'Star Wars' actress Carrie Fisher has mid-air heart attack

Hollywood star Carrie Fisher was fighting for her life Friday after suffering a massive heart attack on a flight, emergency workers and witnesses said.

The 60-year-old "Star Wars" actress was flying from London to Los Angeles when she suffered cardiac arrest, and was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation by an emergency responder on board.

Fisher collapsed 15 minutes before the plane landed at LAX, according to celebrity news website TMZ, and was rushed to UCLA Medical Center on a ventilator.

TMZ, citing witnesses, said the actress's eyes were closed and she appeared unconscious as she was rushed through the terminal, where paramedics worked for 15 minutes before they could get a pulse.

The Los Angeles Times said her condition was critical, quoting an unnamed source who said the actress was "in a lot of distress on the flight."

The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) did not refer to the actress by name but confirmed it had responded to an alert just after midday over "a patient on an inbound flight in cardiac arrest."

"LAFD firefighter paramedics were standing by and provided immediate advanced life support and aggressively treated and transported the patient to a local hospital," spokesman Erik Scott told AFP.

United Airlines said medical personnel met Flight 935 from London upon arrival after the crew reported that a passenger was unresponsive.

Fisher was catapulted to worldwide stardom as the rebel warrior Princess Leia in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, which has been a cultural phenomenon since the release of the films from 1977 to 1983.

Steeped in Hollywood excess from an early age, she was the product of the four-year marriage of movie star Debbie Reynolds, best-known for her role in "Singin' In The Rain," and singer Eddie Fisher.

The relationship, and the happy home in Beverly Hills, came to an end when Fisher left Reynolds for her close friend, the actress Elizabeth Taylor.

- Searingly honest -

Fisher's co-stars led tributes as Hollywood reacted with shock to news of her collapse.

"As if 2016 couldn't get any worse... sending all our love to @carrieffisher" tweeted Mark Hamill, who plays her on-screen twin Luke Skywalker in the "Star Wars" saga.

The American actress has talked and written frequently about her years of drug addiction and mental illness.

Fisher is known for her searingly honest semi-autobiographical novels, including her best-selling debut "Postcards from the Edge" which she turned into a film of the same name in 1990.

She has given various interviews over the years about her diagnosis of bipolar disorder and addiction to prescription drugs and cocaine, which she admitted using on the set of "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980).

She has also discussed being treated with electroconvulsive therapy, in which small electric currents are passed through the brain, to trigger brief seizures.

Writer and actress Anna Akana, who said she was on board Fisher's flight, described the mid-air drama in a series of tweets, voicing her "shock and sadness."

"Don't know how else to process this but Carrie Fisher stopped breathing on the flight home. Hope she's gonna be OK," she said.

"So many thanks to the United flight crew who jumped into action, and the awesome doctor and nurse passengers who helped. Feel weird even tweeting about it but I JUST finished her book and was fangirling out over seeing her dog Gary in person."

Fisher's famous "Star Wars" character features as part of the storyline to spin-off "Rogue One," which is currently riding high in box offices around the globe, although the actress is understood not to have been involved in the production.

"The whole world is sending you so much love! Sending you the universe's most powerful Force," tweeted English actress Gwendoline Christie, who played the warrior Brienne of Tarth in HBO's "Game of Thrones" and Captain Phasma in Fisher's most recent "Star Wars" episode, "The Force Awakens."

ft/acb

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Disney hits industry-first $7B at box office with 'Rogue One'

LOS ANGELES - A huge debut for "Rogue One" has seen Walt Disney Studios become the first distributor in history to hit $7 billion in annual global box office receipts, it said Monday.

The $290 million worldwide opening for the "Star Wars" spin-off puts Disney's haul for 2016 at $2.7 billion in North America, also an industry record, and $4.3 billion elsewhere.

It is the first year in which all five of Walt Disney Studios' top brands -- Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm -- have released movies.

"This historic achievement is possible because all of our film studios are bringing their absolute best to the table, telling great stories of all kinds that resonate with audiences across borders, gender and generations," said Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios.

"These films work because each one has not only something for everyone, but everything for someone. It's our honor to be able to create these experiences for audiences, and we're thankful to them for continuing to come out to the theater with us.

Even before "Rogue One" came out, hits such as "Finding Dory," "Captain America: Civil War" and "Zootopia" ensured the studio had beaten last year's record $5.8 billion by the end of October and was comfortably on track to pass the record of $6.9 billion set by Universal in 2015.

Disney has set several records this year, becoming the fastest studio ever to hit $2 billion domestically and $5 billion at the global box office, both in July.

It has not been entirely plain sailing, as "Alice Through The Looking Glass" and "The BFG" were deemed commercial flops.

Coastguard drama "The Finest Hours" also sank without a trace, with Variety magazine reporting that Disney was expecting losses of around $75 million from the film.

On the other side of the ledger, the studio had three hits in 2016 that passed the illustrious $1 billion global mark -- "Captain America" ($1.2 billion), "Finding Dory," ($1.03 billion) and "Zootopia" ($1.02 billion).

"The Jungle Book" made $967 million, while "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," which debuted in December last year, brought in $737 million of its $2.1 billion global take in 2016.

Those five films scored an average 94 percent rating on RottenTomatoes.com, which aggregates the reviews for all releases.

"Rogue One," which is yet to open in the vast Chinese market, is expected to do better than all of these, although much of its global take will come in 2017.

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'Rogue One' premiere brings the Force back to Hollywood

LOS ANGELES -- Fans cheered wildly as the star-studded world premiere of the hotly anticipated "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" continued the space saga after the last episode shattered box office records.

The $200-million spin-off is expected to be the hottest ticket of 2016, recording the second-highest first day of domestic pre-sales ever, behind last year's "The Force Awakens."

Police on Saturday cordoned off the area around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood hosting almost 3,000 guests, setting up metal detectors and deploying scores of officers and sniffer dogs.

"I feel honored to be part of this family, and by that I mean the fans, not just the filmmakers," British actor Riz Ahmed, who stars as pilot Bodhi Rook, told AFP ahead of the screening.

"They are what keep this alive. And it's them that we're all looking to, to gauge how we've done. I really feel proud of the film, and I hope they connect with it too."

Set just before "A New Hope" -- the original 1977 film -- Gareth Edwards's "Rogue One" stars Felicity Jones as rebel Jyn Erso alongside Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker.

Jyn -- a delinquent with a string of convictions for forgery, assault and theft -- is recruited by the Rebel Alliance for a mission to destroy a planet-sized weapon of mass destruction recently named the Death Star.

Mikkelsen told AFP it felt "surreal" to be part of the iconic saga, having grown up with the original trilogy.

"People will be surprised that we did a grittier film than the former ones, and more character driven," he said.

'Perfect film'

As well as the cast and crew, celebrities including actors Michael Douglas and Christian Bale, as well as maverick filmmaker Kevin Smith, walked the red carpet ahead of the screening.

The intergalactic tale of good versus evil, friendship, loyalty and love created a defining moment in the history of popular culture, and launched one of the biggest movie franchises ever.

The original "Star Wars" (1977) and its 1980 sequel "The Empire Strikes Back" turned Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill -- who play its heroes Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker -- into Hollywood's biggest stars.

"I love 'Star Wars' because it's a gateway drug, but 'Empire' is a perfect film, a top five movie of my lifetime," "Chasing Amy" and "Clerks" director Smith, 46, told AFP.

Excitement around the "Rogue One" premiere had been building for days as the environs of the Pantages were closed to traffic to make way for a huge marquee and a full size model of an X-Wing fighter, parked in the street.

Earlier in the day parody "Rogue Won: A Culture War" posters appeared at bus shelters and benches around Hollywood, featuring President-elect Donald Trump as the hero of the piece.

Earlier in the week a #DumpStarWars hashtag began trending on Twitter after one user made the claim -- strongly denied by Disney -- that the movie had been reshot to include an anti-Trump message.

The campaign appeared not to have reached scores of fans who lined up to catch a glimpse of the "Rogue One" cast, several in the outfits of their favorite characters.

'Awesome'

"My husband is a collector. He owns 65,000 pieces. Jyn Erso is a great female character. I love that they have incorporated female characters with great leadership," said Anne Jenkins, 48, of Kansas City.

"Rogue One" is part of an attempt to revitalize the franchise since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, when it was still reeling from grim reviews for the much-maligned 1999-2005 prequel trilogy.

The idea was to bring out a sequel trilogy with a movie every other year -- starting with "The Force Awakens" in 2015 -- and intersperse those releases with an "anthology trilogy" of one-off, standalone movies in the even years.

J.J. Abrams's "The Force Awakens," made $2 billion to become 2015's biggest release, the most successful Disney motion picture and the third-highest grossing movie of all time.

Pundits expect "Rogue One" to open at $130-$150 million, some way behind the $248 million debut weekend for "The Force Awakens," and end up with a final global total around $1.4 billion.

The premiere will be followed by a global rollout taking in 11 countries beginning on Wednesday before the film gets a wide US release on Friday.

"This is what the prequels should have been all along," TV host and film critic Scott Mantz told AFP after the screening.

"I thought it was awesome. I thought it was clever the way they tied the original 'Star Wars' in with this... I actually felt like this was a more entertaining and rewarding 'Star Wars' experience than 'The Force Awakens.'"

source: news.abs-cbn.com