a 1916 "San Francisco Bulletin" article by former engineering student James Wilkins. San Francisco's City Engineer estimated the cost at $100 million (equivalent to $ billion today), and impractical for the time. He asked bridge engineers whether it could be built for less. One who responded, Joseph Strauss, was an ambitious engineer and poet who had, for his graduate thesis, designed a railroad bridge across the Bering Strait. At the time, Strauss had completed some 400 drawbridges—most of which were inland—and nothing on the scale of the new project. Strauss's initial drawings were for a massive cantilever on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment, which Strauss promised could be built for $17 million (equivalent to $ million today).


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Local authorities agreed to proceed only on the assurance that Strauss would alter the design and accept input from several consulting project experts. A suspension-bridge design was considered the most practical, because of recent advances in metallurgy.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Strauss spent more than a decade drumming up support in Northern California. The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources. The Department of War was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic. The US Navy feared that a ship collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs. Southern Pacific Railroad, one of the most powerful business interests in California, opposed the bridge as competition to its ferry fleet and filed a lawsuit against the project, leading to a mass boycott of the ferry service.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: In May 1924, Colonel Herbert Deakyne held the second hearing on the Bridge on behalf of the Secretary of War in a request to use federal land for construction. Deakyne, on behalf of the Secretary of War, approved the transfer of land needed for the bridge structure and leading roads to the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" and both San Francisco County and Marin County, pending further bridge plans by Strauss. Another ally was the fledgling automobile industry, which supported the development of roads and bridges to increase demand for automobiles.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The bridge's name was first used when the project was initially discussed in 1917 by M.M. O'Shaughnessy, city engineer of San Francisco, and Strauss. The name became official with the passage of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act by the state legislature in 1923, creating a special district to design, build and finance the bridge. San Francisco and most of the counties along the North Coast of California joined the Golden Gate Bridge District, with the exception being Humboldt County, whose residents opposed the bridge's construction and the traffic it would generate.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Strauss was the chief engineer in charge of the overall design and construction of the bridge project. However, because he had little understanding or experience with cable-suspension designs, responsibility for much of the engineering and architecture fell on other experts. Strauss's initial design proposal (two double cantilever spans linked by a central suspension segment) was unacceptable from a visual standpoint. The final graceful suspension design was conceived and championed by Leon Moisseiff, the engineer of the Manhattan Bridge in New York City.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Irving Morrow, a relatively unknown residential architect, designed the overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and Art Deco elements, such as the tower decorations, streetlights, railing, and walkways. The famous International Orange color was Morrow's personal selection, winning out over other possibilities, including the US Navy's suggestion that it be painted with black and yellow stripes to ensure visibility by passing ships.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with Moisseiff, was the principal engineer of the project. Moisseiff produced the basic structural design, introducing his "deflection theory" by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces via suspension cables to the bridge towers. Although the Golden Gate Bridge design has proved sound, a later Moisseiff design, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge, collapsed in a strong windstorm soon after it was completed, because of an unexpected aeroelastic flutter. Ellis was also tasked with designing a "bridge within a bridge" in the southern abutment, to avoid the need to demolish Fort Point, a pre–Civil War masonry fortification viewed, even then, as worthy of historic preservation. He penned a graceful steel arch spanning the fort and carrying the roadway to the bridge's southern anchorage.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Ellis was a Greek scholar and mathematician who at one time was a University of Illinois professor of engineering despite having no engineering degree. He eventually earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois prior to designing the Golden Gate Bridge and spent the last twelve years of his career as a professor at Purdue University. He became an expert in structural design, writing the standard textbook of the time. Ellis did much of the technical and theoretical work that built the bridge, but he received none of the credit in his lifetime. In November 1931, Strauss fired Ellis and replaced him with a former subordinate, Clifford Paine, ostensibly for wasting too much money sending telegrams back and forth to Moisseiff. Ellis, obsessed with the project and unable to find work elsewhere during the Depression, continued working 70 hours per week on an unpaid basis, eventually turning in ten volumes of hand calculations.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: With an eye toward self-promotion and posterity, Strauss downplayed the contributions of his collaborators who, despite receiving little recognition or compensation, are largely responsible for the final form of the bridge. He succeeded in having himself credited as the person most responsible for the design and vision of the bridge. Only much later were the contributions of the others on the design team properly appreciated. In May 2007, the Golden Gate Bridge District issued a formal report on 70 years of stewardship of the famous bridge and decided to give Ellis major credit for the design of the bridge.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, authorized by an act of the California Legislature, was incorporated in 1928 as the official entity to design, construct, and finance the Golden Gate Bridge. However, after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the District was unable to raise the construction funds, so it lobbied for a $30 million bond measure (equivalent to $ million today). The bonds were approved in November 1930, by votes in the counties affected by the bridge. The construction budget at the time of approval was $27 million ($ million today). However, the District was unable to sell the bonds until 1932, when Amadeo Giannini, the founder of San Francisco–based Bank of America, agreed on behalf of his bank to buy the entire issue in order to help the local economy.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Construction began on January 5, 1933. The project cost more than $35 million ($ in dollars), and was completed ahead of schedule and $1.3 million under budget (equivalent to $ million today).


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Golden Gate Bridge construction project was carried out by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation founded by Howard H. McClintic and Charles D. Marshall, both of Lehigh University.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Strauss remained head of the project, overseeing day-to-day construction and making some groundbreaking contributions. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, he placed a brick from his alma mater's demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Strauss also innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the men working, which saved many lives. Nineteen men saved by the nets over the course of the project formed the Half Way to Hell Club. Nonetheless eleven men were killed in falls, ten on February 17, 1937, when a scaffold with twelve men on it, and secured by undersized bolts, fell into and broke through the safety net; two of the twelve survived the fall into the water.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Bridge Round House diner was then included in the southeastern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, adjacent to the tourist plaza which was renovated in 2012. The Bridge Round House, an Art Deco design by Alfred Finnila completed in 1938, has been popular throughout the years as a starting point for various commercial tours of the bridge and an unofficial gift shop. The diner was renovated in 2012 and the gift shop was then removed as a new, official gift shop has been included in the adjacent plaza.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: During the bridge work, the Assistant Civil Engineer of California Alfred Finnila had overseen the entire iron work of the bridge as well as half of the bridge's road work.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Plaque of the major contributors to the Golden Gate Bridge lists contractors, engineering-staff, directors and officers:


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: On December 1, 1951, a windstorm revealed swaying and rolling instabilities of the bridge, resulting in its closure. In 1953 and 1954, the bridge was retrofitted with lateral and diagonal bracing that connected the lower chords of the two side trusses. This bracing stiffened the bridge deck in torsion so that it would better resist the types of twisting that had destroyed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The original bridge used a concrete deck. Salt carried by fog or mist reached the rebar, causing corrosion and concrete spalling. From 1982 to 1986, the original bridge deck, in 747 sections, was systematically replaced with a 40% lighter, and stronger, steel orthotropic deck panels, over 401 nights without closing the roadway completely to traffic. The roadway was also widened by two feet, resulting in outside curb lane width of 11 feet, instead of 10 feet for the inside lanes. This deck replacement was the bridge's greatest engineering project since it was built and cost over $68 million.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The bridge-opening celebration in 1937 began on May 27 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic was allowed, 200,000 people crossed either on foot or on roller skates. On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial "barriers," the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, "There's a Silver Moon on the Golden Gate," was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled "The Mighty Task is Done." The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, D.C. signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called "the Fiesta" followed. A statue of Strauss was moved in 1955 to a site near the bridge.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: As part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration in 1987, the Golden Gate Bridge district again closed the bridge to automobile traffic and allowed pedestrians to cross it on May 24. This Sunday morning celebration attracted 750,000 to 1,000,000 people, and ineffective crowd control meant the bridge became congested with roughly 300,000 people, causing the center span of the bridge to flatten out under the weight. Although the bridge is designed to flex in that way under heavy loads, and was estimated not to have exceeded 40% of the yielding stress of the suspension cables, bridge officials stated that uncontrolled pedestrian access was not being considered as part of the 75th anniversary on Sunday, May 27, 2012, because of the additional law enforcement costs required "since 9/11."


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: <mapframe latitude="37.807984" longitude="-122.475411" zoom="18" width="213" height="180" align="right">


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: </mapframe>On the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1987, individuals and organizations were invited to buy a commemorative brick to fund the 50th anniversary celebration. Those bricks were installed on the ground creating a brick promenade. Its location is shown on the map.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Unfortunately, 25 years later, for the upcoming 75th of the Golden Gate Bridge, the need for a DDA compliant area, as the slope was too steep, implied remodeling the whole promenade. Doing so, and contractors being unable to properly take bricks out one by one, the brick promenade was demolished and the contributors were unable to get their bricks back.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: However, to honor and respect their contributions, all the donors' names and the inscriptions they had chosen for their bricks have been preserved and written on panels.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The panels are located inside the "Equator Coffees", on its rounded walls. The names and inscriptions are listed in the alphabetical order, to make them easier to read and find.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: This website has been keeping a maps view of the original brick promenade and the database of all donors' names and inscriptions, to help find and locate them on the original layout. As of October 2022, the website is unfortunately down.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Until 1964, the Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at . Since 1964 its main span length has been surpassed by seventeen bridges; it now has the second-longest main span in the Americas, after the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. The total length of the Golden Gate Bridge from abutment to abutment is .


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Golden Gate Bridge's clearance above high water averages while its towers, at above the water, were the world's tallest on a suspension bridge until 1993 when it was surpassed by the Mezcala Bridge, in Mexico.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The weight of the roadway is hung from 250 pairs of vertical suspender ropes, which are attached to two main cables. The main cables pass over the two main towers and are fixed in concrete at each end. Each cable is made of 27,572 strands of wire. The total length of galvanized steel wire used to fabricate both main cables is estimated to be . Each of the bridge's two towers has approximately 600,000 rivets.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: In the 1960s, when the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) was being planned, the engineering community had conflicting opinions about the feasibility of running train tracks north to Marin County over the bridge. In June 1961, consultants hired by BART completed a study that determined the bridge's suspension section was capable of supporting service on a new lower deck. In July 1961, one of the bridge's consulting engineers, Clifford Paine, disagreed with their conclusion. In January 1962, due to more conflicting reports on feasibility, the bridge's board of directors appointed an engineering review board to analyze all the reports. The review board's report, released in April 1962, concluded that running BART on the bridge was not advisable.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Aesthetics was the foremost reason why the first design of Joseph Strauss was rejected. Upon re-submission of his bridge construction plan, he added details, such as lighting, to outline the bridge's cables and towers. In 1999, it was ranked fifth on the "List of America's Favorite Architecture" by the American Institute of Architects.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The color of the bridge is officially an orange vermilion called "international orange". The color was selected by consulting architect Irving Morrow because it complements the natural surroundings and enhances the bridge's visibility in fog.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The bridge was originally painted with red lead primer and a lead-based topcoat, which was touched up as required. In the mid-1960s, a program was started to improve corrosion protection by stripping the original paint and repainting the bridge with zinc silicate primer and vinyl topcoats. Since 1990, acrylic topcoats have been used instead for air-quality reasons. The program was completed in 1995 and it is now maintained by 38 painters who touch up the paintwork where it becomes seriously corroded.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Most maps and signage mark the bridge as part of the concurrency between U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1. Although part of the National Highway System, the bridge is not officially part of California's Highway System. For example, under the , Route 101 ends at "the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge" and then resumes at "a point in Marin County opposite San Francisco". The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District has jurisdiction over the segment of highway that crosses the bridge instead of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The movable median barrier between the lanes is moved several times daily to conform to traffic patterns. On weekday mornings, traffic flows mostly southbound into the city, so four of the six lanes run southbound. Conversely, on weekday afternoons, four lanes run northbound. During off-peak periods and weekends, traffic is split with three lanes in each direction.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: From 1968 to 2015, opposing traffic was separated by small, plastic pylons; during that time, there were 16 fatalities resulting from 128 head-on collisions. To improve safety, the speed limit on the Golden Gate Bridge was reduced from on October 1, 1983. Although there had been discussion concerning the installation of a movable barrier since the 1980s, only in March 2005 did the Bridge Board of Directors commit to finding funding to complete the $2 million study required prior to the installation of a movable median barrier. Installation of the resulting barrier was completed on January 11, 2015, following a closure of 45.5 hours to private vehicle traffic, the longest in the bridge's history. The new barrier system, including the zipper trucks, cost approximately $30.3 million to purchase and install.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The bridge carries about 112,000 vehicles per day according to the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The bridge is popular with pedestrians and bicyclists, and was built with walkways on either side of the six vehicle traffic lanes. Initially, they were separated from the traffic lanes by only a metal curb, but railings between the walkways and the traffic lanes were added in 2003, primarily as a measure to prevent bicyclists from falling into the roadway. The bridge was designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95 in 2021.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The main walkway is on the eastern side, and is open for use by both pedestrians and bicycles in the morning to mid-afternoon during weekdays (5:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.), and to pedestrians only for the remaining daylight hours (until 6:00 p.m., or 9:00 p.m. during DST). The eastern walkway is reserved for pedestrians on weekends (5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., or 9:00 p.m. during DST), and is open exclusively to bicyclists in the evening and overnight, when it is closed to pedestrians. The western walkway is open only for bicyclists and only during the hours when they are not allowed on the eastern walkway.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Bus service across the bridge is provided by two public transportation agencies: San Francisco Muni and Golden Gate Transit. Muni offers Saturday and Sunday service on the Marin Headlands Express bus line, and Golden Gate Transit runs numerous bus lines throughout the week. The southern end of the bridge, near the toll plaza and parking lot, is also accessible daily from 5:30 a.m. to midnight by Muni line 28. The Marin Airporter, a private company, also offers service across the bridge between Marin County and San Francisco International Airport.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: A visitor center and gift shop, originally called the "Bridge Pavilion" (since renamed the “Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center”), is located on the San Francisco side of the bridge, adjacent to the southeast parking lot. It opened in 2012, in time for the bridge's 75th-anniversary celebration. A cafe, outdoor exhibits, and restroom facilities are located nearby. On the Marin side of the bridge, only accessible from the northbound lanes, is the H. Dana Bower Rest Area and Vista Point, named after the first landscape architect for the California Division of Highways.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Lands and waters under and around the bridge are homes to varieties of wildlife such as bobcats, harbor seals, and sea lions. Three species of cetaceans (whales) that had been absent in the area for many years have shown recent recoveries/(re)colonizations in the vicinity of the bridge; researchers studying them have encouraged stronger protections and recommended that the public watch them from the bridge or from land, or use a local whale watching operator.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Tolls are only collected from southbound traffic at the toll plaza on the San Francisco side of the bridge. All-electronic tolling has been in effect since 2013, and drivers may either pay using the FasTrak electronic toll collection device, using the license plate tolling program, or via a one time payment online. Effective , the regular toll rate for passenger cars is $8.80, with FasTrak users paying a discounted toll of $8.40. During peak traffic hours, carpool vehicles carrying three or more people, or motorcycles may pay a discounted toll of $6.40 if they have FasTrak and use the designated carpool lane. Drivers must pay within 48 hours after crossing the bridge or they will be sent a toll violation invoice. The toll violation penalty is $9.40, and additional fees will be added if it is not paid within 21 days.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: When the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, the toll was 50cents per car (equivalent to $ in ), collected in each direction. In 1950 it was reduced to 40cents each way ($ in ), then lowered to 25cents in 1955 ($ in ). In 1968, the bridge was converted to only collect tolls from southbound traffic, with the toll amount reset back to 50cents ($ in ).


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The last of the construction bonds were retired in 1971, with $35 million (equivalent to $M in ) in principal and nearly $39 million ($M in ) in interest raised entirely from bridge tolls. Tolls continued to be collected and subsequently incrementally raised; in 1991, the toll was raised a dollar to $3.00 (equivalent to $ in ).


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The bridge began accepting tolls via the FasTrak electronic toll collection system in 2002, with $4 tolls for FasTrak users and $5 for those paying cash (equivalent to $ and $ respectively in ). In November 2006, the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District recommended a corporate sponsorship program for the bridge to address its operating deficit, projected at $80 million over five years. The District promised that the proposal, which it called a "partnership program", would not include changing the name of the bridge or placing advertising on the bridge itself. In October 2007, the Board unanimously voted to discontinue the proposal and seek additional revenue through other means, most likely a toll increase. The District later increased the toll amounts in 2008 to $5 for FasTrak users and $6 to those paying cash (equivalent to $ and $ respectively in ).


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: In an effort to save $19.2 million over the following 10 years, the Golden Gate District voted in January 2011 to eliminate all toll takers by 2012 and use only open road tolling. Subsequently, this was delayed and toll taker elimination occurred in March 2013. The cost savings have been revised to $19 million over an eight-year period. In addition to FasTrak, the Golden Gate Transportation District implemented the use of license plate tolling (branded as "Pay-by-Plate"), and also a one-time payment system for drivers to pay before or after their trip on the bridge. Twenty-eight positions were eliminated as part of this plan.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: On April 7, 2014, the toll for users of FasTrak was increased from $5 to $6 (equivalent to $ in ), while the toll for drivers using either the license plate tolling or the one time payment system was raised from $6 to $7 (equivalent to $ in ). Bicycle, pedestrian, and northbound motor vehicle traffic remain toll free. For vehicles with more than two axles, the toll rate was $7 per axle for those using license plate tolling or the one time payment system, and $6 per axle for FasTrak users. During peak traffic hours, carpool vehicles carrying two or more people and motorcycles paid a discounted toll of $4 (equivalent to $ in ); drivers must have had Fastrak to take advantage of this carpool rate. The Golden Gate Transportation District then increased the tolls by 25cents in July 2015, and then by another 25cents each of the next three years.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: In March 2019, the Golden Gate Transportation District approved a plan to implement 35-cent annual toll increases through 2023, except for the toll-by-plate program which will increase by 20cents per year.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: In March 2008, the Golden Gate Bridge District board approved a resolution to start congestion pricing at the Golden Gate Bridge, charging higher tolls during the peak hours, but rising and falling depending on traffic levels. This decision allowed the Bay Area to meet the federal requirement to receive $158 million in federal transportation funds from USDOT Urban Partnership grant. As a condition of the grant, the congestion toll was to be in place by September 2009.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: In August 2008, transportation officials ended the congestion pricing program in favor of varying rates for metered parking along the route to the bridge including on Lombard Street and Van Ness Avenue.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Golden Gate Bridge is the most used suicide site in the world. The deck is about above the water. After a fall of four seconds, jumpers hit the water at around . Most die from impact trauma. About 5% survive the initial impact but generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: After years of debate and an estimated more than 1,500 deaths, suicide barriers, consisting of a stainless steel net extending 20 feet from the bridge and supported by structural steel 20 feet under the walkway, began to be installed in April 2017. Construction was first estimated to take approximately four years at a cost of over $200 million. In December 2019, it was reported that construction of the suicide prevention net had fallen two years behind schedule because the lead contractor, Shimmick Construction Co., had been sold in 2017, leading to the slowdown of several existing projects. As of December 2019, the completion date for the Golden Gate Bridge net was set for 2023.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The Golden Gate Bridge was designed to safely withstand winds of up to . Until 2008, the bridge was closed because of weather conditions only three times: on December 1, 1951, because of gusts of ; on December 23, 1982, because of winds of ; and on December 3, 1983, because of wind gusts of . An anemometer placed midway between the two towers on the west side of the bridge has been used to measure wind speeds. Another anemometer was placed on one of the towers.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: As part of the retrofitting of the bridge and installation of the suicide barrier, starting in 2019 the railings on the west side of the pedestrian walkway were replaced with thinner, more flexible slats in order to improve the bridge's aerodynamic tolerance of high wind to . Starting in June 2020, reports were received of a loud hum, heard across San Francisco and Marin County, produced by the new railing slats when a strong west wind was blowing. The sound had been predicted from wind tunnel tests, but not included in the environmental impact report; ways of ameliorating it are being considered. An independent engineering analysis of a 2020 sound recording of the tones concludes that the singing noise comprises a variety of Aeolian tones (the sound produced by air flowing past a sharp edge), arising in this case from the ambient wind blowing across metal slats of the newly installed sidewalk railings. The tones observed were frequencies of 354, 398, 439 and 481 Hz, corresponding to the musical notes F, G, A, and B; these notes form an F Lydian Tetrachord.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: Modern knowledge of the effect of earthquakes on structures led to a program to retrofit the Golden Gate to better resist seismic events. The proximity of the bridge to the San Andreas Fault places it at risk for a significant earthquake. Once thought to have been able to withstand any magnitude of foreseeable earthquake, the bridge was actually vulnerable to complete structural failure (i.e., collapse) triggered by the failure of supports on the arch over Fort Point. A $392 million program was initiated to improve the structure's ability to withstand such an event with only minimal (repairable) damage. A custom-built electro-hydraulic synchronous lift system for construction of temporary support towers and a series of intricate lifts, transferring the loads from the existing bridge onto the temporary supports, were completed with engineers from Balfour Beatty and Enerpac, without disrupting day-to-day commuter traffic. Although the retrofit was initially planned to be completed in 2012, it was expected to take several more years.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The former elevated approach to the Golden Gate Bridge through the San Francisco Presidio, known as Doyle Drive, dated to 1933 and was named after Frank P. Doyle. Doyle, the president of the Exchange Bank in Santa Rosa and son of the bank's founder, was the man who, more than any other person, made it possible to build the Golden Gate Bridge. The highway carried about 91,000 vehicles each weekday between downtown San Francisco and the North Bay and points north. The road was deemed "vulnerable to earthquake damage", had a problematic 4-lane design, and lacked shoulders; a San Francisco County Transportation Authority study recommended that it be replaced. Construction on the $1 billion replacement, temporarily known as the Presidio Parkway, began in December 2009.


title: Golden Gate Bridge

text: The elevated Doyle Drive was demolished on the weekend of April 27–30, 2012, and traffic used a part of the partially completed Presidio Parkway, until it was switched onto the finished Presidio Parkway on the weekend of July 9–12, 2015. , an official at Caltrans said there is no plan to permanently rename the portion known as Doyle Drive.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: The Mummy is a 2017 French-American supernatural action-adventure film directed by Alex Kurtzman and written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman, with a story by Kurtzman, Jon Spaihts, and Jenny Lumet. A reboot of "The Mummy" franchise as part of Universal's scrapped Dark Universe series, it stars Tom Cruise as U.S. Army Sergeant Nick Morton, a soldier of fortune who accidentally unearths the ancient tomb of entrapped Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Courtney B. Vance, and Russell Crowe also star.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: "The Mummy" premiered at the State Theatre in Sydney, Australia, on May 22, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 9, 2017, in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D. It received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $410 million worldwide, losing as much as $95 million due to high production and marketing costs. Intended to kickstart the Dark Universe, an attempt to create a modern cinematic universe based on the classic Universal Monsters film series, the film's poor box office performance led to the initial discontinuation and cancellation of the Dark Universe.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: In present-day London, construction workers discover the tomb of a crusader knight who was buried with an Egyptian ruby in AD 1127. In Iraq, U.S. Army Sergeant Nick Morton and Corporal Chris Vail discover the tomb of Princess Ahmanet, who in ancient times attempted to summon the deity Set. She was then caught and mummified alive by Egyptian priests. They and archaeologist Jenny Halsey fly Ahmanet's sarcophagus to Britain, unknowingly bringing Ahmanet back to life.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: During the flight, Chris is possessed by Ahmanet through a spider that bit him and attacks the others, only to be killed by Nick. A large flock of crows attacks the plane, causing it to crash, killing the crew except for Jenny, who escapes with a parachute Nick gives her.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Nick returns to life in a morgue. Chris' ghost appears and tells him he has been cursed by Ahmanet who seeks to use him as a vessel for Set. Ahmanet's mummy escapes from the sarcophagus and begins feeding on people to regenerate her body, turning them into zombies. She recovers the Dagger of Set and attempts to stab Nick, before realizing that the ruby is not attached to it. She and her army chase after Nick and Jenny until soldiers appear and subdue her.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: The soldiers’ leader, Dr. Henry Jekyll, explains that Jenny is an agent of Prodigium, a secret society dedicated to hunting supernatural threats. Nick and Jenny discover that Jekyll intends to allow Set to possess Nick's body completely, believing that this will render Set vulnerable.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Jekyll transforms into Eddie Hyde. Nick stops him with a serum that Jekyll invented for this purpose, allowing Nick and Jenny to escape. Ahmanet finds them, regains the dagger, summons many crusader zombies, and creates a large sandstorm in London. The crusader zombies kill the Prodigium soldiers and Ahmanet recovers the ruby, combining it with the dagger in order to free Set.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Guided by Chris' ghost, Nick and Jenny flee into the London Underground, where Ahmanet's zombies attack them. Ahmanet captures Jenny and drowns her. When Nick is brought to Ahmanet, he sees Jenny's body, and the zombies turn to dust. Nick is injured when he tries to attack Ahmanet and lets her embrace him as a ruse to steal the dagger and shatter the ruby. He strikes the pommel of the dagger against the floor, cracking the ruby, but Ahmanet reminds him that the dagger could grant him the power to reverse death. Instead of destroying the gem, he stabs himself and his body is possessed by Set. Set goes to Ahmanet as he begins to take over, but as he looks at Jenny's dead body, Nick regains control after remembering both her and Jekyll's words, and uses Set's powers to extract Ahmanet's life-force, killing her. Struggling against Set, Nick also resurrects Jenny. Knowing that Prodigium are coming for him, he says goodbye to Jenny and vanishes.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: As Ahmanet is sealed back in her tomb, Jenny and Jekyll wonder whether Nick, now fused with Set, will use his powers for good. Nick returns to the desert and resurrects Chris. The two go on an adventure to Egypt, hoping to find a cure to remove the curse, while being pictured riding horseback in the desert towards the Pyramids of Giza and creating an incoming sandstorm.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Universal Pictures first announced plans for a modern reboot of "The Mummy" franchise in 2012. The project went through multiple directors, with Len Wiseman leaving the project in 2013, and a second director, Andrés Muschietti, in 2014.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Tom Cruise began talks about playing the lead in November 2015, with Sofia Boutella beginning talks that December. Gwen Stefani, Jamie Chung, Lindsey Stirling and Brooke Shields were also considered. Kurtzman cast Boutella after seeing and being impressed by her largely mute performance in "". Kurtzman noted that "if you look at her eyes, and this is what I got from watching "Kingsman", there's a whole performance going on here. And in not saying anything but conveying that much to me, I thought oh my god, no matter how much prosthetics we put on her, no matter how much CG we put on her face, if I see this, she's going to convey something very emotional to me." Other casting news was announced between March and May, with Russell Crowe joining during the latter month.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Shortly after the film opened, "Variety" reported that Cruise had excessive control over the film and firm control of nearly every aspect of production and post-production, including re-writing the script and editing to his specifications, telling Kurtzman how to direct on set, and enlarging his role while downplaying Boutella's. Universal contractually guaranteed Cruise control of most aspects of the project, from script approval to post-production decisions. In a statement, Universal denied that Cruise had a negative influence on the production, "Tom approaches every project with a level of commitment and dedication that is unmatched by most working in our business today," the statement read. "He has been a true partner and creative collaborator, and his goal with any project he works on is to provide audiences with a truly cinematic moviegoing experience." Kurtzman said about the film in a 2019 interview that, ""The Mummy" wasn't what I wanted it to be. I'm no longer involved in that and have no idea what's going on with it. I look back on it now [and] what felt painful at the time ended up being an incredible blessing for me."


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on April 3, 2016, in Oxford, United Kingdom. Pinewood Studios and Shepperton Studios were also used for production, with underwater scenes shot at Pinewood. Filming on the movie concluded on July 17, 2016, in London. Production then moved to Namibia for two weeks, with principal photography wrapping up on August 13, 2016.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: For the filming of the plane crash the production made use of The Vomit Comet and parabolic flight to simulate the illusion of weightlessness. The crew did a total of 64 takes with many of the crew becoming sick to their stomachs. Initially Kurtzman planned to shoot the scene entirely using wires and a rotating set, however Cruise's insistence changed his mind.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Erik Nash was the film's visual effects supervisor. MPC was the top contractor, with over 1,000 effects plates. Industrial Light & Magic and DNEG also contributed to key sequences.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Composer Brian Tyler started work on the music for the movie early, writing about a half hour of music before filming even began. Working on the film for a year and half, Tyler recorded with an 84-piece orchestra and 32-voice choir at London's Abbey Road. He ultimately wrote and recorded over two hours of music, which, given the length of the film (110 minutes), resulted in a soundtrack album longer than the film itself.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Initially scheduled for a 2016 release, the film was released in the United States and Canada on June 9, 2017, with international roll out beginning the same day. The film was screened in various formats, such as 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: On December 20, 2016, IMAX released a trailer with the wrong audio track attached; this unintentionally prompted the creation of memes and video montages featuring the mistakenly included audio track, which was missing most of the sound effects and instead featured Tom Cruise's grunts and screams. IMAX reacted by taking down the trailer and issuing DMCA takedown notices in an attempt to stop it from spreading.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: "The Mummy" grossed $80.2 million in the United States and Canada and $329.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $410 million. Due to a combined production and marketing cost of $345 million, it was estimated the film needed to gross $450 million in order to break-even, and ended up losing the studio between $60–100 million.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: In North America, the film was released alongside "It Comes at Night" and "Megan Leavey" and was originally projected to gross $35–40 million from 4,034 theaters in its opening weekend. However, after making $12 million on its first day (including $2.66 million from Thursday night previews), weekend projections were lowered to $30 million. It ended up debuting to $31.7 million, marking the lowest of the "Mummy" franchise and finishing second at the box office behind "Wonder Woman" ($58.2 million in its second week). "Deadline Hollywood" attributed the film's underperformance to poor critic and audience reactions, as well as "blockbuster fatigue". In its second weekend the film made $14.5 million (dropping 54.2%), finishing 4th at the box office. It was pulled from 827 theaters in its third week and made $5.8 million, dropping another 60% and finishing 6th at the box office.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Outside North America, the film opened in 63 overseas territories, with China, the UK, Mexico, Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Russia receiving the film the same day as in North America, and was projected to debut to $125–135 million. It opened on June 6, 2017 in South Korea and grossed $6.6 million on its first day, the biggest-ever debut for both Tom Cruise and Universal in the country. It ended up having a foreign debut of $140.7 million, the biggest of Cruise's career. In its opening weekend the film made $52.4 million in China, $7.4 million in Russia, $4.9 million in Mexico and $4.2 million in the United Kingdom.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: "The Mummy" received generally negative reviews from critics, with criticism aimed at its narrative tone, acting, and plot points setting up the Dark Universe. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 15% based on 314 reviews, with an average rating of 4.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Lacking the campy fun of the franchise's most recent entries and failing to deliver many monster-movie thrills, "The Mummy" suggests a speedy unraveling for the Dark Universe." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 34 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 70% overall positive score.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Vince Mancini of "Uproxx" gave the film a negative review, writing: "If you like incomprehensible collections of things that vaguely resemble other things you might've enjoyed in the past, "The Mummy" is the movie for you." IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film a D−, calling it the worst film of Cruise's career and criticizing its lack of originality, saying: "It's one thing to excavate the iconography of old Hollywood, it's another to exploit it. This isn't filmmaking, it's tomb-raiding."


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" wrote: "The problem at its heart is that the reality of what the movie is—a Tom Cruise vehicle—is at war with the material. The actor, at 54, is still playing that old Cruise trope, the selfish cocky semi-scoundrel who has to grow up. ... The trouble is that Cruise, at least in a high-powered potboiler like this one, is so devoted to maintaining his image as a clear and wholesome hero that his flirtation with the dark side is almost entirely theoretical." Writing for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers gave the film one star out of four, saying: "How meh is "The Mummy"? Let me count the ways. For all the huffing and puffing and digital desperation from overworked computers, this reboot lands onscreen with a resounding thud."


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Glen Kenny of RogerEbert.com gave the film 1.5/4 stars, writing: "I found something almost admirable about the film's cheek. It's [so] amazingly relentless in its naked borrowing from other, better horror and sci-fi movies that I was able to keep occupied making a checklist of the movies referenced." "Entertainment Weekly"s Chis Nashawaty wrote that the film "feels derivative and unnecessary and like it was written by committee."


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: In BBC World News Culture, Nicholas Barber calls the film "a mish-mash of wildly varying tones and plot strands, from its convoluted beginning to its shameless non-end. Tom Cruise's new film barely qualifies as a film at all. None of it makes sense. The film delivers all the chases, explosions, zombies and ghosts you could ask for, and there are a few amusing lines and creepy moments, but, between the headache-inducing flashbacks and hallucinations, the narrative would be easier to follow if it were written in hieroglyphics."


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" wrote that the film "has some nice moments but is basically a mess. The plot sags like an aeon-old decaying limb, a jumble of ideas and scenes from what look like different screenplay drafts," and concluded that "It's a ragbag of action scenes which needed to be bandaged more tightly." "Empire" film magazine was more positive, with Dan Jolin awarding the film three stars. "It's running and jumping grin-flashing business as usual for Cruise, once more on safe character territory as an Ethan Hunt-esque action protagonist who couples up with a much younger woman, while another woman chases after him," he wrote. "And if the next installment-teasing conclusion is anything to go by, Cruise seemed to have enough fun making this that he may just return for more."


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: In 2022, director Alex Kurtzman commented that the film is "probably the biggest failure of [his] life" and that there's "about a million things I regret about it". However, he noted that the job gave him more experience and knowledge as a filmmaker. Brendan Fraser, who starred in the previous "Mummy" movies, stated that the reason why the movie failed was that it did not have "fun. That was what was lacking in that incarnation. It was too much of a straight-ahead horror movie. "‘The Mummy’" should be a thrill ride, but not terrifying and scary. I know how difficult it is to pull it off. I tried to do it three times.”


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: Two video games based on the film, "The Mummy Demastered" and "The Mummy: Dark Universe Stories", was released on October 24, 2017. The former is a Metroidvania featuring a stand-alone story, which takes place concurrently with the events of the film and follows Prodigium soldiers under the command of Dr. Jekyll who fight the forces of Princess Ahmanet, while the latter is a choose-your-own adventure game set after the events of the film, establishing the original Universal Monsters films as existing in its canon; unlike the film, both video games received positive reviews. A manga series set concurrently with the film, "The Mummy: Dark Stories", was released by from July 15 to July 29, 2017.


title: The Mummy (2017 film)

text: The film was part of Universal Pictures' "Dark Universe", an attempt to create a modern cinematic universe based on the classic Universal Monsters film series. A remake of "Bride of Frankenstein", with Angelina Jolie attached for the lead, was originally scheduled for release on February 14, 2019, but on October 5, 2017, Universal decided to postpone it indefinitely. The 2014 film "Dracula Untold" was originally retrospectively considered to be the first film in the series; however, since the film's release, the connection to the Dark Universe was purposefully downplayed, and "The Mummy" was then re-positioned as the first film in the series. On May 22, 2017, the official Dark Universe Twitter account posted an image with Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, and Russell Crowe standing together. The picture was revealed to be edited, as none of the cast of the Dark Universe were actually together when it was taken. By 2019, Universal announced plans to return to standalone features instead of using a shared film narrative, effectively ending the Dark Universe.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England between 28 July and 8 August 2022.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: Birmingham was announced as host on 21 December 2017. The Games marked England's third time hosting the Commonwealth Games after London 1934 and Manchester 2002, and the 7th Games held in the United Kingdom, with previous events in Wales and Scotland: Cardiff 1958, Edinburgh 1970 and 1986 and Glasgow 2014.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The Games was the largest ever held, with 72 participating nations and over 1.3 million ticket sales. It was also the first to have more events for women than men and the first integrated event, with the para competition held at the same time. Alongside the Games, a cultural festival was held across the West Midlands, as well as a number of trade events. An esports event was also held.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: It marked the last time that the Games were held under Queen Elizabeth II prior to her death on 8 September of that year, which was exactly one month after the conclusion of the Games.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: Two cities initially launched bids for the games; Durban, South Africa, and Edmonton, Canada. Edmonton withdrew its bid in February 2015, leaving Durban as the only bid to go forward to CGF General Assembly in September 2015. Durban initially secured the right to host the games, as they were the sole bidder for the event. The city previously considered bidding for the 2020 or 2024 Summer Olympics, but later dropped the idea as it wanted to focus on the 2022 Commonwealth Games. It would have marked the first time the games were held in Africa and the second time a Commonwealth republic would have hosted, following Delhi, India, in 2010. The games were set to open on 18 July 2022, coinciding with the birthday of the late South African president, Nelson Mandela. It was reported in February 2017 that Durban might be unable to host the games due to financial constraints. This was confirmed one month later on 13 March 2017 when the CGF stripped Durban of their rights to host the Games.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The bidding process for the 2022 Commonwealth Games was relaunched in March 2017 where English cities Birmingham and Liverpool expressed their interests in hosting the Games. On 14 March 2017, Manchester also expressed an interest in hosting the Games.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: By April 2017, the British Government asked city councils to submit proposals for hosting the 2022 Games. Only Birmingham and Liverpool submitted official applications to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. London declined to bid, as it was focusing its efforts on preparing for the World Athletics and Para Athletics Championships. On 27 April 2017, Manchester City Council announced that Manchester would not bid for the Games but could co-host the Games with other English cities. In early September 2017, Birmingham was selected over Liverpool for the recommended bid for England.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The CGF announced that the deadline for the submission of bids was 30 September 2017 and its executive board was expected to announce the host by the end of 2017. Commonwealth Games England submitted the Birmingham bid before the deadline to the CGF to host the 2022 Games. However, it was announced that the bid was not fully compliant, and the bidding process was extended until 30 November 2017. The CGF had 170 questions regarding Birmingham's bid. On 21 December 2017, Birmingham was awarded for the 2022 Games as Durban's replacement host. Louise Martin, president of the CGF, made the official announcement at a press conference at the Arena Academy in Birmingham.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The Birmingham Organising Committee for the 2022 Commonwealth Games (BOCCG) is responsible for the planning and operational delivery of the Games. This includes sport, venue and competition management, ticket sales, all ceremonies and the Queen's Baton Relay. The headquarters of the organising committee is located in One Brindleyplace building and has taken up the office until December 2022.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: In March 2018, the BOCCG paid £25 million ($35 million) fee to the CGF for the right to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games. The fee included the £20 million ($28 million) for the Games hosting charges and £5 million ($7 million) for the development work in the Commonwealth.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: In July 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed John Crabtree as Chair of the BOCCG. In January 2019, Ian Reid was announced as chief executive officer of the BOCCG. On 6 June 2019, the British Government introduced the Commonwealth Games bill which ensured the prohibition of unauthorised sales of Games tickets, effective flow of transport around Games venues, complete protection of commercial rights, and compliance with financial propriety rules by the government's funding of the BOCCG. The bill received royal assent and was passed into law as the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Act 2020 on 25 June 2020.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: In June 2020, it was announced that the entire schedule of the Games would be offset by one day to reduce conflicts with sporting events rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the UEFA Euro 2020 (held on 11 June to 11 July 2021), the 2020 Summer Olympics (held on 23 July to 8 August 2021), the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 (held 6 to 31 July in England; the opening ceremony time would have conflicted with one of the semifinal matches), and the final days of the 2022 World Athletics Championships (held from 15 to 24 July). All athletes and officials are required to test negative for COVID-19 on a PCR test before departure and upon arrival; infections during the Games will be handled on a case-by-case basis, with athletes not necessarily required to withdraw or publicly disclose their infection. Commonwealth Games Australia considered the protocols to be less stringent and more "relaxed" than expected, and stated that it planned to impose stricter biosecurity protocols on its athletes to ensure their safety.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: On 11 August 2020, the BOCCG announced that the athletes and team officials will be housed in three ‘campus’ villages close to competition venues at the University of Birmingham, the University of Warwick, and the NEC Hotel Campus. Around 1,600 athletes and officials are set to be accommodated at the NEC Hotel Campus, 1,900 at the University of Warwick, and the principal village with 2,800 at the University of Birmingham.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The A34 flyover in Perry Barr has been demolished in favour of a dual carriageway at ground level, cycle path and improved public transport services which were approved by Birmingham City Council in October 2019 under its £27.1 million scheme.


title: 2022 Commonwealth Games

text: The city council announced in January 2020 that the existing National Express Bus Depot in Perry Barr will be demolished as the depot site would be used to construct the phase two of the athletes’ village. A replacement depot will be constructed on a largely council-owned land on nearby Aston Lane, at a cost of £16 million, eight times the original estimate.