title: Orion Pictures

text: It was during this time that ABC stepped in to co-finance and assume production over many of Orion TV's shows it had in production, such as "American Detective" and "Equal Justice". After Orion had to shut the television division down, this resulted in projects like "The Chuck Woolery Show", which was planned to be produced by Orion, instead having to find new production companies (such as Group W Productions in the case of Woolery). Gary Nardino, former employee of Orion Television Entertainment, moved on to producing for Lorimar Television, taking some of Orion's projects with him, including "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures" on Fox, and "Hearts are Wild", a co-production with Spelling Television, for CBS; talent deals Orion Television had at the time (with Thomas Carter, Robert Townsend, Paul Stajonovich, Clifton Campbell and Deborah Joy Levine) were also taken by Nardino to Lorimar. On November 25, 1991, Orion sold its "Hollywood Squares" format rights to King World Productions after Orion closed down its television division. On December 11, 1991, Orion filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In December 1991, Orion was in talks with New Line Cinema, a successful independent film company, to acquire the bankrupt studio. By the following April, Orion and New Line Cinema cancelled their plans on the issue of price. Republic Pictures and the then-new Savoy Pictures also attempted to buy Orion, but no deal materialized.


title: Orion Pictures

text: At the Academy Awards ceremony, broadcast on March 30, 1992, Crystal made another reference to Orion, this time about its demise:


title: Orion Pictures

text: "The Silence of the Lambs" swept all five major Academy Awards; however, a majority of key executives, as well as the talent they had deals with, had left the studio. Hollywood observers had doubts that Orion would be resurrected to its former glory.


title: Orion Pictures

text: On November 5, 1992, Orion reemerged from bankruptcy. Its reorganization plan would allow for Orion to continue producing and releasing films, but financing for the features would be provided by outside sources, with the studio purchasing the distribution rights to them after their completion.


title: Orion Pictures

text: Orion's bankruptcy also delayed the release of many films the studio had produced or acquired, among them: "Love Field" (1992), "RoboCop 3" (1993), "The Dark Half" (1993), "Blue Sky" (1994), "Car 54, Where Are You?" (1994), "Clifford" (1994), "The Favor" (1994), and "There Goes My Baby" (1994). Orion started releasing these films after their reorganization. "Blue Sky" won star Jessica Lange an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1995.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In November 1995, Orion, two other companies controlled by Kluge, and film and TV house MCEG Sterling (producer of the "Look Who's Talking" series) were merged to form the Metromedia International Group. Few of the films released during the four years after bankruptcy protection were successful either critically or commercially.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In 1996, Metromedia acquired production company Motion Picture Corporation of America, and installed its heads, Brad Krevoy and Steve Stabler, as co-presidents of Orion. Both received a six picture put picture distribution deal as a part of their contracts.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In the years ahead, Orion produced very few films, and primarily released films from other producers, including LIVE Entertainment. Orion Classics, minus its founders (who had moved to Sony Pictures Entertainment and founded Sony Pictures Classics), continued to acquire popular art-house films, such as "Boxing Helena" (1993), before Metromedia merged the subsidiary with Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment in 1996.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In July 1997, Metromedia shareholders approved the sale of Orion (as well as Samuel Goldwyn Entertainment and Motion Picture Corporation of America) to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). This led to the withdrawal of 85 employees, including Krevoy and Stabler, while 111 other employees were to be laid off within nine months, leaving 25 of them to work at MGM. Orion also brought with it a two-thousand film library, ten completed movies and five direct-to-video features for future release and the Krevoy and Stabler movie put picture distribution deal. Krevoy and Stabler retained the right to the Motion Picture Corporation of America name and their three top movies. Metromedia retained Goldwyn Entertainment's Landmark Theatre Group. "One Man's Hero" (1999) was the last film released by Orion for 15 years.


title: Orion Pictures

text: MGM kept Orion intact as a corporation, mostly to avoid its video distribution agreement with Warner Home Video and began distributing Orion Pictures films under the Orion Home Video label. MGM acquired the 2/3 of pre-1996 PolyGram Filmed Entertainment library (which included the Epic film library) from Seagram in 1999 for $250 million, increasing their library holdings to 4,000. The PolyGram libraries were purchased by its Orion Pictures subsidiary so as to avoid its 1990 video distribution agreement with Warner. In March 1999, MGM bought out its distribution contract with Warner Bros. for $225 million, effectively ending the distribution problem.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In 2013, Orion returned to television production (after its original TV unit was shut down during its bankruptcy period) with a new syndicated series, "Paternity Court".


title: Orion Pictures

text: The Orion Pictures name, also as Orion Releasing, was extended in fourth quarter 2014 for smaller multi-platform video on demand and limited theatrical distribution. Its name was first seen again on September 10, 2014, in front of the trailer for "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" that was released in October. The label's first release was the Brazilian film "Vestido pra Casar".


title: Orion Pictures

text: In September 2015, Entertainment One Films relaunched the Momentum Pictures banner with an announced deal with Orion Pictures to co-acquire and co-distribute films in the United States and Canada, and selected foreign markets, such as the United Kingdom (Momentum's country of origin). The initial films under the deal were "The Wannabe", "Fort Tilden" and "Balls Out". Other films released by Orion Pictures and Momentum Pictures include "Pocket Listing" and "Diablo".


title: Orion Pictures

text: Starting in September 2016 with "Burn Country", Orion Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Films paired in acquiring several films.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In 2017, Orion TV added another court series, "Couples Court", to its syndicated line up. The show is presided over by a husband-wife team and deals with marital issues primarily cheating.


title: Orion Pictures

text: On September 6, 2017, MGM officially revitalized the Orion Pictures brand as a standalone, US theatrical marketing and distribution arm with the hiring of John Hegeman, who joined from Blumhouse Tilt (distributor of Orion's "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" and "The Belko Experiment") and incidentally got his start at the original Orion in the 1980s. Hegeman would serve as president of the expanded label and report to Jonathan Glickman, president of MGM's motion picture group. Under his leadership, the "new" Orion will produce, market and distribute four to six modestly budgeted films a year across genres and platforms, and both wide and limited releases for targeted audiences. Its first release, the young adult romance drama "Every Day", was released on February 23, 2018.


title: Orion Pictures

text: In May 2018, it was announced that Orion Classics would be revived as a multiplatform distribution label, with 8 to 10 films being released per year.


title: Orion Pictures

text: On February 5, 2019, MGM and Annapurna Pictures expanded their US joint distribution venture Mirror, rebranding it as United Artists Releasing. Beginning in April 2019, Orion Pictures' upcoming titles would be distributed through the UAR banner and Orion's theatrical distribution staff will move to UAR. The first Orion film to do so was the remake of "Child's Play", which was released on June 21, 2019.


title: Orion Pictures

text: On August 20, 2020, it was announced that Orion would be relaunched again, with its focus shifting to films made by underrepresented filmmakers (including people of color, women, the LGBT community and people with disabilities) as part of the efforts to increase inclusivity in the film industry, both in front of and behind the camera, with the hiring of Alana Mayo as the president, replacing Hegeman by October. The first film released with this new focus was "Anything's Possible" (previously titled "What If?"), a coming-of-age drama directed by Billy Porter in his directorial debut. This effort continued in 2021 when they, along with Annapurna, acquired the US distribution rights to "On the Count of Three" two weeks after it premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.


title: Orion Pictures

text: On May 17, 2021, online shopping company Amazon entered negotiations to acquire MGM and even made a bid for about $9 billion, with the intention to own the studio's library, including Orion's films, to grow the Amazon Prime Video catalog. The negotiations are made with Anchorage Capital Kevin Ulrich. On May 26, 2021, it was officially announced that the studio will be acquired by Amazon for $8.45 billion. The merger was finalized on March 17, 2022.


title: Orion Pictures

text: During the 1980s and early 1990s, Orion's output included Woody Allen films, Hollywood blockbusters such as the first "Terminator" and the "RoboCop" films, comedies such as "Throw Momma from the Train", "This Is Spinal Tap", "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", "Caddyshack", "Something Wild", "UHF", and the "Bill & Ted" films, and Best Picture Academy Award winners "Amadeus", "Platoon", "Dances with Wolves", and "The Silence of the Lambs".


title: Orion Pictures

text: Following is a list of the major Academy Awards (Picture, Director, two Screenplay and four Acting awards) for which Orion films were nominated.


title: Orion Pictures

text: Almost all of Orion's post-1982 releases, as well as most of the AIP and Filmways backlogs and all of the television output originally produced and distributed by Orion Television, now bear the MGM name. However, in most cases, the 1980s Orion logo has been retained or added, in the case of the Filmways and AIP libraries.


title: Orion Pictures

text: Most ancillary rights to Orion's back catalog from the 1978–1982 joint venture period remain with Warner Bros., including such films as "10" (1979), "Caddyshack" (1980), "Arthur" (1981), "Excalibur" (1981), and "Prince of the City" (1981). Some post-1982 films originally released by Orion — "Lionheart" (1987), "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988), and "Amadeus" (1984) (the latter two being Saul Zaentz productions) — are currently distributed by Warner Bros. as well. HBO also owns video distribution rights to "Three Amigos" (1986), as they co-produced the film and owns pay-TV rights. However, MGM owns all other rights and the film's copyright. "The Wanderers" is owned by the film's producers; however, the copyright is held by MGM/Orion. Orion also retains a controlling interest in "The Cotton Club", although major rights are now with Lionsgate, which owns the library of presenting studio Zoetrope Corporation.


title: Orion Pictures

text: Woody Allen's films "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" (1982) and "Zelig" (1983) are the only Orion films from the original joint venture period now owned by MGM. Orion releases produced by the Hemdale Film Corporation and Nelson Entertainment are included in MGM's library as well, and are incorporated into the Orion library. MGM did not acquire the Hemdale films (which include "The Terminator", "Hoosiers", and "Platoon") or the Nelson films (including the "Bill & Ted" films) until MGM bought the pre-1996 library of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (the “Epic library”), which included both companies' libraries, although the television and digital rights to certain Nelson films are now held by Paramount Television (the result of a pre-existing deal Nelson had with Viacom), with television syndication handled on behalf of Paramount Television by Trifecta Entertainment & Media.


title: Orion Pictures

text: Many of the film and television holdings of The Samuel Goldwyn Company have now also been incorporated into the Orion library (with ownership currently held by MGM), and the copyright on some of this material is held by Orion, except "The New Adventures of Flipper" now carries the MGM Television Entertainment copyright.


title: Orion Pictures

text: MGM still holds distribution rights to the 1980s revival of "Hollywood Squares" and "High Rollers" the company produced, as well as the remnants of the Heatter-Quigley library that was not erased, including all remaining episodes of the original "Squares"; they do not own the rights to the format, which is currently owned by CBS Television Distribution, successor-in-interest to King World, who purchased the format rights in 1991 and produced another syndicated revival from 1998 to 2004.


title: Orion Pictures

text: Orion distributed the first Rambo film, "First Blood" (1982). That film, like the rest of the "Rambo" franchise, is now owned by StudioCanal as a result of purchasing the library of its co-distributor, Carolco Pictures.


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: Evan Jonigkeit (; born February 18, 1983) is an American actor known for his roles in "", "Bone Tomahawk", and "Easy". He currently stars as Captain Chesterfield in Discovery Canada's "Frontier".


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: Jonigkeit was raised in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and graduated from Neshaminy High School in 2001. He got accepted into Temple University with a baseball scholarship but after being sidelined with tendonitis, he started pursuing theater. As a young adult, Jonigkeit was employed doing lawn work.


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: After working in the theater community in Philadelphia, Jonigkeit was picked up by agency in New York. He got his break by starring in the 2011 Broadway play "High" which eventually led him to star in the Broadway play "The Snow Geese" alongside Mary-Louise Parker in 2013.


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: In 2015, he starred alongside Kurt Russell in western "Bone Tomahawk" as Deputy Nick. In the same year he was cast to play Captain Chesterfield in Discovery Canada's series "Frontier".


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: Jonigkeit and his production company, Rooster Films, produced their first short, "Mildred & The Dying Parlor" that starred Steve Buscemi and Jane Krakowski. In 2017, he produced a live event on Facebook called: "Stand For Rights: A Benefit for the ACLU with Tom Hanks", for which he earned a Primetime Emmy nomination, and co-produced the ESPYs.


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: In 2017, Jonigkeit and "Girls" actress Zosia Mamet partnered with Refinery29 to produce an anthology series titled "Fabled".


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: Jonigkeit starred on the Starz drama "Sweetbitter", based on the novel of the same name. He played Will the backwaiter assigned to train Tess, who then becomes her first friend; the series premiered on May 6, 2018, and aired until 2019. In 2020, he had key roles in the horror films "The Night House" and "The Empty Man".


title: Evan Jonigkeit

text: Jonigkeit starred in season 1 of the Netflix series "Archive 81" as Samuel Davenport, a major character and one of the main antagonists. Netflix released all eight episodes of season 1 of Archive 81 on Jan. 14, 2022.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The Lawnmower Man is a 1992 science fiction horror film directed by Brett Leonard, written by Leonard and Gimel Everett, and starring Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, and Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Lawrence "Larry" Angelo, a scientist who decides to experiment on him in an effort to give him greater intelligence. The experiments give Jobe superhuman abilities, but also increase his aggression, turning him into a man obsessed with evolving into a digital being.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: This film is adapted from the merging of a 1975 short story by Stephen King with an original screenplay entitled "CyberGod." While King's story focused on the titular character, a demon-possessed devil-worshipper who strips naked and eats grass like a goat, who can control his lawnmower with mystical powers, the film has the same character controlling the lawnmower by means of the untapped potential of the human brain, which has been stimulated by advanced, but unethical scientific experiementation. In both versions, the character, initially presented as an unthreatening worker, turns into a menace once his powers are manifested, but in the film, this is the result of stimulation of the brain by nootropic drugs beyond the titular character's capacity for human goodness.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Because of the deviation from his story, King successfully sued to have his name removed from the film, which was originally titled "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man." He won further damages when his name was included in the title of the home video release.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: A sequel, "", was released in 1996, with Austin O'Brien as the only returning actor from the original film.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Dr. Lawrence Angelo works for Virtual Space Industries and runs experiments using psychoactive drugs and virtual reality to enhance cognitive performance, using chimpanzees as test subjects, in an experiment labeled "Project 5". Angelo has benevolent aims, but VSI is funded by "The Shop", a clandestine group hoping to find military applications for Angelo's research. One of the chimpanzees, "Rosco," gifted with new intelligence, warfare training, and increased aggression, escapes, and after being hunted, is executed by the laboratory's security forces. Angelo consequently decides to recruit intellectually disabled gardener Jobe Smith as a test subject, telling the man he will become smarter. Angelo redesigns the intelligence-boosting treatments to remove the "aggression factors" used in the chimpanzee experiments. Not only is Jobe's intelligence enhanced, but he also develops psychokinesis and telepathy. He continues training at the lab until an accident forces Angelo to abort the experiment.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The project director, Sebastian Timms, keeps tabs on the progress of the experiment and secretly swaps Angelo's new medications with the old Project 5 supply. When Jobe invites his new lover Marnie to the lab to engage in cybersex, he accidentally lobotomizes her. Jobe continues the treatment on his own and begins killing the people who mistreated him in the past, as well as the abusive father of his 10-year-old friend Peter. Angelo learns the drugs have been swapped and confronts Jobe, who captures him and declares his plan to reach an ultimate stage of evolution by becoming a being of "pure energy" existing in the VSI computer mainframe, connecting to all computer systems of the world afterward. He promises his "birth" will be signaled by every telephone on the planet ringing simultaneously.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The Shop sends a team to capture Jobe, but with his new abilities he scatters them to pieces. Jobe uses the lab equipment to enter the VSI mainframe and become a digital being, abandoning his physical body. Angelo remotely accesses the VSI computer, encrypting connections to the outside world, and traps Jobe in the mainframe. As Jobe searches for an unencrypted network connection, Angelo sets bombs to destroy the building. Feeling responsible for what happened to Jobe, Angelo enters virtual reality to attempt to reason with him one last time or die with him. Jobe overpowers Angelo and crucifies his digital body. Peter runs into the building and Jobe realizes he is in danger from the bombs. Still caring for the boy, he allows Angelo to leave the mainframe in order to rescue Peter. Jobe escapes through a maintenance line just before the building is destroyed.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Angelo is later at home with Peter and his mother Carla. The telephone rings, followed by the noise of a second telephone ringing elsewhere, followed by all telephones ringing all around the world.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The plot of Stephen King's 1975 short story "The Lawnmower Man" concerns Harold Parkette, who hires "Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services Inc." to cut his lawn. Parkette later spies on the serviceman, discovering his lawnmower mows the lawn by itself while he crawls after it, naked, eating the grass. The serviceman is actually a satyr who worships the Greek god Pan. When Parkette tries to call the police, the mower and its owner ritually kill him as a sacrifice to Pan.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The film's original script, written by director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett, was written between May and August 1990 under the title "The Lawnmower Man", and carried minor elements of King's original story, including the scene where Jobe kills Peter's father with the lawnmower "Big Red", and the aftermath in which the police state that they found some of his remains in the birdbath. The addition of a government agency known as "The Shop" was drawn from separate works of King's, such as "Firestarter" (1980) and "The Tommyknockers" (1987).


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The film has several elements in common with the 1959 Daniel Keyes novel "Flowers for Algernon", which also deals with a mentally disabled man whose intelligence is technologically boosted to genius levels. A similar parallel can be drawn with the "" television series (second pilot) episode of 1966 titled "Where No Man Has Gone Before".


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The computer-generated imagery (CGI) was created for the film by Angel Studios. The supervising sound editor was Frank Serafine, who was hired as a result of his sound creation work in the 1982 film "Tron". Fuji Creative's Masao Takiyama is also credited as a co-producer.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The film was tested in Jacksonville, Florida, Fresno, California and Providence, Rhode Island on February 14, 1992 and released in the United States on March 6, in 1,276 theatres.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The original theatrical release had a large element cut from it involving a chimpanzee. In the film's opening this chimpanzee escapes the lab and is helped by Jobe who then witnesses it shot dead. This then led to several other cuts throughout the film to remove call back to this plot element. In the Director's Cut these elements are noticeable as they have been taken from the film's original negative.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: , the film held a 37% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 41 reviews. The site's consensus states: ""The Lawnmower Man" suffers from a predictable, melodramatic script, and its once-groundbreaking visual effects look dated today". Metacritic gives the film a rating of 42 out of 100 based on 14 reviews.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The movie debuted at number two at the box office with $7.7 million in its opening weekend behind "Wayne's World". It went on to gross $32.1 million in the United States and Canada, making it a moderate financial success against its $10 million budget and the biggest independent film for the calendar year and the second biggest released in 1992 after Miramax's "The Crying Game". It grossed £3,622,720 ($6 million) in the United Kingdom.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The film, originally titled "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man", differed so much from the source material that King sued the filmmakers in May 1992 to remove his name from the title. King stated in court documents that the film "bore no meaningful resemblance" to his story.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: A federal judge ruled in King's favour in July 1992, the first successful such ruling since James Oliver Curwood had his name removed from 1922's "I Am the Law". On appeal, it was ruled in October that the on-screen credit could remain but that King's name should be removed from advertising. King received $2.5 million in settlement.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Despite the ruling, New Line still did not comply and initially released the home video version as "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man". In 1994, New Line was held in contempt of court.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The theatrical version of the film was initially released on VHS and Laserdisc on August 26, 1992. Alongside the 108-minute theatrical version, New Line Home Video also released an unrated director's cut running 142 minutes on VHS and Laserdisc. The success of the unrated version alerted King to New Line's continued defiance of the order that his name be stricken from the film's credits and all marketing as the back covers stated "Based on a Story by Stephen King". A third court order was needed to force the studio's compliance. As before, the court upheld the two prior judgments, but it took the extra step of imposing a penalty of $10,000 directly payable to King for every day New Line remained in contempt by defying the order. Additionally, the studio would have to forfeit all profits earned on the film during that same period.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The film was released on VCD in 1996. The DVD, released in December 1997, contains only the theatrical cut, with scenes from the unrated edition being presented on the DVD as deleted scenes.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: In February 1997, the director's cut was released in widescreen for the first time on double LaserDisc, featuring various special features on the C-side. The transfer used for the LaserDisc left King's name in the opening credits, but removed it from the title screen.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: The director's cut was released on DVD with the inclusion of the sequel "Lawnmower Man 2" on October 25, 2010, in the United Kingdom, but this release suffered from poor NTSC quality transfer with the aspect ratio of 4:3 pan and scan, the extended scenes spliced-in but in the aspect ratio of 16:9.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Prior to the US Shout! Factory release, Blu-ray versions of the film were only available in Italy through Minerva Pictures and in Germany under the Alive brand. The Italian release contains edited Italian credits at the beginning, which are taken from the DVD version as the difference in quality from the rest of the movie can be seen (interlaced framing notably).


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Shout! Factory released "The Lawnmower Man" on Blu-ray for the first time in the United States in June 2017. The two-disc set includes new 4k digital restorations of the theatrical and director's cuts, audio commentary with director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett, an all-new retrospective documentary featuring Leonard and star Jeff Fahey, and all of the bonus features from the original New Line DVD. For unknown reasons, a line of dialogue from the theatrical release related to the killing of a chimp (which makes no sense in the context of the plot of the director's cut - in that version, the chimp escaped from the VSI lab) was re-introduced to the director's cut.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: In Australia, the only version of the film to be released was the theatrical cut - the director's cut was only available as a UK import. It was never released on DVD until 2008, when Force Entertainment released a budget DVD, containing the theatrical cut and the special features from the US DVD, on its own or as a two-pack with its sequel.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: A graphic novel adaptation of the film was announced by Innovation Comics for April 1992 release, but was never published.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: A sequel, "", was released in 1996 with Austin O'Brien as the only returning actor from the original film. It was retitled "Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe's War" for its video release. The film received negative reviews from critics and fans of the first movie.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Comic book writer Grant Morrison said in an interview that they were contacted by the owners of the "Lawnmower Man" in 1995 and asked to write treatments for "Lawnmower Man 2". Morrison claims they were asked to "bend the "Lawnmower Man" series in an X-Men superhero-type direction". Neither of Morrison's script treatments was used and "Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace" was produced without their involvement.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Some of the CGI footage of "The Lawnmower Man" was featured in the 1992 CG art film "Beyond the Mind's Eye".


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: Jaunt VR, a virtual reality studio, attempted to adapt the feature into a virtual reality experience with the original rights holders but ultimately went out of business before realizing its efforts.


title: The Lawnmower Man (film)

text: An earlier short film, also titled "The Lawnmower Man", was directed by Jim Gonis in 1987. That film was a direct adaptation of the short story by King.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Kaun Banega Crorepati (also simply known as KBC) is an Indian Hindi-language television game show. It is the official Hindi adaptation of the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" franchise. It has been presented by actor Amitabh Bachchan since its inception, except for during the third season, which was presented by actor Shah Rukh Khan. The programme aired on Star Plus for its first three seasons from 2000 to 2007, and was commissioned by the programming team of Sameer Nair. Since 2010, it has been airing on Sony Entertainment Television and was produced by BIG Synergy (under various names over periods of time) from season 1 till season 10. Afterwards, the credited production companies co-producing are Studio NEXT since season 10 and Tree of Knowledge (Digi TOK) since season 11, respectively.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The format is similar to other shows in the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" franchise: contestants are asked multiple choice questions and must select the correct answer from four possible choices, and are provided with lifelines that may be used if they are uncertain. Starting in season 7 in 2013, the top prize was ₹7 crore/- ( rupees) and it was increased to ₹7.5 crore/- in Season 14 in 2022 to celebrate 75 years of India's Independence.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: KBC premiered on 3 July 2000 and was hosted by Amitabh Bachchan, his first appearance on Indian television. "KBC" initially offered contestants the chance to win Rs. 1 Crore/- (ten million rupees) . The declining ratings of KBC paved way for reformatting the series immediately as Junior KBC with kids as contestants which started airing from 6 May 2001. The season ended on 31 December 2001. The show was well received in its premiere season.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: On 5 August 2005, the show was restarted after a four-year hiatus, and renamed Kaun Banega Crorepati Dwitiya or KBC 2. During this season, the top prize amount was doubled to Rs. 2 Crore/- (twenty million rupees). It was abruptly ended by STAR Plus after Amitabh Bachchan fell ill in 2006 after he shot his last episode on 13 January 2006. Bachchan had shot 61 of the 85 scheduled episodes when he fell ill. He announced he would return after he recovered, but when his health prevented him from filming the remaining 24 episodes, Star TV took the decision to stop production.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Star Television recruited Shah Rukh Khan to host the third season of the show when Bachchan declined. The grand prize remained Rs. 2 Crore/- (twenty million rupees). The third season of the show began airing on 22 January 2007 with the first contestant as Prasenjit Sarkar who was the last contestant dropped from season two midway owing to Bachchan's health. The show started well but the show's ratings dropped significantly due to the change of the host. The season ended on 19 April 2007 with a special finale.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The show was restarted after a three-year and half hiatus. The fourth season (called "KBC 4") was hosted by the returning Amitabh Bachchan and started on 11 October 2010. This season was telecast four days a week, Monday through Thursday evenings. The tagline of the season was "Koi Bhi Sawaal Chota Nahi Hota" (; literally: "No question is small"). The show moved from STAR Plus to Sony TV. The new logo designed for the fourth season incorporated the new Indian Rupee symbol, which was unveiled earlier in the year. The contestant tryout for the fourth season opened on 2 August 2010 at 9 PM IST. The total prize money for this season was ₹1 Crore/- (ten million rupees), and a jackpot question for ₹5 Crore/- (50 million rupees). The fourth season of the show was highly successful due to the return of former host Amitabh Bachchan. The season ended on 9 December 2010.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: During this season, much like its international counterparts, there were various rule changes made to the show. The number of questions was reduced from 15 to 13 and, as in the United States version of the show, a timer was added to each question. There was a 30-second time limit for questions 1 and 2, and a 45-second time limit for questions 3 to 7. Questions 8 to 13 were not timed. Any time not used was voided and not banked (unlike the United States version which banked the time for the final question). Much like other countries' version of the game, the clock stops whenever a lifeline is used and if the time limit expired, the contestant was forced to walk away with their current winnings. This season introduced the "Double Dip" and "Ask the Expert" lifelines (similar to the United States counterpart from the Millionaire clock format). Also from this season onwards, Fastest Finger First Contestants earlier who used to come for one episode has now been allowed to stay for one week.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: This Hot Seat version was started at the Diwali time from 1 to 4 November 2010. All contestants were celebrities on this version. This version was just like Millionaire Hot Seat. For questions 1–5, 30 seconds were available. For questions 6–10, 45 seconds were available. For questions 11–15, 60 seconds were available. It had only one lifeline, named Pass.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Amitabh Bachchan returned to host the fifth season which premiered on 15 August 2011 on Indian Independence Day and ended on 17 November 2011. It was again aired four days a week. Compared to the previous season, there was only one major gameplay change: there was only a single milestone (the Padao) that the contestant chose. The tagline used for the season was "Koi Bhi Insaan Chota Nahi Hota" ( Literally: "No person is inferior"). This season was generally viewed as the most popular show on Indian television in 2011.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: This season introduced a play at home segment called "Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot". This contest allowed home viewers to send an answer to a question via SMS during the show, with 1 Lakh Rupees going to the randomly picked winner, who can double or triple this amount by correctly answering further questions.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The registration (contestant tryout) for the season started on 28 May 2012. This sixth season (labeled as "KBC 6") was also hosted by Amitabh Bachchan and premiered on 7 September 2012. It aired from Friday to Sunday evenings on Sony TV. The season ended on 26 January 2013. The tagline used for the season was "Sirf Gyaan Hi Aapko Aapka Haq Dilata Hai" "It is only knowledge that gives you your right"). This season retained the 13 question format of the previous season.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: This season, "KBC" started a new tradition of giving an advantage to socially excluded people, known as "Dusra Mauka". Sonali Mukherjee, a victim of acid throwing, appeared along Lara Dutta in the first such special. On 13 January 2013, another special aired in which Manoj Kumar, a Mahadalit was accompanied by Indian actor Manoj Bajpayee. The winner of season 6 was Sunmeet Kaur.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The seventh season (called "KBC 7") was also hosted by Bachchan entitled "Seekhna Bandh Toh Jeetna Bandh" ( or simply: "Learn to Win") was used as the tagline for the season. The total prize money was increased to 7 Crore/- (70 million rupees), and the number of questions increased from 13 to 15. The season was commenced on 6 September 2013.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The season had a few changes, including a new lifeline called Power Paplu. This lifeline allowed the contestant to reuse a lifeline that was previously used on another question. (It could not be a lifeline that was used on the current question. For example, a contestant could not use "Ask the Audience"/"Audience Poll" twice on the same question.) Double Dip and Ask The Expert were discontinued and in lieu of 50:50 and Flip The Question (also known as "Switch" or "Switch The Question") were revived. The Phone-a-Friend was extended to 45 seconds. The prize for the jackpot question was increased to 7 Crore/- (70 million rupees). The "Kaun Banega Crorepati 2013" set was a 360-degree multimedia stage. The final four questions were a part of "Sapta Koti Sandook "() that let contestants win from 1 Crore (ten million rupees), 3 Crore/- (thirty million rupees), 5 Crore/- (50 million rupees) and finally 7 Crore/- (70 million rupees). The system of Fastest Finger First was also altered. Instead of playing one question, the winner of the leader board formed at the end of three questions sits on the "Hot Seat." (i.e. the player who answered the most questions correctly in the shortest amount of time).


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The highest winning prize of this season was also 7 Crore/- (70 million rupees). The registrations of "KBC 8" were commenced on 22 July 2014 and the shooting started on 2 August 2014. Shooting of some episodes was held in Raipur and other in Surat. This was the first time that "KBC" was shot outside Mumbai. The format underwent minor changes for the season, with the number of questions reduced to 14, the Double Dip replacing the 50:50, as well as the Flip being replaced by the Triguni (Three Wise Men) lifeline. The Phone-a-Friend was shortened down to 30 seconds and the original Fastest Finger First system (as used for seasons 1 to 6) was reinstated.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The grand premiere episode of the series premiered on 17 August 2014 (Sunday) at 8:30 PM IST for 3 hours. The season aired from Monday through Thursday evenings. Initially running for 1.5 hours, the program reduced to an hour. The season ended on 6 November 2014 and aired its two grand finale episodes on 9 November and on 16 November 2014. The tagline for the season was "Yahan Sirf Paise Nahi, Dil Bhi Jeete Jate Hain" (). Special guests appeared in the grand premiere episode: television comedian, Kapil Sharma from Colors TV's television series "Comedy Nights with Kapil"; Shivaji Satam, Dayanand Shetty and Aditya Shrivastava from Sony TV's television series "CID"; and finally Rajput hero, Maharana Pratap a.k.a. Faisal Khan from Sony TV's television series "Bharat Ka Veer Putra – Maharana Pratap" gave a stellar dance performance. Among others the Shillong Chamber Choir led by Neil Nongkynrih performed a medley of evergreen songs of Bollywood followed by a patriotic song at the opening ceremony of "KBC8".


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: After a gap of 2 years, KBC returned to the air with Bachchan resuming hosting duties as it premiered on 28 August 2017 airing on Sony TV. The tagline of this season was "Jawaab dene ka Waqt aa Gaya Hai" (). The show aired from Monday to Friday at 9:00 pm and the Friday episode has been titled as "Nayi Chaah Nayi Raah" . The season introduced a 16 question format, where the first 10 questions are timed (45 seconds for the first five questions and 60 seconds for the following five questions). The 50:50 lifeline replaced Double Dip and the Three Wise Men lifeline was replaced by the Plus One (from the United States version). Phone-a-Friend (now sponsored by Jio) introduced video calls. In case the contestant reaches the 16th question (Jio Jackpot Question), then the contestant cannot use the remaining lifelines. The last episode of the show was aired on 7 November 2017 titled as "Abhinandan Aabhar".


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The show started registration on 6 June 2018 and started airing on Sony TV from 3 September 2018. The tagline for the tenth season is "Kab Tak Rokoge" (). In this particular season, the Phone-a-friend lifeline was replaced with the Ask The Expert lifeline.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Season 11 of "KBC" premiered on Sony TV on 19 August 2019, with Bachchan resuming hosting duties. The show aired on weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to 10:30 pm IST, with Karamveer Special episodes airing every Friday until 11 p.m. IST.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: On 2 May 2020, Sony TV released a short video via social media featuring Bachchan, stating that the audition process for season 12 will run from 9 to 23 May.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, filming and airing was delayed. Filming began on 7 September. Bachchan posted the first look of the updated set on his official Twitter handle.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Season 12 premiere was aired on 28 September, with the tagline "jo bhi ho, har setback ka jawab comeback se do" (जो भी हो, हर सेटबेक का जवाब कमबेक से दो). Aarti Jagtap, a resident of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, was the first contestant of the season.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, filming occurred without a studio audience. Consequently, the Audience Poll lifeline was replaced by the Video a Friend lifeline, which is similar to the Phone a Friend lifeline, except via video call.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: For the first time in "KBC" history, a contestant (Runa Saha from Kolkata) came to the hot seat without playing Fastest Finger First, as there were no other contestants left.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: During a Karamveer episode, Padma Shri Phoolbasan Bai Yadav and Renuka Shahane became the first contestants of the season to win .


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Registrations for season 13 of the show started from 10 May 2021. The format of digital auditions were continued and entire process was divided into four parts: registration, screening, online audition and personal interview. The show's promos were titled "Sammaan" and were directed by Nitesh Tiwari. They were released in three parts with the last part revealing the show's air date and time. The show premiered on 28 August, on Sony TV channel and SonyLIV app. The Friday Special Episode was titled as "Shaandaar Shukravaar". Studio audience returned for the season and the audience poll lifeline was reinstated. However, the Fastest Finger First was removed and a Triple Test was introduced in which contestants took three general knowledge questions with four options similar to season 7 version, and the contestant answering all three in the shortest time headed to the hot seat. The timer was named "Dhuk-Dhuki ji".


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: On 31 August, Himani Bundela became the season's first ₹1 crore winner and the first ever blind contestant to win a crore.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Season 14 first premiered on 7 August 2022. The "Triple Test" was continued for this season and the lifelines were reduced from 4 to 3. The "expert advice" and "flip the question" lifelines were removed, and video call a friend replaced these lifelines. The number of questions has increased to 17. On account of India's 75th year of independence, the final amount was increased to ₹7.5 crore, and a new threshold at ₹75 lakh was added preventing the player from going down if they misattempted the ₹1 crore question. The timer was renamed "DJ Babu".


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Shashwat Goel is the first and only contestant to have attempted the Question 17 worth INR 7,50,00,000. After winning INR 1 crore, he had very logically explained the rationale that if he got it right then it would be an increment of 650% to INR 7.5 crore vs getting it wrong would reduce his prize winnings by 25% only, back down to INR 75,00,000. The final episode will air on 30 December 2022.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Similar to the original series in the United Kingdom, members of the public completed a qualification quiz which opened at the start of each series at various times in the year (also known as "registration period"). Applicants would send a premium-rate SMS to a designated number, and answer a question by responding. Contestants would complete a series of interviews before being randomly selected from a pool of other hopeful contestants and appearing on the set in Fastest Finger First. In order to be eligible, contestants must be residents and citizens of India and at least 18 years of age. Even if the contestants are below 18 years of age (only in the junior special episodes), the prize money they will earn will be called points and deposited in their fixed deposit but will be converted to rupees whenever they cross 18 years of age.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The selected contestants are then brought to the studio to play Fastest Finger First where they will be asked to arrange four answers into the designated order in the shortest amount of time. In Season 7, contestants would play three questions and the one who answered the most correctly in the shortest amount of time will get selected to sit in the hot seat. In the 13 season, contestants have to answer three questions with four options like the ones in the game. One who has the most correct answers in the least time(added for the three questions) came in the hotseat.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: After determining the winner of Fastest Finger First, they would join the host in the "Hot Seat" to start answering a series of multiple-choice questions on their way to win the top cash prize as outlined in the table below. Along the way, the contestant is free to walk away from the game with their winnings but if they got a question wrong, they would walk away with nothing unless they correctly answered a milestone question (highlighted in yellow) that would guarantee some winnings.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: To help them along the way, much like its counterparts, the contestant had a set of lifelines available for them to use. Which lifelines were available were dependent on the format being used.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Additionally, starting in season 4, the contestant would have to answer these questions within a certain amount of time. Contestants were allotted 30 seconds to respond up to and including the first threshold question (in 2017, this was increased to 45 seconds). The following question up to and including the next threshold contestants were allotted 60 seconds to give their "final answer". For the final set of questions (the question following the second threshold) the questions were not timed. Using a lifeline paused the timer temporarily until it resolved. If the contestant used Flip The Question, the timer would restart from the base value of the question.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The total number of questions available in the game changed. As the number of questions changed, so did the total prize money available. In 2017, KBC introduced a jackpot question. For the Jackpot Question, the contestants were not allowed to use any of the remaining lifelines.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: In seasons 5 and 6, the contestants had to select a threshold or "Padao" themselves. They were allowed to choose any one question on the tree and designate that as a threshold amount. Meaning that if they cross the threshold, they were guaranteed that amount of cash winnings. Getting a question wrong before the Padao is reached would result in zero winnings.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Harshvardhan Navathe became the first top prize winner of KBC when he won Rs. 1 Crore/- on 19 October 2000.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Ravi Mohan Saini appeared on "Kaun Banega Crorepati Junior" at 14 and won Rs. 1 Crore/- on 14 May 2001.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Hailing from Bihar, Sushil Kumar, who appeared in Season 5, is the first KBC contestant to win ₹5 Crores/-. He was a computer instructor in MNREGA earning a meager ₹6,000/- (roughly $121) per month before his entry to.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Achin and Sarthak Narula appeared in Season 8 and won ₹7 Crores/-, making them the first and, as of now, only ₹7 Crore/- winners. They are one of the biggest winners in Asian WWTBAM franchises.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: Danny Boyle's 2008 film "Slumdog Millionaire" was loosely based on the show. The movie's host, based loosely on the actual host Amitabh Bachchan, was portrayed by Anil Kapoor. Kapoor himself has appeared on a celebrity version of the show.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: After Sameer Nair became the programming head of StarPlus in February 1999, he came across a clip from "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in July 1999 through Steve Askew, the Australian programming head of the region and got the rights to produce here from ECM who had the Asian version rights. Then, Siddhartha Basu who earlier worked in the show "A question of answers" was roped to produce the show with his company Synergy communications. The show was then titled "Kaun Banega Lakhpati" with the maximum price amount decided to be Rs. 1 Lakh/-. In January 2000, Nair had a choice for Amitabh Bachchan to host the show. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Star TV's parent firm News Corporation, in the next month, ordered to change the maximum amount to Rs. 1 Crore/- and the series was accordingly retitled "Kaun Banega Crorepati". Bachchan who was initially skeptical later agreed to host it. The sets were constructed in Mumbai's Film City in June 2000 and the series was launched in July 2000 during the time when the channel was in a revamp along with conversion into a full Hindi language channel from Bilingual English and Hindi language channel.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The series which aired on StarPlus for three seasons is the first show that took the channel's viewership to a greater height, being one of the tops viewed Hindi GEC show in that time.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: On 27 April 2007, Delhi High Court on becoming suspicious in the amount won by the actors and VVIPs (Very very important persons) being high unlike ordinary KBC contestants and ordered Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) to investigate into it. However, Star denied it and stated, "KBC-2 is purely a game of skill and not a game of chance; each and every question posed by KBC-2 requires certain ‘thinking’ and ‘exercise of intellect’ to win any sum of money." The case was soon stayed by the Supreme Court.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: During the third season, in 2008, Star Plus and the show sponsor Airtel were penalized with Rs. 1 Crore by the National Consumer Commission on violating the Consumer Protection Act when they charged R.2.5 per SMS rather than R.1, earning a huge profit.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: In 2010, after the third season, the show was shifted from Star Plus to Sony Entertainment Television who held the format, as the former did not renew their contract.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: An FIR was filed against the host Amitabh Bachchan and the channel Sony Entertainment Television for a question asked in the quiz, stating it hurting Hindu religion sentiments, in an episode of season 12 aired on 30 October 2020.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The overall average rating of the first season was 14.1 TVR while the second and third got 11.1 and 6.8 TVRs.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The first season started with 22% of viewership garnering 8.96 TVR in the debut week and soon increased to 54% in the last week of July 2000 making it most watched television program and pushing the position of StarPlus to number one for the first time then and also reinvented Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan's career. The following seven days it gradually increased and got 9.57, 11, 12.6, 12.4, 12.9, 13.2 and 14.7 TVRs. Maintaining the viewership with around more than 10 TVR until November 2000, it dipped to 8–9 TVR in December 2000 and further to 6–7 TVR in January 2001 while in week ending 3 February 2001 it garnered 7.2 TVR, despite continued to hold its number one position throughout. The highest rating ever achieved by the series in that time was 27.13 TVR during October 2000.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The second season opened with 19.75 TVR in the launch day occupying the top position. In analysis of its viewership in specific regions of India, it had the highest viewership from Madhya Pradesh with 38 TVR during the premiere.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The third season hosted by Shah Rukh Khan received ratings lesser than the previous seasons which were hosted by Amitabh Bachchan and declined through its progress. The season opened with 12.33 TVR on 22 January 2007 with a reach of 23 million while the following days it declined to 10.44 and 7.36 TVRs. On 25 January, it increased to 9.24 TVR however not being able to match like previous seasons of Star Plus. The following week after premiere it improved and got 8.8, 9, 8.4 and 10 TVR from Monday to Thursday.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The fourth season which began airing on Sony Entertainment Television opened with 6.24 TVR while it averaged 5.2 TVR in the debut week and ended with an average rating of about 4 TVR.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The fifth season opened with 5.2 TVR and averaged 4.52 TVR in the week. In week 35, it was at the second position with 5.2 TVR. The highest rating of the season was 7.2 and 8 TVR for the two episodes aired on 1 and 2 November 2011, where contestant Sushil Kumar won ₹5 crores, being the highest rating achieved in last two years by any Hindi GEC. The overall average rating of the series was about 4 TVR.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The first episode of sixth season became the most watched Hindi GEC garnering 6.1 TVR making it the best television launch of the year and garnered 5.3 TVR the following day.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The launch episode of season eight had 8.96 million viewers and that week it averaged 5.2 million viewers.


title: Kaun Banega Crorepati

text: The ninth season opened with 6.2 million impressions being second most-watched Hindi GEC in urban. Overall, the season was the most-watched Hindi GEC occupying first position for months.


title: Epic Games Store

text: The Epic Games Store is a digital video game storefront for Microsoft Windows and macOS, operated by Epic Games. It launched in December 2018 as both a website and a standalone launcher, of which the latter is required to download and play games. The storefront provides a basic catalog, friends list management, matchmaking, and other features. Epic Games has further plans to expand the feature set of the storefront but it does not plan to add as many features as other digital distribution platforms, such as discussion boards or user reviews, instead using existing social media platforms to support these.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Epic entered the distribution market after the success of "Fortnite", which Epic distributed by their own channels to users on Windows and macOS systems rather than other storefronts. Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, had stated his opinion that the revenue cut of Steam, the dominant game storefront run by Valve, was too high at 30%, and suggested that they could run a store with as little as an 8% cut while remaining profitable. By launch, Epic Games had settled on a 12% revenue cut for titles published through the store, as well as dropping the licensing fees for games built on their Unreal Engine, normally 5% of the revenue.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Epic Games enticed developers and publishers to the service by offering them time-exclusivity agreements to publish on the storefront, in exchange for assured minimum revenue, even if Epic made a loss on under-performing games. Epic also offered users one or two free games each week for the first two years of its operation to help draw users. Criticism from users has been drawn to Epic Games and those developers and publishers opting for exclusivity deals, asserting that these are segmenting the market.


title: Epic Games Store

text: The Epic Games Store is a storefront for games available via the web and built into Epic Games' launcher application. Both web and application allow players to purchase games, while through the launcher the player can install and keep their games up to date.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Epic's newer games will be exclusively available through its store and the company plans to fund developers to release exclusively through their store, using revenue guarantees to developers that opt for this, with Epic paying the difference should a game underperform. For other developers, Epic takes a 12% share of revenue, the rest going to the developer, and for any games developed using the Unreal Engine, Epic forgoes the 5% revenue-based fee for those games sold through their storefront. After paying for content delivery and other services, Epic's profit is about 5% of gross revenue, though with economies of scale, this could increase to 6–7%. By Epic's calculations, the storefront's commission was sufficient to be profitable.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Epic planned to offer one free game every two weeks through 2019; this was increased to one free game every week in June 2019, and on weeks where the free game had a mature content rating and thus locked out if parental controls are enabled, Epic offered a second free game not so rated. Epic since affirmed that they planned to continue the free game program through 2021. Through the first eighteen months of this program, Epic had given out over two thousand dollars of games, as estimated by "PCGamesN". Certain free game offerings had been highly popular; in its giveaway for "Grand Theft Auto V" in May 2020, more than seven millions new users claimed the giveaway in addition to existing ones, and temporarily crashed Epic's servers, and later, over 19 million users obtained a free copy of "Star Wars Battlefront II" offered in January 2021, with the new influx of players crashing the game's servers briefly. Documents unveiled during the "Epic Games v. Apple" trial in 2021 showed that in the store's giveaways prior to 2020, Epic paid buyouts to the developers of the free game ranging typically from to , and measured this performance in new users drawn to the storefront on the order of 100,000 new users, with that buyout averaging from per new user. Epic Games also has offered sales, in which Epic absorbs the discount from the sale. For example, its first store-wide sale in May 2019 offered a discount of off any game valued at or more.


title: Epic Games Store

text: The store at launch had a barebones set of features, but Epic plans to develop feature subsets comparable to other digital storefronts. Eventually the storefront will offer user reviews, but this feature will be opt-in by developers to avoid misuse by activities like review bombing. Cloud saving was added in August 2019, while preliminary support for achievements and user modifications were added in July 2020. Full support for achievements were rolled out in October 2021. There are no plans to include internal user forums. The storefront will include a ticket-based support system for users to report bugs and technical problems for games to developers, while developers will be encouraged to link to external forums and social channels of their choosing, like Reddit and Discord, in lieu of storefront-tied forums. However, a party chat system, similar to features of Discord, will be implemented in 2021 to allow friends to chat while in games supported by the store. Information taken from OpenCritic was added to product Store pages in January 2020 to provide users with critical review information. The store added a review system in June 2022, and as to fight review bombing, the system is based on randomized polling of users, and with presentation of random subsets of these reviews to storefront pages.


title: Epic Games Store

text: The store does not have features such as virtual reality headset support, nor expected to have any "game-shaped features" similar to Steam's trading cards designed to drive sales.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Cloud saving was introduced on a very limited, game-by-game basis in July 2019, though Epic plans to expand this out after validating the feature. In December 2019, Epic gave developers and publishers the option to implement their own in-game storefront for microtransactions and other purchases for a game, while still retaining the option to use the Epic storefront instead.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Where possible, Epic plans to extend its "Support a Creator" program that it had launched in "Fortnite Battle Royale" to other games offered on the store. With the Support a Creator program, players can opt to indicate a streamer or content creator, selected by Epic based on submitted applications, to support. Supported streamers then receive revenue from Epic Games on microtransactions made through the Epic Games Store from the players that supported them, incentivizing these content creators; within "Fortnite", creators had received about 5% of the cash value of the microtransactions.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Following developers discovering that Valve would not allow games on Steam that used blockchain-based elements like cryptocurrency or non-fungible tokens as these items have value outside of Steam, Epic announced that they would allow such games, though this remains part of the review of each game that Epic performs before accepting a game onto its system.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Digital distribution of games for personal computers prior to the introduction of the Epic Games Store was through digital storefronts like Steam and GOG.com, with Steam being the dominant channel with an estimated 75% of all digital distribution in 2013. Valve, which operated Steam, took a 30% revenue cut of all games sold through their services, a figure matched by the other services like GOG.com, and console and mobile storefronts. In August 2017, Epic's Tim Sweeney suggested that 30% was no longer a reasonable cut, and that Valve could still profit if they cut their revenue share to 8%.


title: Epic Games Store

text: In early December 2018, Epic Games announced that it would open a digital storefront to challenge Steam by using a 12% revenue split rather than Steam's 30%. Epic also said that it would not impose digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on games sold through its platform. The store opened days later, on December 6, 2018, as part of the Game Awards, with a handful of games and a short list of upcoming titles. The store was open for macOS and Windows platforms before expanding to Android and other platforms. Epic aims to release a storefront for Android devices, bypassing the Google Play Store, where it will similarly only take a 12% cut compared to Google's 30%. While Apple, Inc.'s monopoly on iOS currently makes it impossible for Epic to release an App Store there, analysts believe that if Google reacts to Epic's App Store by reducing their cut, Apple will be pressured to follow suit. Epic has tried to ask Google for an exemption to bypass Google's payment systems for in-app purchases for the "Fortnite Battle Royale" app, but Google has refused to allow this.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Prior to the store's launch, its Director of Publishing Strategy, Sergey Galyonkin, had run Steam Spy, a website that collected Steam usage data from public profiles to create public sales statistics. He ran the site as a side-project, but used it to learn what developers would want from Epic's store, namely fewer social elements and less visual clutter. The store's contents were hand-curated until Epic opened the store to self-publishing, starting with a beta of these features in August 2021. Epic's staff will still need to approve games for the store, a process that "mostly focus[es] on the technical side of things and general quality", according to Tim Sweeney. Sweeney does not expect this vetting process to be as stringent as the approvals needed to publish games on home video game consoles, but will use human evaluation to filter out bloatware and asset flips, among other poor-quality titles. Epic does not plan to allow adults-only mature content on the store.


title: Epic Games Store

text: In January 2019, Ubisoft announced its plans to distribute its games via the Epic Games Store, with its upcoming "Tom Clancy's The Division 2" to be sold on the storefront (in addition to Ubisoft's own Uplay storefront) instead of Steam, making it the first major third-party publisher to utilize the Epic Games Store. Ubisoft said that selecting the Epic Games Store for future games was part of a larger business discussion related to Steam. Chris Early, Ubisoft's vice president for partnerships and revenue, described Steam as "unrealistic, the current business model that they have...It doesn't reflect where the world is today in terms of game distribution." Publisher Deep Silver followed suit later that month, announcing that "Metro Exodus" will be exclusive to Epic Games Store for one year, at a reduced (in North America) compared to when it was offered on other storefronts. Epic has subsequently made partnerships with Private Division and Quantic Dream for publishing on the store.


title: Epic Games Store

text: The storefront started offering non-game applications in December 2020 with the introduction of Spotify; Epic stated that it will not take a cut of any of Spotify's subscriptions for those using it via its storefront app. Other apps added included itch.io, iHeartRadio, Krita, and Brave.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Epic introduced cabined accounts intended for children in December 2022. These accounts have access to certain free games on the store, including "Fortnite", "Fall Guys", and "Rocket League" with limited gameplay features to provide a safe environment for children. These accounts also cannot purchase games without the authority of a parent's approval, as well as other parental controls.


title: Epic Games Store

text: The Epic Games Store was announced a few days after Valve had revealed a change in the Steam revenue sharing model that reduced Valve's take, reducing their revenue cut from 30% to 25% after a game made more than , and to 20% after . Several indie game developers expressed concern that this change was meant to help keep larger AAA developers and publishers and did little to support smaller developers. As such, when the Epic Games Store was announced, several journalists saw it as potentially disruptive to Steam's current model. Some developers and publishers have announced plans to release games that they were planning to release through Steam now exclusively through the Epic Games Store, or to have timed exclusivity on Epic's storefront before appearing on other services. Valve's Gabe Newell welcomed the competition, saying it "is awesome for everybody. It keeps us honest, it keeps everybody else honest", but did comment that, in the short-term, the competition was "ugly".


title: Epic Games Store

text: Over its first year in 2019, Epic reported that the Store drew 108 million customers, and brought in over in sales, with being spent on third-party games. Of those third-party games, 90% of the sales came from the Epic Games Store time-limited exclusives. Overall, Epic stated that overall sales were 60% higher than they had anticipated. For 2020, Epic stated the store had reached 160 million players, 31 million daily active players, and annual sales over ( of that for third-party titles). According to data collected by Simon Carless in 2021, of the first wave of Epic storefront-exclusive games in 2019, only "Satisfactory" had surpassed what Epic paid for that exclusivity, and it along with "Dauntless" are the only two games expected to make a profit for Epic.


title: Epic Games Store

text: To compete against Steam, Epic Games has frequently arranged for time-exclusive releases of games on the Epic Games Store before other storefronts, typically for either six months or a year. Sweeney stated that this strategy was the only way to challenge Steam's dominant position, and would stop seeking exclusivity should Valve reduce its 30% revenue share. Otherwise, Epic will continue to accept offers for exclusivity on the Epic Games Store from any developers or publishers that are interested, regardless of what prior plans they had made with Steam or other storefronts.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Some consumers have reacted negatively towards these exclusivity deals, as it appears to create division in the gaming community similar to games that are released with timed exclusivity on home consoles. "Metro Exodus", by developers 4A Games and published by Deep Silver, had been planned as a Steam release. However, Deep Silver announced a few weeks before release that the game would be a timed-exclusive on the Epic Games Store, eventually available on Steam a year after release. Some users were upset by this, review bombing the game on Steam and complaining at 4A Games. Deep Silver backed up 4A Games, and noted the decision for Epic Games Store exclusivity was made by Deep Silver's parent, Koch Media. In the days that followed after "Metro Exodus" release, players used the Steam review system to praise the game as Epic Games Store lacked user reviews at that time. "Phoenix Point", a spiritual successor to "X-COM" by "X-COM" lead designer Julian Gollop, was successfully crowdfunded with players given the option of redemption keys on Steam or GOG.com. In March 2019, Gollop announced that they have opted to make "Phoenix Point" exclusive to the Epic Games Store for a year; backers would get a redemption key for the Epic Games Store as well as for Steam or GOG a year later when the exclusivity period was up, as well as being provided the first year's downloadable content for free. Gollop explained that with the exclusivity deal, his team received additional financial support to finish up "Phoenix Point". Several backers were angered by this decision, believing that Gollop's team used their funds to get the game to a point where they could get external investment and then change the direction of the game. Gollop asserted that the deal with Epic Games did not alter "Phoenix Point"s ultimate direction, but did offer full refunds to backers if they wanted.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Glumberland, the developers of "Ooblets", announced that the game would be an exclusive to the Epic Games Store in late July 2019, citing that Epic's funding support would help to keep the studio afloat until release and provide them a better revenue split. In the announcement by Glumberland's Ben Wasser, he included what he felt had been joking language related to criticisms of Epic Games Store exclusivity, calling those who complained "immature, toxic gamers", but that the situation was "nothing to get worked up about". In the wake of this, Wasser and others at Glumberland began to receive thousands of hostile negative messages related to the announcement, including threats. Wasser had not expected the community to react to the message that way, and tried to clarify Glumberland's position of needing Epic's support rather than any attempt to spurn the gaming community. Sweeney spoke later that the campaign against "Ooblets" represents a growing trend in the community based on "the coordinated and deliberate creation and promotion of false information, including fake screenshots, videos, and technical analysis, accompanied by harassment of partners, promotion of hateful themes, and intimidation of those with opposing views." Sweeney said that Epic is working with its partners and developers to try to improve the situation and support those targeted in such manners.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Further issues on exclusivity arose after Unfold Games, who were in the final stages of preparing to release their game "Darq", reported on their interactions with Epic Games. "Darq" had been established as a Steam release for several months and the developers announced that they were nearing release in 2019. According to Unfold Games, Epic Games approached them about having the game on the Epic Games Store in addition to providing funding support. However, when asked, Epic Games clarified that Unfold would have to sell the game on the Epic Games Store exclusively, having to withdraw the game from Steam for a period of one year. Unfold decided against going with Epic Games, noting that a large part of their marketing for fundraising was a major emphasis on releasing on Steam, as well as due to the game having been wishlisted by a large number of Steam users. As a result of media attention regarding Epic Games Store, Unfold released "Darq" as a digital rights management-free game on Steam and GOG.com. Some journalists have expressed concern that Epic's large focus on exclusivity may harm their intent.


title: Epic Games Store

text: Following a number of other time-exclusive planned releases on the Epic Games Store announced during the 2019 Game Developers Conference and further complaints from players about this, Steve Allison, head of the storefront division, admitted that they did not want to cause such disruption in the gaming community. According to Allison, they will try to avoid making such large-scale exclusivity deals so close to a game's release, and want to try to respect what the community wants. Following similar complaints from backers of "Shenmue III" who were upset about the Steam release being delayed, Epic Games announced that with "Shenmue III" and any future crowd-funded game that ends up with Epic Games Store exclusivity, it will cover the costs of any refund requests from backers.


title: Epic Games Store

text: In April, 2021 in the "Epic Games v. Apple" lawsuit, Apple submitted a court filing that claimed that the Epic Games Store was running at a significant loss and likely would not be profitable until 2027, based on deposition from Epic's financial management, and thus requiring Epic to assure revenue from its other product streams. Apple asserted that Epic had lost around on the store from 2019 to 2020, primarily due to the minimum guarantees it provides to developers for bringing their game to the store and from its storefront exclusivity deals. In its response to Apple's claim, Epic stated it expected the Epic Games Store to become profitable by 2023 and that it was not yet profitable "because it has front-loaded its marketing and user-acquisition costs to gain market share". Sweeney, in response to this claim via Twitter, stated that the store "has proven to be a fantastic success in reaching gamers with great games and a fantastic investment into growing the business".


title: Epic Games Store

text: PC Gamer discovered that on select laptop configurations Epic Games Store can shorten battery lifespan by up to 20% even when it is not used (Epic Games Store window is closed and application is minimized to tray). On most devices, this impact is milder, at only 5%.


title: Robert Browning

text: Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings and challenging vocabulary and syntax.


title: Robert Browning

text: His early long poems (1833) and "Paracelsus" (1835) were acclaimed, but his reputation dwindled for a time – his 1840 poem "Sordello" was seen as wilfully obscure – and took over a decade to recover, by which time he had moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 he married fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett and moved to Italy. By her death in 1861 he had published the collection "Men and Women" (1855). His "Dramatis Personae" (1864) and book-length epic poem "The Ring and the Book" (1868–1869) made him a leading poet. By his death in 1889 he was seen as a sage and philosopher-poet who had fed into Victorian social and political discourse. Societies for studying his work survived in Britain and the US into the 20th century.


title: Robert Browning

text: Robert Browning was born in Walworth in the parish of Camberwell, Surrey, which now forms part of the Borough of Southwark in south London. He was baptised on 14 June 1812, at Lock's Fields Independent Chapel, York Street, Walworth, the only son of Sarah Anna (née Wiedemann) and Robert Browning. His father was a well-paid clerk for the Bank of England, earning about £150 per year. Browning's paternal grandfather was a slave owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies, but Browning's father was an abolitionist. Browning's father had been sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation but returned to England following a slave revolt. Browning's mother was the daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee, Scotland, and his Scottish wife. His paternal grandmother, Margaret Tittle, had inherited a plantation in St Kitts and was rumoured in the family to have a mixed-race ancestry including some Jamaican blood, but author Julia Markus suggests she was Kittitian rather than Jamaican. The evidence is inconclusive. Robert's father, a literary collector, amassed a library of some 6,000 books; many of them were rare so that Robert grew up in a household with significant literary resources. His mother, to whom he was close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brother's companion in his later years, after the death of his wife in 1861. His father encouraged his children's interest in literature and the arts.


title: Robert Browning

text: By the age of 12, Browning had written a book of poetry, which he later destroyed for want of a publisher. After attending one or two private schools and showing an insuperable dislike of school life, he was educated at home by a tutor, using the resources of his father's library. By 14 he was fluent in French, Greek, Italian and Latin. He became an admirer of the Romantic poets, especially Shelley, whom he followed in becoming an atheist and a vegetarian. At 16, he studied Greek at University College London, but left after his first year. His parents' evangelical faith prevented his studying at either Oxford or Cambridge University, both then open only to members of the Church of England. He had inherited substantial musical ability through his mother, and composed arrangements of various songs. He refused a formal career and ignored his parents' remonstrations by dedicating himself to poetry. He stayed at home until the age of 34, financially dependent on his family until his marriage. His father sponsored the publication of his son's poems.


title: Robert Browning

text: In March 1833, ""Pauline, a Fragment of a Confession"" was published anonymously by Saunders and Otley at the expense of the author, Robert Browning, who received the money from his aunt, Mrs Silverthorne. It is a long poem composed in homage to the poet Shelley and somewhat in his style. Originally Browning considered "Pauline" as the first of a series written by different aspects of himself, but he soon abandoned this idea. The press noticed the publication. W. J. Fox writing in "The Monthly Repository" of April 1833 discerned merit in the work. Allan Cunningham praised it in the "Athenaeum". However, it sold no copies. Some years later, probably in 1850, Dante Gabriel Rossetti came across it in the Reading Room of the British Museum and wrote to Browning, then in Florence to ask if he was the author. John Stuart Mill, however, wrote that the author suffered from an "intense and morbid self-consciousness". Later Browning was rather embarrassed by the work, and only included it in his collected poems of 1868 after making substantial changes and adding a preface in which he asked for indulgence for a boyish work.


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1834, he accompanied the Chevalier George de Benkhausen, the Russian consul-general, on a brief visit to St Petersburg and began "Paracelsus", which was published in 1835. The subject of the 16th-century savant and alchemist was probably suggested to him by the Comte Amédée de Ripart-Monclar, to whom it was dedicated. The publication had some commercial and critical success, being noticed by Wordsworth, Dickens, Landor, J. S. Mill and the already famous Tennyson. It is a monodrama without action, dealing with the problems confronting an intellectual trying to find his role in society. It gained him access to the London literary world.


title: Robert Browning

text: As a result of his new contacts he met Macready, who invited him to write a play. "Strafford" was performed five times. Browning then wrote two other plays, one of which was not performed, while the other failed, Browning having fallen out with Macready.


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1838, he visited Italy looking for background for "Sordello", a long poem in heroic couplets, presented as the imaginary biography of the Mantuan bard spoken of by Dante in the Divine Comedy, canto 6 of Purgatory, set against a background of hate and conflict during the Guelph-Ghibelline wars. This was published in 1840 and met with widespread derision, gaining him the reputation of wanton carelessness and obscurity. Tennyson commented that he only understood the first and last lines. Jane Welsh Carlyle, wife of Thomas Carlyle (a friend of Browning's who deeply influenced Browning's poetry), quipped that she read the poem through and "could not tell whether Sordello was a 'a book, a city, or a man'".


title: Robert Browning

text: Browning's reputation began to make a partial recovery with the publication, 1841–1846, of "Bells and Pomegranates", a series of eight pamphlets, originally intended just to include his plays. Fortunately for Browning's career, his publisher, Moxon, persuaded him to include some "dramatic lyrics", some of which had already appeared in periodicals.


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1845, Browning met the poet Elizabeth Barrett, six years his senior, who lived as a semi-invalid in her father's house in Wimpole Street, London. They began regularly corresponding and gradually a romance developed between them, leading to their marriage and journey to Italy (for Elizabeth's health) on 12 September 1846. The marriage was initially secret because Elizabeth's domineering father disapproved of marriage for any of his children. Mr. Barrett disinherited Elizabeth, as he did each of his children who married: "The Mrs. Browning of popular imagination was a sweet, innocent young woman who suffered endless cruelties at the hands of a tyrannical papa but who nonetheless had the good fortune to fall in love with a dashing and handsome poet named Robert Browning." At her husband's insistence, the second edition of Elizabeth's "Poems" included her love sonnets. The book increased her popularity and high critical regard, cementing her position as an eminent Victorian poet. Upon William Wordsworth's death in 1850, she was a serious contender to become Poet Laureate, the position eventually going to Tennyson.


title: Robert Browning

text: From the time of their marriage and until Elizabeth's death, the Brownings lived in Italy, residing first in Pisa, and then, within a year, finding an apartment in Florence at Casa Guidi (now a museum to their memory). Their only child, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, nicknamed "Penini" or "Pen", was born in 1849. In these years Browning was fascinated by, and learned from, the art and atmosphere of Italy. He would, in later life, describe Italy as his university. As Elizabeth had inherited money of her own, the couple were reasonably comfortable in Italy, and their relationship together was happy. However, the literary assault on Browning's work did not let up and he was critically dismissed further, by patrician writers such as Charles Kingsley, for the desertion of England for foreign lands.


title: Robert Browning

text: Browning identified as a Liberal, supported the emancipation of women, and opposed slavery, expressing sympathy for the North in the American Civil War. Later in life, he even championed animal rights in several poems attacking vivisection. He was also a stalwart opponent of anti-Semitism, leading to speculation that Browning himself was Jewish. In 1877 he wrote a poem explaining "Why I am a Liberal" in which he declared: "Who then dares hold – emancipated thus / His fellow shall continue bound? Not I."


title: Robert Browning

text: Browning was raised in an evangelical non-conformist household. However, after his reading of Shelley he is said to have briefly become an atheist. Browning is also said to have made an uncharacteristic admission of faith to Alfred Domett, when he is said to have admired Byron's poetry "as a Christian". Poems such as "Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day" seem to confirm this Christian faith, strengthened by his wife. However, many have dismissed the usefulness of these works at discovering Browning's own religious views due to the consistent use of dramatic monologue which regularly expresses hypothetical views which cannot be ascribed to the author himself.


title: Robert Browning

text: Browning believed spiritualism to be fraud, and proved one of Daniel Dunglas Home's most adamant critics. When Browning and his wife Elizabeth attended one of his séances on 23 July 1855, a spirit face materialized, which Home claimed was Browning's son who had died in infancy: Browning seized the "materialization" and discovered it to be Home's bare foot. To make the deception worse, Browning had never lost a son in infancy.


title: Robert Browning

text: After the séance, Browning wrote an angry letter to "The Times", in which he said: "the whole display of hands, spirit utterances etc., was a cheat and imposture." In 1902 Browning's son Pen wrote: "Home was detected in a vulgar fraud." Elizabeth, however, was convinced that the phenomena she witnessed were genuine, and her discussions about Home with her husband were a constant source of disagreement.


title: Robert Browning

text: In Florence, probably from early in 1853, Browning worked on the poems that eventually comprised his two-volume "Men and Women", for which he is now well known, although in 1855, when they were published, they made relatively little impact.


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1861, Elizabeth died in Florence. Among those whom he found consoling in that period was the novelist and poet Isa Blagden, with whom he and his wife had a voluminous correspondence. The following year Browning returned to London, taking Pen with him, who by then was 12 years old. They made their home in 17 Warwick Crescent, Maida Vale. It was only when he became part of the London literary scene—albeit while paying frequent visits to Italy (though never again to Florence)—that his reputation started to take off.


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1868, after five years work he completed and published the long blank-verse poem "The Ring and the Book". Based on a convoluted murder-case from 1690s Rome, the poem is composed of 12 books: essentially 10 lengthy dramatic monologues narrated by various characters in the story, showing their individual perspectives on events, bookended by an introduction and conclusion by Browning himself. Long even by Browning's standards (over twenty-thousand lines), "The Ring and the Book" was his most ambitious project and is arguably his greatest work; it has been called a "tour de force" of dramatic poetry. Published in four parts from November 1868 to February 1869, the poem was a success both commercially and critically, and finally brought Browning the renown he had sought for nearly 40 years. The Robert Browning Society was formed in 1881 and his work was recognised as belonging within the British literary canon.


title: Robert Browning

text: In the remaining years of his life Browning travelled extensively. After a series of long poems published in the early 1870s, of which "Balaustion's Adventure" and "Red Cotton Night-Cap Country" were the best-received, the volume "Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper" included an attack against Browning's critics, especially Alfred Austin, who was later to become Poet Laureate. According to some reports Browning became romantically involved with Louisa Caroline Stewart-Mackenzie, Lady Ashburton, but he refused her proposal of marriage, and did not remarry. In 1878, he revisited Italy for the first time in the seventeen years since Elizabeth's death, and returned there on several further occasions. In 1887, Browning produced the major work of his later years, "Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their Day". It finally presented the poet speaking in his own voice, engaging in a series of dialogues with long-forgotten figures of literary, artistic, and philosophic history. The Victorian public was baffled by this, and Browning returned to the brief, concise lyric for his last volume, "Asolando" (1889), published on the day of his death.


title: Robert Browning

text: Browning died at his son's home Ca' Rezzonico in Venice on 12 December 1889. He was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey; his grave now lies immediately adjacent to that of Alfred Tennyson.


title: Robert Browning

text: During his life Browning was awarded many distinctions. He was made LL.D. of Edinburgh, a life Governor of London University, and had the offer of the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow. But he turned down anything that involved public speaking.


title: Robert Browning

text: At a dinner party on 7 April 1889, at the home of Browning's friend the artist Rudolf Lehmann, an Edison cylinder phonograph recording was made on a white wax cylinder by Edison's British representative, George Gouraud. In the recording, which still exists, Browning recites part of "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" (and can be heard apologising when he forgets the words). When the recording was played in 1890 on the anniversary of his death, at a gathering of his admirers, it was said to be the first time anyone's voice "had been heard from beyond the grave."


title: Robert Browning

text: Browning's admirers have tended to temper their praise with reservations about the length and difficulty of his most ambitious poems, particularly "Sordello" and, to a lesser extent, "The Ring and the Book". Nevertheless, they have included such eminent writers as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, and Vladimir Nabokov. Among living writers, Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series and A. S. Byatt's "Possession" refer directly to Browning's work.


title: Robert Browning

text: Today Browning's critically most esteemed poems include the monologues "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", "Fra Lippo Lippi", "Andrea Del Sarto", and "My Last Duchess". His most popular poems include "Porphyria's Lover", "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix", the diptych "Meeting at Night", the patriotic "Home Thoughts from Abroad", and the children's poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin". His abortive dinner-party recital of "How They Brought The Good News" was recorded on an Edison wax cylinder, and is believed to be one of the oldest surviving recordings made in the United Kingdom of a notable person (a recording of Sir Arthur Sullivan's voice was made about six months earlier).


title: Robert Browning

text: Browning is now popularly known for such poems as "", "", "", and "", and also for certain famous lines: "Grow old along with me!" (""), "A man's reach should exceed his grasp" and "Less is more" ("Andrea Del Sarto"), "It was roses, roses all the way" ("The Patriot"), and "God's in His heaven—All's right with the world!" ("Pippa Passes").


title: Robert Browning

text: His critical reputation rests mainly on his dramatic monologues, in which the words not only convey setting and action but reveal the speaker's character. In a Browning monologue, unlike a soliloquy, the meaning is not what the speaker voluntarily reveals but what he inadvertently gives away, usually while rationalising past actions or special pleading his case to a silent auditor. These monologues have been influential, and today the best of them are often treated by teachers and lecturers as paradigm cases of the monologue form. One such example used by teachers today is his satirisation of the sadistic attitude in his "Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister". Ian Jack, in his introduction to the Oxford University Press edition of Browning's poems 1833–1864, comments that Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot "all learned from Browning's exploration of the possibilities of dramatic poetry and of colloquial idiom".


title: Robert Browning

text: In Oscar Wilde's dialogue "The Critic as Artist", Browning is given a famously ironical assessment: "He is the most Shakespearean creature since Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. [...] Yes, Browning was great. And as what will he be remembered? As a poet? Ah, not as a poet! He will be remembered as a writer of fiction, as the most supreme writer of fiction, it may be, that we have ever had. His sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled, and, if he could not answer his own problems, he could at least put problems forth, and what more should an artist do? Considered from the point of view of a creator of character he ranks next to him who made Hamlet. Had he been articulate, he might have sat beside him. The only man who can touch the hem of his garment is George Meredith. Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in prose."


title: Robert Browning

text: Probably the most adulatory judgment of Browning by a modern critic comes from Harold Bloom: "Browning is the most considerable poet in English since the major Romantics, surpassing his great contemporary rival Tennyson and the principal twentieth-century poets, including even Yeats, Hardy, and Wallace Stevens. But Browning is a very difficult poet, notoriously badly served by criticism, and ill-served also by his own accounts of what he was doing as a poet... Yet when you read your way into his world, precisely his largest gift to you is his involuntary unfolding of one of the largest, most enigmatic, and most multipersoned literary and human selves you can hope to encounter."


title: Robert Browning

text: His work has nevertheless had many detractors, and most of his voluminous output is not widely read. In a largely hostile essay Anthony Burgess wrote: "We all want to like Browning, but we find it very hard." Gerard Manley Hopkins and George Santayana were also critical. The latter expressed his views in the essay "The Poetry of Barbarism," which attacks Browning and Walt Whitman for what he regarded as their embrace of irrationality.


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1914, the American modernist composer Charles Ives created the "Robert Browning Overture", a dense and darkly dramatic piece with gloomy overtones reminiscent of the Second Viennese School.


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1917, the U.S. composer Margaret Hoberg Turrell composed a song based on Browning's poem "Love: Such a Starved Bank of Moss". In 1920, the U.S. composer Anne Stratton composed one based on Browning's poem "Parting at Morning".


title: Robert Browning

text: In 1930, the story of Browning and his wife was made into the play "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", by Rudolph Besier. It was a success and brought popular fame to the couple in the United States. The role of Elizabeth became a signature role for the actress Katharine Cornell. It was twice adapted into film. It was also the basis of the stage musical "Robert and Elizabeth", with music by Ron Grainer and book and lyrics by Ronald Millar.


title: Robert Browning

text: In "The Browning Version" (Terence Rattigan's 1948 play or one of several film adaptations), a pupil makes a parting present to his teacher of an inscribed copy of Browning's translation of the "Agamemnon".


title: Robert Browning

text: Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" was chiefly inspired by Browning's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", whose full text was included in the final volume's appendix.


title: Robert Browning

text: Michael Dibdin's 1986 crime novel "A Rich Full Death" features Robert Browning as one of the lead characters.


title: Robert Browning

text: Lines from "Paracelsus" were recited by the character Fox Mulder at the beginning and the end of the 1996 "The X-Files" episode "The Field Where I Died".


title: Robert Browning

text: Mark Alburger's 2004 opera The Pied Piper of Hamelin sets the Browning poem in the time of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden.


title: Robert Browning

text: A memorial plaque on the site of Browning's London home, in Warwick Crescent, Maida Vale, was unveiled on 11 December 1993.


title: Robert Browning

text: A song named Galuppi Baldassare, by Kris Delmhorst (2016 album Strange Conversation), partial writing credit to Robert Browning and referencing him by name throughout the song.


title: Robert Browning

text: This section lists the plays and volumes of poetry Browning published in his lifetime. Some individually notable poems are also listed, under the volumes in which they were published. (His only notable prose work, with the exception of his letters, is his "Essay on Shelley".)


title: Gondi people

text: The Gondi (Gōndi) or Gond or Koitur are a Dravidian ethno-linguistic group. They are one of the largest tribal groups in India. They are spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. They are listed as a Scheduled Tribe for the purpose of India's system of reservation. The Gond have formed many kingdoms of historical significance.