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The recently released Moana live-action remake is projected to lose Disney more than $100 million after a disappointing opening-weekend haul at the box office. The movie grossed around $95 million worldwide in its debut frame, against a reported production budget of $250 million. Disney experienced a similar setback only last year, when Tron: Ares grossed less than $150 million worldwide against a budget of more than $200 million. That film’s losses were estimated to be around $130 million. These are massive numbers by any standard, and performances like this are unfortunately becoming more frequent. Back in the day, however, when a movie caused losses this massive, it went down in history. One such film is currently available to stream in the United States on Paramount+, but not for much longer.

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Rockstar Games' open-world adventures almost always try to one-up their predecessors, at least in terms of sheer size, and that's not a pattern one former GTA 5 developer anticipates will change when GTA 6 finally blasts onto the scene.

John Ricchio, a former producer on everything from GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption to Max Payne 3, was recently asked about whether he'd even want to be part of the studio ahead GTA 6's imminent launch.

"I think the fact that every single time they do a GTA, it's ludicrously bigger than before is like something that I think about," Ricchio says in a chat with YouTuber Kiwi Talkz. "Like, I can only imagine the size of GTA 6. Like it must be monstrous. Or if not monstrous, it's probably way more detailed."

That's an expectation he has based on Rockstar Games' track record so far. As he notes, GTA 5 was "significantly bigger than GTA 4," which itself was much bigger in many ways than the original Red Dead Redemption. "Even between GTA and RDR, they were continually growing the size of the world," he adds. And while the ballooning scope adds extra wrinkles for the development team, "it really does make you feel like you're in a place."

Circling back to the question, Ricchio then laughs and says, "I'm pretty happy that I'm not on GTA 6. Not that it wouldn't be cool to work with those people… but it is really difficult, and it's a hard period of your career when you're working that hard on something." Despite the hard work, seeing how excited people get over his work is "magic" and "so rewarding" for Ricchio.

GTA 6 is on track for "the strongest pre-order campaign ever recorded" and up to $5 billion in sales by "the end of launch week," analysts say

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Scientists have discovered the building blocks of life inside a meteorite that smashed through a New Jersey home two years ago. The space rock contains amino acids, carbon compounds and other "prebiotic" molecules similar to what may have helped kick-start life on our planet, a new study shows.

Scientists on the study team — led by Peter Jenniskens , a meteor astronomer with affiliations at the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center — praised the homeowner in Hillsborough, N.J., for quickly preserving the meteorite after it fell through the roof on July 16, 2024, despite the adverse circumstances. His actions included using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place pieces of the meteorite fragments into glass jars.

"I was at home at the time, heard a loud crash and found a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom," the homeowner, who was not named, said in a statement from the SETI Institute. "I smelled a strong, sulfur-like odor and saw many black fragments, along with debris and black dust that covered my bed, carpet and surrounding areas."

A close-up of the Hillsborough meteorite’s surface. (Image credit: SETI Institute) Those meteorite pieces were precious, the scientists said, and likely came from an ancient solar system planet that wasn't fully formed. "A forensic study of the fragments revealed that they contained preserved bits from near the surface of a small primitive asteroid where it experienced concentrated salty fluids — a process not previously known from this type of protoplanet world," Jenniskens said in the statement.

The study, published July 15 in the journal Science Advances , also traced how the meteorite got to the house. Earlier on July 16, 2024, at least 60 observers in New York, New Jersey and other Northeastern states spotted a meteor later confirmed to be traveling at 32,000 mph (51,500 km/h). At least 16 people in New York and New Jersey reported feeling the meteor's shock wave.

The rock broke apart in midair, with observer reports stopping when the meteor reached 22 miles (35 kilometers) in altitude, although Newark Liberty International Airport briefly tracked pebbles falling from the sky with Doppler weather radar after that. Fragments from only one meteorite ‪—‬ called Hillsborough, after the town where it crashed through the New Jersey home ‪—‬ were recovered.

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The American Meteor Society used its cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania — along with a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey — to figure out the meteor's origin, Mike Hankey , an operations manager at the American Meteor Society and co-author of the study, said in the statement. "The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt."

Hillsborough is the second stony meteorite of its type ever spotted in a fall. Later analysis showed that the meteorite is full of ancient brines or salt. Scientists classified the meteorite as a type of stony space rock called a carbonaceous chondrite.

Scientists will compare the salt minerals to samples of asteroids Ryugu and Bennu , both of which contain ingredients of life and are samples of another carbonaceous chondrite type that formed earlier than Hillsborough. This analysis could help scientists further trace the origins of life-friendly chemistry in the early solar system.