News article:

The Walt Disney Company is on a roll. The stock is trading close to its all-time high of $50.65, for the last nine months earnings per share are up 26% and expensive growth plans, like the $1 billion Cars Land at Disneyland, are proving to have been good bets.

 Disney CEO Robert Iger tells the Wall Street Journal that the success is not just a seasonal blip. He expects investments in parks, cruise lines and Asia to continue to pay off.

 When you look carefully at Disney's growth, so much of it is driven by the film studio. Take California Adventure as an example. When the park opened in 2001, it was a monument to the wonderful attractions in the state of California, from Hollywood to Yosemite to Santa Monica Pier.

 But no one wanted to go. So over the years Disney has gradually transformed it into Pixar park. Before Cars Land opened the ride with the longest wait was Toy Story Mania, a 3-D ride where guests compete by shooting virtual plates, balls and hoops at screens. (It's incredibly fun.) Cars Land is rivaling Toy Story for wait times. California Adventure now attracts half of all visitors, up from one-quarter, according to the Journal article.

 People want to go to the park to immerse themselves in the movies they love. Cars Land is not some vague homage to the movie, it's a replica of the town of Radiator Spring including things like the Cozy Cone Motel and Flo's V8 Cafe.

 To continue to grow at its current pace, Disney needs to keep producing films that are going to provide the company with opportunities for theme park attractions, TV spin-offs and lots and lots of merchandise. Disney is an $89 billion (market cap) beast with many mouths that need to be constantly fed.

 The studio's recent big hit, The Avengers, is the perfect Disney meal. The film grossed $1.5 billion at the global box office. It will generate billions more for the company from Iron Man, Thor and Hulk toy sales, a TV show is in the works for Disney's cable network and there are rumors that Avengers rides could eventually show up at Disney parks.

 Of course Disney is not alone. All of the major studios are now owned by huge media conglomerate that include merchandising, TV, publishing and, sometimes, theme parks. It makes business sense for the studios to focus as much energy and money as possible on the biggest films that will generate the most revenue down the line.

 That makes it harder to justify smaller films unless their budgets are really small, under $20 million, as opposed to a mid-budget film in the $50 to $80 million range. A film like The Help (which cost only $25 million to make, not including marketing costs) earned a nice profit for the studio grossing $211 million at the box office but don't expect any sequels, cartoons or Minny pies at Disneyland.

 I'm of course exaggerating when I say the death of mid-budget films. Studios will still put out some mid-budget comedies and romances and there will always been smaller production companies like Alcon that will be willing to foot the bill for smaller films because they don't need all of those spin-off opportunities to be profitable.

 But with the content from entertainment driving more and more of these big studios' growth, those smaller films become much harder to justify.

 Follow me on Twitter at DorothyatForbes. ||||| Earlier this year, John Waters — whose last movie, A Dirty Shame, was released a full decade ago — finally got the offer he’d been waiting for all this time. According to his hitchhiking chronicle Carsick, his very first driver was “Harris,” “an art school type” with a sideline in weed dealing who called himself a fan. They talked for a bit about movies before Harris asked the (five) million-dollar question: “How come you aren’t making a movie?”

 “I explain that I had a development deal to make Fruitcake,” Waters writes, but on the eve of that dark holiday comedy’s production, “the recession happened, the independent film business as I knew it fell apart, and now all the distributors and film financiers want the budgets to be under $2 million, which I can’t do anymore.” His traveling companion told Waters, “I’ll back it,” pledging five million dollars cash. “You pay me back if it ever breaks even.”

 There was only one problem with Harris’ offer: It was a total fantasy. There was no Harris, and there was no five million dollars. The scene was part of “The Best That Could Happen,” a novella of perfect, imaginary hitchhiking encounters, within Carsick. But it’s instructive, and sad, that when Waters — a well-dressed dandy of notorious sexual appetites — compiles his biggest fantasies, the very first one is of someone doing what people used to do all the time: giving him money to make a movie.

 And Waters isn’t the only beloved filmmaker harboring this fantasy. “It’s a strange time. There’s not a whole lot that any of us can do about it,” David Lynch, who hasn’t directed a feature since 2006’s Inland Empire, explained over the summer. “You’ve seen waves of things go up and down, but maybe the arthouse will be back in vogue, and they’ll reappear all over the place again. I don’t know. It would be beautiful.”

 It wasn’t always this way. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, when Waters and Lynch were doing their most commercially successful work, it was possible to finance — either independently or via or the studio system — mid-budget films (anywhere from $5 million to $60 million) with an adult sensibility. But slowly, quietly, over roughly the decade and a half since the turn of the century, the paradigm shifted. Studios began to make fewer films, betting big on would-be blockbusters, operating under the assumption that large investments equal large returns. Movies that don’t fit into that box (thoughtful dramas, dark comedies, oddball thrillers, experimental efforts) were relegated to the indies, where freedom is greater, but resources are far more limited. As Mad Men’s Matthew Weiner put it, “Something happened that nobody can make a movie between $500,000 and $80 million. That can’t be possible.”

 While we weren’t looking, the mid-budget adult-oriented motion picture has all but disappeared. And the gifted directors behind them are in danger of disappearing as well. Movie wonks and box-office watchers have written and talked about the death of mid-budget filmmaking, but mostly in business terms — as opposed to personal ones, contemplating the phenomenon’s effect on the individual artists it cripples. There’s an entire constellation of cult and indie stars, filmmakers who came of age in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, who have either vanished from the current scene or are struggling to maintain a place within it. How many of that generation’s auteurs have we lost? How many great movies — how many Blue Velvets and Hairsprays and Traffics and Do the Right Things and Godfathers — are they, thanks to the current myopic model, not making?

 *

 “I look back on my life and it’s 95 percent running around trying to raise money to make movies and five percent actually making them. It’s no way to live.” –Orson Welles

 That quote appears in the recent documentary film Seduced and Abandoned, a combination love letter and wail of despair over the current state of filmmaking, written and directed by James Toback (who wrote Bugsy and directed Fingers, The Pick-Up Artist, Two Girls and a Guy, and others). In one of the film’s many candid conversations, an international financier tells Toback that the film he wants to make — a boundary-pushing political/sexual thriller starring Alec Baldwin and Neve Campbell — can’t get financed for the $25 million budget he has in mind. How much could he get? Toback asks. Four to five million, he’s told. Toback sighs. “I’m too old for that.”

 The sentiment is not uncommon. “The film business has changed. They want you to make it for no money,” Waters has said, by way of explaining his self-imposed hiatus from filmmaking. “Early in my career, it was fine to have no money. Everyone starts out without money. But I have four employees today. I have no desire to be a faux-underground filmmaker at 68 years old. I don’t have any needlepoint pillows with slogans on them, but if I did, it would be ‘Don’t Go Backward.’”

 Francis Ford Coppola made four of the finest films in motion picture history, but he can’t get a movie produced anymore; after a ten-year exile, he made three films between 2007 and 2011 that were basically self-financed (via his lucrative wine-making business). “You try to go to a producer today and say you want to make a film that hasn’t been made before; they will throw you out because they want the same film that works, that makes money,” he said at the Marrakech International Film Festival. “That tells me that although the cinema in the next 100 years is going to change a lot, it will slow down because they don’t want you to risk anymore.”

 Steven Soderbergh saw the writing on the wall, telling an audience at the San Francisco International Film Festival, “The meetings have gotten pretty weird. There are fewer and fewer executives who are in the business because they love movies. There are fewer and fewer executives that know movies… You’ve got people who don’t know movies and don’t watch movies for pleasure deciding what movie you’re going to be allowed to make.” He made a well-publicized exit from feature filmmaking last year.

 “I’m not Steven Soderbergh, I’m not banishing myself,” insisted his contemporary Spike Lee recently. “I’m adaptable! So do not think this is a film saying, ‘Fuck Hollywood, I never wanna do another studio film.’ That is not the case at all. But, there’s some films the studio doesn’t wanna make.” Lately, that’s included more and more Spike Lee films; he made these statements at the festival premiere of Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, a film he had to go to Kickstarter to finance. “Malcolm X was a studio film,” he noted. “Do the Right Thing was a studio film.” And he’s right — but it’s hard to imagine a studio financing either of those films now.

 So, what happened? What caused this elemental shift between the way filmmakers like Lee, Soderbergh, Lynch, Coppola, Toback, and Waters worked a mere ten or 20 years ago, and the climate today? How has the industry left so many of our most important and influential filmmakers out in the cold? Well, to answer that question, I’m afraid we’re going to have to do some math.

 It’s important to understand what we’re talking about when we talk about movie budgets. The numbers you hear about are the costs of making the film, and only those: pre-production, cast and crew salaries, sets and equipment and props and costumes, special effects and post-production. What it doesn’t include is the cost of marketing the movie. And hashtags on posters aside, studios are still remarkably old-fashioned when it comes to marketing, relying primarily on print and television ad buys. But in the modern, crowded multimedia landscape, the kind of saturation that makes them feel comfortable — even when it’s promoting a giant tentpole blockbuster that everyone is fully aware of — is very, very expensive. Sometimes it’s 50 percent of the production budget, and sometimes it’s even more.

 And that high price tag — which, unlike a production budget, doesn’t have much wiggle room on a major release — is why, counter-intuitive though it might seem, a studio would rather make a $60 million movie than, say, a $10 million one. Studios are no longer interested in small investments with small return, which aren’t worth the time or the money. They want the big enchilada.

 Ted Hope, author of Hope for Film, CEO of the VOD site Fandor, and producer of such films as The Ice Storm, Happiness, American Splendor, and Waters’ A Dirty Shame, tells me, “We had a deal at Universal, and finally our executive got fed up with us, and said ‘Ted, you need to give me movies that are theme park rides.’ We laugh, but I think now you see that more than ever, right? The business of Hollywood isn’t getting people to see movies. It’s [creating] these platforms that can exist as Broadway plays, as theme park rides, as a series of young adult novels, that can be across all different verticals. And we are ignoring so many other people.”

 The groundbreaking director Susan Seidelman worked her way up the way you’re supposed to: she made a successful low-budget debut feature, 1982’s Smithereens, then graduated to Desperately Seeking Susan, a $4.5 million-budgeted sleeper hit that grossed $27 million in 1985. She made Susan, and her subsequent films of the decade, for Warner Brothers and the now-defunct Orion, which she calls “a looser sort of studio.” Seidelman says that the New York-based outfit “strongly supported directors, which is why Woody Allen made a lot of his movies for Orion, and Jonathan Demme too.”

 “You could make movies in the ten-to-20-million-dollar budget range,” she tells me, almost wistfully. “They didn’t have to be huge blockbusters. They could be more adult-oriented, they didn’t have to appeal to absolutely everyone in the world, and if it’s good work then the studio was happy with making a good profit, but it was a different model… And I think over the years, what happened is that things have gotten really polarized. To studios now, to make a million dollars isn’t a big deal — you have to make a billion dollars, right?” She laughs. “They have to appeal to every demographic in every part of the world, so to make a $20 million movie that makes $60 million, why put their money there?”

 This explosion of budgets occurred slowly but surely over the course of the last two decades. Back in 1997, the cost of an average studio film was $60 million — and the New York Times ran a now-hilarious report on that utterly preposterous figure, one studio heads at the time classified as “upsetting,” and “disturbing.” Sherry Lansing, then head of Paramount, told the Times, “I’m horrified at these numbers. They don’t make sense. We’re killing ourselves.”

 What’s striking about that figure now is that, for most studios, a major $60 million release would be a bargain. That number has gone up (and, up, and up) in the years since; in 2007, the last year the MPAA compiled an average studio budget, it was up to $106.6 million. As the average has ticked up, the middle ground has fallen out, and the output of the major studios has gotten both riskier and safer — more expensive, but with less variety. Sherry Lansing’s “They don’t make sense” quote in that Times piece stuck with me, so as an experiment, I looked up her studio’s slate for the year of its publication, 1997 — and then compared it with their output for this year. And the results of that comparison go a long way toward telling the story of the direction mainstream moviemaking has taken in those 17 years.

 *

 Paramount’s 1997 slate included a robust 19 films, counting co-productions and pick-ups. These are what their budgets and grosses looked like:

 The Relic: $40 million budget, $34 million domestic gross

 The Beautician and the Beast: $16 million budget, $11 million domestic gross

 Private Parts: $20 million budget, $41 million domestic gross

 The Saint: $68 million budget, $118 million worldwide gross

 Breakdown: $36 million budget, $50 million domestic gross

 Night Falls on Manhattan: $22 million budget*, $9 million domestic gross

 ‘Til There Was You: $10 million budget, $3.5 million domestic gross

 Face/Off: $80 million budget, $245 million worldwide gross

 Kiss Me, Guido: $740K budget, $1.9 million domestic gross

 Good Burger: $9 million budget, $23.7 million domestic gross

 Event Horizon: $60 million budget, $26 million domestic gross

 A Smile Like Yours: $18 million budget, $3.3 million domestic gross

 In & Out: $35 million budget, $64 million domestic gross

 Kiss the Girls: $27 million budget, $61 million domestic gross

 FairyTale: A True Story: n/a budget, $14 million domestic gross

 Switchback: $38 million budget, $6 million domestic gross

 The Rainmaker: $40 million budget, $46 million domestic gross

 Titanic: $200 million budget, $2.187 billion worldwide gross

 The Education of Little Tree: n/a budget, $323K gross

 Budget figures are unavailable for two of those films, but based on the final product, they seem to have been pretty low-budget efforts. And even leaving out that pair, the variety among these budgets is striking; the studio was releasing everything from micro-budget pick-ups like Kiss Me, Guido to low-budget, tween-centric comedies like the $9 million Good Burger to the $27 million thriller Kiss the Girls to the $35 million comedy In and Out to $60 million genre films like Event Horizon. The numbers are all over the map, and while Paramount took a few hits, they also did well enough on other titles to offset the difference.

 Of course, the outlier in both the budget and gross columns is Titanic, and that entry is the one that shook the business to its foundation, and pointed the way towards its future. You can see the pre-Titanic path for the blockbuster elsewhere on the list, in the form of The Saint and Face/Off. The latter was fairly expensive, did solid business domestically ($112 million), and fared even better overseas ($133 million). The Saint barely earned back its budget here ($61 million), but got into the clear thanks to foreign box office ($56 million) that was respectable enough. (Interestingly, these were the only titles with worldwide box office numbers currently available.)

 The modest profits of those films, or Kiss the Girls or In & Out, more then cover the losses of the lesser titles. But Titanic was the game-changer, a wildly expensive (and, lest we forget, over-budget) production that became a worldwide megahit.

 With that in mind, let’s have a look at Paramount’s slate for this year. The first divergence of note is the decrease in output: only 11 films, three of them not yet released (so earnings figures are not yet available). They are:

 Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones: $5 million budget, $90.9 million worldwide gross

 Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: $60 million budget, $135.5 million worldwide gross

 Noah: $125 million budget, $362 million worldwide gross

 Transformers: Age of Extinction: $210 million budget, $1.08 billion worldwide gross

 Hercules: $100 million budget, $242 million worldwide gross

 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: $125 million budget, $474 million worldwide gross

 Men, Women, and Children: $16 million budget, $705K domestic gross

 Interstellar: $165 million budget, $593 million worldwide gross (and counting)

 Top Five: $6 million budget, n/a gross

 Selma: $20 million budget, n/a gross

 The Gambler: n/a budget, n/a gross

 And thus you have a snapshot of how the studio system has evolved over this relatively short period of time. Taking The Gambler out of the mix (its budget has not yet been reported — aside from being comparatively low), you have a horror sequel and a comedy made for $6 million or less, five blockbusters made for over $100 million, and only three more in between. Jack Ryan checks in at that 1997 average of $60 million, and appears to have barely eked out its costs overseas, while Men, Women, and Children tanked (to be fair, it was also terrible). Selma’s fate remains to be seen.

 There’s no question that this model is profitable, more so than what we see in 1997. But it’s also resulting in multiplex monotony — and frankly, if studios are printing money with these tentpole movies, why not siphon off some of those mega-profits to a few filmmakers who actually have something to say?

 More importantly, if the bottom has dropped out of the valley between big-budget and no-budget, where have those films — and the filmmakers behind them — gone? Two places. The first and most obvious is the increasingly crowded indie scene. (We’ll get to the second one a bit later.) Back to Professor Soderbergh:

 In 2003, 455 films were released. 275 of those were independent, 180 were studio films. Last year 677 films were released. So you’re not imagining things, there are a lot of movies that open every weekend. 549 of those were independent, 128 were studio films. So, a 100% increase in independent films, and a 28% drop in studio films, and yet, ten years ago: Studio market share 69%, last year 76%. You’ve got fewer studio movies now taking up a bigger piece of the pie and you’ve got twice as many independent films scrambling for a smaller piece of the pie. That’s hard. That’s really hard. When I was coming up, making an independent film and trying to reach an audience I thought was like, trying to hit a thrown baseball. This is like trying to hit a thrown baseball – but with another thrown baseball.

 The avalanche of product has been keenly felt across the indie scene. In earlier years, Hope tells me, “the financial model was relatively secure.” Thanks to the robust DVD market and other ancillary sources, “there was a predictive revenue stream, and that allowed us to take risks on directors — I think I produced 25 first features — and allowed us to break many stars’ careers, and introduce many actors early on.” Then, in the back half of the last decade, the bottom fell out of the DVD market, mostly due to the rise of cheap streaming and the general economic malaise of the recession.

 “Cut to now,” Hope explains, “five years or so post- the effects of the world financial crisis, and the films that maybe once were made for $15 million are now being made for under five. The percentage of fees have all been cut in half, so everybody ends up having to make more movies to survive, which means that they can’t make quality, they can only make quantity.”

 So even if a Lynch, a Waters, or a Soderbergh decided to suck it up and “go backward,” they’d face a variety of obstacles. First, the budgets might be even lower than they remember. Whit Stillman made three successful independent films in the early 1990s and then didn’t make a film for a decade and a half. Before shooting that film, he tells me, he had a conversation with another director, “one who had commercial hits in the ‘90s.” His colleague told Stillman “that to make films now, budgets had to be exceptionally, amazingly low. Then it turned out that he meant ‘under 200,000’ while I was thinking ‘under two million.’ These are the two ranges I think of when considering the viability of projects.”

 But let’s assume they’re willing to take the cut (and for comparison’s sake: $200K would be less than Stillman’s ever worked with, even on his first film, Metropolitan — and those were 1989 dollars). Say they manage to scrounge together foreign dollars or equity financing or investments from friends and family or Kickstarter funds. They’ll still find themselves competing in a much more crowded indie landscape — and that’s operating off the presumption of easy distribution.

 “Those filmmakers are now in their mid- to late 60s, and older,” says Susan Seidelman (herself on the eve of her 62nd birthday), and as a result, they might want to tell stories about older characters like themselves. It’s not always that easy. Her 2006 film Boynton Beach Club was “a kind of a date movie for people 60 and above.” After it was finished, “it got accepted to a lot of festivals, it got nice reviews, and still a lot of the traditional distribution companies said, ‘We don’t believe there’s a big enough audience out there.’ My producers and I disagreed, so we decided to start out self-distributing.” It was only after the film started doing good business in target markets (“South Florida, for example”) that it was picked up by Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn.

 So even if, by some miracle, the film is produced, it still has to make its way in an increasingly competitive marketplace, often in the hands of independent distributors and art-house exhibitors who are nearly as risk-averse as their mainstream counterparts. Spend a bit of time considering the hoops they’d have to jump through, and it’s no wonder so many iconic filmmakers are bowing out; they’ve already got a legacy, so why bother with the extra aggravation? “John Waters doesn’t need much money for his films,” Hope told me, “but the fact is, he’s probably making more money, with his artwork and tours, than he would for his films. So why does he need to compromise in order to get a movie made? It’s only going to be suffering for him.”

 And the filmmakers who don’t have that kind of financial security? Increasingly, they’re saying to hell with it and going to television.

 *

 “I don’t think there’s a lot of deep philosophical debate,” Soderbergh told The Daily Beast during the run of The Knick, the ten-episode Cinemax series that he directed in full. “There are more possibilities in TV, in terms of storytelling, than there are in the movies… Movies don’t have time to find audiences anymore. With TV, it’s nice to feel like you’re part of a conversation that’s going on — as opposed to the movie business, which is only judged by one prism these days: economic.”

 And so the movie makers who aren’t interested in tentpoles and don’t want to go back to financing films on their credit cards are following Soderbergh in a mass migration from the big screen to the small one. Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre) helmed the entire first season of True Detective. Jill Soloway followed up her art-house hit Afternoon Delight by directing the full first season of Amazon’s Transparent (and will reportedly do the same for its second). David Fincher directed the initial episodes of Netflix’s House of Cards; Jodie Foster, Joel Schumacher, James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross), and Carl Franklin (Devil in a Blue Dress) have followed suit. Indie comedy and drama directors — including Lynn Shelton (New Girl, Mad Men, The Mindy Project), Nicole Holofcener (Parks and Recreation, Enlightened, Bored to Death), Rian Johnson (Breaking Bad, Terriers), and Todd Haynes (Enlightened) — are frequently squeezing in episodic gigs between films. And the freedom of pay cable was even enough to coax David Lynch back into the director’s chair, for Showtime’s upcoming Twin Peaks revival.

 Seidelman was a bit of a groundbreaker here, helming the pilot episode of Sex and the City back in 1998. “What happened is, when the middle ground fell out in the movie industry, those projects or filmmakers that were more interested in character-oriented stuff, or in more complicated subject matter, suddenly started turning to television,” she says. “TV has really picked up the slack there, and I think it’s also gained a kind of respectability — there was a time before HBO and Showtime, where it was looked at as not as prestigious. And if you were a director, you didn’t really want to work in TV as much; you were selling your soul a little bit. But that isn’t the case at all these days.”

 Stillman agrees. After his long-awaited comeback film Damsels in Distress, he went over to Amazon to make The Cosmopolitans. “What has affected my thinking a lot is that people, especially younger people, are going to the cinema much less,” he explains. “There are few ‘event’ indies anymore. And it’s great to work in a medium in which a lot of people can see the show right away. So just as financing mid-budget films has become especially tough, there is a boom in financing of new media — but one can never assume how long such boomlets are going to last.”

 Film’s loss is TV’s gain — for now. But is television an acceptable substitute for the scale and scope of a major motion picture? The budgets are often scarcely better than those low numbers on the indie model, and it’s a very different type of storytelling, open-ended, rarely working towards the kind of satisfying conclusions a great movie can offer. Plus, few get the kind of control over an entire series or season that Soderbergh, Lynch, Solloway, or Fukunaga do, making it much more difficult to establish an authorial voice and style. And filmmakers who don’t yet have Soderbergh and Lynch’s clout will most likely find network suits even less intellectually and experimentally accommodating than their film-exec counterparts. Even the warm embrace of HBO couldn’t keep Mike White’s Enlightened or Christopher Guest’s Family Tree on the air; ditto Frank Darabont’s Mob City on TNT.

 How long, then, will the current filmmaking model hold? No less an authority than Steven Spielberg predicted last year, “There’s going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even half a dozen of these mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that’s going to change the paradigm again.” Ted Hope agrees. “You look at the worst summer attendance [in 2014], box office dropped 15 percent, people like [DreamWorks Animation CEO and former Disney chief Jeffrey] Katzenberg saying that movies aren’t a growth industry, everything pointing toward the collapse of the foreign sales model.”

 So, where does he think it’s going? “It feels incredibly vulnerable to me,” he says. “Look, I’m surprised the superhero stuff has the legs that it does, but you look at what Warner Brothers and Marvel have mapped out, you add into it all of the Universal monster movies and all these others platform plays, and you better hope that nobody’s taste changes for the next five years, you know? That’s not a diverse portfolio!”

 This may not be the new normal — studio filmmaking may be on the verge of the point it reached in the mid-to-late 1960s, when a bad run of bloated, runaway productions, reflecting market calculation rather than vibrant storytelling, just about put the studios out of business. The movies only managed to save themselves because the suits handed over the car keys to young filmmakers with original stories to tell and a new way of telling them. That’s how the New Hollywood movement was born — less out of the inspiration of the new than the desperation of the old. And since it’s a cyclical business, that might be what saves the movies again: the urge to burn it all down and start over fresh. The question is, how many great films and great filmmakers will we lose in the meantime?

 [*UPDATE 12/12: We were initially unable to pinpoint the budget for the film Night Falls on Manhattan. After this piece was published, we were contacted by a source who worked on that film and provided that number. The paragraph following the 1997 Paramount breakdown was adjusted accordingly.] |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Wonder what happened to iconic film directors like David Lynch, John Waters, and Francis Ford Coppola? Well, Hollywood checked the balance sheet and decided to stop making their kind of mid-budget films, Flavorwire reports. It's all dollars and cents: Thoughtful or offbeat films costing $5 million to $60 million can make moderate profits at best, while blockbusters with international appeal are able to bring in sick money. Paramount's Titanic made that point in 1997 by costing $200 million and earning nearly $2.2 billion worldwide. At that time, mid-budget films like Kiss the Girls and In & Out dominated the Paramount slate and drew modest profits; this year, mega-flicks like Transformers: Age of Extinction, Hercules, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rule Paramount's roost and earn the big bucks. "You could make movies in the ten-to-twenty-million-dollar budget range" at one time, says Susan Seidelman, director of Desperately Seeking Susan. Now, she says, studios "have to appeal to every demographic in every part of the world." And few seasoned directors want to test the indie market, where tons of under-$2 million films are vying for attention. So Spike Lee has funded a film via Kickstarter, Steven Soderbergh publicly quit feature filmmaking last year, and other directors are turning to TV for creative freedom. This sea-change has been coming for years now, as an old Forbes piece shows, but some—including Steven Spielberg—believe Hollywood will over-invest in blockbusters: "There’s going to be an implosion" where several "mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that’s going to change the paradigm again," he says.


Write an article based on this summary:

– A US Senate candidate sounded upbeat today after his Chinese-themed ad in broken English triggered accusations of racism, the Huffington Post reports. "I’m excited," Michigan GOP contender Pete Hoekstra told Politico. "It has jump-started the debate.” The ad shows a Chinese woman biking through rice fields and thanking Hoekstra's rival—Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow—for borrowing excessive amounts of money from China. "Your economy get very weak," she says. "Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie 'Spend-it-Now.'" Hoekstra's campaign also launched a website that includes Chinese writing and Stabenow's face on a Chinese fan. Even a GOP consultant lashed out in response, saying "shame on Pete Hoekstra for that appalling new advertisement," and a non-partisan Asian group accused him of trying to "encourage anti-Asian sentiment." As for Democrats, they set up a website accusing Hoekstra of hypocrisy.

LANSING, Mich. — The portrayal of a young Asian woman speaking broken English in a Super Bowl ad being run by U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra against Michigan incumbent Debbie Stabenow is bringing charges of racial insensitivity.

 GOP consultant Nick De Leeuw flat-out scolded the Holland Republican for the ad.

 "Stabenow has got to go. But shame on Pete Hoekstra for that appalling new advertisement," De Leeuw wrote on his Facebook page Sunday morning. "Racism and xenophobia aren't any way to get things done."

 The nonpartisan Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote group's Michigan chapter said it was "deeply disappointed" by the ad, noting that the Asian-American community is a major contributor to Michigan's economy. In 2010, Michigan's 236,490 Asian-Americans made up 2.4 percent of the state's population, up 35 percent from 2000.

 "It is very disturbing that Mr. Hoekstra's campaign chose to use harmful negative stereotypes that intrinsically encourage anti-Asian sentiment," the group said in a statement.

 Hoekstra campaign spokesman Paul Ciaramitaro said the ad is meant to be satirical. Hoekstra's Facebook page, which by early evening was getting a barrage of criticism on the ad, snapped back that those "trying to make this an issue of race demonstrates their total ignorance of job creation policies." On YouTube, the ratings buttons on the ad were disabled after it aired.

 "Democrats talk about race when they can't defend their records," Ciaramitaro said. "The U.S. economy is losing jobs to China because of Stabenow's reckless spending policies. China is reaping the reward."

 The 30-second ad was filmed in California and never mentions China directly. It opens with the sound of a gong and shows a young Asian woman riding a bike on a narrow path lined by rice paddies.

 Stopping her bike, the woman smiles into the camera and says, "Thank you, Michigan Senator Debbie Spenditnow. Debbie spends so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spenditnow."

 The scene then shifts to Hoekstra telling viewers near a cozy fire, "I think this race is between Debbie Spenditnow and Pete Spenditnot."

 The Hoekstra campaign set up a website, , that features the ad and includes Chinese writing, paper lanterns, parade dragons and Stabenow's face on a Chinese fan. It accuses the Democratic senator of "pouring American dollars into the Chinese economy." http://www.DebbieSpendItNow.com

 Democrats were quick to challenge the premise of the ad, referring to Hoekstra's 18 years in the U.S. House and the fact that he joined a Washington-based law and lobbying firm last year.

 "Hoekstra's ad is nothing more than a hypocritical attempt at a Hollywood-style makeover because the fact is, Pete spends a lot," Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer said. "Hoekstra voted for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and voted for trillions more in deficit spending before quitting Congress to get rich at a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm."

 Hoekstra GOP Senate rival Gary Glenn of Midland struck a similar theme.

 "Saving America from the Washington, D.C., politicians who gave us this crippling debt and deficit crisis, Republican and Democrat alike, means Hoekstra and Stabenow should both get benched," Glenn said in a release.

 In response to the Hoekstra ad, the state Democratic Party launched a website, hoekstrahoax.com, as well as a 60-second Web ad Sunday that shows a 2010 campaign ad run against Hoekstra by GOP gubernatorial rival Mike Cox.

 Hoekstra's hoping to get the same bump from his ad that now-Gov. Rick Snyder got with his 2010 Super Bowl ad portraying himself as "one tough nerd." Both ads were created by media strategist Fred Davis of California-based Strategic Perception Inc.

 The new ad is a twist on the anti-Republican "moving jobs to China" theme that Michigan Democrats successfully used against 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and tried to use against Snyder in 2010. This time, the focus isn't on Republican businessmen sending jobs to China but on what Hoekstra says is Democratic overspending that has weakened the U.S. economy.

 Stabenow, who's running for a third term, has pushed for trade policies aimed at China that impose duties and penalties on countries that manipulate their currency and penalize companies that steal intellectual property from U.S. companies. She's using the Hoekstra ad to raise money for her campaign, which already has nearly $6 million on hand.

 Hoekstra's campaign is spending $75,000 to air the ad statewide Sunday. It aired in the Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo areas before the Super Bowl began and during the game in the Traverse City, Flint, Lansing and Marquette media markets, the campaign said.

 The ad is set to run over the next two weeks on cable TV shows targeted at GOP voters.

 ___

 Follow Kathy Barks Hoffman at http://twitter.com/kathybhoffman ||||| Pete Hoekstra defended his controversial Superbowl ad featuring a young Asian woman speaking broken English, saying it has yielded an "overwhelmingly positive response" and should only offend Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

 Speaking on a conference call Monday morning with reporters, the Michigan Republican Senate candidate pushed back at widening criticism that the ad is insensitive or mean-spirited.

 “We knew we were taking an aggressive approach on this, but this is a time when the people of Michigan and across the country are fed up with the spending," he said. “It hits Debbie smack dab between the eyes where she is vulnerable with the voters of Michigan. I’m excited . . . it has jump started the debate.”

 Hoekstra said the ad does not criticize the Chinese, but instead points out the strength of an international competitor that is benefiting from America's declining economic status.

 “The ad is only insensitive to Debbie Stabenow and her spending," he said.

 When asked by a Michigan-based reporter if the ad was the sign of a "nastier" campaign strategy, the former congressman replied, “This is not a nasty Hoekstra at all. This is about as fact-checked and accurate you can get."

 Hoekstra did not respond directly to a question about whether he could have made the same point without using the woman riding a bike near rice paddies and speaking in broken English.

 “The point is not to raise eyebrows for eyebrows sake," he said. “What we have said is what the American people feel . . ."

 Since the ad hit the airwaves Sunday, criticism from even Republicans has intensified.

 The Associated Press quotes GOP consultant Nick De Leeuw skewering the commercial as "appalling."

 Republican consultant Mike Murphy tweeted Sunday night that Hoekstra's ad was "really, really dumb."

 Steve Frye, the online editor of the Oakland Press, came to a more dramatic conclusion, tweeting Monday morning, "Sen. Debbie Stabenow, let me be among the first to congratulate you on your reelection."

 Hoekstra's chief rival for the GOP nomination, school charter advocate Clark Durant, took aim at Hoekstra's congressional record in critiquing the ad, but did not comment on the uproar over the approach.

 “I ask you,” Durant writes in a letter to GOP leaders. “Can Pete Hoekstra, a big-spending, debt-increasing, Republican career politician beat Debbie Stabenow, a big-spending, debt-increasing Democrat career politician?" ||||| The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine

 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds)

 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. |||||


News article:

Portland police said they decided to reopen its investigation into sexual assault allegations against former Vice President Al Gore after finding "procedural" mistakes in how the bureau handled the case in 2009.

 The bureau's command-level supervisors should have reviewed the case and should have made the decision on whether the investigation should move forward when the complainant came to them last year -- the second time she went to police, Portland Police Chief Michael Reese said in a statement.

 Although Portland massage therapist Molly Hagerty read a statement to detectives detailing accusations that Gore groped and kissed her during an October 2006 late-night massage at the Hotel Lucia, police never contacted Gore. In addition, detectives failed to consult with the Multnomah County district attorney's office on the matter.

 Reese said the decision to reopen the case was solely the bureau's.

 "It is our responsibility to both parties involved to conduct a thorough, fair and timely investigation," Reese said in his statement, adding that the bureau will not be commenting on the case during the investigation. "We ask for the public’s patience as we let the facts of the investigation guide us and ensure the integrity of the investigation. I have asked Detectives to assign appropriate resources in the interest of conducting a complete investigation in an expedited manner."

 The case began in 2006 when an attorney representing Hagerty contacted Portland police. At that time, detectives tried to meet with Hagerty on three separate occasions, but the meetings were all cancelled by her attorney. The lawyer then told detectives that Hagerty was pursuing a civil lawsuit, the police statement said. Although police consulted the District Attorney's office at that time, the case was cleared due to Hagerty's lack of cooperation.

 -- Helen Jung

  ||||| Portland Police Chief Michael Reese just released a statement on the Al Gore sexual assault allegations saying there were “procedural issues” with the original investigation that merited re-opening the case.

 “In reviewing this case, we have determined there were procedural issues with the 2009 investigation that merit re-opening the case,” Reese said. “There should have been command level review at the time on the specifics of this case and decisions on whether the investigation should go forward.”

 Remember, the police declined to pursue an investigation of the 2006 incident after a 2009 interview with the woman who accused Gore of sexual assault, Molly Hagerty. At the time they cited “insufficient evidence.” But now Reese appears to be saying that call should have been made at a higher level of the department.

 Here’s what Reese has to say about how the investigation will unfold:

 “It is our responsibility to both parties involved to conduct a thorough, fair and timely investigation. As with any open investigation, it is inappropriate for the Police Bureau to comment on any specifics regarding the investigation. We ask for the public’s patience as we let the facts of the investigation guide us and ensure the integrity of the investigation. I have asked Detectives to assign appropriate resources in the interest of conducting a complete investigation in an expedited manner.”

 The full statement is below. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Portland police say they reopened the Al Gore case because they found "procedural issues" with the 2009 investigation, reports the Oregonian. In a statement, the chief says detectives who dismissed the allegations should have consulted with higher-ups before doing so. "There should have been command level review at the time on the specifics of this case and decisions on whether the investigation should go forward." The full statement (read it at Talking Points Memo) notes that the masseuse first contacted police in 2006 but then called off three subsequent scheduled meetings. The department dropped the case, deeming it futile without her cooperation. The woman, Molly Hagerty, then contacted the department again in 2009, but police (apparently below "command level") opted not to pursue the case after questioning her.


International Women’s Day on Thursday is intended to celebrate women’s cultural and economic achievements and call for more gender parity. But as the calendar turns to March 8, it’s also time for the corporate pile-on of feel-good ads and product rollouts as brands rush to chime in on the pro-woman conversation.

 Mattel on Tuesday unveiled 17 new “role model” Barbies for the occasion, honoring female icons such as Amelia Earhart and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. Modern-day figures like Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim also got their own lookalike dolls.

 During the Oscars on Sunday, Nike aired a new ad starring Serena Williams that commemorated International Women’s Day. In the commercial, the tennis star says she’s been criticized as not “the right kind of woman,” but has learned that “there’s no wrong way to be a woman.”

 Read More: Why You Should Wear Purple on International Women’s Day

 Uber released a video in Asian markets that seeks to disprove myths about female drivers there, and Facebook has designed IWD-themed cards, photo frames, and backgrounds to adorn text posts by users on mobile devices.

 In a wackier stunt, a California McDonald’s location is turning its trademark golden arches upside-down so what is normally an M becomes a W for women.

 The history of International Women’s Day stretches back more than a century, but supporting it in 2018 may feel especially urgent for brands, as it’s the first IWD since the #MeToo movement went viral, prompting a much-needed reevaluation of how corporate America, Hollywood, and the media treat female employees. But even in the current climate, where the public seems especially receptive to messages of female empowerment, brands must tread carefully. There was criticism, for instance, that Mattel’s ‘role model’ Barbies appear to fit the doll’s trademark silhouette and the McDonald’s W was panned by some on social media as an empty, odd symbol.

 Great job, feminism — we did it!!! pic.twitter.com/6ICfQbYuop — Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) March 7, 2018

 The ongoing #MeToo and Time’s Up movements may make it seem like celebrating IWD is a no-brainer for brands, but in fact, the campaigns against sexual harassment and sexism have raised the bar, says Erin Keeley, CMO at Mono, an ad agency.

 Messaging like the Nike ad is “motivational,” Keeley says. Such ads “make you feel good; they are a positive message,” she says. “You hate to say that you don’t want brands to do that.” But the dialogue around women’s equality seems to be “turning a corner,” she says, where awareness and inspiration aren’t enough. The conversation has moved on to action; into “what happens next,” she says.

 Subscribe to The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women.

 That’s a harder mission for brands, but Keeley says Getty Images seemed to pull it off during International Women’s Day 2017, when it announced that it was launching a female-focused sports photography internship with the goal of adding more diversity to the field and contributing “to a more positive portrayal of sportswomen in the media.”

 In that same vein, commentators commended Frances McDormand for including in her Oscars acceptance speech an actionable step—demanding an inclusion rider—that actors could take to change the industry; she went beyond just girl-power cheerleading.

 Read More: See Photos of the Women’s Rights Movement Dating Back 100 Years

 The IWD conversation is also one that not every brand has to join. Tapping into IWD makes sense “if your brand is about progress; if it’s aligned with what’s happening that day,” Keeley says.

 But even for those companies, IWD can be a prickly occasion to celebrate.

 Liquor company Diageo tried to promote the progressive history of its Johnnie Walker brand in late February when it introduced its limited edition “Jane Walker” scotch whisky, its traditional Johnny Walker bottle with a female iteration of the brand’s Striding Man logo. Sale of Jane Walker is tied to Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. In introducing the new bottle, the company touted the near equal gender make-up of its expert blenders and the women in its leadership ranks. “Women have played a significant role in the brand’s history dating back to 1893,” the company said in a release. But a quote by the brand’s vice president—“Scotch as a category is seen as particularly intimidating by women”—riled critics, including late-night host Stephen Colbert, who gave it the monologue treatment: “They changed the name to Jane Walker with a lady version of the mascot. Female drinkers everywhere will say, ‘Finally, a brand that’s condescending to me.'” ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| In a study that Barbie conducted, 81% of 8,000 moms who had daughters under the age of 10 said they were worried about the types of role models their little girls were exposed to. These new dolls are a direct response to this anxiety. “We are thrilled to shine a light on real life role models to remind them that they can be anything,” Lisa McKnight, SVP and GM of Barbie, said in a statement announcing the collection.

 At first blush, the toy brand has done an admirable job of highlighting inspirational women of many different ethnicities from around the world who have an impressive array of achievements. There’s Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins from the United States, two Michelin-star French chef Hélène Darroze, and Chinese ballerina Yuan Tan. There are even historical icons like artist Frida Kahlo, NASA mathematician Katherine Jenkins, and pilot Amelia Earhart.

 And some even come with props! Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim has her own snowboard, Australian conservationist (and Steve Irwin’s daughter) Bindi Irwin comes with a koala bear, and Chinese volleyball champion Hui Ruoqi has a ball in tow.

 The dolls’ faces, eye colors, and hairstyles appear carefully designed to capture the likenesses of the real woman each is meant to represent. But for all this attention to detail, it seems strange that Mattel made all the dolls rail thin. In fact, the dolls’ bodies are almost identical each another–which is the first tip-off that something is amiss. Irwin’s doll is a little shorter than her counterparts, while Ruoqi’s is slightly taller, and Spanish entrepreneur Vicky Martin Berrocal’s is a smidge curvier, but there is nothing realistic about these dolls at all.

 It’s an odd move for Mattel. Since 2009, Barbie sales have spiraled downward. Between 2012 and 2014 alone, the brand’s sales plummeted by 20%. While part of this shift has to do with kids preferring electronic toys over analog ones, analysts say that part of the decline is due to parents who believe Barbie is a bad influence on girls. A slew of research has found that playing with Barbie makes girls feel lower self-esteem about their bodies. ||||| If you’ve visited Google, you’ll know that Wednesday’s Doodle honors International Women’s Day!

 The Google Doodle, which can be viewed around the world, is an interactive feature on the website’s homepage that features stories from “everyday women,” including 12 female artists of varying backgrounds to celebrate women’s social, economic, and political achievements as well as to address gender equality.

 International Women’s Day was founded more than a century ago after more than 15,000 women marched in New York City to demand better working conditions and voting rights.

 This year, the company collaborated with Tunalaya Dunn, Kaveri Gopalakrishnan, Anna Haifisch, Isuri, Saffa Khan, Laerte, Estelí Meza, Karabo Poppy Moletsane, Philippa Rice, Francesca Sanna, Chihiro Takeuchi and Tillie Walden to mark International Women’s Day 2018, which is officially celebrated on March 8.

 In addition, their inspiring messages have been translated into more than 80 languages.

 It's officially #IWD2018 in the 🌎🌍🌏! Explore stories from women all over the globe in today's #GoogleDoodle & share yours using #HerStoryOurStory! → https://t.co/ydJboV47yJ pic.twitter.com/FBNpCPtMK8 — Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) March 7, 2018

 And you too can contribute to International Women’s Day as Google is encouraging ladies from all over to share their own stories using the hashtag #HerStoryOurStory.

 “We invite storytellers of all kinds to join us by posting their own personal stories about a moment, person, or event that has impacted their lives as women,” the company shared.

 Google isn’t the only brand to announce initiatives in celebration of International Women’s Day.

 This #InternationalWomensDay, we are honoring more female role models than ever before. Introducing the largest addition to our Sheroes line to date – meet our new Global Sheroes. Share your role models with us to help inspire more girls using #MoreRoleModels. #IWD2018 pic.twitter.com/NBwxxgDAXg — Barbie (@Barbie) March 7, 2018

 Mattel and Barbie released a new collection of history-making dolls by debuting the immortalized versions of Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, Bindi Irwin and Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins.

 In addition, fast food conglomerate McDonald’s flipped its iconic golden arches upside down from an “M” to a “W” in “celebration of women everywhere,” according to Business Insider. A Lynwood, California, location turned the sign specifically for International Women’s Day. McDonald’s also stated it will turn its logo upside down on all its digital channels, such as Twitter and Instagram, on Thursday. ||||| On Women's day, French newspaper Liberation highlighted injustice done to women regarding wages (AFP)

 Male readers of leftwing French daily Liberation were asked to pay 25 percent more for their paper on Thursday, to underscore the gender pay gap on International Women's Day.The paper published two versions with different cover pages, one marked "for women, 2 euros, normal price" with a pictogram of a woman, the other marked "for men, 2.50 euros" with a pictogram of a man.In a front-page message the paper noted that despite equal pay for equal work being enshrined by law since 1972, French women earn on average 25.7 percent less than men, according to a 2017 report from an inequality watchdog."To highlight this injustice Liberation has decided to apply the same difference to its sale price for a day, meaning 50 cents more for men," it said, adding that profits from the operation would be donated to France's non-governmental Equality Observatory.Liberation said it was inspired by Canadian monthly Maclean's, which charged men more for its March edition also to denounce the wage gap.On Wednesday, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced plans to get tough on companies that pay women less.Under a package of workplace reforms to be finalised next month, wage gap screening software will be rolled out in all companies with more than 250 employees from 2019, and in all companies with over 50 employees by 2022, Philippe said.Companies with "unjustified" disparities will have three years to rectify the situation or face fines of up to 1 percent of their wage bill, he said.Drawing on 2012 statistics, the Equality Observatory said last year that women earned 25.7 percent less than men.A 2014 report by national statistics agency INSEE put the gap slightly lower, at 23.8 percent.When adjustments for part-time work were factored in, women were still paid on average 17.4 percent less, the report found.For the same job, women are estimated to be paid nine percent less. ||||| Obituary writing is more about life than death: the last word, a testament to a human contribution.

 Yet who gets remembered — and how — inherently involves judgment. To look back at the obituary archives can, therefore, be a stark lesson in how society valued various achievements and achievers.

 Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries: of heads of state, opera singers, the inventor of Stove Top stuffing and the namer of the Slinky. The vast majority chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones.

 Charlotte Brontë wrote “Jane Eyre”; Emily Warren Roebling oversaw construction of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband fell ill; Madhubala transfixed Bollywood; Ida B. Wells campaigned against lynching. Yet all of their deaths went unremarked in our pages, until now.

 Below you’ll find obituaries for these and others who left indelible marks but were nonetheless overlooked. We’ll be adding to this collection each week, as Overlooked becomes a regular feature in the obituaries section, and expanding our lens beyond women.

 You can use this form to nominate candidates for future “Overlooked” obits. Read an essay from our obituaries editor about how he approaches subjects and learn more about how the project came to be. |||||

Write a summary.

– Thursday is International Women's Day, an annual event getting more attention than usual in 2018 because it's the first in the wake of the #MeToo movement. As expected, brands (including McDonald's) are looking to capitalize, though critics are calling out examples of perceived misfires. Here's a look at what's going on in the US and around the world: Obituaries: One of the more interesting efforts comes from the New York Times, which acknowledges that it has focused too much on men in its obituaries over the years. A new project, "Overlooked," seeks to correct that by catching up on obits that should have been done but weren't. Subjects now getting their due include poet Sylvia Plath, anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, and Jane Eyre author Charlotte Bronte. Branding: At the Financial Times, Kate Allen thinks the move by McDonald's to flip its arches into a W is "possibly the most superficial approach to gender politics in the universe." Nor is she a fan of the stunt by French newspaper Liberation to charge male readers more on Thursday. "There are various ways to highlight the gender pay gap, but this is a vastly oversimplified one to pick." Branding, II: Fortune looks at other corporate efforts, including Mattel's "role model" Barbies, also being panned. The problem for companies is that sloganeering is no longer enough, writes Claire Zillman. Google is also in on the day with its interactive Google Doodle, which invites women to share their own stories, notes People.


News article:

Story highlights Third storm-related death announced in Kansas

 Nearly 1 million homes and businesses are without power in four states

 Governor declares an emergency in New York

 Airlines have canceled more than 2,700 flights

 Buckets of snow falling in Boston. Ice cracking trees and bringing down power lines in the Northeast. Temperatures as much as 40 degrees below normal in the High Plains.

 Another day, another storm, in what's proving to be a wet, wild and nasty winter.

 From the Midwest to New England, more than 120 million people are yet again bundling up against cold, ice, snow or all three, according to CNN meteorologists.

 Some are taking it in stride.

 "Only perk of going to school in Boston: SNOW DAYSSSSSSSS," Facebook user Carla Torres posted.

 Others were ready for it to be all over. One item frequently shared Wednesday over social media was a picture of an angry-looking baby, with the words "What do you mean more snow ..." superimposed on it.

 JUST WATCHED Winter storm batters U.S. Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Winter storm batters U.S. 01:24 PLAY VIDEO

 JUST WATCHED Your flight is probably canceled Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Your flight is probably canceled 01:36 PLAY VIDEO

 JUST WATCHED Snowstorm sacks Super Bowl travelers Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Snowstorm sacks Super Bowl travelers 01:56 PLAY VIDEO

 JUST WATCHED Be prepared for bad weather Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Be prepared for bad weather 00:59 PLAY VIDEO

 Here's a look at what winter's bringing around the country:

 Who's getting hit worst?

 For snow and ice, parts of the Midwest and Northeast in a band running from Illinois east all the way to Maine. For cold temperatures, it's the nation's midsection, from Montana east to Wisconsin all the way south to northern Texas.

 What's the forecast?

 It's going to be awfully cold in the Plains and High Plains -- as much as 40 degrees below average in some places, according to the National Weather Service. In Helena, Montana, for instance, Wednesday's high is forecast to be 3 degrees below zero. That compares with 2 degrees on Tuesday and the average high of 36.

 Snowy, icy conditions are expected from eastern Missouri into the Mid-Atlantic states and New England. Up to 2 inches of snow per hour may fall around Boston, with as much as a foot of snow predicted in parts of Massachusetts.

 Who's being affected?

 In New York, where heavy snows are taxing salt reserves, Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared an emergency for the entire state and shut down Interstate 84.

 "New Yorkers in affected regions should stay off the roads, check on their neighbors and loved ones, and stay inside their homes until the worst of the storm has passed," he said in a statement.

 Transportation regulators waived rest rules for salt-truck drivers to get remaining salt stockpiles moved to where they are needed: New York City and Long Island.

 In Pennsylvania, Villanova University announced that it would be closed Thursday and Friday after the school's power provider projected an extended outage in the area.

 And in Kansas, authorities announced a third weather-related death from the storm: a 58-year-old man died overnight after a traffic accident Tuesday, the Kansas Highway Patrol said.

 In Boston, the weather seemed little nuisance.

 CNN iReporter Jenifer Schwartz, visiting from California, marveled at how the city handled the storm.

 "My flight home today is one of the many that was canceled, but getting a cab this morning to get to meetings around the city did not prove to be too much of a problem," she said.

 Relative Boston newcomer and native Southerner Josh Parsons was just trying to process it all.

 "Since this is my first winter in the North, the snow still feels like a novelty to me," he told CNN on Wednesday. "I enjoy seeing it falling and enjoy walking around in it right after the fresh snow. Having said that, I do not like some of the things that come along with the snow."

 Such as? Salt, slush and the simple fact all the snow just won't go away.

 "The roads get cleared, the sidewalks get cleared, but then there are just mounds or brown, dirty ice piled up everywhere," he said.

 Meanwhile, in Michigan, two Delta Air Lines aircraft got stuck in the snow in unrelated incidents at Detroit Metro Airport.

 This comes a day after a Southwest Airlines plane hit a snowbank as it was taxiing to a gate in Kansas City, Missouri, according to airline spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger.

 Nationwide, airlines had canceled nearly 2,800 flights, according to flight tracking website Flightaware.com.

 Most-affected among major airports include New Jersey's Newark Liberty International, New York's LaGuardia and Boston Logan International.

 The Federal Aviation Administration also reported significant delays at airports in Chicago, Philadelphia and Charlotte, North Carolina.

 Why all the severe weather this winter?

 Boston is about 8 inches ahead of its normal snowfall pace for the year, the National Weather Service said. In New York, the number is 23 inches.

 It's not unusual or unprecedented, Radley Horton, a climate scientist with Columbia University, told CNN's New Day.

 "If we look at winters in the past, we can get this kind of setup with a very wavy jet stream. Colder air spills into one side (while) the other side of the country has extremely warm weather," he said.

 But climate change -- particularly the way melting Arctic sea ice may be affecting jet stream patterns -- could be increasing the frequency and severity of such wild weather rides, he said.

 "There's always going to be variability," Horton said. "There's always going to be these waves in the jet stream. But it does seem, according to some research, as we lose that sea ice in the Arctic, one possible surprise could be more cold air spilling south, more warm air going north." ||||| East Coast Weekend Snow May Come in Two Waves

 By By Alex Sosnowski, senior meteorologist. February 06, 2014, 5:49:29 AM EST

 As the latest winter storm delivers a swath of snow reaching more than 1,500 miles at midweek, another snowstorm is being monitored for this weekend.

 The timing of the storm as it travels from the Rockies and Southwest is Saturday to Sunday over the Central states and Sunday to Monday in the East.

 The upcoming storm could be the most intense, and correspondingly the most disruptive, of the recent barrage especially as the storm nears and moves along the Atlantic coast.

 @erikmwalker tweeted: "More news is snow news? Some computer models say flurries Sunday night; Others predict doom-filled epic storm" Additional Relevant Tweets and Social Media Reaction

 This is provided the storm does not have competition with another storm nearby.

 The snow this weekend could affect major hubs in the East, such as New York City, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston into Monday's morning commute.

 Many airlines may still be trying to catch up and get back on schedule in the wake of the recent storms.

 The Single-Storm Scenario

 One scenario suggests the storm may develop into a blizzard as it nears the Atlantic Ocean. As a result, people from Virginia to Maine will need to watch this one carefully.

 If the storm develops to its full potential along the mid-Atlantic coast, it may deliver not only snowfall rates of several inches per hour to inland areas of the Northeast, but also strong winds.

 RELATED:

 AccuWeather.com Winter Weather Center

 Latest Watches, Warnings, Advisories

 Sneaky Snow Possible in the East Saturday

 These winds would cause extensive blowing and drifting snow over the central Appalachians to New England with local whiteout conditions. A period of strong onshore winds would bring coastal flooding and beach erosion over the upper mid-Atlantic to eastern New England. A return flow from the west would bring cold air back in quickly to the coast.

 New England and the Maritimes have the best chance of a period of windswept snow Sunday into Monday.

 The Two-Storm Scenario

 Another scenario would be for the storm to behave more like other storms have done recently with a period of light to moderate snow streaking across part of the Midwest to part of the Northeast. Winds would be significantly less and probably not a factor. Overall, a more manageable snowfall would occur.

 Supporting this less intense storm idea on Sunday to Monday is a front-running and weaker storm that will roll across the South on Friday night with rain showers and then could brush the Northeast on Saturday with a swath of snow.

 Recall that a similar sneaky storm brought over 6 inches of snow to parts of the Northeast this past Monday.

 According to Senior Meteorologist Mark Mancuso, "With so many storms on the playing field, the atmosphere may not have the energy available to allow the Sunday to Monday storm to become a major event until it has bypassed the United States."

 With this latter scenario, there would be two weaker storms, rather than one very strong system.

 Either way, it appears another episode of travel disruptions and concern for daily activities will sweep from the Central states to the East Coast.

 In both scenarios, rain would fall across the Deep South and some snow would sweep across part of the southern Plains during Saturday night and the Tennessee Valley and southern Appalachians on Sunday. A period of snow would also streak eastward across the Midwest cities of St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland.

 However, a stronger storm would imply more thunderstorm activity and a greater risk for severe weather in part of the Southeastern states.

 The details on the nature of storm for this weekend will unfold in the coming days.

 More Storms Beyond This Weekend

 According to Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity, "The Sunday to Monday weather event will not mark an end to the stormy pattern. Additional storms are on deck through at least the middle of February."

 Another storm may affect part of the eastern third of the nation with snow and rain around Valentine's Day.

 Report a Typo ||||| More than 500,000 Philadelphia-area homes and businesses are without power this morning, as freezing rain and flooding caused tree limbs to crack, snap or topple over utility poles - also helping to make the morning commute treacherous. By mid-morning, PECO figures already showed that the storm was among the utility's worst outage incidents ever. Gov. Tom Corbett said at a noon press conference that utility crews from out of state would be called in to help with the wide-spread outages. He said as Pennsylvania energy companies had received some 750,000 calls so far, but his office had yet to declare a state of emergency. "We're going to continue to monitor the situation," Corbett said. "Our major concern is that it is supposed to go below freezing tonight. It's going to refreeze tonight and we want everyone to be careful on the roads."

 Emergency crews in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties were busy responding to calls most of the morning, with some hampered by slick roads, downed trees and live lines that had fallen to the ground. Utility crews restored power to some areas as others were going dark.

 Bucks County dispatchers said they were too swamped with calls to verify police radio reports of a tree that had fallen into a home in Warminster with possible injuries.

 Conditions varied widely with temperatures hovering near freezing -- a few degrees on either side. That appears to have made a difference. Suburbs north and west of Philadelphia faced slick conditions and widespread power outages, while South Jersey, although covered in plenty of ice, was warm enough that roads were mostly wet.

 "Far north, far west, that's where you're having the biggest problems from the icing," Jeffrey Knueppel, a SEPTA deputy general manager, said at a news briefing.

 Postman John Woodring wasn't deterred by the conditions. Wearing a white pith helmet to keep the melting ice off his wool watch cap, Woodring trudged through what remained of the nearly 11 inches of snow that fell earlier in the week in Cheltenham, Montgomery County.

 He carefully avoided paved surfaces, favoring paths where he could hear the comforting crunch of snow underfoot. He was taking precautions to avoid slips, or worse, breaking a leg, he said.

 "I'll be taking baby steps, dodging falling branches," Woodring said. "I couldn't go fast if I wanted to!"

 Power

 PECO's online outage map was showing that about 595,000 customers were without power in the Philadelphia area as of around noon. Outages were most widespread in Chester County, with more than 181,000 customers lacking power. That was followed by more than 180,000 customers impacted in Montgomery County, 138,000 in Bucks County, 67,000 in Delaware County and 27,000 in Philadelphia.

 Outages were fewer in South Jersey. PSE&G was reporting that Burlington County was the hardest hit, with about 8,000 customers there lacking power.

 Transportation

 Several SEPTA Regional Rail lines halted service this morning: The West Trenton Line is suspended due to a CSX train derailment, the Paoli-Thorndale and Cynwyd lines are suspended due to Amtrak power issues and the Warminster Line is suspended due to signal problems. Passengers should expect delays of up to 40 minutes on Regional Rail trains system-wide.

 Some SEPTA bus routes are being detoured.

 New Jersey Transit said rail, bus and light rail tickets would be cross-honored system-wide.

 Amtrak suspended Keystone Service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg due to numerous weather-related issues.

 Reduced speed limits are in place on the New Jersey Turnpike: 35 mph between exit 8 and the George Washington Bridge and 50 mph between exits 3 and 8.

 PennDOT imposed speed restrictions on major highways for much of the morning rush, but normal speed limits were restored around 9 a.m.

 Downed trees were causing traffic disruptions and lane closures on major roads throughout the morning.

 Several dozen flights were canceled or delayed at Philadelphia International Airport, according to FlightAware.com.

 As the lingering mounds of snow melt into already saturated ground, flooding was also a possibility in many areas.

 Schools

 School closures did not appear to be widespread. In those areas hardest hit by the ice some districts did close, such as Cheltenham. Philadelphia schools were already scheduled to be closed for classes with only staff expected to report.

 However, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and many suburban school districts were opening later than usual. For example, Lower Merion Township. and Cherry Hill schools were opening two hours late. The archdiocese schools are operating on a one-hour delay.

 Some universities are also closing or operating on delayed schedules. Temple University, for instance, was opening at 10 a.m., and Rutgers campuses will open at noon. Villanova and West Chester universities, as well as the Montgomery County Community College are closed.

 Government

 Government offices in Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties are closed today.

 Delaware County government facilities are opening two hours late.

 Philadelphia city offices are operating normally, though traffic courts are opening two hours late.

 Gov. Chris Christie has declared a state of emergency in New Jersey. State offices are closed for nonessential employees.

 Other

 Some major attractions are also closed or opening late. The Philadelphia Zoo is closed to the public. The Philadelphia Museum of Art is opening at noon and the Constitution Center is opening at 11 a.m.

 Forecast

 The National Weather Service is calling for a mix of freezing rain and sleet before 1 p.m., with a chance of rain after that and a high of 38. So much of this morning's precipitation should melt. No real snow accumulation is expected.

 Check back for details as they develop. ||||| More than 3,000 flights were cancelled after the Northeast was socked Wednesday with a winter storm packing snow, freezing rain and ice.

 The storm, which arrived after causing similar havoc in the Midwest the day before, left anywhere from a few inches to a foot -- or more -- of snow up the coast, along with the freezing rain that makes driving treacherous.

 The inclement weather adds to what's already been a weary winter for the Northeast, and comes days after a major winter storm buried some parts of the region in nearly a foot of snow.

 The website FlightAware.com said 3,198 flights were cancelled on Wednesday, along with nearly 12,000 delays.

 Most of the cancelled flights were from the New York-area airports, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington. Regional airline Cape Air alone cancelled more than 200 flights, including nearly every flight planned from airports in Massachusetts.

 Along with travel disruptions, the storm also cut electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers in the region. Nearly 750,000 customers in Pennsylvania were left in the dark by the storm's wrath, with a major utility company telling residents power could remain out until the weekend.

 In Connecticut, the start of the state's General Assembly annual session was delayed until Thursday due to the snow. Nearly a foot of snow buried Massachusetts, schools were largely cancelled across Rhode Island, and rail service out of Washington, D.C. on Wednesday afternoon was limited.

 Across the nation, residents struggled to carry on despite the storm.

 "I wish that groundhog would have stayed in its hole," said Geoff Dunn, who took the bus to his downtown Columbus, Ohio, office, avoiding the messy roads but still having to navigate snowy sidewalks. "Finding us six more weeks of winter was not the smart move."

 In Chicago, a runner was credited with helping save a man who fell into icy Lake Michigan with his dog.

 Adam Dominik says he found twine and anchored it around himself while throwing the other end in the water, pulling the man onto nearby rocks. Meanwhile, a skier called 911. He was taken to a hospital to be treated for severe hypothermia. He and his dog are expected to recover.

 In Michigan, authorities reported several multi-vehicle crashes Wednesday after several inches of snow along Interstate 94 in the Jackson area, including some with injuries, and crashes closed portions of I-69 in the Flint area.

 And for those looking for a respite, more bad news is on the way, as authorities predict another walloping winter storm is poised to slam into the region Saturday night into Sunday.

 The Associated Press contributed to this report. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Little relief for the Northeast after a snowstorm Monday: Today, it's facing another winter storm, one that's already canceled some 2,400 flights, Fox News reports. Snowfall will range between a few inches in some areas, including New York City and Pittsburgh, to more than a foot in the Catskills and parts of New England. The "norm," per CNN, will be eight to 12 inches, with snowfall slowing in the afternoon. Ice is also expected in many areas, with New York City facing half an inch. In the Philadelphia area, more than 500,000 are without power, Philly.com reports. Areas across New England are closing schools. More snow could also hit Illinois and Iowa, with ice and freezing rain in Mississippi. Some 120 million people may be affected, CNN notes. "A little bit of everything for everybody, it seems like," says a Pennsylvania meteorologist. "About the only thing we probably won't have is locusts." And today's not the end of it: Another winter storm is due this weekend, and it could be the worst of a bad week, AccuWeather reports.


UPDATED: Human Rights Foundation says Swank was warned about the activities of Ramzan Kadyrov before she attended the lavish event.

 Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he didn’t want a fuss for his 35th birthday party but that didn’t stop his friends from throwing a multimillion-dollar bash attended by Hilary Swank and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

 Kevin Costner was invited to the Oct. 5 event but declined due to his production schedule on the Hatfields and McCoys television series -- a development that in retrospect, was a gift from the public-relations gods. Eva Mendes and Colombian singer Shakira also were invited but did not attend. A spokesman for Mendes says the actress was never scheduled to attend the event "due to availability."

 In a statement to THR, Human Rights Watch called on stars who attended the party for Kadyrov to reimburse any money that they were paid to participate. "Ramzan Kadyrov is linked to a litany of horrific human rights abuses. It's inappropriate for stars to get paid to party with him. It bolsters his image and legitimizes a brutal leader and his regime. And getting paid to be part of such a lavish show in Chechnya trivializes the suffering of countless victims of human rights abuses there," the organization said.

 According to Human Rights Watch, Kadyrov presides over law enforcement and security agencies that have been implicated in abductions, torture and executions of those suspected of involvement in the Islamist insurgency in Chechnya. Thor Halvorssen, president of the Human Rights Foundation, called the stars’ attendance at the celebration “disheartening and shameful.”

 PHOTOS: '80s Action Stars: Where Are They Now?

 According to the Human Rights Foundation, Jean-Claude Van Damme stood on stage and said, “I love you Mr. Kadyrov” while Swank said she was honored to be in Grozny and wished Kadyrov a “Happy Birthday.” After Swank spoke, British violinist Vanessa-Mae performed for a reported half a million dollars. There were fireworks and performances by acrobats. The celebration was held on a floating stage on the River Sunzha; portraits of Kadyrov were displayed throughout the city.

 According to one talent rep, stars are paid in the six figures to attend such events. Their perks routinely include private jets and first-class hotel suites.

 PHOTOS: 10 Entertainers Democrats and Republicans Love to Hate

 Human rights activists raised concerns with Swank’s representatives before the event. According to the Human Rights Foundation, her manger, Jason Weinberg, stated in an email on Sept 26, “Hilary has no current plans to attend the party” in Chechnya. But both Swank and Van Damme are visible at the lavish event in photographs and on YouTube. Weinberg did not respond to a query from THR; nor did reps for Van Damme.

 “Hilary Swank obviously has the right to earn a living entertaining the highest bidder, but this sort of venality should be exposed — especially after claiming she was not going,” Halvorssen said in a statement. “Would she have accepted an invitation to entertain Pinochet? Al-Qaeda? The apartheid government in Pretoria? We must remember the disgrace of Mariah Carey, Nelly Furtado, Beyoncé and 50 Cent were exposed to after singing for Gaddafi’s family and earning millions of dollars for it.”

 PHOTOS: The Most Talked-About TV News Faces

 Kadyrov had said the celebrations, financed by the Kremlin, were held in honor of the 193rd anniversary of the founding of Grozny, Chechnya's capital. That anniversary was actually pushed to coincide with Kadyrov's birthday.

 According to the British paper The Telegraph, Kadyrov appeared uncertain when asked who paid for the party. ''Allah gives it to us,'' he said, before adding: ''I don't know, it comes from somewhere.'' ||||| Human Rights Watch is lambasting an Oscar-winning actress and other Western celebrities for attending a concert held on the birthday of Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader, who has been accused of rights abuses.

 The New York-based rights watchdog said Wednesday that American actress Hilary Swank, Belgian actor Jean Claude Van Damme and British violinist Vanessa Mae attended the concert in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

 The Oct. 5 show was held at a police-cordoned concert hall on Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov's 35th birthday.

 Human Rights Watch urged the artists to "avoid legitimizing people like" Kadyrov, who has been accused by rights groups of having orchestrated abductions, extrajudicial killings and the enforcement of sharia law in Chechnya.

 The artists' representatives were not immediately available for comment. |||||

Write a summary.

– Note to celebrities: We know swanky multimillion-dollar parties are probably fun and you get paid a lot to attend them, but it's probably best to skip those held in honor of political leaders accused of kidnappings, torture, and extrajudicial killings. Hilary Swank and Jean Claude Van Damme did not take that advice, which did not win them points with Human Rights Watch. The actors attended a party and concert last week to celebrate the 35th birthday of Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, the AP reports. Human Rights Watch tells the Hollywood Reporter that activists warned Swank’s people about Kadyrov’s less-than-savory reputation before the event, but she attended nonetheless. She reportedly said she was honored to be there and wished the leader a happy birthday, while Van Damme stood up and said, “I love you Mr. Kadyrov.” Others invited to the lavish event, which was held on a floating river stage and included fireworks and acrobatic performances, included Kevin Costner, Eva Mendes, and Shakira, none of whom attended.


Write a summary based on this article:

NEW YORK — A Rockaway man fell to his death Wednesday while climbing scaffolding at the 52-story Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan.

 Police believe Connor Cummings, 20, and an 18-year-old friend were trying to take pictures from the hotel scaffolding at about 11:15 p.m. when Cummings fell. The scaffolding was wet due to the rain, New York Police Department Sgt. Daniel Boody said.

 Cummings dropped nine stories in the pouring rain, landing on one of the hotel's lower rooftops, Boody said. Cummings was pronounced dead at the scene.

 The 18-year-old friend was identified as Dimitri Olivares by the Daily News. No age or hometown was given.

 The two young men climbed scaffolding in an interior shaft of the hotel on on 57th Street, according to the News report. As Cummings was about to step through a hatch to the roof, he slipped and fell onto a 43rd-floor landing, the report said.

 Cummings was a graduate of Morris Knolls High School attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst according to his Facebook page.

 "Connor was a fine student with a bright future," Morris Knolls Principal Ryan MacNaughton said in a statement. "Connor and his family were strong supporters of Morris Knolls and our thoughts and prayers are with them."

 No charges have not been filed against the 18-year-old friend who was with Cummings when he fell, officials have said.

 Hotel officials said they were working with police to help in the investigation.

 "The safety and security of our guests, patrons and employees is a top priority for us. As this incident is currently under investigation, all inquiries are best directed to local police," hotel spokeswoman Paula Dirks said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with the family of the deceased and we extend our deepest sympathies and condolences to them."

 Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. ||||| Police say a New Jersey man who was trying to descend the facade of the Four Seasons Hotel in Midtown after snapping photos of the city skyline with a friend plunged to his death late Wednesday.Officials believe 20-year-old Connor Cummings, of Rockaway, and his friend were just trying to take pictures atop the 52-story building, and the victim's family described him as a photography buff.He and his 18-year-old friend were apparently climbing down scaffolding they had used to access the roof when he fell nine stories down the interior shaft.Police say he landed on a catwalk several levels below and died at the scene.His friend climbed down to get help, and now that friend is being interviewed by detectives. Police at the scene reportedly recovered the photography equipment he was using.The young man's aunt, however, feels like the whole incident doesn't add up. She said he was a photography buff, but no daredevil."We're trying to get answers," Kate Gentile said. "They say that he went up the elevator, and then went up a stairway, and then went out on a balcony, but the cops aren't saying exactly what happened. And I know the medical examiner was up there. I mean, he's a young kid, he's a good kid. They weren't drinking or anything, they were taking a picture."Cummings was attending college in Massachusetts.Police say that Cummings and his friend were not guests at the hotel. ||||| The young daredevil who fell to his death at the Four Seasons wasn’t paying attention as he snapped photos while walking backward on a metal catwalk on the hotel’s roof when he stepped off the scaffolding and took a fatal plunge, police sources said.

 Connor Cummings, 20, of Rockaway, NJ, slipped 25 feet, past the ladder he used to access the catwalk before landing hard on the hotel’s roof around 10:40 p.m. on Wednesday, the sources said.

 The thrill-seeker and his 18-year-old buddy Dimitri Oliveras, carrying their photography equipment, had taken the hotel elevator to the top floor of the 52-story hotel and walked up two flights of stairs to the rooftop exit, police sources said.

 The pair were not guests of the hotel but managed to reach the restricted rooftop anyway, sources said.

 “Upon gaining access to the roof, there’s a fenced off area that includes mechanical equipment. Surrounding this equipment there are catwalks and ladders,” a police source said.

 The two amateur photographers climbed another 25 feet on a ladder to get a “panoramic” shot of the city when Cummings lost his footing and fell, sources added.

 He was pronounced dead at the scene.

 A frightened Oliveras then climbed down the ladder and upon seeing his lifeless friend, fled the roof and hopped in a taxi cab — but he only got 10 blocks before he second-guessed his decision to bail, sources said.

 Oliveras of Dover, NJ, went back to the Midtown hotel where he called his mom and told hotel security what happened, sources said.

 Police questioned the teen and released him without charges.

 Oliveras was in shock Thursday, said family who answered the door at his home.

 “The kid’s traumatized,” said a relative, before declining to comment further.

 Cummings was a sophomore psychology major at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he also took photography courses and played a leadership role in the fraternity Alpha Sigma Phi.

 “He was a loving boy, that’s all I can say,” a relative said.

 His fraternity brothers posted a message on Facebook mourning their friend’s death and described his “fiery passion” for photography.

 “His love for this hobby was illustrated through his beautiful works of art,” the fraternity wrote. “Connor was someone who would stop to help someone without any questions and was always committed in getting the job done.”

 Mike Pascale, a childhood friend from New Jersey, said he felt sick when heard the news Cummings’s death. From now on, he said he would be reminded of the shutterbug whenever her took photos of his own.

 “Connor, to me, was such a remarkable friend as well as has such an amazing family,” Pascale told The Post.

 “[He] put others first, lived and breathed his passions and was very down to earth. It’s difficult to find someone like him in this messed up society we live in,” the friend added.

 Additional reporting by Natalie Musumeci and Kevin Fasick. |||||

– Connor Cummins' family describes him to WABC-TV as a photography devotee—and that enthusiasm may have cost him his life. The New Jersey man, said to be either 20 or 24 years old, and an 18-year-old pal ascended the scaffolding outside NYC's Four Seasons hotel Wednesday night in search of the perfect panoramic picture—but Cummins may have slipped on railings made slippery by the rain and fell nine stories to his death, cops tell NJ.com. An NYPD spokesman tells the New York Daily News that the initial investigation suggests the men weren't guests of the hotel. Cummins, who originally hails from Rockaway and whose Facebook page indicates he's now a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, per ABC, landed on one of the hotel's lower-level rooftops around 11:15pm and was pronounced dead at the scene, reports the New York Post. His friend wasn't injured and was questioned by authorities to fill in the blanks; he was released Thursday morning without being charged. "He was a loving boy, that's all I can say," one of Cummins' relatives tells the Post. "I don't know what happened." (There's more suspicion surrounding a Muslim teen's fatal fall off a Seattle building.)