No stranger to rabid fan bases in genre television, Emma Caulfield, who plays Dottie on Marvel Studios' WandaVision, is reveling in the various fan theories that have sprung up during the show's nine-episode run.
"Obviously I knew what the truth was, and I couldn't say anything," Caulfield told Cheddar regarding speculation about her character running rampant on social media. "These are all so good, and I wish that some of these were actually true."
The veteran actress, who also once starred as a demon-turned-human character in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even issued a tongue-in-cheek plea to Kevin Feige, who runs the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to make more of those fan-derived storylines come to pass.
"Dear Kevin, what can I get you for Christmas?" she added with a laugh.
Without giving away the ending for the series, which is now completely available on Disney+ after a traditional run of weekly episode drops, Caulfield's Dottie is one of the significant residents of Westview, New Jersey, the setting for superhero Wanda Maximoff to seemingly living vicariously through TV sitcoms that magically envelop the town. The episodes of the streaming show correspondingly pay homage to classic broadcast staples that run the gamut from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Modern Family.
Caulfield noted that emulating some of those earlier TV aesthetics was part of the fun challenge of creating the series.
"Getting the period correct, making sure that the voice and the body language and all that stuff was spot on, the technical aspects of that, that was the most actor-y good stuff that you get to do," she said.
Offering up that the work environment was supportive to take on those challenges, Caulfield took time to praise dialect coach Courtney Young, as well as WandaVision showrunner and her previous collaborator on the film Timer, Jac Schaeffer.
"She's just this wonderfully supportive, hilarious, gifted person," Caulfield said of Schaeffer. "I would read the phone book for her if she wanted me to."
AT&T announced earlier today it is spinning off its media properties in WarnerMedia in a merger with Discovery in a $43 billion deal.Scott Rostan, founder and CEO at Training The Street, joined Cheddar to talk about what the unwinding of the telecom giant's Time Warner media properties means for investors. "I think the investor sentiment is they're digesting the new information, and they're looking into the dividend, especially the reduction of the dividend," said Rostan, noting the transaction allows AT&T to focus on its core telecommunications business.
A 2021 report from UK Research and Innovation found that the shipping industry makes up at least 2.5 percent of the world's total CO2 emissions. It's a problem that energy solutions company, Leclanché, is trying to solve. Founded in 1909, the company has been developing and producing batteries for more than 100 years. Today, Leclanché's lithium-ion battery is used to electrify not just ships, but also railroad locomotives, trucks, and specialty vehicles. Cheddar News spoke with Pierre Blanc, chief technology and industrial officer of Leclanché, to discuss.
Amazon is betting that ammonia could be the fuel of the future, participating in a Series A round for the Brooklyn-based company Amogy in December. Amogy aims to de-carbonize transportation with a clean energy system that uses ammonia as a renewable fuel. Amogy is partnering with Amazon on its first commercial product - an ammonia-powered cargo-shipping vessel. Amogy CEO Seonghoon Woo joins Cheddar Climate to discuss.
One of the world's largest transport companies is kicking off Black History Month with a new initiative aimed at the next generation of business leaders. Today, FedEx announced the launch of its Student Ambassador Program. Participants selected from eight historically black colleges and universities will receive career guidance from FedEx executives. The program is part of FedEx's ongoing commitment to HBCUs and will also help the company expand its pipeline for diverse talent. Cheddar News welcomes senior vice president at FedEx, Jenny Robertson, and Jerryl Briggs, President of Mississippi Valley State University, to discuss.
"Sing 2" has overthrown "Spider-Man: No Way Home" as the number one film at the UK box office. The animated sequel brought in $8.1 million, in just its two first weekends. However, "No Way Home" is still on track to beat "Avatar" as the number one grossing movie of all time.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has been a driving force for youth mentorship since 1904. The nonprofit organization is launching its annual Big Draft campaign this month in partnership with the NFL, and Artis Stevens, the first Black CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, joined Cheddar to discuss the push for adding more "Bigs" as mentors on his one-year anniversary leading the non-profit organization. "While the NFL is recruiting and drafting more players, they're also helping us to draft more mentors and, particularly, men all the way from across February to all the way to April of this year," Stevens explained.
The Supreme Court will reconsider race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The court will examine admissions policies at Harvard University and The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, which count the race of applicants as a factor in admissions. The court has upheld affirmative action policies in the past, saying it helps to create more diverse student bodies. However, the conservative Supreme Court could be skeptical and even possibly hostile to such policies. Nick Anderson, Higher Education Writer, Washington Post joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
The value of most cryptocurrencies have plummeted in recent months since reaching all-time highs in November, wiping out more than $1 trillion in value globally. The steep crash has some talking about the possibility of a crypto winter, a term referring to a prolonged bearish period where asset prices persistently fall over many months. This all comes as the Fed is expected to raise interest rates, and the Biden administration is working on an executive order to regulate Bitcoin and other assets. Josh Goodbody, COO of Qredo, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss the crypto crash, and how the industry might recover from it.
Recent data reveals that streaming giants are struggling to retain subscribers in the months following a major release.
According to data from Antenna, subscriber trends show that users will subscribe to a given streaming service just to watch a particular show, and then cancel those subscriptions shortly after. This comes as the streaming space continues to heat up as new entrants crowd the space. Jon Christian, Founding Partner + Digital Supply Chain Leader at OnPrem joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
