An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is rethinking its movie strategy after the disappointing box office performance of several big-budget films, including Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon, Argylle and Fly Me to the Moon. Apple canceled plans to release Wolfs -- an action comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt -- in thousands of theaters globally. Instead, the picture made its debut in a limited number of venues before it became available on the Apple TV+ streaming service on Sept. 27. Apple plans to use a similar approach with the next few titles on its calendar, including the World War II drama Blitz. Apple, which previously had intended to spend about $1 billion annually on blockbusters for cinemas, won't return to the big screen with a wide, global theatrical release until June with F1 -- a film starring Pitt as a former Formula One driver who returns to racing to mentor a rising star.

[...] Apple is pulling back from theaters at the same time Netflix Inc. and Amazon are reworking their movie strategies. Earlier this year, Netflix hired producer Dan Lin to oversee its film studio, which had spent billions of dollars a year to produce more films than any other company in Hollywood. Yet Netflix struggled to control the quality and cost of its slate, which in some years approached 50 movies. For every hit, such as Bird Box, there were several misses. Lin's predecessor Scott Stuber also clashed with management over its strategy for movie theaters. Stuber wanted to release movies such as Scorsese's The Irishman and the Knives Out sequel Glass Onion widely in cinemas, but he couldn't persuade Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos. Lin aims to make fewer movies and develop more projects in-house to keep costs down. He has considered scrapping several of the more expensive projects in development at Netflix.

Last week you had the chance to ask chef, travel writer, reality TV star, and all around food geek Ben Starr about sustainable farming, brewing, and building the perfect kitchen. Read below to see what he had to say.

At this year's Blizzcon, we got to try out a section of Diablo 3 that was pulled directly from the single-player storyline and playable with all classes. A large number of skills and abilities were playable, and the skill rune system has been implemented, a feature that was lacking for last year's demo build. We also got to spend some time trying out the newly announced PvP system — Battle Arenas. Read on for a walk-through of Diablo 3 as we've seen it so far. In short: it's shaping up to be an excellent game, and a worthy successor to Diablo 2. Read on for more.

jsuda writes "You've got to have a lot of confidence and nerve to write and try to sell a nearly 400 page book on cooking to the take-out pizza and cola set. No cookbook is likely to turn many geeks into chefs or take them away from their computer screens. However, even though Cooking for Geeks contains a large number of recipes, it is not a conventional cookbook but a scientific explanation of the how and why of cooking which will certainly appeal to that group, as well as to cooking professionals and intellectually curious others." Read on for the rest of jsuda's review.

AlexisKai writes "The Ten-Second Review: Robert Levine's The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold is an engaging, highly readable survey of the sophisticated methods of persuasion we encounter in various situations. From television to telemarketing and from self-deception to suicide cults, Levine takes a hard look at all the ways we attempt to persuade each other - and how and why they work (or don't). Robert Levine is a professor of psychology at Cal State Fresno; his previous books include The Geography of Time, about the differences in the perception of time and its passage in various cultures and cities around the world." For those with a longer attention span, AlexisKai's review continues below.

Slashdot Games is continuing its look at the major booths here at the E3 Expo. The last of the major hardware manufacturers to give us a hands-on look at their software is Microsoft, after earlier articles on Nintendo and Sony. Read on for info about all the new Rare titles, Brute Force, Halo 2, and more..

A few weeks ago, you asked questions of Ryan Lackey, CTO for HavenCo, a company dedicated to providing secure off-shore data hosting from Sealand, a principality off the coast of England. Ryan has lately survived dental emergencies, the loss of a laptop (it dropped into the North Sea -- how many people can say that?) and other stresses, but he's followed through with some interesting answers. He even has some ideas for how you can make a lot of money, and lists the tools you need to start your own data haven. Kudos to Ryan for taking the time to answer so thoroughly.