Plenty of force was with "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" on its first night in theaters, but it fell short of the two previous films in the trilogy. "The Rise of Skywalker" brought in an estimated $40 million in North America in its Thursday night previews, the fifth biggest Thursday opening ever. The first film, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," earned $57 million its Thursday night previews in 2015, at the time the biggest of all time. It was topped by the $60 million take of "Avengers: Endgame" earlier this year. The second film in the trilogy, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," had a $45 million tally on its opening Thursday night in 2017.

Thu 25 Jan 2018 12.07 EST Last modified on Thu 25 Jan 2018 12.33 EST Advanced machine learning technology is being used to create fake pornography featuring real actors and pop stars, pasting their faces over existing performers in explicit movies. The resulting clips, made without consent from the women whose faces are used, are often indistinguishable from a real film, with only subtly uncanny differences suggesting something is amiss. A community on the social news site Reddit has spent months creating and sharing the images, which were initially made by a solo hobbyist who went by the name "deepfake". When the technology site Motherboard first reported on the user in December last year, they had already made images featuring women including Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot, Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, and Game of Thrones actor Maisie Williams. In the months since, videos featuring other celebrities including Star Wars lead Daisy Ridley, Game of Thrones's Sophie Turner, and Harry Potter star Emma Watson have been posted on the site, which has become the main location for sharing the clips.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Daisy Ridley has confirmed talks to take on the role of Lara Croft in a forthcoming Tomb Raider reboot. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter at the Empire awards in London, the British actor said there had "been conversations" about her taking on the part of the English archaeological explorer made famous by Angelina Jolie in two early noughties films. "I'm waiting for someone to say'I want you, let's do it'," she said. It is understood no script yet exists for the project, which is in its early stages. Related: Star Wars' Daisy Ridley says: 'I will not apologise for how I look' Ridley, 23, who is set to return as Rey in Star Wars: Episode VIII suggested she would have enough time to shoot different projects.