Eternals Cast: Why was Kit Harrington's screen time cut short if he is Black Knight?

Eternals Cast: Why was Kit Harrington’s screen time cut short if he is Black Knight?

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Eternals, the third cinematic installment of Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now available on Disney +, has introduced a whole new group of superheroes: the Eternals, a race of super humans created by the Celestials to protect Earth. But they aren’t the only characters to make their debut in the Chloé Zhao-directed film. We can also find Kit Harington playing Dane Whitman, the future Black Knight.

The Game Of Thrones actor carries very little screen time in Eternals and is presented as just an employee of the Natural History Museum in London and current boyfriend of Sersi (Gemma Chan). Only at the end of the film, in the second post-credit scene fans were able to get a glimpse of the true potential of this character in future installments of the MCU.

Who is the Black Night?

In the comics, Dane Whitman is a member of MI13, a highly secretive intelligence agency whose goal is to protect the United Kingdom from magical, alien, and superhuman threats. What allows this character to join this elite group is his family legacy and the Ebony Blade, a very powerful weapon handed down for generations.

The comics say that this sword was created by Merlin, the famous sorcerer of Arthurian legends, from the meteorite called Starstone. Merlin worked alongside Sir Percy of Scandia to turn this meteor into different weapons.

They not only shaped the Ebony Blade, but also a dagger, a chalice, and a shield. The sword, meanwhile, was made to be the dark counterpart to King Arthur’s Excalibur. As with Thor’s Mjölnir, the Ebony Blade is connected to its owner.

The first to adopt the identity of Black Knight was Sir Percy, the ancestor of Dane Whitman. Hence, Harington’s character tells Sersi in Eternals that his family’s story is complicated.

Eternals deleted scenes and the Black Knight in the MCU

Even though Harrington has an epic last scene where we also hear the voice of Mahershala Ali as Blade, the character had a much bigger role in the film. Now that the movie is available on Disney+, some additional scenes have made their way online.

Eternals might be the film that introduced us to Dane Whitman and the Ebony Blade, but the sword was going to originally appear for the first time in Doctor Strange. Barry Gibbs, head of props for the film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, said in 2016 that the sword was going to debut in the first installment about Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme. Does this mean that we’ll see more of the character in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness? What will his role be now that he’s met Blade? The only thing we know for sure is that the supernatural will play a big role in Marvel’s next entries and we can’t wait.

Everything you need to know about Netflix’s new K-drama ‘Black Knight’

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If your Netflix choices has been feeling a little lacklustre lately, fear not! Black Knight will soon be available for streaming…

There’s no shortage of K-drama series to whet our appetites thanks to Netflix. The streaming giant has now confirmed that its latest, Black Knight, is heading into production. Netflix has tapped director Cho Ui-seok and a mega cast for Black Knight, which centres on a group of delivery riders who ply their trade in a hazardous world. Leading the new series are Kim woo-bin, Kang you-seok and E Som. In this new Netflix Series, Cho and Kim woo-bin reunite after their blockbuster hit film Master.

Black Knight 101:

What is Black Knight about?

Kim woo-bin will play 5-8, a legendary delivery driver.

Netflix’s Black Knight illustrates an air polluted world in 2071, where people depend on respirator masks to breathe. Only one percent of the human race has survived and a strict social stratification has been established in the deserted lands of the Korean Peninsula.

Delivery drivers play a crucial role within this system, and for refugees, becoming a delivery driver is their only hope for survival. Amid such chaos, Black Knight tells the story of a legendary delivery driver 5-8 with exceptional battle skills and a refugee, Sawol, who dreams of following in his footsteps.

Black Knight is based on a WEBTOON

E Som is set to take the role of military officer, Seolah

Like most K-dramas, Black Knight is also adapted from a WEBTOON of the same name, which won the E-IP Award at the Asian Film Market. The story garnered attention for its creative premise, which reimagines a familiar profession, in this case, delivery drivers, into a unique group responsible for the survival of the human race.

Director Cho spearheads the production to turn this story into an action-packed series. Judging by his past works that include Master, Cold Eyes and The World of Silence, Netflix has evidently put its new series into the right hands. After all, Cho has demonstrated a knack for storytelling, action sequencing and stylish cinematography.

A Stellar Cast

Kang you-seok plays Sawol in Black Night

Kim woo-bin — who has mesmerised viewers in films such as Master, Twenty and The Con Artists and in dramas such as Uncontrollably Fond and Inheritors — plays the legendary delivery driver 5-8. Anticipation is high for Black Night as Kim reunites with Cho for the first time after Master.

Sawol, an admirer of 5-8 who dreams of becoming a delivery driver, will be played by rising star Kang you-seok. Kang has broadened his spectrum and is on the fast track to stardom with his performances in dramas such as The Grotesque Mansion: The Original, Light on Me, Start-Up and Once Again.

E Som plays Seolah, a military officer at the Defence Intelligence Command. Seolah saves Sawol’s life and cares for him like her own family. E Som’s acting calibre has been proven for her transformative performances in the films Samjin Company English Class, Inseparable Bros, Microhabitat and the drama Taxi Driver.

Overall, under Cho’s guidance, the synergy among the stellar cast and portrayal of unique characters promise to captivate the viewers. Black Knight will be released to audiences worldwide, only on Netflix.

(Images courtesy of Netflix)

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Aspire Home Loans Signs Contract for Black Knight’s Innovative Empower Loan Origination System and Suite of Origination Performance Solutions, Including Surefire CRM

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ – Today, Black Knight, Inc. (NYSE:BKI) announced that Aspire Home Loans LLC, a Nashville-based independent mortgage banker, has signed a contract to implement the Black Knight Empower LOS and integrated origination performance solutions, including the Surefire customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation systems . These advanced capabilities will support first mortgages for Aspire Home Loans’ retail lending channel and help enhance the borrower experience, support its employees, and help drive business growth.

“We were impressed with the lights-out process automation offered by Black Knight’s Empower system that will provide significant support to our lending team and improve our borrower experience,” said Aspire Home Loans President and CEO Brian Hill. “When learning that the Optimal Blue pricing engine was being added to Black Knight’s suite of origination solutions, it made sense for us to take advantage of an integrated suite of capabilities that will help us originate more loans, reduce costs, increase operational efficiency and accelerate turn times.”

The Empower system’s “lights-out processing” automates many of the tasks associated with originating a loan with minimal human intervention. The Empower system actively monitors for key data changes – or lack of changes – throughout the loan process and triggers automated or manual tasks to be completed based on lender-configurable logic. This advanced automation helps to further mitigate lender risk and increase data integrity.

Aspire Home Loans will leverage the full power of Black Knight’s digital ecosystem by implementing Black Knight’s suite of integrated origination technology, data and analytics solutions to deliver higher performance. These include artificial intelligence and machine-learning for document classification and indexing; a point-of-sale solution that enhances the mortgage application process for borrowers and loan officers; a comprehensive fee service to help mitigate fee cures; robust property tax data; connectivity with the nation’s largest online network of lenders and service providers; a digital close solution with eDelivery and eSigning capabilities; automated state and federal compliance validation testing; flood zone determination services and reporting; web APIs for automated real-time data transactions; and an actionable intelligence solution that delivers instant access to information from multiple data sources to help forecast and monitor pipeline, productivity, cycle time and pull-through.

The bank will also implement the Surefire mortgage-specific customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation capabilities to further enhance their customer engagements. Its intuitive, automated workflows and award-winning personalized content inspire emotional connections with customers, will help Aspire Home Loans increase sales and improve recapture and retention.

Aspire Home Loans will also continue using Black Knight’s industry-leading Optimal Blue product, pricing and eligibility engine (PPE), which helps the lender quickly provide borrowers the right product at the best price for a wide variety of mortgage financing scenarios. The Optimal Blue PPE delivers comprehensive functionality, enhances workflow efficiencies and enables mortgage lenders to stay competitive and more confidently execute profitable lending strategies.

“Empower is the right size and configurability for lenders of all sizes, including independent mortgage bankers like Aspire Home Loans,” said Rich Gagliano, president, Black Knight Origination Technologies. “By using the Empower system and its full suite of integrated solutions, Aspire Home Loans will be in a great position to grow rapidly, let its loan officers focus more on customers and higher-level tasks, and offer borrowers the competitive rates and digital capabilities they have come to expect.”

About Aspire Home Loans

Headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., Aspire Home Loans is a privately held independent mortgage banking firm that aspires to improve efficiencies in the mortgage lending space by implementing innovative strategies. Our innovative strategies enable us to manage and service larger production volumes at a lower cost to fund rates benefiting the consumer while maintaining exceptional service. Aspire looks forward to becoming one of the top mortgage lenders in the country in the coming years.

About Black Knight

Black Knight, Inc. (NYSE:BKI) is an award-winning software, data and analytics company that drives innovation in the mortgage lending and servicing and real estate industries, as well as the capital and secondary markets. Businesses leverage our robust, integrated solutions across the entire homeownership life cycle to help retain existing customers, gain new customers, mitigate risk and operate more effectively.

Our clients rely on our proven, comprehensive, scalable products and our unwavering commitment to delivering superior client support to achieve their strategic goals and better serve their customers. For more information on Black Knight, please visit www.blackknightinc.com.

For more information:

Michelle Kersch Mitch Cohen Black Knight, Inc. Black Knight, Inc. 904.854.5043 704.890.8158 [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE Black Knight, Inc.

Black Knight Originations Market Monitor: Rate Lock Activity Falls for Fourth Consecutive Month; Rate/Term Refis Fall to Lowest Level in Two Years

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ – Today, Black Knight, Inc. (NYSE:BKI) announced the release of its latest Originations Market Monitor report, looking at mortgage origination data through December month-end. Leveraging daily rate lock data from Black Knight’s Optimal Blue PPE – mortgage lending’s most widely used pricing engine – the Originations Market Monitor provides the industry’s earliest and most comprehensive view of origination activity.

“With the Federal Reserve speeding the tapering of its bond buying and indicating multiple rate hikes in 2022 to curb inflation, 30-year conforming rates sat above 3.3% for much of December,” said Scott Happ, president, Black Knight Secondary Marketing Technologies. “Indeed, our OBMMI daily interest rate tracker showed average rates at year’s end within just two basis points of the 2021 high of 3.37%. Likely in response to those rising rates – and the seasonal slowdown in home purchases – we saw locks decline across all product types in December, with total volume down 35% year-over-year.”

The month’s pipeline data showed overall rate locks down 18.3% from November, driven by a 22.5% drop in purchase loan locks. Despite the decline, purchase locks were up marginally on a year-over-year basis. Rate/term refinance lending activity continued to tumble, falling another 17% to hit the lowest level for such lending in two years. The drop in purchase lock volume increased the refinance share of the market to 48%, though it also coincided with average refinance credit scores that were 20 points lower than this time last year. This is not unfamiliar behavior as higher-credit borrowers tend to sit out rising rate environments, which brings down the overall average. Non-conforming loan products continued to gain market share at the expense of agency volumes in December as the average loan amount rose another $4,000 to finish the year at $341,000.

“Seen in the light of the normal seasonal slowdown in home sales as well as our current rate environment, December’s more than 20% drop in purchase loan locks isn’t all that surprising,” Happ continued. “Neither was the continued decline in rate/term refinance lending, though the size of the annual decline is noteworthy, if not sobering. While cash-out refi locks were also down for the month, they’re still up nearly 18% from the same month last year as the product remains somewhat insulated by borrowers taking advantage of soaring home equity levels.”

Each month’s Originations Market Monitor provides high-level origination metrics for the U.S. and the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas by share of total origination volume. Much more detail on December’s origination activity can be found in the full Black Knight Originations Market Monitor report located here.

About Black Knight

Our clients rely on our proven, comprehensive, scalable products and our unwavering commitment to delivering superior client support to achieve their strategic goals and better serving their customers. For more information on Black Knight, please visit www.blackknightinc.com/.

SOURCE Black Knight, Inc.

Insiders of Black Knight, Inc. (NYSE:BKI) are probably glad they bought last year as their US$2.2m investment now stands at US$2.4m

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Black Knight, Inc. ( ) insiders who acquired shares over the previous 12 months, can probably afford to ignore the recent 4.1% decline in the stock price. After accounting for the recent loss, the US$2.2m worth of shares they purchased is now worth US$2.4m, suggesting a good return on their investment.

While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we would consider it foolish to ignore insider transactions altogether.

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At Black Knight

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider sale was by the President, Joseph Nackashi, for US$1.0m worth of shares, at about US$75.79 per share. That means that even when the share price was slightly below the current price of US$76.20, an insider wanted to cash in some shares. We generally consider it a negative if insiders have been selling, especially if they did so below the current price, because it implies that they considered a lower price to be reasonable. While insider selling is not a positive sign, we can’t be sure if it does mean insiders think the shares are fully valued, so it’s only a weak sign. We note that the biggest single sale was only 5.2% of Joseph Nackashi’s holding.

Happily, we note that in the last year insiders paid US$2.2m for 30.90k shares. But insiders sold 17.40k shares worth US$1.3m. Overall, Black Knight insiders were net buyers during the last year. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. By clicking on the graph below, you can see the precise details of each insider transaction!

NYSE:BKI Insider Trading Volume January 14th 2022

There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free

Does Black Knight Boast High Insider Ownership?

For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. I reckon it’s a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Black Knight insiders own about US$389m worth of shares (which is 3.3% of the company). Most shareholders would be happy to see this sort of insider ownership, since it suggests that management incentives are well aligned with other shareholders.

So What Does This Data Suggest About Black Knight Insiders?

There haven’t been any insider transactions in the last three months – that doesn’t mean much. On a brighter note, the transactions over the last year are encouraging. With high insider ownership and encouraging transactions, it seems like Black Knight insiders think the business has merit. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it’s beneficial to identify the risks facing Black Knight. At Simply Wall St, we found that deserve your attention before buying any shares.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.