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Lewis Hamilton warns against rushing an ‘F1' movie sequel after box-office success

Lewis Hamilton warns against rushing an ‘F1' movie sequel after box-office success

Hamilton Spectator20 hours ago
SILVERSTONE, England (AP) — Lewis Hamilton says he just wants to enjoy the 'F1' movie's success as he warned Thursday that rushing a sequel would be 'the worst thing we probably could do.'
The seven-time
Formula 1
champion was an executive producer on
the film
, which stars Brad Pitt as a hard-bitten racer making a late-career comeback.
It
became Apple's biggest box-office hit
yet when it debuted with $55.6 million in North American theaters and $144 million globally over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
'We literally just finished it, so I think the last thing we want right now is a sequel,' Hamilton said Thursday ahead of the British Grand Prix.
'It's been four years in the making. It was a lot of work, particularly for (director Joseph Kosinski). It's time away from your family, it's time away from your kids, and also you need this to just simmer for a while, you know. Like, let's enjoy it.
'I think the worst thing we probably could do is to rush into doing a sequel,' the Ferrari driver added. 'Most sequels are way worse, and so we don't need to rush it. I think if we do do a sequel, I would say let's really, really take our time in getting it even better.'
Hamilton said he was bringing F1 race-track procedures to the movie business by asking for a 'debrief' on the project, in the same way a team analyzes a race before heading to the next one.
'Let's review what we did, what we could have done better,' he said. 'I don't know if they ever do that in the movie business, but it's something obviously I've learned from here.'
___
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‘It's weird but also insanely cool': McLaren's Lando Norris on the dream and dilemma fueling his F1 title ambitions
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Apple spent most of WWDC going over smaller machine learning features, but did not reveal what investors and consumers increasingly want: A sophisticated Siri that can converse fluidly and get stuff done, like making a restaurant reservation. In the age of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini, the expectation of AI assistants among consumers is growing beyond "Siri, how's the weather?" The company had previewed a significantly improved Siri in the summer of 2024, but earlier this year, those features were delayed to sometime in 2026. At WWDC, Apple didn't offer any updates about the improved Siri beyond that the company was "continuing its work to deliver" the features in the "coming year." Some observers reduced their expectations for Apple's AI after the conference. "Current expectations for Apple Intelligence to kickstart a super upgrade cycle are too high, in our view," wrote Jefferies analysts this week. Siri should be an example of how Apple's ability to improve products and projects over the long-term makes it tough to compete with. It beat nearly every other voice assistant to market when it first debuted on iPhones in 2011. Fourteen years later, Siri remains essentially the same one-off, rigid, question-and-answer system that struggles with open-ended questions and dates, even after the invention in recent years of sophisticated voice bots based on generative AI technology that can hold a conversation. Apple's strongest rivals, including Android parent Google, have done way more to integrate sophisticated AI assistants into their devices than Apple has. And Google doesn't have the same reflex against collecting data and cloud processing as privacy-obsessed Apple. Some analysts have said they believe Apple has a few years before the company's lack of competitive AI features will start to show up in device sales, given the company's large installed base and high customer loyalty. 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The move, if it were to happen, would contradict one of Apple's most important strategies in the Cook era: Apple wants to own its core technologies, like the touchscreen, processor, modem and maps software, not buy them from suppliers. Using external technology would be an admission that Apple Foundation Models aren't good enough yet for what the company wants to do with Siri. "They've fallen farther and farther behind, and they need to supercharge their generative AI efforts" Martin said. "They can't do that internally." Apple might even pay billions for the use of Anthropic's AI software, according to the Bloomberg report. If Apple were to pay for AI, it would be a reversal from current services deals, like the search deal with Alphabet where the Cupertino company gets paid $20 billion per year to push iPhone traffic to Google Search. The company didn't confirm the report and declined comment, but Wall Street welcomed the report and Apple shares rose. 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