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--:-- John Bickley: Good morning, I'm John Bickley, and this is Morning Wire. Joining me is Georgia Howe. It's Friday, July 23rd. We'll talk about the Tokyo Olympics, Hollywood's box office comeback, and the new space race.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us, John. We have a lot to cover today.
--:-- John Bickley: After a year-long delay, the Tokyo Olympics officially opened today. Between COVID precautions and controversy over protests, we'll talk about what viewers can expect and which events to keep an eye on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right. We'll also discuss Hollywood's attempt to make a comeback after COVID lockdowns. And with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' successful space flight this week, the space tourism race is ramping up. What's next for Bezos and his competitors, and what does it mean for the new space race?
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: After a year delay due to the pandemic, the opening ceremonies for the Tokyo Olympics have finally arrived. COVID has had a major impact on the excitement for this year's Games. But as of now, we still have two weeks of the greatest athletes competing on the world's biggest stage.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to tell us more is Daily Wire's sports reporter, Joe Morgan. Good morning, John.
--:-- Joe Morgan: Morning.
--:-- John Bickley: So obviously COVID-19 has been the major talking point at the Olympics so far. Many wondering if they'd even take place. How much has COVID impacted the Games thus far?
--:-- Joe Morgan: Unfortunately, it has had a major impact. On Tuesday, the chief of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee refused to rule out canceling the Games at the last minute. Tashiro Muto said it will all depend on COVID cases moving forward.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right. And the first U.S. athlete expected to compete has tested positive for the coronavirus while in Japan. Taylor Crabb, a men's beach volleyball player, tested positive and is now in quarantine.
--:-- Joe Morgan: So Crabb is out. Correct. Crabbe confirmed his withdrawal on Thursday, and Tryborn will take his place as the partner of four-time Olympian Jake Gibb this weekend.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And of course, tennis player Coco Goff pulled out Sunday after testing positive.
--:-- Joe Morgan: Right. Now, a few events have already taken place, including the women's soccer team's matchup against Sweden. That didn't go well. What happened there?
--:-- Joe Morgan: Well, they were shut out 3-0. This was the first game of the group stages, and it ended their 44-game undefeated streak. Sweden has long been a thorn in the side of the U.S. women's team, knocking Megan Rapinoe and the rest of the squad out of the 2016 Olympics.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The U.S. team next plays New Zealand on Saturday in what Rapinoe calls a do-or-die game. So if they lose that game, they're likely out.
--:-- Joe Morgan: Right. They could possibly lose and still survive, but it's very unlikely.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There's been a lot of discussion about protests heading into the games, and the women's soccer team has been part of that. What have they done so far, and what should we expect Saturday?
--:-- Joe Morgan: Yeah, so ahead of the game against Sweden, all 22 players on Team USA took a knee. It's become a major point of contention with some U.S. fans. It is important to note the kneeling took place before the start of the game and not during the national anthem.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, they were not alone in kneeling. Team Sweden also knelt before the game as did the teams from Great Britain and New Zealand.
--:-- Joe Morgan: It will be interesting to see what happens on Saturday. The trials included some protests from other American athletes including in the women hammer throw so many will be watching for more demonstrations.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, COVID and controversies aside, there's a lot to look forward to over the next two weeks.
--:-- Joe Morgan: Oh, absolutely. These are the Olympic Games we're talking about. Right. So what events should we keep an eye on? There's quite a few, actually.
--:-- Joe Morgan: Number one on a lot of people's list is Simone Biles, all-world champion gymnast. She's the gold medal favorite in four individual events in Tokyo, and she has a chance to win another gold as she leads the U.S. in the team competition.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Biles is attempting to pull off the first-ever Yerchenko Double Pike vault in competition. She showed off the move in podium training on Thursday, and it has the social media world buzzing.
--:-- Joe Morgan: If she does medal in all five events she's favored in, Biles would become the first American woman to earn five golds at a single game.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Biles also has a chance to become the most gold-winning female Olympian in any sport in U.S. history.
--:-- Joe Morgan: Biles has four gold medals, and the current record for most gold medals is eight for a female U.S. Olympian and nine for the world.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Wow, her career has been amazing to track.
--:-- Joe Morgan: It certainly has. Allison Felix is also an Olympian to watch. Felix will be participating in her last Olympics and first as a mother. If Felix medals in Tokyo, she would equal the great Carl Lewis's record for the most Olympic medals by an American track and field athlete.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll definitely be watching.
--:-- Joe Morgan: Thanks for the breakdown. You got it.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Up next, Hollywood attempts to make a comeback after COVID lockdowns. If you're with Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile, you're paying too much. Switching to Pure Talk saves the average family over $800 a year. Right now, get Unlimited Talk, text, and six gigs of data for just $30 a month. Find the plan that's right for you at puretalk.com.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Hollywood came to a screeching halt last year amid government-imposed lockdowns. With theaters shuttered, many of them permanently, box office revenues had plummeted. Here to discuss Hollywood's comeback attempt is Daily Wire's entertainment reporter, Megan Basham. Thanks for coming on, Megan.
--:-- Megan Basham: Thanks for having me, Georgia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So we're seeing a lot of stories about the box office recovering and people going back to theaters. What's your assessment of what's going on right now?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, I think everyone in Hollywood is breathing a sigh of relief at this point that studios are finally releasing big new movies back to theaters. So that's a big plus. And, you know, a number of those movies like F9, A Quiet Place 2, have proved to be significant earners, earning $70 million, $47 million, respectively, in their opening weekends.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So it is clear that audiences are ready to go back to the movies. But big studios have also been trying to compete with Netflix to draw subscribers to their streaming platforms. So they've spent the last few months testing out different release models, simultaneously releasing films to both streaming and theaters.
--:-- Megan Basham: Basically, what they're trying to do is have their cake and eat it too. And now that has set up, I would say, something of a nasty showdown between theaters and streamers.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So a showdown between theaters and streamers. Do we have any indication right now of who's winning?
--:-- Megan Basham: You know, if you had asked me last week, I probably would have said streaming because Marvel's latest, Black Widow, seemed to be the highest profile release to prove studios could really make that hybrid approach work. It made 80 million at the box office over opening weekend. It also made 60 million on the Disney Plus platform.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So at first it seemed like this great success story. But then came the second weekend. And at that point it dropped almost 70 steepest drop in Marvel history. Well that was obviously embarrassing for Disney.
--:-- Megan Basham: The National Association of Theater Owners took it as an opportunity to release a strong statement condemning that simultaneous release model. What they said is that it proved the hybrid model, quoting here, is a pandemic-era artifact that should be left to history with the pandemic itself.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Disney, I won't say they issued a mea culpa, but they did say that they plan to return to traditional theatrical release models. Their next few films will only premiere in theaters.
--:-- Megan Basham: And Warner Brothers, who famously angered some very heavy hitters like Batman director Christopher Nolan by simultaneously premiering all of their 2021 films on HBO Max, they followed suit. They're going to go back to theater-only debuts in 2022.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Okay, so theater launch is still lucrative. Does that mean that everything goes back to the way it was before COVID, though?
--:-- Megan Basham: Not entirely. You know, what studios have taken from this sort of experimental period is they don't believe movies need to be exclusively in theaters as long as they used to be. The standard before the pandemic was a 90-day theatrical window. Now they think that half that, say 45 days, is enough for big movies.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And some studios are looking at even less, 17 days for smaller films. So not long at all.
--:-- Megan Basham: Do we think that's going to have an effect on the kind of films that get made? You know, that's an interesting question.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And if you think about this, if theater windows shorten and movies go to streamers more quickly, we're going to start to see a content trap. Basically, everyone is going to need more movies to release and studios cannot afford to make that many big budget tentpoles.
--:-- Megan Basham: So my guess is what this could do is reopen the door for more diverse genres again, say romantic comedies or even any comedies at all. Maybe even prestige dramas. I really hope so.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for coming on to talk to us this morning. Thanks so much for having me.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Earlier this week, Jeff Bezos became the second billionaire in a matter of days to take a trip to space. In an 11-minute supersonic flight, the Amazon founder flew over 65 miles above the Texas desert in the first-ever civilian crewed mission for Blue Origin's New Shepard. But what does this mean for the future of space exploration? Here to dig deeper is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth. Good morning, John.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Morning.
--:-- John Bickley: So we've seen a few historic events related to space travel. Walk us through the last two weeks.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Well, on July 11th, Sir Richard Branson flew as a passenger on Virgin Galactic's Unity 22, which reached a height of 53 and a half miles after it was drop launched from its mothership, VMS Eve. On July 20th, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched his first crewed flight, reaching a height of 66 miles above the Earth in a rocket-powered capsule.
--:-- Georgia Howe: While Sir Richard Branson's trip had two pilots and four passengers, including Sir Richard himself, All of those on Blue Origin were civilians, including Bezos and his brother. So major landmarks for both companies.
--:-- Ian Howarth: What's the next step for these projects? They've all said this is only the beginning. After landing on Tuesday, Bezos made it pretty clear. You obviously have grander space ambitions than going to the edge of it. Did this moment motivate you to push deeper into the cosmos?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Hell yes. Yeah that pretty conclusive Yeah and he not alone So Richard has also discussed the notion of space tourism and space travel on a broad scale Over the years to come there will be thousands of people who we will put into space and will become astronauts And hopefully we'll come back and realize just, you know, what a special world we live in.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And then Elon Musk has also discussed the idea of space as a resource. For example, mining precious materials from the moon.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So the truly incredible launches we've witnessed in recent days are certainly not the end. These launches really were amazing to watch. But we've also seen some blowback from critics.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, there have been some pretty vocal critics of the various ventures. Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, condemned both privately funded launches by focusing on wealth inequality. The very richest people in this country are becoming phenomenally richer. In fact, one of them has been out of space today, I guess. That's what he does with his billions. Whoa. Yeah.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And then Senator Elizabeth Warren also criticized Bezos, claiming that the Amazon founder hasn't paid any taxes.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And climate activists say the space race will contribute to climate change. Meanwhile, defenders say that Bezos, Musk, and Branson have figured out how to travel to space in a far more affordable way than the government could ever achieve. All without, we should note, any taxpayer dollars.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And for those concerned about the climate, Bezos is actually arguing that innovative use of space could help address environmental issues.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So you noted that both of these flights were privately funded. Does this signal a change in how space travel works moving forward?
--:-- Ian Howarth: I think it definitely shows a potential changing of the guard in space-based innovation, particularly when there is a financial incentive when it comes to the idea of space tourism. After decades of governments holding a monopoly on space, we seem to be on the edge of civilian travel to space for fun. If you can afford the ticket, of course.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We should zoom out here, though, and understand that this is all happening as part of an international space race. China, for example, is pushing to send crewed missions to Mars in the next few years and want to build a permanent presence on the planet.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So it's likely that private industry and government might need to work together if we want to win not just the race for space tourism, but the race for space.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This is all exciting stuff. We're watching history here, and it's being driven by the private sector. Thanks for the reporting, Ian.
--:-- Ian Howarth: My pleasure.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Those are the top stories this morning, but there's more in the news to keep an eye on. Other big developments that we're tracking this week. Another condo in Surfside, Florida, has been evacuated over structural concerns. The three-floor condo, Regent Place, is just blocks away from Champlain Towers South, which collapsed on June 24th, killing at least 97 people.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This is the second building evacuated since the deadly collapse. And the number of Americans filing jobless claims for the first time rose unexpectedly this week. The Labor Department reported 419,000 jobless claims, the highest number since the week of May 15th, and nearly 70,000 more claims than economists projected.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The news sent stock market futures tumbling. If you liked this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us with the news you need to know.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code MORNINGWIRE to try our Reader's Pass plan, free for 30 days.
