Batfleck, Bombs, Booted Execs: 15 Biggest Film Stories of 2013

Among the many highlights in film in 2013 were the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman, the casting (and recasting) of the leading man for Fifty Shades of Grey and the plethora of new films that were announced based on old franchises, ranging from Jurassic Park 4 to the new Harry Potter spinoff films.

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10 Surprising Links Between Hollywood and Neuroscience

Natalie Portman is a neuroscientist! Colin Firth has co-authored a brain imaging paper! There was a real-life case like Drew Barrymore’s character in 50 First Dates!

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Led by 'Hobbit 2,' Christmas Rings Out Record Year

Thanks to a strong Christmas season, Hollywood is safe to begin celebrating a record year at the North American box office. With two days left to go, revenue will match 2012's record $10.8 billion sometime on Sunday, putting the final tally for the year in the $10.9 billion range.

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Screenwriters Choice Awards Nominees Include 'Blue Jasmine,' 'Her,' '12 Years a Slave'

Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Spike Jonze’s Her and John Ridley’s 12 Years a Slave are among the nominees for the second annual Screenwriters Choice Awards. The awards are sponsored by Final Draft, which makes screenwriting software, and the winners will be announced at the Final Draft Awards, to be held Jan. 7 on the Paramount Studios lot.

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Jenji Kohan: Netflix 'Cryptic' About Show's Popularity

Netflix famously doesn't release ratings information, even for what it claims is its most watched original series: Orange Is the New Black.

And that secrecy extends to show creator Jenji Kohan, who tells The New York Times that the streaming service provides "very cryptic" assessments of the show's popularity.

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Oscars: Nine Films Competing for Best Foreign Language Film

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

• Belgium, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Felix van Groeningen, director
• Bosnia and Herzegovina, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, Danis Tanovic, director
• Cambodia, The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh, director
• Denmark, The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg, director
• Germany, Two Lives, Georg Maas, director
• Hong Kong, The Grandmaster, Wong Kar-wai, director
• Hungary, The Notebook, Janos Szasz, director
• Italy, The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino, director
• Palestine, Omar, Hany Abu-Assad, director

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'12 Years a Slave' Leads Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award Nominations

The 14th edition of the Canadian kudosfest will see McQueen's no-holds-barred drama vie in the best film, director and screenplay categories.

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Facebook Forces Video Ads on You Because Marketers Told It To

In today’s blog post announcing the new ads, Facebook calls them a high-quality way to let advertisers “tell their stories to a large number of people on Facebook in a short amount of time.” Facebook says the launch is the beginning of a test, leaving open the possibility, however remote, that the ads might change in some way — or get canceled entirely.

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'Inside Llewyn Davis' Named Best Picture by Toronto Critics

The awards, voted on by the TFCA on Dec. 15, saw Alfonso Cuaron win for best director for survival-in-space tale Gravity, and Cate Blanchett win best actress for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.

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'12 Years a Slave' Leads London Critics' Circle Film Awards Nominations

Stephen Frears’ Philomena is the next most nominated title with five nods, including film of the year and a nomination for star Judi Dench for best actress.

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African-American Film Critics Association Reveals Its Top 10 Films of 2013

12 Years a Slave topped the African-American Film Critics Association's (AAFCA) list of its top 10 films of 2013, the organization announced Friday. The film also earned honors for best director, best screenplay and best newcomer for Steve McQueen, John Ridley and Lupita Nyong'o, respectively.

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'12 Years a Slave,' 'American Hustle' Lead Critics' Choice Movie Awards Nominations

Each film received 13 noms, while "Gravity" landed 10. The awards will be handed out Jan. 16 in a ceremony airing live on The CW.

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Jay Leno, Rupert Murdoch, Julia Louis-Dreyfus TV Academy Hall of Fame Inductees

The Television Academy's Hall of Fame Selection Committee announced Monday the six individuals who will be honored at next year's induction ceremony. Jay Leno, Rupert Murdoch, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ray Dolby, David E. Kelley and Brandon Stoddard will be feted at the March 11, 2014, dinner -- the 23rd such event for the TV Academy.

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2013 Black List

The Black List announced this year's list of Hollywood's most-liked unproduced screenplays via Twitter on Monday.

The annual Black List is based on Hollywood executives' favorite unproduced screenplays. Created in 2005 by Franklin Leonard and Dino Sijamic, the Black List has become one of the most reliable indicators of Hollywood's hot properties. Previous Black List scripts include three of the last five best picture Oscar winners (Slumdog Millionaire, The King's Speech and Argo) and seven of the last 12 screenwriting Oscar winners (Juno, Slumdog, The King's Speech, Argo, The Social Network, The Descendants and Django Unchained).

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The 9 Biggest Gaming Bummers of 2013

PlayStation 4 is less of an upgrade than a lateral shift, since it's not backward compatible with anything -- including the vast library of content you've been downloading all this time. It's the same sad story with Xbox One.

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Peter O'Toole dies at 81

O’Toole was part of the 1954 graduating class of London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art along with Richard Burton, Albert Finney, and Alan Bates. After a supernova first decade — a 10-year run from 1958 to 1968 that included two stage Hamlets, two filmed Henry IIs, and an incandescent, career-defining title role in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia — O’Toole let the momentum slip. The 1970s were a blur of bombs and bad health; the comeback in the early 1980s was gratifying but never fully took hold.

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Golden Globe nominees: '12 Years a Slave' and 'American Hustle' lead

Joining 12 Years for Best Drama are Captain Phillips, Gravity, Philomena, and Rush. Nominated alongside Hustle for Best Comedy or Musical are Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

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Screen Actors Guild noms: '12 Years a Slave' leads

The big surprise was The Butler, the blockbuster drama about a black man who spends a lifetime working in the White House under eight presidents. It hasn’t been present in many of the critics awards this season, but came on strong with three nods from the actors union: best ensemble, lead actor for Forest Whitaker, and supporting actress for Oprah Winfrey.

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Will Arnett and Aaron Paul to Horse Around With New Netflix Series

It’s an animated series about a self-loathing talking horse voiced by Will Arnett, who has a human sidekick played by Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul and feline ex-girlfriend with the voice of Amy Sedaris. Oh, and it’s designed by acclaimed cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt.

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AFI movies of the year: 'Her' and '12 Years a Slave' in

The American Film Institute announced its 10 “most outstanding” movies of the year Monday, including Her, 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Gravity, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

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Writers Guild Awards: 'Breaking Bad,' 'Orange is the New Black' Among TV Nominations

The awards will be handed out Saturday, Feb. 1, 2014, at simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. The WGAW ceremony will once again be held at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live, and the WGAE ceremony will be held at the Edison Ballroom.

Click through for nominees

'House of Cards' Actors: 'Our Viewership Is Now Primed' for Binge-Watching TV

"Everyone was really happy to get back to work," Arcelus, who plays newspaper editor Lucas Goodwin, said at the premiere of Lilyhammer of filming season two from May to early November. "We knew when we first started that we were part of something special, but I don’t think any of us were quite ready for how well it was received, and how special that whole wave of binge-watching was, especially early on. And then later, to be honored with those Emmy nominations and wins was very special for the first TV show not delivered on TV. It was nice to be embraced by the community in that way."

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'Gravity' and 'Her' win L.A. Film Critics Assn. best film of 2013

Alfonso Cuarón's sci-fi thriller "Gravity" and Spike Jonze's offbeat love story "Her" tied for best film honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. It was one of three ties in major categories.

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Boston Critics Name '12 Years a Slave' Best Picture

The Boston Society of Film Critics, voting Sunday, named Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave the best picture of the year and also cited McQueen as best director and the film’s Chiwetel Ejiofor as best actor.

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'12 Years a Slave' Named Best Picture by New York Online Critics

The New York Film Critics Online, voting Sunday, named Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave as its best film of the year.

The critics’ group -- not to be confused with the New York Film Critics Circle, which chose David O. Russell’s American Hustle as its top picture -- also gave its best actor award to Slave’s Chiwetel Ejiofor and its best supporting actress award to the film’s Lupita Nyong’o.

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Grammy Nominations: 10 Big Shockers and Snubs

The 56th annual Grammy Awards offered a fair share of surprising inclusions, as well as flabbergasting omissions. From Lorde's unexpected snub to Kendrick Lamar's across-the-board triumph, check out the five biggest surprises and five biggest snubs of the 2014 Grammy nominations.

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AMPAS Adds Dubai to Qualifying Festival List For Oscar Short Film Contention

The Academy for Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said Dec. 8 that the Dubai International Film Festival would be joining the ranks of qualifying festivals for the Oscar’s short film competition.

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R.I.P. actor Danny Wells of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

Wells’ death coincidentally comes near the end of what Nintendo has deemed The Year Of Luigi, making this a twilight for the character in more ways than one.

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'Her' Named Best Film by National Board of Review

The National Board of Review on Wednesday revealed its awards for 2013, naming Spike Jonze's Her the Best Film of the Year. Jonze also earned Best Director honors for his work helming the Warner Bros. movie about a man (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with a computer operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).

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Pixar vs. Disney Animation: John Lasseter's Tricky Tug-of-War

Walt Disney Animation Studios opened Frozen, its 53rd feature, in wide release and set a Thanksgiving weekend record with $93.6 million domestic -- topping Pixar's Toy Story 2 benchmark from 1999. The icy sisterhood tale established itself as a frontrunner for the animated feature Oscar, a category Pixar has dominated. Further underscoring the resurgence of WDAS, Frozen was accompanied by a new short, Get a Horse!, that could win the Oscar in that category.

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ASIFA Unveils List of 41st Annie Awards Nominees

GKIDS’ A Letter to Momo, Universal/Illumination’s Despicable Me 2, GKIDS’ Ernest and Celestine, Disney’s Frozen, Pixar’s Monsters University, DreamWorks’ The Croods and Ghibli/Disney’s The Wind Rises.

The TV categories are also packed with a long list of contenders: The Best Animated TV Series for Children’s nominees are Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time, Warner Bros.’ Animation’s Beware the Batman, Disney TV’s Gravity Falls, Nickelodeon’s Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Cartoon Network’s Regular Show, Nelvana’s Scaredy Squirrel and Warner Bros.’ Teen Titans Go!

The General Audience TV Series nominees are FX’s Archer, Bento Box/Fox’s Bob’s Burgers, Disney TV’s TRON: Uprising, Fox’s Futurama and Titmouse/Disney XD’s Motorcity.

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'Fast & Furious' star Paul Walker killed in car crash

Actor Paul Walker, who shot to fame as star of the high-octane street racing franchise "Fast & Furious," died in a fiery car crash in Southern California on Saturday. He was 40.

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Box Office: 'Catching Fire,' 'Frozen' Making Thanksgiving History

In regards to records, Frozen is easily on course to nab the top Thanksgiving opening of all time, eclipsing the $80.1 million five-day debut of Pixar's Toy Story 2 in 1999. It's also destined to score the top opening for a Disney Animation Studios title, besting the $68.7 million debut of Tangled over Thanksgiving in 2010.

Catching Fire, now in its second weekend, will mark the top-grossing Thanksgiving film of any movie, topping previous record-holder Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ($82.4 million). It also nabbed the best gross ever for Thanksgiving day -- $14.9 million from 4,163 theaters -- besting the $13.1 million earned by Toy Story 2. Globally, the tentpole has earned north of $423 million.

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Walt Disney's Daughter, Diane Disney Miller, Dies at 79

Diane Disney Miller, the daughter of Walt Disney and a force in making sure architect Frank Gehry completed the Los Angeles concert hall that bears her father’s name, died Tuesday at her home in Napa, Calif., after suffering a recent fall. She was 79.

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Review: Microsoft Xbox One

Many game consoles aspire to be more than just a game console, but Xbox One really means it. Xbox One wants to be your everything and run your TV, your Blu-rays, your streaming, your music and, oh, sure, your videogames too. It wants to do it all with Kinect, the camera controller that’s included in every box, letting you use voice commands to control everything.

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No TV Show Has Ever Loved Math as Much as Futurama

WIRED spoke to Singh and Futurama executive producer and head writer David X. Cohen about Futurama’s legacy, mathematical and otherwise.



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'I Love Lucy' Actress Shirley Mitchell Dies at 94

Mitchell, who was believed to be the last surviving adult castmember from the legendary CBS sitcom, died Nov. 11 of heart failure at her condominium in Westwood, her sister-in-law, the Oscar-nominated Sunset Blvd. actress Nancy Olson, told The Hollywood Reporter.

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Netflix’s New Look Is a Glimpse at the Future of TV

On the surface it just looks like a sleek new interface upgrade – better images, more integrated program information – but underneath there’s a hint of things to come: the idea that soon, viewers will look at the video-streaming service no differently than they do the guide channel piped in through their living room’s cable box.

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Video Accounts for 53 Percent of Internet Traffic

Netflix represents the lion's share of that traffic at 31.62 percent. YouTube trails with 18.69 percent but still accounts for the second-highest amount of traffic.

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Marvel to Make 4 New Superhero Shows and a Miniseries for Netflix

The new series will focus on the company’s “ground level” super-characters, launching with Daredevil, then Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage before all four characters combine Avengers-style for the mini-series The Defenders.

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Blockbuster To Close Remaining Stores

Dish Network, which paid $234M to take Blockbuster out of bankruptcy in early 2011, said today that it will close the 300 remaining U.S. retail stores as well as its distribution centers. Blockbuster’s DVD by mail service will also end, although franchisees and licensed Blockbusters stateside and overseas will be unaffected.

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19 Films Submitted for Animated Feature Oscar

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Epic
Ernest and Celestine
The Fake
Free Birds
Frozen
Khumba
The Legend of Sarila
A Letter to Momo
Monsters University
O Apóstolo
Planes
Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie – Rebellion
Rio: 2096 A Story of Love and Fury
The Smurfs 2
Turbo
The Wind Rises

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New FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: 7 Things to Know

Wheeler was confirmed along with a Republican, Michael O'Reilly, a former Senate staffer, bringing the commission to full strength for the first time since Julius Genachowski resigned as chairman in May.

This isn't just another chairman, however. Wheeler arrives with the explicit endorsement of President Obama, who, in announcing the appointment May 1 at the White House, praised Wheeler as someone who has been at the forefront of dramatic changes in the way people communicate.

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'The Simpsons' Pays Tribute to Marcia Wallace in Show Opening

"We'll really miss you Mrs. K.," Bart Simpson wrote on the chalkboard in the credits sequence ahead of Sunday night's new episode, "Four Regrettings and a Funeral."

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Oscars Ads Sell Out Unusually Early

Marking the earliest sellout in recent years, the ABC network has sold out virtually all of the available advertising for the March 2, 2014, Academy Awards

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Bart Simpson Actress Remembers Marcia Wallace

"Marcia would come in, and she was always a ray of light," Simpsons star Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, tells The Hollywood Reporter of her late co-star. "She’s in 178 episodes -- a lot more than people might think. That’s more episodes than most standard shows. Marcia was always a very big part of the group. Always a treat. The room was always a little bit better with her in it."

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The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic

The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast. Despite repeated assertions to the contrary in the PBS and NPR programs, almost nobody was fooled by Welles’ broadcast.

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Google and Twitter Overhaul Photo Sharing in Combined Assault on Facebook

Let’s start with Twitter. Today it began adding previews of photos and videos directly into tweets. That means the main timeline will now look more like the Discover tab. Photos and videos will display automatically, there’s no more click-to-expand.

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Edna Krabappel will be retired on "The Simpsons"

"Simpsons" producer Al Jean released a statement saying he was “tremendously saddened” at Wallace’s passing at the age of 70, adding, “We intend to retire her irreplaceable character.”

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R.I.P. Marcia Wallace, a.k.a. Mrs. Krabappel

Although she'd had a long, busy career before she started working on The Simpsons in 1990—including, most notably, a high-profile role as the secretary on The Bob Newhart Show in the '70s—Marcia Wallace will likely be forever known as Edna Krabappel, the weary, cynical, but good-hearted teacher and foil of Bart Simpson.

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'Despicable Me' Creator: Animation Market Is Cannibalizing Itself

Addressing the volatile state of the industry, he warned that the animation community "releases too many films and there’s not enough room. They are going to cannibalize each other; we are already seeing that. We are also competing against the big live action films."

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'12 Years A Slave' Leads Gotham Awards Nominees

Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave led the field as nominations for the 23rd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards were announced today. The Fox Searchlight release, which offers a searing look at slavery in the American South, claimed three nominations -- best feature, best actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor and breakthrough actor for Lupita Nyong’o.

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Why TV Networks Are Bypassing Pilots for Direct-to-Series Orders

Blame the shift on the influx of TV competitors, from Netflix to WGN America, that are elbowing their way into the game by offering massive commitments. "A lot of this is about getting people to come to us over cable," says a network source of the broadcast buys, with another pointing to Netflix's 26-episode order for House of Cards as the game-changer.

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Apple Just Ended the Era of Paid Operating Systems

Prices of Apple’s Mac OS X have long been on the wane. After four releases that cost $129, Apple dropped the operating system’s upgrade price to $29 with 2009’s OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and then to $19 with last year’s OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Microsoft — the king of the operating system in the ’80s and ’90s and on into the aughts — still charges PC makers who sell the Windows OS preloaded on their desktop and laptop machines, but that business is shrinking, thanks in large part to the continued success of Apple.

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R.I.P. Anthony Hinds, chief architect behind Hammer horror

Film producer and screenwriter Anthony Hinds has died at the age of 91. Hinds was the son of Anthony Frank Hinds, who co-founded Hammer Films in 1934 with Enrique Carreras. (“Will Hammer” had been the elder Hinds’ stage name when he performed as a music hall comedian.)

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Academy Reveals Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting Winners

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a feature-length screenplay during their fellowship year. The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially in any way with their completed scripts.

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Nickelodeon Touts $475 Million in Retail Sales for Relaunched 'Turtles' Franchise

Nickelodeon parent, Viacom, acquired the franchise in October 2009 for $60 million and launched a new animated show on the kids network last fall. Since then, Turtles consumer products have brought in more than $475 million in global retail sales, according to the company. That includes about $250 million from the U.S., with the rest coming from international markets.

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Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt, KISS, N.W.A., LL Cool J Among Rock Hall of Fame Nominees

More than 600 voters will determine the class of 2014. Inductees will be announced in December and a ceremony will be held next April in New York. The induction will be aired on HBO in May.

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