Netflix’s latest high-profile fantasy project has officially found a writer. It has been revealed that Jason Fuchs (Welcome to Derry, Wonder Woman) will pen the script for Amulet, a feature film adaptation of Kazu Kibuishi’s graphic novel series of the same name. Based on a story by Fuchs and Kibuishi, the film will be produced by 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen and Dan Levine, with Kibuishi serving as an executive producer.

Amulet follows a young woman who discovers a magical amulet that belonged to her great-grandfather and uses it to enter a fantastical new world. The series has spanned nine books so far, with the finale culminating in February of this year. The books have sold more than 7 million copies in the US and Canada and been translated into 23 languages worldwide. am

“I try not to write themes and morals into my stories, but I’m aware that they will show up every now and then,” Kibuishi said of the final book, Amulet: Book Nine: Waverider, in an interview with The Beat earlier this year. “What my characters say is reflective of who they are and are not always representations of what I believe. However, I do think what the characters have gone through in the story is relatable to many communities, where they feel it is now a time to rebuild. In order to rebuild, they will first need to begin by forgiving themselves. So if there is some kind of theme that people take away from this book, I hope it is that of forgiveness.’

Kibuishi had previously confirmed on social media in 2021 that an Amulet movie adaptation was in the works at Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and later at Disney, before the rights reverted back to him.

“I have so many side stories that just didn’t go into the book that could be great books, but I only have so much time,” Kibuishi explained during a New York Comic Con panel in 2023. “I have other series I want to do. There’s a lot of others project that probably take priority… I can’t talk much about movies related to Amulet, but it’s possible I could be working on one. And it’s possible I could be very involved in it. And it’s possible the writer and I are going through a lot of thing that I’d cut out of the story, and we’re bringing it back in.”

The post Netflix Sets Writer for Adaptation of Beloved Amulet Graphic Novels appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Tom Hardy wants to sink his teeth into a Spider-Man-Venom crossover. But which Spider-Man? Venom: The Last Dance (out October 25) is the third and final film in Sony’s Venom trilogy, marking Hardy’s fourth outing as the symbiote-bonded Eddie Brock, who we last saw in the mid-credits scene of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. After a haywire spell cast by Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange brought him into the Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside other Spider-Man villains from throughout the multiverse, Eddie spent his stint in the MCU at a bar in Mexico before he was blipped back to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe — leaving the almost-Sinister Six shy of one member and never crossing paths with Peter Parker 1 (Tom Holland), Peter 2 (Tobey Maguire), or Peter 3 (Andrew Garfield).

“I would love to fight Spider-Man. I would love to fight him now. I’m happy to fight Spider-Man today, 100 percent,” Hardy said onstage during the Venom 3 New York Comic Con panel. “I would never say never. We were specifically set up to bring Venom to a movie format, and that’s what we’ve done. The Last Dance is the final piece in that trilogy, and we’re really excited about that.”

But with there being three live-action Spider-Men, ComicBook asked Hardy to clarify which webhead he wants to tango with after The Last Dance. “Tom Holland, without a shadow of a doubt,” Hardy said in our exclusive interview (below).

After he faced off with another comic book adversary in 2021’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage — Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), a.k.a. the symbiotic serial killer Carnage — Hardy said that a potential run-in with Spider-Man depended on Sony and Marvel Studios’ ongoing partnership concerning the Spider-Man movie rights.

“I would be remiss if I wasn’t trying to steer any kind of connectivity,” he told Esquire. “I wouldn’t be doing the job if I wasn’t awake and open to any opportunity or eventuality or be excited by that. Obviously, that’s a large canyon to leap, to be bridged by one person alone, and it would take a much higher level of diplomacy and intelligence, sitting down and talking, to take on an arena such as that.

“Should both sides be willing, and it be beneficial to both sides, I don’t see why it couldn’t be,” he continued. “I hope and strongly, with both hands, push, eagerly, towards that potential, and would do anything to make that happen, within what’s right in business. But it would be foolish not to head towards the Olympic Games if you were running 100 meters, so yeah! I want to play on that field.”

In Venom: The Last Dance, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom are on the run, hunted by both their worlds: on Earth, by the military (at the charge of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character) and off-world, by the God of the Symbiotes, Lord of the Abyss, King in Black: Knull. In the conclusion to the Venom trilogy, “The duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance,” per the synopsis.

In addition to Hardy and Ejiofor, Venom 3 stars Juno Temple (Ted Lasso), Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man), Alanna Ubach (Euphoria), Peggy Lu (reprising her role as Mrs. Chen), and Stephen Graham (reprising his Venom 2 role as Detective Mulligan). Kelly Marcel, co-writer of the first two films, makes her directorial debut and directs from a script she co-wrote with Hardy. Avi Arad (Borderlands), Matt Tolmach (Morbius), Amy Pascal (Spider-Man: No Way Home), and Hutch Parker (The Wolverine) are the producers with Marcel and Hardy. Venom 3 is in theaters Oct. 25.

The post Tom Hardy Reveals Which Spider-Man He Wants Venom to Fight (Exclusive) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is about to be a Marvel movie veteran in more ways than one. The actor starred in Doctor Strange as Baron Mordo, and fans saw his path from hero-in-training to potentially dangerous villain. This month he’s set to make the jump from the MCU to Sony’s universe of Marvel characters, taking on the role of General Strickland in Venom: The Last Dance.

While both characters are integral to Marvel movies, they couldn’t be more different. Mordo is a sorcerer, a master of dark and ancient arts. Strickland is much more grounded, rooted in what we know of as reality, making him an interesting fit for a film about symbiotic alien goo that can take over other life forms.

Ahead of Venom: The Last Dance‘s arrival in theaters this weekend, ComicBook.com spoke with Ejiofor about the differences between his two major Marvel characters.

“It’s just such a different character, and that’s the main thing,” Ejiofor told us. “For General Strickland, just how organized everything is, and the responsibility. How Earthy it is. It’s all just kind of built on reality and on these really high stakes for him, this attempt to keep in line the military part of this incredibly secret facility. His life, in many ways, is being complicated by the scientific wing of that, headed by Doctor Payne. So they end up in this kind of conflict about what’s best, and the best ways to proceed with these alien life forms. And all of that, all of those dynamics, were really interesting to play. And fun to play, with Juno [Temple].”

Mordo and Strickland are such different characters that it would be hard to find some common ground that could connect them in-universe. Before knowing who Ejiofor was playing, though, many Marvel fans thought his role could somehow be related to Mordo, or even an alt-universe version of the character in disguise.

Those theories almost all stem from the “crossover” between Venom and the MCU in the post-credits for Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The former saw Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock and his Symbiote end up in the same universe as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, while the latter saw those characters shipped back to their universe, although they left a little piece of Symbiote behind.

This gave both Marvel franchises a way to connect with one another if need be, but there hasn’t been any real connective tissue between Hardy and Holland’s characters on-screen.

Given this lack of connection, it seems as though the door is still open for Ejiofor to reprise his Mordo role in the MCU, should a future opportunity arise.

The post Chiwetel Ejiofor Breaks Down Big Difference In His Venom, MCU Characters appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Godzilla Minus One was a celebration of 70 years of Toho’s Godzilla‘s franchise, but it almost didn’t have a happy ending as one of its best characters was originally going to be killed off before the end. Godzilla Minus One was a groundbreaking entry for the Godzilla franchise. As the most critically and commercially successful Godzilla releases in Toho’s long history, Godzilla Minus One continues to dominate as fans are even going to get the chance to see the film in theaters again later this year as part of a limited screening event. But it almost had a much different, more depressing ending than what was seen in the film.

Godzilla Minus One writer and director Takashi Yamazaki spoke about the Academy Award winning feature film during a special panel as part of New York Comic Con 2024, and revealed some key details about its production. Because when asked about the ending that saw Koichi Shikishima (as performed by Ryunosuke Kamiki) reuniting with an injured Noriko Oishi (as performed by Minami Hamabe), Yamazaki revealed that the first draft of the film actually had Noriko dying. But he ultimately changed that in later drafts as he felt that Shikishima needed a win after everything he had been through.

Godzilla Minus One Almost Killed Off Noriko

In Godzilla Minus One, Noriko and Shikishima are caught in the crossfire of Godzilla’s then biggest attack in the film at that point. Noriko was presumed to be dead as Shikishima lost all hope, and then united with the others for a plan to take down the giant monster once and for all. It wasn’t until the film’s final moments that Shikishima sees that Noriko had survived the attack, and only got a few injuries from it despite the fact that it looked like she had been killed. It turns out she almost was.

As Yamazaki explained during the New York Comic Con 2024 panel, Noriko died in the first draft of the film. Yamazaki eventually changed it because he felt like Shikishima needed a win, “If he came home and she [wasn’t there], that would be tragic.” He even explained that when they filmed the scene where Noriko was caught in Godzilla’s attack, they made up Noriko actress Minami Hamabe in a way that could have CG placed over it if she had survived the attack. They did decide to keep her alive, and Yamazaki himself was satisfied with the choice.

What’s Next for Godzilla Minus One?

Godzilla Minus One might have ended with a tease for a potential future, but Toho has yet to announced their potential plans for the next Godzilla feature film. Yamazaki has noted his own interest in returning for another film, and even has some ideas about how to remake past films and use classic Kaiju such as Hedorah in a future project. But as of the time of this publication, Yamazaki also clarifies that he has yet to be contacted by Toho about potentially moving forward.

A direct sequel to Godzilla Minus One would make a lot of sense considering how well the film has done commercially and critically, and it’s won the Godzilla franchise notable awards such as its very first Academy Award. But with a franchise like this one, the next Godzilla film is also just as likely to try a brand new take from a new creative team at the helm. It likely won’t be releasing for a few more years at the earliest, and it could end up a much different kind of film that fans enjoyed with Godzilla Minus One. But that’s also what makes each new Godzilla exciting.

HT – Flixist

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Spider-Man star Tom Holland might be headed to the world of Christopher Nolan. On Monday, reports indicated that Holland is set to star in the currently-untitled new feature from Nolan, which will be released by Oppenheimer distributor Universal Pictures in theaters and on IMAX screens on July 17, 2026. Holland will join Matt Damon, who previously appeared in Oppenheimer as General Leslie Groves​ and Interstellar as Dr. Mann.

Plot details are currently unknown about the new Nolan movie, except for the fact that it is not set in the present day. Nolan is expected to write as well as executive produce alongside his wife Emma Thomas. Production on the project is expected to begin in early 2025.

That latter detail is particularly interesting, especially in the context of Holland’s work portraying Peter Parker / Spider-Man in various projects for Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios. Initial reports indicate that in 2025, Holland will likely be juggling production on Nolan’s movie with the highly-anticipated Spider-Man 4, as well as 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday. Spider-Man 4 has been in the works in various capacities for several years now, with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton confirmed to be directing it earlier this fall. While Spider-Man 4 does not currently have a confirmed release date, some fans have already begun to speculate that it could debut in between Doomsday and 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars.

“It needs work, but the writers are doing a great job,” Holland shared of the script for Spider-Man 4 earlier this month. “I read it three weeks ago and it really lit a fire in me. Zendaya and I sat down, read it together and we at times were bouncing around the living room.”

As far as Nolan’s mystery film is concerned, the director explained in a previous interview that the subject matter will not be as dark as Oppenheimer.

“I definitely– part of me wants to leave the story behind,” Nolan explained. “I mean, it’s a great privilege to be able to talk about a film that you’ve made that’s now going into the home and on 4k and Blu-ray and all the rest. It’s great to be able to sit here and talk to you about the success of the movie. That’s a huge privilege. But the subject matter is very dark. It’s nihilistic. And, yeah, there’s part of me that’s quite keen to move on and maybe do something, you know, not quite as bleak.”

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Earlier this year, the Lambert family returned to the Insidious franchise with Insidious: The Red Door, but if there’s a future for the franchise, original writer Leigh Whannell is hoping that a fresh perspective can be brought to the project to reimagine it. The debut entry was released in 2010 and The Red Door marked the fifth entry into the series, with Insidious: Chapter 3 and Insidious: The Last Key serving somewhat as spinoffs from the exploits of the Lambert family, though still featured Lin Shaye’s Elise Rainier character. Given the compelling mythology of the otherworldly realm of “The Further,” there’s lots of untapped potential that could be mined in future films.

“I think those characters have run their course. I would like to see someone reinvent that series a little bit, do something new with it,” Whannell shared with ComicBook of what the future could hold for Insidious. “I don’t know what’s happening with it right now. We’re trying to do something with it, but you know how it goes with movies: Just when you think you’re starting with something, it’s over, and then it starts up again, and so you’ll probably know about it before I do.”

The original film introduced fans to the Lambert family, whose young son seemingly suffered a head injury that caused him to slip into a coma. Over the course of the film, however, viewers realized that the boy actually had his consciousness trapped by a nefarious entity in another realm, known as “The Further.” Father Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) was alerted by Elise that this wasn’t a random occurrence, as Josh had the ability to venture into The Further on his own and had been able to since he was a young boy. Josh managed to rescue his son from the “Red-Faced Demon,” while also encountering a variety of other intimidating presences.

Despite The Red Door bringing back original stars Wilson, Rose Byrne, and Ty Simpkins, the film sits at only 39% positive reviews. Even with those disappointing reviews, it performed relatively well financially, and once it debuted on Netflix, it saw a surge in popularity. This year’s Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Studios had a house honoring the franchise, confirming just how much interest there still is in the property.

While Whannell wrote the first four movies in the series, he also starred in those entries as one of Elise’s investigators, and he seemed to shoot down the idea of appear on screen in a future film.

Whannell spoke with ComicBook ahead of the debut of the Shop Blumhouse store. Now you can shop from a treasure trove of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. From collectibles to killer apparel, there is something for everyone to take home a piece of cinematic terror.

Stay tuned for possible updates on the Insidious franchise.

What do you think of the filmmaker’s remarks? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The post Insidious Writer Hoping the Franchise Will Be Reinvented After This Year’s Sequel appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Fresh off Monsters Season 2, Cooper Koch is taking advantage of his newfound fame by campaigning to be on the shortlist for Luca Guadagnino’s take on American Psycho. Ryan Murphy’s controversial series which has helped launch his career, focuses on the complicated case of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, convicted of brutally killing their parents in 1989.

Koch plays the younger of the two siblings, Erik which has garnered him loads of attention from social media in the month since its release. While many have praised him for his sensitivity and knowledge on the case while advocating for their release, others have slammed him for recent jokes made in reference to a graphic scene of his body in one of the earlier episodes.

Cooper Koch Wants to Play Patrick Bateman

“Luca’s doing American Psycho, so I think I can do Patrick Bateman,” Koch told The Hollywood Reporter when asked what role he’d like to take on next. “I haven’t played a serial killer yet so I think I could do it.”

Guadagnino’s adaption was announced over the weekend causing mixed reactions, but the fan casting has already begun. Many want to see Koch’s Monsters co-star Nicholas Chavez in the film. He is currently starring in FX’s Grotesquerie, a crime-thriller that takes notes from the earlier seasons of American Horror Story. Others believe that standout Jacob Elordi could be eyed for the role after he was spotted at lunch with the Challengers director.

Koch also teased that the things are moving full steam ahead, so it doesn’t seem like it’ll be long before his next project is revealed. “Things are coming in, things are moving, things are happening, taking meetings, and the needle is threading so we’ll see, nothing is locked in or happening yet.” Prior to Monsters, Koch starred alongside Kevin Bacon in Blumhouse’s They/Them as well as the independent body horror Swallowed.

Guadagnino’s American Psycho film is intended to be an adaption of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis and not a remake on the cult classic 2000s film starring Christian Bale as the bloodthirsty banker. Given Guadagnino’s sexy and gorgeous visuals but his ability to go balls-to-the-wall in projects like Bones for All, he ironically seems like the perfect person to helm the film.

The Italian film director has several other projects in development, including the Amazon MGM thriller After the Hunt with Chloë Sevigny, Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield. He is also working on Separate Rooms which reportedly stars Josh O’Connor and Léa Seydoux in the Queer film. It is an adaption of late author Pier Vittorio Tondelli’s 1989 novel.

The post Cooper Koch Campaigns for American Psycho Role After Netflix’s Lyle and Erik Menendez Story appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Solo Leveling is gearing up for its second season, and it would put things lightly to say fans are excited. In the wake of season one, A-1 Pictures earned little but praise for its ambitious adaptation of the best-selling webtoon. All eyes are now on Solo Leveling‘s comeback as season two has some big things to unpack. But first, Solo Leveling has a movie to release, and its latest trailer just went live.

As you can see above, the trailer for Solo Leveling: Reawakening is out, and the official clip puts Jinwoo center stage. The movie, which debuts this winter, is meant to recap Solo Leveling season one ahead of its new season. A-1 Pictures has included all-new footage in this film along with updates scenes from season one. And in the second half of the movie, Solo Leveling: Reawakening will screen the first two episodes of season two. If that doesn’t make you want to check out the movie, then what will?

SOLO LEVELING: REAWAKENING WILL HIT U.S. THEATERS

From the movie’s official trailer, you can see that Solo Leveling: Reawakening looks gorgeous, and fans are eager to see how the movie cuts down season one. The anime’s first season had a strong back half, but the beginning was a bit slow. The biggest critique facing Solo Leveling in its first few weeks was pacing, so this movie could fix that issue. After all, the film will have to speed up season one, and the show’s slower pace is what angered fans to begin with.

If you want to check out Solo Leveling: Reawakening, the movie will be released in the United States on December 6th. Before then, the movie will premiere in South Korea as well as Japan. Naturally, this means some spoilers for the movie will hit social media ahead of its U.S. release, so netizens can start planning.

HOW TO CATCH UP ON SOLO LEVELING

Naturally, this new Solo Leveling project will help fans prepare for the anime’s second season. The show is expected to return in January 2025 with season two, and Solo Leveling: Arise From the Shadow is expected to be one of year’s must-watch series. Solo Leveling: Reawakening will give new fans a quick lesson on what they missed in season one, and of course, they can check out the show’s first episodes if they’d like.

Currently, you can stream Solo Leveling season one over on Crunchyroll. The anime is available subbed and dubbed. As for the hit webtoon, Solo Leveling is complete as the action fantasy began in July 2016. The story’s final chapter went live in December 2021, and Yen Press oversees its release in English. Currently, Solo Leveling is back in action, and we have a sequel to thank. Solo Leveling: Ragnarok is now available, and the sequel is set after the original webtoon’s finale. It tells the story of Sung Su-ho, the son of Sung Jinwoo, as he discovers his powers as the Shadow Monarch.

Want to know more about Solo Leveling before diving into the hit series? You can read its official synopsis here for all the details: “Over a decade after ‘gates’ connecting worlds appeared, awakening ‘hunters’ with superpowers, weakest hunter Sung Jinwoo encounters a double dungeon and accepts a mysterious quest, becoming the only one able to level up, changing his fate.”

Do you plan on checking out Solo Leveling: Reawakening when it hits theaters? What do you want to see from the anime’s second season? Give me a shout at @meganwpeters with your take! You can also let us know what you think over on X (Twitter) and Instagram.

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It’s wild looking at the fall 2024 television season and seeing both Marvel and DC shows getting acclaim as they enter their respective back halves. HBO’s The Penguin is getting phrases like “best of the year,” and “Emmy contender” thrown around; meanwhile, Agatha All Along is the dark horse breakout that many Marvel Cinematic Universe fans are pleasantly surprised to be enjoying so much. As the discourse about both series flows, there is one thing that is true about both of them, collectively: they are performance-driven shows, built on two very talented lead actors.

And with their respective levels of success and/or acclaim, Agatha All Along and The Penguin are proving that some new-age theories about entertainment are dead wrong, and the old ways are still true: franchises are built primarily on star power, not necessarily just the power of IP.

Let’s just step back and look at this: The Penguin and Agatha All Along were initially met with overwhelming skepticism. The question of why either show needs to exist was asked often and repeatedly, with the only real answer being the strength of the performances of Colin Farrell as Oz Cobb/Penguin in The Batman, and Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness in WandaVision. That didn’t seem like enough to justify spinoff series for two minor characters – but both Penguin and Agatha have been wise to take those central performances as foundations, and build on them with entire ensembles of acting talent.

Penguin is giving Sofia Falcone actress Cristin Milioti the breakout she’s long deserved, and all but locking her for the Emmys next year; it’s also earning praise for Rhenzy Feliz, a young actor who has been trying to break through in projects like Marvel’s Runaways. Agatha All Along is both reminding fans that Aubrey Plaza is a top-tier talent while breaking in new Marvel franchise talent like actor Joe Locke – who is just now breaking out with the reveal that he’s Scarlet Witch’s son Billy Maximoff, the magical Young Avenger known as Wiccan. Those standout supporting actors are also bolstered by many talented veteran actors, with a list that includes the likes of Clancy Brown, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Mark Strong, and Michael Kelly for Penguin, and Debra Jo Rupp, Patti LuPone, Sasheer Zamata and Ali Ahn for Agatha All Along.

The buzz on both shows makes it undeniable that the individual performances and character interactions are taking precedence over any in-universe ties, crossovers, or cameos. Now granted: by the time Penguin and Agatha both come to an end, one or both shows may get the biggest signal boost from some kind of late-game crossover or game-changing reveal for the franchise. Yet it feels like Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc and Agtha All Along showrunner Jac Schaeffer (no dots to connect there…) are much more interested in focusing on complex and layered characters, created by actors who have the talent to deliver on them.

Marvel Studios and DC Studios are hopefully taking note that the old star-driven franchise model isn’t yet as dead as many declared it to be. Loyalty to an actor and their performance as a character will get audiences to engage with even the most unlikely IP concepts. Farrell and Hahn’s now-proven ability to go from supporting roles to carrying shows also proves that no casting should be taken frivolously, as any breakout performance is potentially a new spinoff project of some kind. For the actors, it should be well-earned validation (and future leverage) that the craft is still a valuable commodity.

The Penguin airs Sunday nights on HBO and streams on Max. Agatha All Along streams on Disney+.

The post The Penguin & All Along Prove Superhero Franchises Are Driven By Actors, Not IP appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Celebrated concept artist Alex Ries, who has been designing creatures and aliens from  Subnautica: Below Zero to the denizens of the hollow earth in Godzilla X Kong: The New Kingdom, just launched a crowdfunding campaign for a coffee table art book, Other Worlds: The Art of Alex Ries. Besides creatures from fantastical alternate versions of Earth, many of his creations hail from deep space, so you’ll also get a look behind the curtain at films like Warriors of the Future and the worldbuilding of The Birrin Saga. Incorporating real-life animals into fantastical designs, Ries is a master of creating bizarre creatures that look like they could actually exist, because they come from a place of informed speculative biology.

Spike Trotman’s Iron Circus Comics is returning to Kickstarter to publish Other Worlds: The Art of Alex Ries, which marks the first ever collection of personal and professional artworks by Ries, featuring iconic art from Subnautica: Below Zero as well as many never-before published pieces. The 300+ page hardcover will include forewords by Jamie Beswarick and Greg Broadmore, and extensive commentary from the artist himself. Other Worlds: The Art of Alex Ries will be available via Kickstarter.

“This book is the culmination of decades of work, passing through traditional illustration, concept art and even sculpture,” Alex Ries said in a statement. “I have filled it with works that have marked important creative moments not just in my professional but personal life. This is a culmination of my life as a creative person thus far that I will be able to actually hold, and the kind of book I always loved as a child: creatures, machines, and life from other worlds.”

“With a unique imagination, a timeless sense of wonder, and a detailed grounding in reality that gives it all life, Ries’s creatures and worlds light a lasting spark within the viewer,” added Iron Circus Founder C. Spike Trotman. 

Ever since his youth spent in the vast, rural expanse of South Eastern Australia, Ries has explored his sense of connection to the natural world and fascination with science. Explorations of the diversity of life on Earth, the possibilities of life beyond it, and the pressing themes of conflict and reconciliation between civilization and the natural world have come to define his work as an artist. Ries’ sublime work on Subnautica: Below Zero allowed him to use his knowledge of real-world marine life to create biologically plausible extraterrestrial creatures, while The Birrin Saga, his major personal work, explores the alien planet of Chriirah and tells the story of this world and its inhabitants. 

You can see a short, exclusive preview from the book below.

The post Iron Circus Comics Teams With Alex Ries for Other Worlds Coffee Table Book appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Face front, true believers: Stan Lee’s The Excelsiors, one of the visionary Marvel creator’s largest initial superhero ensembles, is being developed as a graphic novel with plans for TV and film adaptations from Kartoon Studios. The studio, which is the controlling partner of Stan Lee Universe, also announced Monday that Batman franchise executive producer Michael Uslan — who collaborated with Lee on the DC Comics series Just Imagine… — is co-developing and will produce the projects.

The Excelsiors, about a team of 10 original superheroes inspired by Lee’s signature “Excelsior” catchphrase, will launch as a graphic novel through online book streaming platform Legible Comics, with concurrent development for television and film adaptations.

Kartoon announced its partnership with Legible in 2023 when the company formed Stan Lee Comics, a line of digital and print comic books based on never-before-released stories and characters created by Lee, who died at age 95 in 2018.

“Stan was incredibly proud of The Excelsiors, and he was proud to have his eponymous ‘namesake’ signature, developed by his friend and collaborator, Michael Uslan,” said Andy Heyward, Kartoon Studios CEO. “Stan took all his storytelling and character development skills, which he developed over the years at Marvel Comics, and incorporated them into The Excelsiors.”

Added Uslan, “Stan always told me that the most exciting superheroes could only meet their potential if matched by equally worthy and interesting supervillains. We expect to do Stan justice by not only having extraordinary superheroes but extraordinarily interesting supervillains. This was Stan’s baby, and I fully understand the gravity of overseeing this team to carry forth his vision. My son David, who also worked closely with Stan and myself, will help create this universe. Our north star is to write these books like Stan is looking over our shoulders.”

The Excelsiors features a team of ten original superheroes working for Amaz-Ing Tech LLC, a giant multi-national corporation in the near future, where global corporations, not governments, rule the world. They range from X-Otic, a doctor who extracted super powers from roots and plants she cultivated as a naturalist, to X-T: The only member of The Excelsiors, who is an actual extraterrestrial. (He is the great-grandson of the aliens who crash-landed near Roswell’s Area 57 in the 1960’s. He is an alien by birth, raised in utter secrecy by America’s scientists and psychologists who have tried to bring a human element to his nurturing and upbringing.)

Among the others are X-Change, a shapeshifter, X-Hale, X-Tricate, X-Isle, and X-Ecutioner, an almost uncontrollable force of human nature gone amok, controlling wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, only unleashed in last resort emergencies, and otherwise, kept in a titanium self-containment unit.

Lee co-created many of Marvel’s most famous characters, including Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and the superhero teams the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the X-Men. Kartoon Studios’ portfolio includes original animated content like the Arnold Schwarzenegger-voiced Stan Lee’s Superhero Kindergarten on Kartoon Channel!, the Shaq’s Garage animated series starring Shaquille O’Neal, Rainbow Rangers, and the Netflix original animated series Llama Llama, featuring the voice of Jennifer Garner.

The post Stan Lee’s The Excelsiors Film and TV Adaptations Being Developed by Batman Producer appeared first on ComicBook.com.

An eighth V/H/S movie is coming next year, in keeping with a tradition that has seen one come out each of the last four years just in time for Halloween. In fact, of the seven V/H/S movies already available to stream, five of them (the first, then four in a row) came out in October, with only V/H/S 2 and V/H/S: Viral getting “off-season” releases (in July and November, respectively). A new V/H/S movie is hardly surprising, of course; the franchise has really come into its own, becoming a mainstay in the direct-to-consumer horror space and earning pretty great reviews for most of the recent installments.

Bloody Disgusting reported the news. There are no details yet on who might be working on the new movie, which will drop in 2025. Shudder just released V/H/S Beyond, which featured some big names, including Justin Long, Mike Flanagan, and Kate Siegel.

Flanagan already made news once today, with a report that he will team with Stephen King for an eight-episode, prestige miniseries based on King’s novel Carrie.

The first V/H/S was released in 2012, and the franchise can be viewed as two distinct “eras.” The first era got a release on-demand and a brief theatrical window, and the second went straight to streaming. While reviews were mediocre, there were some bright spots, including contributions to the anthology by filmmaker Adam Wingard and Radio Silence, the duo behind Ready Or Not and Scream 6. The V/H/S premise is that the stories in the anthology play out on haunted, abandoned videocassettes, which can then possess the viewer.

We got one V/H/S movie a year for another two years after that, but after V/H/S Viral, the franchise took a few years off. Since returning in 2021 with V/H/S 94, the franchise has lived on Shudder rather than getting modest theatrical releases. It has become a genre mainstay, giving some of the best creators in horror a place to make creative shorts. In addition to the six sequels already released, the world of V/H/S has spawned a pair of spinoffs: Siren and Kids vs. Aliens — as well the V/H/S: Video Horror Shorts miniseries on Snapchat’s Snap Originals platform.

The franchise seems like a perfect fit for Shudder, a streaming service dedicated exclusively to horror. Not only does it help them build relationships with beloved and up-and-coming horror names, but the V/H/S movies have been among some of the most-watched movies on the app. On a larger streamer, the movies might get lost in the shuffle, but on Shudder, they’re always a key release with plenty of attention when they drop.

The post Shudder Confirms New Sequel to Keep Halloween Tradition Alive appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Stephen King and Mike Flanagan are continuing their successful collaboration with a new rendition of Carrie. King’s popular 1974 novel has been adapted several times for the big screen, most notably in 1976 by director Brian De Palma. The horror story follows teenager Carrie White as she has to put up with abuse from her classmates as well as her mother, and starts to exhibit telekinetic powers. As you can imagine with a property as old as Carrie, there have been numerous attempts to reboot the franchise. However, Flanagan isn’t going to let that stop him from turning Carrie into a streaming series.

Deadline reports director Mike Flanagan and author Stephen King are working on a Carrie series for Prime Video. The report also states the Amazon streaming series would be eight-episodes long. This follows the news that Stephen King’s Fairy Tale, which was once planned as a feature film from Jason Bourne director Paul Greengrass, will now be developed as a 10-episode TV series instead. Greengrass will co-write the scripts with J.H. Wyman, who will serve as showrunner. The Fairy Tale movie was originally going to be from Universal, but A24 will now be developing it as a series.

Salem’s Lot, a film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1975 bestselling novel of the same name, also made its Max debut this month, just in time for Halloween.

Another recent collaboration between Mike Flanagan and Stephen King is The Life of Chuck, an adaptation of King’s novella starring Tom Hiddleston, Nick Offerman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mark Hamill, and Karen Gillan. Flanagan has also put his spin on Doctor Sleep, and adaptation of King’s The Shining, and is working to develop The Dark Tower for a movie and TV show.

“That thing’s launching an oil tanker. But we’re working on,” Flanagan told The Hollywood Reporter in September. “It was stalled first by me moving from Netflix to Amazon and stalled again by the strikes. It’s progressing, and we’re further along than we’ve ever been on it. I do see feature components to some of the other stories, but the main storyline is ongoing series.”

If anyone can do Carrie justice as its own show, it would be Mike Flanagan. He’s one of the most prolific horror filmmakers of his generation and has already proved he has the skill make it happen, while also appeasing loyal fans.

The post Stephen King’s Carrie Getting TV Adaptation From Fan-Favorite Collaborator appeared first on ComicBook.com.

It’s possible that no one wants to see a Happy Death Day 3 more than director Christopher Landon, with the filmmaker recently confirming he has written a treatment for the project, though hasn’t committed to writing a full script as the project hasn’t yet been confirmed. Fans have been asking Landon about the third entry, which was teased with a post-credits scene in Happy Death Day 2U, ever since 2019, and another promising tease is that Landon doesn’t get sick of all the love fans show him and even encourages audiences to keep showing their support. Despite fan enthusiasm for the series, the last entry wasn’t a major financial earner, which has prevented momentum from developing on a trilogy closer.

“I could say that I wrote a treatment. I didn’t write the script, because I wouldn’t write a script unless it was a sure thing,” Landon confirmed to ComicBook at New York Comic Con when asked about the status of the third entry. “Here’s the cool thing: It is a bigger movie, and it is not set on the same day as the previous two films. That’s the biggest spoiler I’ve put out there.”

As far as whether fans should stop pestering Landon about it, the filmmaker teased, “I don’t hate it at all. I love it, I’m all for it. I want people to keep asking because I feel like if people keep asking, we all might actually get it.”

The original movie was released in 2017, which followed Tree (Jessica Rothe) as she is stalked and killed on her birthday, only to wake up that morning and re-live the day’s events. Tree uses this unexpected opportunity to try to track down clues that could reveal who killed her, as she pieces together the clues over the course of dozens of deaths. After identifying and thwarting the killer, Happy Death Day 2U opened up the world to explore how Tree got caught in this time loop in the first place, while also hinting that this was just the beginning of an even bigger world.

Back in 2023, Landon had similarly teased how the upcoming movie wouldn’t be set on the same day, which means there’s not as much pressure to move forward on it like there was with the first sequel.

“I have a whole movie! It’s not even an idea. I pitched the entire movie to [Universal] and they loved it,” Landon confirmed to IndieWire last year. “That was the funny part. They were like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s so unexpected and so cool.’ It’s not dependent, it’s not set in the same day as the previous films, so it could be made now, or in two years or three years. It would still work. But the trickier thing, too, and in fairness to them, it’s a bigger idea than the previous two films, so it would be a more expensive movie.”

Not only is Landon hoping that the sequel will move forward, but star Rothe is just as excited, as she shared earlier this year how passionate she is about reviving Tree.

“Well, I can say [writer/director] Chris Landon has the whole thing figured out,” Rothe confirmed to Screen Geek. “We just need to wait for Blumhouse and Universal to get their ducks in a row. But my fingers are so crossed. I think Tree [Gelbman] deserves her third and final chapter to bring that incredible character and franchise to a close or a new beginning.”

Landon spoke with ComicBook ahead of the debut of the Shop Blumhouse store. Now you can shop from a treasure trove of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. From collectibles to killer apparel, there is something for everyone to take home a piece of cinematic terror.

Stay tuned for updates on Happy Death Day 3.

Would you like to get a third film in the series? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The post Happy Death Day Director Has Huge Update for Third Film appeared first on ComicBook.com.

When Godzilla Minus One hit theaters, no one could have seen just how big the movie would become. The project ushered in a new era for Toho as the Japanese company took Godzilla back to basics. With director Takashi Yamazaki at the helm, the movie has gone on to become one of the best in Godzilla’s history. Much of its success came on the back of its director, and now, it seems like Yamazaki is interested in revisiting the IP so long as he can remake a classic Godzilla film.

The confession comes from Yamazaki directly as the director appeared at New York Comic Con. It was there guests like Kaiju United got to learn more about movie monsters, and Yamazaki admitted he is interested in remaking Godzilla vs Hedorah.

TAKASHI YAMAZAKI WANTS TO TACKLE HEDORAH

“I think that for its time, Hedorah was a very cutting-edge kaiju. Thinking about the type of visual expression we can do with technology and how far it’s come today – I’m imagining how it would move, and I think that would be a really cool remake,” the director shared. And as you can imagine, the Godzilla fandom is now begging for Toho to greenlight such a movie for Yamazaki.

If you are not familiar with Hedorah, well – the monster is one of Godzilla‘s most famous. The character made their grand debut in 1971 with Godzilla vs Hedorah which Yoshimitsu Banno directed and co-wrote. Starring Akira Yamauchi and Toshio Shiba, the Toho film was moderately successful upon launch. As the years went by, critics began dubbing Godzilla vs Hedorah as one of the monster’s worst movies of all time. But these days, well – that sentiment has changed.

Just as Yamazaki noted, Godzilla vs Hedorah was ahead of its time in certain respects. From its take on environmentalism to its whacky action, the movie had a unique balance. Godzilla vs Hedorah could be serious in some places and then all-out in another. This tonal shift confused many in 1971, but these days, the fandom loves Godzilla vs Hedorah. From Adam Wingard to Roger Ebert, the film ranks as a personal favorite with Godzilla fans. And now, we know Yamazaki is also high on that list.

Given Hedorah’s history, the character is all but begging for a comeback. The monster embodies the worst of pollution, after all. In the ’70s, urban pollution was a big concern in Japan, and it is still a worrisome threat. To be frank, the state of global pollution makes Hedorah a great character for Godzilla to revive. The IP is at its best when it is timely and dealing with topics that feel relevant. Nothing could be more ominous to today’s society that pollution as things like climate change continue to threaten us. And given what we saw in Godzilla Minus One, Yamazaki could work magic with Hedorah.

WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON FOR GODZILLA?

For now, the jury is out on whether Hedorah is eyeing a comeback. The monster may be a favorite with fans, but Toho is still navigating the waters after its latest film. Godzilla Minus One overcame all expectations with its debut and even won an Academy Award for the trouble. Toho wants to make sure its next Godzilla movie lives up to those standards, so here’s to hoping the team there is doing alright.

In the meantime, fans can look to the MonsterVerse for updates. The hit franchise brought Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire to life earlier this year, and a follow up is already in the works. With a movie slated for launch in 2027, the MonsterVerse is thriving on the big screen. And given the success of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the franchise’s television pursuits are looking just as good.

Do you want to see Yamazaki tackle Godzilla vs Hedorah? Give me a shout at @meganwpeters with your take! You can also let us know what you think over on X (Twitter) and Instagram.

The post Godzilla Minus One Director Is Down to Redo the Kaiju’s Best Film appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Michelle Yeoh’s Star Trek: Section 31 finally has a release date, and it’s just around the corner. Paramount+ continues to expand the Star Trek franchise, and fans are excited to see more of Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh’s Emperor Philippa Georgiou. New York Comic Con announced Star Trek: Section 31 will premiere January 24, 2024, and a new poster featuring Yeoh was also revealed to go along with the news. Star Trek hosted a panel at New York Comic Con that also featured a new look at the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3, and an update on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Star Trek: Section 31 has the distinction of being Paramount+’s first original Star Trek movie. Joining Yeoh in the star-studded cast are Omari Hardwick as “Alok”, Kacey Rohl as Rachel Garrett, Sam Richardson as Quasi, Sven Ruygrok as Fuzz, Robert Kazinsky as Zeph, Humberly Gonzalez as Melle, and James Hiroyuki Liao (Barry). Miku Martineau (Kate) is playing a young Georgiou, and Joe Pingue (The Expanse), and Augusto Bitter (EZRA) also help round out the cast.

The cast of Section 31 took time to speak about their love of Star Trek at the NYCC panel.

“Star Trek informed not just the kind of things I like, but it informed me as a human being,” Robert Kazinsky said during the Star Trek panel. “I took my moral center from the next generation – from everything they did on there. So to be of it – I never thought I would get the jewel in the crown, which is Star Trek.”

While a lot of the cast are playing new characters, Kacey Rohl gets to reprise an established character in the young Rachel Garrett. Tricia O’Neil played Garrett in Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Yesterday’s Enterprise” episode.

“Obviously Rachel Garrett has got some big boots to fill and Tricia O’Neil did such incredible work,” Rohl said. “Let’s have a clap for Tricia! I watched that episode a bunch and tried to translate that through my stuff, to try and bring Rachel Garrett into this moment. It’s exciting to be in something on more the spicer side.”

It’s a season of change for Star Trek projects on Paramount+. Star Trek: Discovery debuted its fifth and final season earlier this year. Star Trek: Lower Decks debuts its final season in October. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 debuts in 2025 and the show is already renewed with Season 4 on the horizon. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy hasn’t debuted and it’s already also been renewed for Season 2.

The post Star Trek: Section 31 Movie Gets a Release Date & Fans Don’t Have Long To Wait appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Invisible Man (2020) may have gotten lost in the onslaught of the pandemic and the closing of movie theaters worldwide, but it continues to earn acclaim as a modern cult hit. Now conversation about the film is picking up again, thanks to writer/director Leigh Whannell promoting his next film in the rebooted Universal Monsters series, Wolf Man (2025). There are already hints that Wolf Man is set in the same universe as Invisible Man, so fans are eager to know if we could also see a sequel to the latter film.

When ComicBook recently caught up with Leigh Whannell, the question of an Invisible Man sequel was addressed. Unfortunately for fans, Whannell doesn’t seem to have any creative motivation to follow up the first film:

“With Invisible Man, I really felt good about where we ended, for me,” Whannell said during New York Comic-Con. The filmmaker did admit that “I don’t own the IP for Invisible Man so Universal can make a sequel if they want to – but for me, as a filmmaker, I really think that was a closed story. I can’t see that there’s any more story to tell.”

The 2020 Invisible Man played on the original story about a man turned invisible through scientific means, and the moral quandaries faced by being able to act undetected. The remake came on the heels of the “Me Too” Movement with a story about a talented architect named Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) who is in a toxic and abusive relationship with a tech mogul named Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). When Cecilia leaves Adrian he fakes a suicide and uses his cutting-edge stealth suit to stalk and terrorize her. Whannell earned acclaim for the creative visual use of invisibility as a horror-thriller mechanism, while the cast earned praise for selling the underlying tension, drama, and real-life horror of domestic abuse.

Obviously, a lot of Invisible Man’s power and resonance as a film is directly connected to the specific story it tells. Any sequel would either turn the continuing story of those characters into something farcical (Adrian’s back from the dead! Cecilia is stalked by a new Invisible person – but who???); any sequel that jumps to new characters and only has the stealth suit as the connecting thread would be a hollow franchise studio cash-grab – as Whannell sort of indicates in his answer.

There’s also little reason for Whannell or Universal to be looking back. As stated, Wolf Man will kick off the 2025 movie year and is already building buzz for how it too is taking the story of a married couple and their child and making the wolf man monster serve as metaphors for domestic tensions, digital life vs. primal savagery, etc. Whannell and close collaborators like James Wan (Creature From the Black Lagoon) are rebuilding the entire Universal Monsters brand for modern times, with plenty of new projects to keep them busy before any sequels need to be made.

The Invisible Man is available on streaming. Wolf Man (2025) has a release date of January 17, 2025.

NOTE: Now you can shop from a treasure trove of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. From collectibles to killer apparel, there is something for everyone to take home a piece of cinematic terror. Check out the shop HERE!

The post The Invisible Man Director Shoots Down Hopes of a Sequel Return appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Deadpool and Wolverine are bound to be some of the most popular Halloween costumes of the year, so it’s only appropriate that the movie has launched a new TV spot, reminding people that it’s still in theaters as the spooky season approaches. In the new ad, Marvel teases the wide variety of spooky characters the movie has in store, right up to reminding you that it’s got “vampires” — cut to a shot of Wesley Snipes as Blade. While theatrical windows seem to be getting shorter all the time, Deadpool & Wolverine has remained on the big screen nonstop since its release in July, playing concurrently with its home release and continuing to pass new box office benchmarks all the time.

Most recently, Deadpool & Wolverine surpassed Barbie, last year’s highest-grossing film, to take #12 on the list of all-time highest-grossing blockbusters at the domestic box office. It has taken less than 90 days for the movie to rack up $636 million in North America and more than $1.3 billion worldwide.

The foul-mouthed buddy comedy brought back Hugh Jackman for his last “one last ride” as Wolverine — unless there’s a sequel! — and reunited him with Ryan Reynolds, who admitted that after Disney acquired Fox, he wasn’t sure whether he would ever get to make a third Deadpool film. The movie was directed by Stranger Things and Free Guy veteran Shawn Levy.

You can see the TV spot below.

The movie has been a breath of fresh air after a few rocky years for Marvel Studios in particular and superhero movies more broadly. With few exceptions, most comics adaptations have been performing like like Madame Web and Joker: Folie a Deux than Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 and Deadpool & Wolverine. The box office as a whole has been struggling, with a number of reliable tentpole franchises starting to show their age. Besides the stumbling Marvel monolith, series like Mission: Impossible and Transformers have had some pretty high-profile disappointments in the years since Hollywood’s brief, pandemic-related shutdown.

Deadpool & Wolverine, like Guardians, also managed to draw rave reviews from critics, lending some credibility to James Gunn’s long-held philosophy that people aren’t tired of superhero movies — they’re tired of lazy, uninspired superhero movies, and if you make a good one, they’ll show up for it.

“People say ‘superhero fatigue,’ but I think that you see now that’s not a real thing,” Gunn said shortly after he was tapped to take over DC Studios. “People are fatigued with repetition. I don’t think it’s just superhero movies; I think you’re seeing it now in spectacle films in general…there’s a lot of spectacle films made, and they just have gotten really generic and they’ve gotten boring, and they’re not about characters, and there’s no emotion.”

The post Deadpool and Wolverine Halloween Teaser Reminds Fans Its Still in Theaters appeared first on ComicBook.com.

D-16 wasn’t always the nefarious Decepticon leader Megatron, at least according to the continuity of Transformers One. The recent animated prequel takes the opportunity to show off a new side of the villainous robot, walking viewers through his evolution from a well-meaning Cybertronian to the greatest villain in Transformers’ history. Following its run at the box office, Transformers One will arrive on home video on October 22nd and we here at ComicBook.com have an exclusive clip that dives further into D-16’s character, along with actor Brian Tyree Henry talking about taking on the role. D-16 is one of the film’s most complicated Transformers so getting a breakdown of his evolution works on quite a few levels.

To give you a quick breakdown of D-16’s character in Transformers One, the future Decepticon leader was originally best friends with Orion Pax, aka the future Optimus Prime. Long before they led their respective factions, the pair worked as mining robots who didn’t have the ability to transform. In discovering the truth of their world and how their leader, Sentinel Prime, secretly manipulated Cybertron for his benefit, D-16 wasn’t thrilled with the secrets he unearthed. As Brian Tyree Henry mentions in the video below, the future Megatron is a character seeking justice. However, it’s a justice that is his own, proving that every villain is the hero of their own story.

Transformers One Exclusive Video

If there is a Transformers project, it’s a safe bet that there will at least be some variation of Megatron within its story. While there have been major changes to the character over time, such as becoming Galvatron in the original animated movie or transforming into a T-Rex thanks to Transformers: Beast Wars, Megatron’s presence is one that is always looming large in the franchise. It makes sense that Brian Tyree Henry would be excited to step into the Decepticon’s shoes as documented in the video below.

Transformers Bonuses

Alongside the digital release on October 22nd this week, Paramount will release Transformers One on physical 4K Ultra, Blu-Ray, and DVD on December 17th. Here is a massive amount of bonus content that will be made available with the new take on Cybertron:

• In The Beginning — Witness the origin story of OPTIMUS PRIME (ORION PAX) and MEGATRON (D-16) and the evolution of their relationship from brothers-in-arms to sworn enemies. Filmmakers discuss the vision for the film and how it was brought to life.
• World Building On CYBERTRON — Hear from director Josh Cooley, the production design team, and the visual effects team about rendering the colorful world of CYBERTRON in a way that fans have never seen before.
• Together As One — Meet the A-list voice cast for each of the TRANSFORMERS: Chris Hemsworth (ORION PAX/OPTIMUS PRIME), Brian Tyree Henry (D-16/MEGATRON), Scarlett Johansson (ELITA-1), and more!
• The Iacon 5000 — Behold the most epic TRANSFORMERS race ever as competitors vie for the ultimate prize! Go behind the scenes with the filmmakers as they break down this breathtaking action sequence.
• The Battle For CYBERTRON — Cast and filmmakers take you through the film’s epic climax as OPTIMUS PRIME and MEGATRON battle for CYBERTRON’s future.

As of the writing of this article, Transformers One has not been confirmed to receive a sequel, though the prequel certainly sets up a promising future. Thanks to the critical and audience acclaim, this new take on Cybertron is one that is widely considered one of the best Transformers movies of all time.

Want to stay up to date on the animated future of the Transformers? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for all the latest updates and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.

The post Transformers One Video Dissects Brian Tyree Henry’s Megatron (Exclusive) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Paramount’s The Running Man reboot has added another Marvel villain to its cast. Lee Pace is joining the cast of the film, which is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King — King wrote the novel under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Pace’s casting comes on the heels of the casting of another Marvel alum, Josh Brolin which was announced last week. Both former comic book villains join Karl Glusman, Katy O’Brian, Daniel Ezra, and star Glen Powell in the film which is directed by Edgar Wright. Wright also co-wrote the film with Michael Bacall. It is unclear what role Pace is playing in the film.

Pace previously appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Ronan the Accuser in Guardians of the Galaxy. The actor also most recently starred in Apple TV+’s Foundation. Foundation was renewed for a third season in December 2023. Pace’s casting means that The Running Man reboot will feature two Marvel stars — Brolin notably played Thanos, the big bad of the MCU’s “Infinity Saga”. While Pace’s role in The Running Man Reboot has not yet been revealed, Brolin is reportedly set to play the “ruthless producer” of the Running Man game show in the film.

The Running Man is set in a dystopian world where people can enter to appear on violent game shows that the totalitarian regime uses to control and placate the masses. A man desperate for money for his sick daughter joins the popular show, The Running Man, that sees teams of killers hunting down contestants. The longer a contestant survives and evades the killers, the more money the person makes. However, the desperate man will break all the rules as he plays the game — and expose the show’s dark secrets in the process. Powell is set to play the desperate man.

The reboot of The Running Man was first announced back in 2021. At the time, it was announced that new film would be more faithful to King’s novel — a previous adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was released in 1987 from filmmaker Paul Michael Glaser though that film was a loose adaptation.

“I think in this day and age as well as in terms like, you know, I think when remakes are done well is if there’s something else to add or there’s a different take on it,” Wright said previously. “So, I think the problem is sometimes recently like remakes are just kind of facsimiles of the original film and I don’t really get that excited about a lot of them because they feel like sort of karaoke versions of the originals. Obviously back in like the ‘70s and ‘80s you had ones where they were additive like Philip Kauffman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers or John Carpenter’s The Thing or David Cronenberg’s The Fly; it’s taking something and doing something interesting with it.”

He continued, “in terms of like things that I’ve been (doing), like you know, The Running Man which is something that is in active development. Why is that interesting to me? I like the film but I like the book more and they didn’t really adapt the book. Even as a teenager when I saw the Schwarzenegger film I was like, ‘Oh this isn’t like the book at all,’ and I think nobody’s adapted that book. So, when that came up, I was thinking you know and Simon Kinberg says, ‘Do you have any interest in The Running Man?’ I said, ‘You know what I’ve often thought that that book is something like crying out to be adapted.’ Now that doesn’t mean that it’s easy but like it is something that we are working on, yes, I’ll say that much.”

The Running Man will debut exclusively in theaters on November 21, 2025.

The post The Running Man Reboot Adds Another Overlooked Marvel Villain to Its Cast appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Tom Hardy looks to bring Venom’s movie saga to a thrilling close in Venom: The Last Dance, and that adventure wouldn’t be possible without the comics that introduced Venom to the world. First brought to life by Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie back in Amazing Spider-Man #299, Venom has since become one of Marvel’s most popular characters, and now he’s developed a new legion of fans on the big screen. Crazily enough McFarlane and Hardy hadn’t actually met before New York Comic-Con, but ComicBook’s Chris Killian had the chance to be in the room when McFarlane, Hardy, and Venom: The Last Dance director Kelly Marcel all finally crossed paths, and you can watch the moment play out in the video below!

During ComicBook’s interview with Marcel and Hardy, McFarlane surprised the pair after we subtly brought up who created the character. McFarlane entered the room, telling them how special it is to see a character he worked on so long ago reach a whole new audience thanks to the work Hardy, Marcel, and the rest of the team have done in bringing Venom to life in film.

“I appreciate meeting the two of you,” McFarlane said. “I just wanted to say from a personal point of view it’s been a pleasure, seeing this character that I created so long ago with David Michelinie, the writer. But even more so that there’s rarely a day that goes by I don’t run into somebody, usually like kids that come around, they go, ‘Man, I just love those Venom movies, Todd.’ ‘Oh, thanks.’ I just came up with a design that we had no idea (would take off) and you guys are now taking it to the world, right? It’s just been an utter pleasure to sit back and watch it I just want to say thanks to you.”

Marcel told McFarlane “We love him, We love him. We’re such big fans.” Hardy added, “Thank you for creating Venom”, but McFarlane responded, “Oh no, you guys take it to the next level.” Hardy added, “Oh no, we get to play with him. So thank you.”

The Future

While this very well might be Venom‘s final film, it most likely won’t be Knull’s, as Marcel says The Last Dance is really “the beginnings” of Knull’s on-screen story. Marcel assured fans that they know just how important Knull is, and they hope they are laying the same foundation for Knull as they did Hardy’s Venom.

“We were always aware of Knull, but knew that we needed to lay the foundation of the Venom character, and his relationship with Eddie, before introducing him. This is just the beginning for Knull,” Marcel said. “We’re in spoiler territory now and we hope some of the fun of watching this movie is not knowing what will happen, but trust me, we know full well how important Knull is to the fans, so just as we laid a foundation for Venom, we hope we are doing the same for Knull. The King in Black is way too powerful for ‘one and done.’”

Venom: The Last Dance hits theaters on October 25th.

The post WATCH: Venom Creator Todd McFarlane Surprises Venom: The Last Dance Star Tom Hardy (Exclusive) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Alien: Romulus is coming to VHS. Yes, you read that correctly. On Saturday, 20th Century Studios announced that the latest entry in the Alien sci-fi horror franchise will get a limited-edition VHS release on December 3 — just in time for the holidays. The special VHS is described as being “an ultimate movie collector’s dream” with the VHS being a fully functional tape created in celebration of the Alien franchise’s 45th anniversary. The box of the VHS features cover art by Matt Ferguson, who is also the artist behind posters for the film. The VHS release of Alien: Romulus is the first such release from a major studio since 2006.

Alien: Romulus’ VHS release coincides with other physical releases for the film, including the Blu-ray Steelbook, standard 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD options. Alien: Romulus is now available on digital with the digital and the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD releases containing exclusive bonus features, including featurettes with filmmakers Fede Alvarez and Ridley Scott as well as behind the scenes content, and alternate and extended scenes. The VHS release does not appear to have any bonus features. Specific details about the VHS release, including how many copies will be available and pricing, have not yet been shared by 20th Century Studios.

Set between Alien and Aliens, in Alien: Romulus, while scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young colonizers come face-to-face with the most relentless and deadly life form in the universe. The film stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. The film is directed by Alvarez on a script by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. The film was a major hit at the summer box office, bringing in nearly $350 million worldwide.

Alien: Romulus‘ VHS Release Is A Huge Physical Media Win

Alien: Romulus getting a VHS release, even a limited one, is a major win for fans of physical media. In recent months, there has been a great bit of conversation surrounding the so-called death of physical media with the rise of digital and streaming with some retailers even having previously announced that they have or will be stopping sales of physical media. But with streaming platforms removing content for various reasons, there’s been a rise in appreciation for physical media which has, in turn, resulted in increased sales, particularly when it comes to limited edition items such as Steelbooks. As for VHS, that particular form of physical media has been enjoying a resurgence of interest lately as well, possibly because of nostalgia. Given that the Alien: Romulus VHS release is part of an overall celebration of the franchise for its 45th anniversary year, leaning into that nostalgia for feels pretty spot on — just remember to be kind (to yourself) and rewind if you manage to get your hands on one and choose to watch.

Alien: Romulus is now available on digital retailers — such as Amazon’s Prime Video, Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu), and Apple TV+. A streaming date for the film has not yet been released. The Alien: Romulus VHS, as well as Steelbook, Blu-ray, and DVD releases, will be available on December 3.

The post Alien: Romulus Is Getting a VHS Release (Yes, Really) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Later this week Tom Hardy will be seen on the big screen in Venom: The Last Dance, marking his third feature film starring as the Marvel antihero. Though he’s been playing the role of Venom on screen for six years now, Hardy didn’t actually meet Venom’s co-creator Todd McFarlane until very recently…and ComicBook had a hand in getting the two creatives together for the first time.

Speaking with Tom Hardy and Venom: The Last Dance writer/director Kelly Marcel, we asked the pair if they recalled who created the iconic comic book character, with both quickly naming McFarlane. Having dropped his name themselves, we then opened the door and had the man himself enter the room for a full introduction to the pair.

“I just wanted to say from a personal point of view it’s been a pleasure, seeing this character that I created so long ago with David Michelinie (on screen),” McFarlane said to Hardy and Marcel. “There’s rarely a day that goes by I don’t run into somebody, usually kids that come around, they go, ‘Man, I just love those Venom movies, Todd.’ ‘I just came up with a design that we had no idea (would take off) and you guys are now taking it to the world, right? It’s just been an utter pleasure to sit back and watch it, I just want to say thanks to you.”

“We love him, We love him,” Marcel told McFarlane. “We’re such big fans.”  

McFarlane and Hardy then went on to have fun exchange.

“Thank you for creating Venom,” Hardy said to McFarlane, prompting the creator to respond: “Oh no, you guys take it to the next level.

“Oh no, we get to play with him,” Hardy added. “So thank you.”

Across the two live-action movies that have been released, Venom has brought in over $1.3 billion at the global box office. The upcoming Venom: The Last Dance will no doubt push that number even higher, while the future for the character may also be even more open than the title for the sequel implies.

McFarlane’s influence on Marvel Comics (and comics at large) has been felt not only in the Venom feature films (where character beyond Venom that he co-created also appear) but even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This summer’s hit movie Deadpool & Wolverine paid homage to McFarlane’s iconic cover from 1987’s Incredible Hulk #340, featuring the reflection of The Hulk in Wolverine’s claws, by recreating the moment with Hugh Jackman and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk in a brief moment.

What is Venom: The Last Dance about?

In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.

Venom: The Last Dance stars Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach and Stephen Graham. The film is directed by Kelly Marcel from a screenplay she wrote, based on a story by Hardy and Marcel.

Venom: The Last Dance opens in theaters on October 25th.

The post Venom Movie Star Tom Hardy Finally Meets Co-Creator Todd McFarlane (Exclusive) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong is coming back for a new sequel, and the follow up is promising even more characters and kaiju will be wrapped up in the clash between superheroes, supervillains and giant monsters. Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong made its debut last Fall as fans got to see how the Monsterverse and DC Universe would collide with the unexpected crossover. With the final issue of this new collaboration between DC Comics, Legendary Comics, and Toho International releasing earlier this Spring, the team up has proven to be such a hit with comics fans that it’s coming around with a new entry.

Announced during the Jim Lee & Friends panel during the New York Comic Con 2024 convention this weekend, will be an official sequel crossover that will be making its debut on shelves some time in Spring 2025. The sequel will bring back the creative team behind the first series, writer Brian Buccellato and artist Christian Duce, and rather than Godzilla and Kong making their way into the DC Universe as seen in the first series, DC’s heroes and villains will be heading into the Monsterverse this time around instead.

What to Know for Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong 2

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong 2 will be primarily set within Legendary’s Monsterverse with teased appearances from Titans such as King Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra. Skull Island has been teased to be a key location for the upcoming sequel, and Suicide Squad member Killer Croc is being teased to grow to a Titan size in order to face off against the giant monsters in the sequel’s story as well. But as far as how many issues there will be or what other characters will play in the story, it’s still very much a mystery as of the time of this publication.

This is a much different kind of crossover than seen with the first miniseries as well that had the members of the Legion of Doom tap into the Titans in Legendary’s MonsterVerse. Opening a portal to that world, Godzilla, Kong, and a few of the other Titans broke their way into cities like Metropolis as Superman, Batman, and the other DC heroes tried everything they could to take on their massive new foes. It was part of Lex Luthor’s plan to finally find something strong enough to take down the Justice League, but ultimately did work out like they expected.

What’s Next for the Monsterverse?

The Monsterverse has also been growing as well. The follow up to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is currently in the works for a scheduled release on March 26th, 2027. The official title for the sequel has yet to be announced as of the time of this publication, however. The last significant update outside of its release date was that I Am Mother director Grant Sputore has signed on to direct the sequel following Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire director Adam Wingard’s exit from the franchise.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings writer Dave Callaham has also been tasked to write the script for the new film, but there has yet to be a big update since the initial staff and date had been set. With so many more Toho monsters in the Godzilla franchise, and even more potential original creations from Legendary’s Monsterverse, there are all sorts of stories that could come from this increasingly massive world filled with even more giant monsters. Coupled with comics, and the sky is the limit for these stories.

The post Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong Sequel Announced With DC Sneak Peek appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Smile 2 is a great horror movie, in fact, in our review, we here at ComicBook.com noted that it is one of the best horror films of 2024. Writer/Director Parker Finn found a way to make Smile’s sequel bigger, meaner, and scarier by focusing on the world of a pop star who finds herself cursed with the spooky “smile curse.” While the movie has plenty of high-octane tension and jump scares that make for some of the best of the year, there is one major issue that is plaguing the nearly flawless sequel. Not only is the movie’s ending one that might cause some cracks in the overall story but it’s also one that might make future sequels a bit harder to believe.

Warning. If you have yet to watch Smile 2, be forewarned that we’ll be diving into major spoilers for the horror sequel. Many horror fans have rightfully guessed what the ending is to Smile 2 without having seen the movie. Since the curse spreads thanks to someone witnessing an infected person taking their own life, Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley seems like the scariest character to pass the torch onto others. Skye’s status as a major pop star gets plenty of eyes on her and thus, the curse spreads to quite a few people in the film’s final moments.

The Smile Universe

As those who bore witness to Skye Riley taking her own life in the final moments of the movie, grotesquely beating herself with her own microphone, viewers knew that the pop star was living a very different reality. The Smile Curse is one that causes the inflicted to not perceive reality correctly, instead, the supernatural entity is able to make someone like Skye see whatever it wants them to see. This means that a large swath of Smile 2’s story all took place in Riley’s mind and therein lies the problem.

While some may feel cheated that a good percentage of the movie wasn’t real, the big issue for the ending and the potential Smile sequels is that the curse seems unbeatable. While in Skye’s mind, she was given the chance to stop her own heart to dodge the curse but the beast that loomed in her mind never allowed her to actually come close to doing so. How on Earth is it possible to fight something that is able to effectively control your reality from the inside and is this a problem that can be tackled in future films?

The Smile Infection

Thousands of people bear witness to Skye’s death during the grand finale of the sequel, meaning that the potential for the curse to spread even further into the world is one that will help the franchise potentially build more sequels. With the curse seemingly nigh-invincible, Parker Finn might need to start thinking of giving victims some sort of advantage in fighting the curse or there is the possibility that future movies might fall into a cycle of repetition. If an audience knows going into the movie that a protagonist cannot win, can a horror movie still strike fear into the hearts of its audiences?

The future sequel heroes need some legs-up in fighting the smile curse and here’s hoping that Paramount will figure out a way to make it so that the reality-warping villain has a crack in its armor. If everyone who is infected is doomed, is it worth going to the theater to see their descent into madness knowing that their fates are sealed?

Want to see what the future holds for the Smile franchise? Follow along with Team Horror on ComicBook.com and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and all things spooky.

The post Smile 2 Has A Major Ending Problem appeared first on ComicBook.com.

While November may still be a couple of weeks away, Hulu is already getting subscribers prepared for the month ahead. This week, the streaming service revealed the full list of movies, TV shows, and specials that will be added to the lineup throughout the month of November.

That lineup includes some iconic Christmas movies that will help movie lovers prepare for the holiday season. Elf, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Polar Express, and several other holiday titles are joining Hulu’s roster in November.

Next month will also see some wildly popular shows make their way to Hulu. The service will be adding all five seasons of Ally McBeal, as well as the first 11 seasons of NCIS.

You can check out the full list of Hulu’s November additions below!

November 1st

Are You The One?: Complete Seasons 2 and 6
Naruto Shippuden: Complete Sesaon 9 (DUBBED)
A Christmas Carol (1984)
Ad Astra
Aliens
Billy Madison
Carpool
Christmas on the Ranch
Christmas With The Kranks
Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Crazy Heart
Deck the Halls
Desierto
Downhill
Eddie Murphy: Raw
Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance
Goodbye Lover
Grown Ups
Grown Ups 2
Hanging Up
Happy Gilmore
Hellboy (2019)
Higher Learning
Hitman
Holiday in Handcuffs
Hollow Man
Hotel Transylvania
Hotel Transylvania 2
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Inherit the Viper
Jingle All The Way
Just Friends
La La Land
The Last Duel
Lazareth
Madea Goes To Jail
The Mistle-Tones
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
New Year’s Eve
The Nutcracker (1993)
Operation Mistletoe
The Personal History Of David Copperfield
Predators
Renovation Romance
Same Time, Next Christmas
Santa Baby 2: Christmas Maybe
Santa’s Little Helper
Second Best
Sonic the Hedgehog
Teddy Kollek
Tigerland
Waitress
The Wedding Planner
Whip It
White Men Can’t Jump (1992)
Why Him?
Wild

November 2nd

Endurance: Special Premiere

November 6th

Gangnam B-Side: Two-Episode Series Premiere (SUBBED & DUBBED) 
A Man Called Otto

November 7th

Adoption Diaries: Complete Season 1 
Amazing Wedding Cakes: Complete Season 4
America’s Cuteset Puppies: Complete Season 1
Beyond the Pole: Complete Season 2
Beyond the Pole: Living Under Lockdown: Complete Season 11
Bid, Build, Design: Complete Season 1
Braxton Family Values: Complete Seasons 5B and 6A
Bridezillas: Complete Season 13
Cutting it in the ATL: Complete Season 1 
First Lady of Jamaica: Complete Season 1
Ghost Moms: Complete Season 1
Her Deadly Night in Paris: Complete Season 1
Hoarders: Complete Seasons 8-9 and 15 
Holiday Home Invasion: Complete Season 1
Hustle & Soul: Complete Seasons 1 and 3
John Edward Cross Country: Complete Seasons 2-3 
Katrina Weddings: A Second Chance: Complete Season 1
L.A. Hair: Complete Seasons 3-5
Marriage Boot Camp: Hip-Hop Edition: Complete Season 14
Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars: Complete Season 11
Mary Mary: Complete Season 5
My Life is a Telenovela: Complete Season 1
Obsessed with the Dress: Complete Season 1
Platinum Babies: Complete Season 1
Prison Brides: Complete Season 1
Raising Sextuplets: Complete Season 2
Road Wars: Complete Season 3
Secret Lives of Women: Complete Season 4
Surrogate Stories: Complete Season 1
Tamar & Vince: Complete Seasons 3-5
Wedding Gown Secrets: Complete Season 1
Madagascar
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Penguins Of Madagascar

November 8th

The Fiery Priest: Two-Episode Season 2 Premiere  
NCIS: Complete Seasons 1-11
Poolman
The Present
Tooth Fairy
Wild Hogs

November 11th

Ally McBeal: Complete Seasons 1-5

November 12th

Selling Super Houses: Complete Season 1

November 14th

FX’s Say Nothing: Complete Limited Series
Flipping Down South: Complete Season 1
I Wasn’t Expecting a Baby!: Complete Season 1
Legends of the Fork: Complete Season 1
Seatbelt Psychic: Complete Season 1
The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth: Series Premiere
13 Sons & Pregnant: Complete Season 1

November 15th

It’s All Country: Complete Season 1
Art Gallery: Andy Haynes, Maddie Wiener, Jackie Fabulous
The Backyard: Ralph Barbosa, Kiry Shabazz, Brittany Schmitt
The Cabin: Alec Flynn, Caitlin Peluffo, Garrick Bernard
Parking Lot: Mark Smalls, Robby Hoffman, Darius Bennett
The Taste of Things
Thelma

November 16th

Harriet

November 17th

Christmas at the Golden Dragon
Christmas in Evergreen: Bells Are Ringing
Christmas Sail
A Holiday in Harlem
A Kismet Christmas
A Royal Corgi Christmas
The Santa Stakeout

November 18th

Cake Toppers: Complete Season 1
“Cookie, Cupcake, Cake”: Complete Season 1
The Honorable Shyne: Documentary Premiere

November 19th

Interior Chinatown: Complete Season 1
Drugstore June

November 20th

Missing (2023)
The Son

November 21st

The 58th Annual CMA Awards: Special Premiere
American Pickers: Best Of: Complete Season 7
The Boarding School Murders: Complete Season 1
Celebrity Renovation: Complete Season 1
Christmas at the Chalet
Christmas Wars: Complete Season 2
Donnie Loves Jenny: Complete Season 1
Downtown Shabby: Complete Season 1
History’s Greatest Escapes with Morgan Freeman: Complete Season 1
Lost Gold of World War II: Complete Season 2
Roanoke: A Mystery Carved in Stone: Complete Season 1
Secret Restoration: Complete Season 1
Ultimate Holiday Feast: Complete Season 1
A Cowboy Christmas Romance
Merry Magic Christmas
Mistletoe Match
Mom’s Christmas Boyfriend

November 22nd

Bia and Victor: Complete Season 1 
Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny: Special Premiere
Firebrand
The Good Half

November 23rd

Sausage Party

November 24th

Southpaw (2015)

November 25th

Family Guy: Exclusive Holiday Special
Tsunami: Series Premiere

November 26th

Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae: Complete Docuseries
Robot Dreams

November 27th

Elf
Four Christmases
Fred Claus
Jack Frost
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
The Polar Express

November 29th

Olympus Has Fallen
Plant Shop: Fahim Anwar, Susan Rice, Derrick Stroup
Speakeasy: Torio Van Grol, Shapel Lacey, Ahamed Weinberg
Thrift Store: Malik Elassal, Emma Willmann, TJ
Tiki Series: Ali Macofsky, Matt Braunger, Sydney Castillo

The post Everything Coming to Hulu in November 2024 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

James Gunn is already working on the anticipated second season to Peacemaker, but that’s not the only Peacemaker project he’s working on. Today DC announced that Gunn will be a story consultant on the new five-issue series Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature, which is helmed by the creative teams of Tim Seeley and Mitch Gerads (Vigilante) and Rex Ogle and Matteo Lolli (Eagly). The series ties right into the show as well, as it is set between Peacemaker seasons one and two, giving fans an idea of what is in store when the second season hits Max in 2025, though it also deals with the fallout from season one, including the disappearance of Peacemaker.

In the Vigilante story, Adrian heads to Peacemaker’s house to hang out but finds that Chris and Eagly are gone. He assumes the worst, thinking they’ve been taken, so he suits up and starts with his local criminal community to figure out where they are, and there will likely be quite a bit of bloodshed as he looks to find answers. Making this all the more ironic is that Chris and Eagly are not captured at all, but on vacation in Alaska, with Chris simply forgetting to ask Adrian along.
 
“I’m in my Vigilante era,” said artist Mitch Gerads on the Vigilante (without Peacemaker) half of the double feature. “I have 100 Taylor Swift friendship bracelets to trade—they’re in Vigilante colors and say ‘Vigilante S***.’ Come find me at NYCC and join the fun.”
 
“Awkward. Clueless. Possibly psychotic. Obsessed with destroying furniture. That’s Mitch Gerads,” said writer Tim Seeley. “Oh…wait? You mean you want me to describe Adrian Chase, Vigilante? Oh, sure. He’s the coolest dude ever and he smashes so many chicks. Also, he’s a great friend, and definitely not a serial-killing busboy. Peacemaker is lucky to call him “bro,” and Mitch and I are lucky to continue his horrifically violent adventures at DC Comics.”

On the Eagly side of things, we see things from Chris’ point of view as they vacation in Alaska. Unfortunately, things do go sideways when everyone on their plane is gassed and knocked out. When they wake up they are being hunted for sport by a mysterious group of supervillains, which is not at all what this vacation was supposed to be. Thing is, the villains don’t know what they’ve gotten into either, as none of them expected for Peacemaker to be one of the people they were hunting.
 
“When [DC editor] Katie Kubert asked me to do a short for DC’s Strange Love Adventures, I was stoked to write a Peacemaker story,” said writer Rex Ogle on the Eagly (and Peacemaker) half of the double feature. “So getting to dive back in and play with this iconic antihero again (and in a miniseries this time!) is a total dream. Part of what makes him so great is that at his core, Peacemaker is a hopeless optimist. He wants the world to be a better place, not just for himself, but for others. He doesn’t always go about achieving peace in the right way, but he brings an incredible levity to the violence that is already ever-present in our world. And sometimes we need to laugh at the bad—so we don’t break down and cry.”
 
“Bringing Peacemaker and Eagly to life in a comic is like unleashing chaos and heart on every page,” said artist Matteo Lolli. “Rex was able to both capture their funny bond and make for a perfect mix of action and humor. Drawing Peacemaker is obviously a blast, but capturing a character that doesn’t speak? Not easy. And what if this character happens to be a bird to whom nature gave by default a stern and angry look? That’s a whole other challenge, and I wasn’t sure I could deliver it without the right kind of script. Luckily for me, Rex did a fantastic job with it. It’s pure fun to see their unpredictable dynamic unleashed in this new adventure.”
 
“I write a ton of books and graphic novels for middle grade and young adult readers, which I love,” continued Ogle, “but there’s nothing quite like returning to my comic book roots to work on something where I can unleash my inner creative beast. Writing Christopher Smith lets me do just that—go buck wild—not just with some good ol’ fashioned violence, but with humor and unnecessary nudity. Peacemaker lets me live the dream of writing stories I wanted to read as a kid.”

Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature! features a Vigilante story by writer Tim Seeley, artist Mitch Gerads, and letterer Pat Brosseau, and an Eagly story by writer Rex Ogle, artist Matteo Lolli, colorist John Kalisz, and letterer Pat Brosseau, with story consulting by James Gunn. The first issue will hit stores in March and will carry DC’s Ages 17+ content descriptor for mature readers. It will also have main covers by Gerads.

Are you excited for the new Peacemaker double feature? You can talk all things DC and comics with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb!

The post Peacemaker’s James Gunn Working on Vigilante and Eagly Double-Feature at DC appeared first on ComicBook.com.

A new Looney Tunes movie is headed to theaters in 2025 — but unfortunately, it’s not Coyote vs. Acme. This week it was announced The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is set to open in theaters on February 28, 2025. The film was originally intended for Max but was acquired by Ketchup Entertainment after having been shelved by Warner Bros. for tax purposes. The film is also getting a North American premiere on this week at Animation Is Film in order for the film to be eligible for a Best Animated Feature Academy Award nomination.

Directed by Pete Browngardt, The Day The Earth Blew Up follows Porky Pig and Daffy Duck as they team up as Earth’s only hope against an alien invasion. The film is described as being a “sci-fi comedy adventure”. Browngardt also co-wrote the movie along with Darrick Bachman, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, and Eddie Trigueros.

“For generations, the Looney Tunes have held a soft spot in the hearts of fans the world over, including my own,” Gareth West, Ketchup Entertainment CEO said in a statement. “It’s a true pleasure to bring into theaters Peter Browngardt’s hilariously smart, emotional, and gorgeously rendered story for fans and movie-lovers of all ages to experience a wholly new and original cinematic adventure with our friends, Porky and Daffy.”

While The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie getting a theatrical release date is good news for not only fans but those who made the film, it’s bittersweet as well. Coyote vs. Acme, another Warner Bros. project which starred John Cena and was a hybrid of animation and live-action, was shelved by the studio as a tax write off, joining films such as DC’s Batgirl and the Scooby-Doo movie, Scoob! Holiday Haunt. In that film, “after every ACME Corporation product backfired on Wile E. Coyote, in his pursuit of the Road Runner, he hires an equally unlucky human attorney to sue the company. When Wile E.’s lawyer finds out that his former law firm’s intimidating boss is ACME’s CEO, he teams up with Wile E. to win the court case against him. The film was to be based on the fictional The New Yorker article “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier, which was published in 1990.” In addition to Cena, the film starred Lana Condor and Will Forte.

Despite Coyote vs. Acme not seeing the light of day, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie getting a theatrical release date is still a win as it means at least a portion of Warner Bros. rich animation legacy survives — for now. Warner Bros. Discovery has been seemingly trying to kill off its animation legacy, having shut down the Boomerang website at the end of September and also having shut down the Cartoon Network’s website as well. Fans are instead encouraged to subscribe to Max. Prior to that, in 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery merged Cartoon Network Studios with Warner Bros. Animation. The Day the Earth Blew Up at least surviving is a small silver lining. It will also be the first time a fully animated Looney Tunes feature film will be released in theaters — previous Looney Tunes feature films have been a combination of animation and live-action while others were compilations of shorts. And there’s another silver lining to The Day The Earth Blew Up getting theatrical release: if it’s successful, it could mean that we get more Looney Tunes in the future.

The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie opens in theaters February 28, 2025.

The post New Looney Tunes Movie Headed to Theaters (But Not Coyote vs. Acme) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Smile 2 landed in theaters this weekend, continuing the terrifying journey that kicked off in 2022’s Smile. With the original movie initially developed as a streaming exclusive, audiences didn’t entirely know what to expect from the original property, with viewers being treated not only to a roller-coaster ride of massive frights, but also a metaphor about hiding your own grief. The blend of effective scares, metaphors about trauma, and a supernatural curse helped earn the film $217.4 million worldwide and 80% positive reviews on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Continuing the concept with a follow-up was a no-brainer, with original writer/director Parker Finn delivering an all-new adventure in Smile 2.

There’s lots to like about this franchise, and what makes its successes all the more impressive is how it’s an entirely original premise, based on Finn’s short film “Laura Hasn’t Slept.” Despite the Smile series being an original experience, there are plenty of films that share some commonality with the movie, so whether you loved Smile 2 and want to see similar experiences or weren’t a fan and want some alternatives, we’ve got some suggestions.

Scroll down to see our picks for seven movies you should watch after Smile 2, which is in theaters now.

The Ring (2002)

Based on the Japanese film Ring, this 2002 movie from Gore Verbinski shares key mythological components with Smile and Smile 2.

As evidenced in the original Smile, a demonic curse would stalk a victim and eventually overtake them, causing them to kill themselves in gruesome ways in front of a witness, with that witness becoming the new target of the curse. The Ring also has a supernatural curse which, once someone inherits it, gives them a deadline of how long they’ll survive before dying by the otherworldly Samara.

While both Smile and The Ring have supernatural curses that cause death as well as a ticking clock that moves towards someone’s demise, both series have key pieces of mythology in regards to spreading the curse. In Smile, someone passes the curse onto another before dying, but in The Ring, it’s possible to escape the curse by incorporating someone else into Samara’s torment.

It Follows (2015)

The Ring featured a curse that centered around a now-iconic figure with Samara, and while It Follows features another type of curse, the actual terror comes from something much more closely related to Smile.

Throughout both Smile films, characters don’t entirely know who or what they can trust, as the strange entity alters their entire mental state. It Follows features a threat that’s a bit more tangible, as audiences witness a slow-moving figure who stalks its target, with the only way to slow the threat being to have sex with someone else, who becomes the entity’s new victim.

What makes It Follows so frightening is that the presence can look like anyone, whether they be a shambling stranger or a victim’s closest friends. Being able to hide terror in plain sight is one major connection between the two mythologies.

The Babadook (2014)

One of the compelling elements of the Smile franchise is that, while being stalked by a strange, smiling presence is creepy enough, the reasoning for the torment is largely unclear. Audiences ultimately learn how the entity feeds on trauma, which it inspires in the witnesses to these suicides.

In Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, a mother and son read a book called “Mr. Babadook” that has seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The pair begin to be haunted by an otherworldly presence, and with the duo grieving the loss of their family’s patriarch, the real-world trauma is amplified by Mr. Babadook’s torment.

In the past decade, The Babadook has become a go-to example of how to effectively use the horror genre and a superficial monster to reflect real-world trauma. There’s many other horror movies that serve as metaphors for entirely human experiences, though The Babadook is one of the best.

Fallen (1998)

There’s no shortage of movies out there about curses and demons, but it’s worth spotlighting 1998’s Fallen if only for it being an often-overlooked experience.

The movie follows a detective (Denzel Washington) who witnesses a ruthless killer being put to death for his occult crimes, only for the criminal to grab the detective and utter a strange language. Through his investigations, this detective learns of the demonic Azazel, which is said to be able to jump from host to host through touch, with Azazel seemingly having previously possessed the serial killer and now searching for a new host to carry out its crimes.

Joining Washington in the film are John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, and Elias Koteas, making for an impressive cast, while the close-quarters transmission of a demonic entity feels reminiscent of Smile.

Black Swan (2010)

One of the biggest differences between Smile and Smile 2 is that, rather than our protagonist being a doctor who leads a relatively insular life, Smile 2 features a pop singer preparing for her tour. Naomi Scott plays Skye Riley in the sequel, with her performance being one of the components of the sequel earning tremendous praise.

Black Swan scored Natalie Portman an Oscar for her performance as a ballet dancer who loses her grip on reality as she prepares for what could be a career-defining performance.

Audiences know well and good the terrors that are haunting Skye in Smile 2, but as she faces so many pressures for her role in the entertainment industry, everyone around her is questioning her mental state. While Portman’s character isn’t a world-famous pop star, Black Swan is anchored by a powerful lead performance and showcases the devastating mental toll the pressure that being an entertainer can take on someone.

Strange Darling (2023)

While all of the other movies recommended here have some tonal or conceptual connection to the events of Smile and Smile 2, Strange Darling is an entirely different experience. Instead, fans who wanted more of actor Kyle Gallner in Smile 2 will appreciate checking out this twisted story that features a compelling performance from the genre darling.

Part of the joy of Strange Darling is how unexpected the overall narrative is, which is heightened by its non-linear storytelling. We can say, though, that the movie focuses on a serial killer in Oregon and that Gallner is joined in the project by Willa Fitzgerald.

Gallner has tallied a number of genre credits to his name, which include A Haunting in Connecticut, Jennifer’s Body, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Red State, and Scream. The actor is often relegated to supporting roles, while Strange Darling puts all of his acting chops front and center for the unexpected thriller.

Possession (1981)

Parker Finn only has two feature films to his name, Smile and Smile 2, but as far as what his future holds, reports claim he will be developing a reimagining of 1981’s Possession.

The original movie focuses on a marriage that is falling apart when Anna (Isabelle Adjani) alerts Mark (Sam Neill) that she’s developed a relationship with another man while Mark was away for long stretches of time for his career. Mark aims to uncover who Anna has started a relationship with and discovers something he never could have anticipated.

There might not be much cinematic connection between Smile 2 and Possession, but for any fan who has become intrigued with Finn’s directorial sensibilties, watching Possession will give you a tease of what his next project will explore.

Smile 2 is in theaters now.

Which of these films will you be checking out? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror! 

The post 7 Movies to Watch After Smile 2 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Get Out’s Allison Williams says that the original movie’s ending was absolutely perfect. ComicBook talked to her during New York Comic-Con and had to ask about the Jordan Peele masterclass. Williams described the test audience screenings for the film and shared that including Rod’s character was critical for getting that positive reception. “It’s just such a perfect ending,” Williams argued. “And people left the theater feeling triumph and happiness, instead of feeling deeply down.” The story of Get Out is kind of still a downer when you think about it. But, that little lift at the end probably made all the difference. Back in 2017, the movie catapulted Peele into the stratosphere and raised the profile of everyone associated with the project. Check out what else she had to say right here.

“Well, it’s interesting because we all signed on to the movie with the original ending. It felt really honest, we live in America. If there’s a black man over a dying white woman’s body, and then there’s a house full of dead white people, we all kind of know how that’s going to go. And so, Jordan was pretty clear that he wanted the ending to speak to the truth of the situation,” she told us. “It ended with the Lil Rel character basically trying to get any last bits of information that Chris could think of. Like what? What? Is there anything else? There was film in the camera and there were all these things. It was basically like Chris or Daniel Kaluuya kind of going back into the prison and being like, ‘it’s over now.’”

“That’s good. Basically saying, ‘Yes, I’m in prison for the rest of my life, but I put an end to this thing that they were doing and that’s enough.’ What happened was that when we tested the movie, audiences went from like, ‘I’m at a ten out of ten this movie’s awesome.’ To the ending, which was just like, ‘OOP!,’” Williams continued. “Everyone was like, ‘I feel so darkly sad, and this is too real.’ Basically. What Jordan realized, which is so brilliant, is that the light of two of the police lights on, Chris and Rose on me and Daniel created this reaction in the audience of the fear for him of what the presence of the police was going to mean for his future.”

“You got the message of the long ending. Then he’d read it, and he shot in just that moment with just those lights. And then, you had the release and the triumph of it being, Lil Rel showing up, and it was like, Rod was this savior. He had been the worried one the whole time,” she mused. “And it’s just such a perfect ending. People left the theater feeling triumph and happiness, instead of feeling deeply down. I think it helped create the life that the movie had. I mean, you can’t argue that it would have had the same life with the other ending.”

Williams is probably right on that front. Anytime you get a list of the best modern horror films, Get Out usually ends up in there somewhere. Especially in that genre, getting a twist ending in there can really pay dividends. Peele’s been making bigger and bigger movies ever since. NOPE was big in its own right and Williams and Kaluuya have been busy too. So, the Get Out ending really ended up working out for everyone involved.

This weekend, Blumhouse launched its Shop Blumhouse online store full of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. You can find it at here.

Do you like the ending to Get Out? Check out all the pop culture conversation over at @ComicBook!

The post Get Out Star Allison Williams Explains Why Get Out’s Original Ending Was “Perfect” appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Behaviour Interactive announced last year plans for a Dead by Daylight movie made in partnership with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse company and James Wan’s Atomic Monster. The Dead by Daylight movie is already in good hands then just by being associated with those two names, but since last year, we’ve heard precious little about the plans for the adaptation. During New York Comic-Con, ComicBook caught up with Blum and got an update from the Blumhouse founder on the Dead by Daylight movie who said that everyone’s still working on a script while comparing the adaptation process to the work that went into Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.

“Working on the script,” he said when asked if there was any update to be shared on the Dead by Daylight movie. “You know, we don’t put movies in the calendar until we have the right script.”

For those who might be impatient about hearing more on the Dead by Daylight movie, Blum used the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie adaptation as an example of how long these things sometimes take. The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was in the works in some form or another for nearly a decade before it released and even changed hands from Warner Bros. to Blumhouse during that process before it finally released in 2023. The movie performed well with Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 fans even if critics weren’t as fond of it, and another one is on the way, so the time spent cooking up the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was apparently worth it.

“It took 10 years to make Five Nights at Freddy’s, and I think one of the reasons the movie worked is because we spent 10 years trying to get it right,” he said.

Returning back to Dead by Daylight, he said he hopes that those working on the movie get a script that they’re in love with, but he said broadly it could take anywhere from a year to five years.

“I hope we get a script that we love,” he said. “We’re working on a script, but it could be five years, it could be 12 months. You just don’t know. You can’t make the movie until the script is right, and you don’t know how long that’ll take.”

When the Dead by Daylight movies was first announced, it was said that the search was underway for a director and screenwriter. Nobody has been confirmed for those roles since then, so aside from Blum, Wan, and executive producers from their companies and Behaviour Interactive, no other names are attached to the film currently.

Dead by Daylight is in the midst of one of its biggest events of the year since we’re right around Halloween, so Behaviour Interactive still has plenty to do with the game itself while work continues on the movie. More DLC is on the way, too, including one for none other than Five Nights at Freddy’s that’s releasing next year.

This weekend, Blumhouse launched its Shop Blumhouse online store full of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. You can find it at here.

The post Jason Blum Shares Dead by Daylight Movie Update, Compares Process to Five Nights at Freddy’s appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Smile 2 is a game-changing sequel story, which sets up an even bigger franchise twist for Smile 3. If nothing else can be said about it, Smile 2 refines writer/director Parker Finn’s formula and metaphor for how human trauma often begets more human trauma when those suffering can’t cure their minds. That concept takes on a whole different dimension when the smile entity curse gets passed to one of the world’s biggest pop stars and tabloid celebrities (Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley), and creates a whole new level of danger.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!

How Smile 2 Setups Up A Very Different Smile 3

Skye Riley’s mega-star lifestyle ultimately proves to be her undoing. Skye has to expose herself to constant public scrutiny due to the media and promotional junkets she’s doing leading up to her world tour kickoff; the rest of the time, she’s isolated in private, where the entity can toy with her mind in horrible ways. By the end of the film, Skye loses touch with reality and is fully possessed by the entity, which puppets her onto the stage on the opening night of the tour, and has her shove her microphone through her eye, killing herself in front of the entire crowd.

Smile (2022) and Smile 2 explored the concept of the demonic grinning entity as an ‘infection’ that’s passed person to person on a 1-to-1 basis; however, Skye Riley’s death in front of a packed stadium crowd suggests that the smile curse could become the equivalent of a mass pandemic, with the entity infecting dozens (if not hundreds) of minds at once.

Smile 3 (or “Smiles” perhaps) could be a big departure from the formula of the first two films – for better or worse. Parker Finn has a lot of leeway to change up the format of the film, telling multiple short stories that interconnect in some way – or, he could borrow from the Alien movie franchise and coat the threequel in entirely new genre tropes. If the smile curse goes wide, the entity could arguably possess masses of people hive mind-style, potentially creating a sort of action-horror Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Dawn of the Dead type of horror movie, that still pepper in the franchise’s signature psycho-horror reality fakeouts.

It’s clear that Smile 2 was all about refining the concept of the first film, but Smile 3 almost has no choice but to be a massive expansion of the concept. But if the sequel is any indication, Parker Finn can pull of that expansion, beautifully.

“I think there are so many different, interesting directions the world of Smile can take, different roads it can go down,” Parker Finn recently teased to GamesRadar. “Right now I’m very excited to see how audiences respond to Smile 2 and if we are lucky with how audiences can connect with and embrace the film, I think the sky’s the limit.”

Smile 2 is now in theaters.

The post How Smile 2 Sets Up a Very Different Smile 3 Story appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Last month, horror fans at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando Resort got a glimpse of the titular Wolf Man form Blumhouse’s upcoming Wolf Man movie but pretty soon after images and footage of the iconic Universal Monster made their way online, fans were a bit confused as to whether this was really the final look for the character. Now, speaking with ComicBook at New York Comic Con, director Leigh Whannell is setting the record straight — and calling out Halloween Horror Nights’ version of the character as the “Spirit Halloween” version that isn’t much like what fans will see in the movie.

“First of all, we’ve got Arjen Tuiten doing the makeup and he’s a genius, the level of makeup that he can do,” Whannell said. “It’s kind of like, without spoiling anything, it’s like comparing a costume at Spirit Halloween to Rick Baker’s makeup. There’s a level of lighting and artistry. I can confidently tell you that the Halloween Horror Nights Wolf Man they had running around is not much like what we have going.”

For reference, the Halloween Horror Nights version of the Wolf Man is a far cry from the more monstrous versions that have previously been represented in cinema with the theme park’s offering being more like a grizzled old man with large, wolf-like claws and a white beard.

Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) as Blake, Julia Garner (Ozark, Inventing Anna) as Charlotte, and Matilda Firth (Hullraisers, Coma) as Ginger. In the film, Blake inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte, fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger. But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.

Wolf Man also stars Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama) and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man). Leigh Whannell also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Corbett Tuck, Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo (Dumb Money). Blumhouse Pictures produces the film alongside Universal.

This weekend, Blumhouse launched its Shop Blumhouse online store full of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. You can find it at here.

Wolf Man is set to open in theaters on January 17, 2025.

The post Wolf Man Director Calls Out Halloween Horror Nights Makeup as “Spirit Halloween” Version appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Danny Trejo can be seen leading a crew of the undead in his latest film Seven Cemeteries, and the fan-favorite star continues to be one of the most entertaining in the business. Trejo also gave fans a look at the man behind those entertaining roles with his memoir Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood, providing a captivating glimpse at his unique journey to the screen. In a new interview with ComicBook’s Chris Killian, Trejo was asked who he would want to direct a biopic if it were based on his memoir, and the person he’d love to see in the director’s chair is Robert Rodriguez.

While there’s already been a documentary based on Trejo’s life with 2019’s Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo, the book gives additional insight into that journey. If the book were to be turned into a film, Trejo knows who would be perfect to bring that story to life on the big screen.

“Probably Robert Rodriguez, because I think he understands more growing up Latino than anybody I’ve worked with, as great directors, but it’s just, there’s just something,” Trejo said. Rodriguez and Trejo have already teamed up multiple times for their popular Machete and Machete Kills films, and Rodriguez has a host of popular films and shows on his resume, including From Dusk Till Dawn, Desperado, Once Upon a Time In Mexico, the Spy Kids franchise, Lucha Underground, and more.

The two would make quite the team to bring Trejo’s life to the screen, and as Trejo mentioned, part of that would be bringing authenticity to the story. That was also important for the book, and that proved a challenge early on for Trejo, who was working with writers who weren’t capturing his voice early on in the process.

“It’s funny because I wrote a book, my memoir, and I looked all over trying to find somebody. You know, they kept telling me write a book, but everybody they sent, you know, I don’t use words like prolific (laughs). Donal Logue, who was a really good friend of mine and he grew up Mexican. People don’t realize this. He’s from Ireland, but he grew up in El Centro, Mexico. You know, Kalief, I mean, right at the border,” Trejo said. “And so he didn’t know he wasn’t Mexican till he was about 18, and then finally somebody told him, no, we call you Rojo because your hair’s red, you know (laughs).”

“So me and him started writing and writing and I showed the writing to my kid’s mom, who I’ve been with, God, 40 years, and she said that this sounds more like you, you know, this is the way you talk,” Trejo said. “And so he was able to capture the way I talk instead of the way a writer does it. You know what I mean? And that’s that’s the way that book came out.”

Rodriguez shared his thoughts on Trejo’s book as well, writing “Danny’s incredible life story shows that even though we may fall down at some point in our lives, it’s what we do when we stand back up that really counts.”

Perhaps they will bring it to the screen at some point, but right now you can watch Trejo in Seven Cemeteries, which features Trejo in the role of Bravo, a recent parolee who comes into contact with a woman trying to save her ranch from a powerful and ruthless drug lord. Here’s the twist though, as after an initial encounter with the drug lord, Bravo meets a witch who brings the rest of his dead crew back to life to face off against the drug lord’s army, and somehow things get crazier from there.

Seven Cemeteries is now playing in theaters and is available on demand and digitally as well.

The post Danny Trejo Wants Robert Rodriguez to Direct a Biopic of His Life appeared first on ComicBook.com.

With the weekend upon us, a lot of movie and TV fans with a Netflix subscription are checking out the service to see what new titles it might have in store for the days ahead. The streamer has been on a roll so far in October, with past weekends bringing us hit titles like It’s What’s Inside and the new season of Outer Banks. That hot streak continues this weekend, as Netflix has a few major additions on the slate.

The weekend kicked off a little early for Netflix, with a couple of its biggest new releases hitting the lineup on Thursday. New seasons of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory and The Lincoln Lawyer were both just added to the streamer’s lineup.

Friday will bring the premiere of new original film Woman of the Hour, a festival darling that marked star Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut. You can check out the full lineup of Netflix’s weekend additions below!

Thursday, October 17th

Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (JP) — NETFLIX ANIME
Eleven months into the One Year War in U.C.0079, top Zaku II pilot Captain Solari faces the Earth Federation’s new lethal weapon: the mobile suit Gundam.

Jurassic World: Chaos Theory: Season 2 — NETFLIX FAMILY
New dinos. New dangers. New allies. The Camp Fam goes global on a search for answers – and an elusive villain – that takes them all over the world.

The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 3 — NETFLIX SERIES
Mickey takes on a personal and potentially dangerous case when he defends the person accused of murdering Gloria Dayton, his friend and former client.

Outside (PH) — NETFLIX FILM
A family retreats to an isolated farm during a zombie outbreak, but years of painful secrets take a toll as they navigate their desolate world.

The Shadow Strays (ID) — NETFLIX FILM
Skilled in the art of killing, a young assassin defies her mentor to save a boy from a ruthless crime syndicate – and she’ll destroy anyone in her path.

Friday, October 18th

Ghost Hunters: Seasons 10-11

Happiness Is (ZA) — NETFLIX SERIES
Turning forty was meant to be a low-key event for Princess, but when her best friend throws her an unforgettable party, her entire world is shaken up.

Join or Die

The Man Who Loved UFOs (AR) — NETFLIX FILM
In late 1980s Argentina, a reporter’s investigation into alien activity is nearly halted by a lack of evidence – until he decides to fabricate his own.

The Turnaround — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
The documentary short tells the story of Philadelphia Phillies’ superfan Jon McCann, who helped inspire an unlikely 2023 standing ovation for Phillies shortstop Trea Turner, which helped turn the team around after hitting a major roadblock.

Woman of the Hour — NETFLIX FILM
An aspiring actress crosses paths with a prolific serial killer in ’70s LA when they’re cast on an episode of “The Dating Game.” Based on a true story.

Yintah (CA) — NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
In this documentary, two Indigenous women and their clans fight to save their land – and history – from being destroyed by an energy company’s pipeline.

Saturday, October 20th

American Ninja Warrior: Ninja vs. Ninja: Season 3
American Ninja Warrior: Season 14

The post Everything Coming to Netflix This Weekend (October 18th) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Andrew Garfield addressed making a Marvel return as Spider-Man again. Right now, The Amazing Spider-Man star has been doing the rounds promoting We Live In Time. At basically every stop on the tour, he’s been asked about being Peter Parker again in some capacity. It seems clear now that Garfield would love to return if the story serves his version of the Marvel hero. One of the big things that Spider-Man: No Way Home did well was give his iteration of the Web-Slinger an arc that acknowledged the past in his two movies. But, the MCU entry also carved out room for Peter Parker’s story to continue if Sony got the idea to do another one. The door is clearly open at this point. The actor told PEOPLE that his phone’s always there if Marvel and Sony want to hammer something out. 

Still, fans should all keep in mind that Garfield isn’t just going to stroll in to be Spider-Man again if it can’t measure up to the movie that came before it. Interestingly, he seems to hold Spider-Man: No Way Home in some real regard. Peter 3’s subtle moments helping Tom Holland’s variant navigate his own personal tragedy really struck a chord in the audience. There are multiple screenings where Garfield’s Wall-Crawler swooping in to save MJ got louder cheers than Tobey Maguire stepping through a Sling Ring portal. So, the people behind it really got that story right for the majority of people out there. (Yes, the viewers who felt like the movie was disjointed exist too, different strokes for different folks.) Whether it’s Spider-Man 4 or something else, the star says both studios are going to have to bring it on the story front.

The Spider-Man star said, “I think what it would take is a great idea, a great concept. Something that is surprising and odd and fun, joyful. It has to be worthwhile. I think we had such a great time on that last one that you want to just go, ‘Okay. Leave it. It was great. It worked. It was a risk and it really, really worked.’” 

“I’m so happy that they had the courage to do it. It’s such a great idea. I would never have had that foresight,” Garfield added. “So, I’m really just proud and happy that I get to be a part of that. But if there’s something that can be concocted and thought up that feels additive to the canon of that character, then for sure.”

So, that all sounds lovely in the aggregate. Garfield has loved and will always love the role of Spider-Man. After a rough few years, the fanbase has completely wrapped him in adoration for his take on Peter Parker. The last time viewers saw him in the red and blue tights, it was a smash-success that netted more than a billion dollars at the box office. All of that is great! However, as is the case a lot with comic book movies right now, it all depends on the story that Sony and Marvel Studios want to tell. You could fill a book up with quotes from Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire and Garfield about not wanting to just make a movie with fanservice moments. (Some fans agree with that sentiment! Sure!) 

If we were to place odds on it, you’ll probably see both Garfield and Maguire in some capacity by Avengers: Secret Wars at the latest. While that’s not a slam dunk, it sure feels likely right now. Getting both Spider-Men to fit into that narrative is a bit more slippery for Marvel Studios. They have an entire line of Avengers to get in there, along with Deadpool, Wolverine and The Fantastic Four. Goodwill from the audience will flow like water once we get to that MCU crossover. But, how that script looks is going to determine a lot. And, if you think that’s going to be a big negotiation, imagine how in-depth the conversations around an “Amazing Spider-Man 3” would be now. The Multiverse means nothing is out of reach, but someone’s going to have to put forth a great effort to bring Garfield back.

Do you think we’ll see Garfield as Spider-Man again? Check out all the conversation at @ComicBook!

The post Andrew Garfield Has a Stipulation for His Spider-Man Return appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Wolf Man (2025) full trailer has been released by Universal Pictures and you can watch it below! Director Leigh Whannell is continuing the re-invention of the Universal Monsters brand he began with the Invisible Man (2020) remake, with a dark tale about a father infected with the curse of man-turned-beast, and the threat he poses to this family. The teaser trailer for Wolf Man (2025) got horror fans buzzing – and mainstream audiences seem to be taking notice now that the film has been given an R-rating.

The full trailer for Wolf Man (2025) starts with a very intense scene, which shows the protagonist family hanging over a cliff in a moving truck, after being attacked by a werewolf. The mother (Julia Carner), father (Christopher Abbott), and daughter (Matilda Firth) escape the truck, but not before the dad is wounded in the attack. When they hold up in a nearby house, the threat begins to grow from within as the dad starts to succumb to the werewolf infection, forcing the mother and daughter to try and escape.

Wolf Man (2025) Full Story Synopsis

This newly released synopsis for Wolf Man breaks down the deeper subplots and themes of its story:

Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Emmy winner Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matlida Firth; Hullraisers, Coma). But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.

Like Invisible Man, it seems Whannell is channeling a lot of modern themes about relationship dynamics and gender into the metaphors behind the monster-horror. There’s a lot of juicy potential in the premise of San Francisco tech and/or entrepreneur types (Invisible Man connection?) having to confront repressed anger and tap into primal savagery far removed from digital life. The synopsis is right to include the accolades that Abbott and Garner have received, as both are bubbling talents – and both are set to got mainstream in Marvel movie projects (Kraven the Hunter and Fantastic Four, respectively).

Of course, the design of the Wolf Man creature(s) will have a lot to do with whether this film succeeds or fails. Invisible Man nailed the concept with creepy and creative sequences of stalking and assault using a tech-based invisibility suit; Wolf Man has classic makeup and effects challenge to meet – one that not every adaptation gets right (see

The supporting cast of Wolf Man includes Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama) and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man). Leigh Whannell also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Corbett Tuck, Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo (Dumb Money). Blumhouse Pictures produces the film alongside Universal.

Wolf Man will be in theaters on January 17, 2025.

The post Wolf Man Full Trailer Offers Best Look Yet at Universal Monster Reboot appeared first on ComicBook.com.

American Psycho is getting a remake, with writer Scott Z. Burns (Side Effects, Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum) set to do a new adaptation of author Brent Easton Ellis’s classic novel, and director Luca Guadagnino is in “final talks” to helm. Guadagnino is best known for directing the 2018 remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria, and more recently the steamy sports-romance film Challengers starring Zendaya. It’s noted that this will be a new adaptation of the book – and not a remake of the original film.

Lionsgate and Frenesy Films are developing the new American Psycho with Sam Pressman executive producing. Pressman is also the son of Edward R. Pressman, the producer of American Psycho (2000).

“We are thrilled to add another elite filmmaker to our upcoming slate,” Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chair Adam Fogelson said in a statement. “Luca is a brilliant artist, and the perfect visionary to create a whole new interpretation of this potent and classic IP.”

The first American Psycho (2000) movie adaptation from writer/director Mary Harron was a box office flop ($34M on a $7M budget), but went on to become one of the cult-hit breakouts of the early DVD era. The film also made an international star out of Christian Bale, who starred as psychotic 1980s NYC yuppie Patrick Bateman.

American Psycho (2000) admittedly took liberties with how it adapted Ellis’s novel – even though it became infamous for some of its more hardcore scenes of sex, murder – or a combination of both. This new adaptation, in this day and age, could potentially go further into sort of graphic details that got the novel censored in so many different places over the years; however, if Luca Guadagnino is the sort of director being considered, it seems like this new version could also play with the lines of fantasy, reality, and satirical imagery that Ellis was playing with in his book.

This new American Psycho movie is now in development.

Via Deadline

The post New American Psycho Movie Adaptation in the Works, Challengers Director Attached appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Smile 2 is now in theaters and without getting into spoilers (yet), the sequel opens on a pretty wild note that sets the tone for a film that has horror fans buzzing. That said, there are some pretty close connections between the original Smile movie and the opening act of Smile 2 — pieces of a puzzle that viewers may not be able to put together if they haven’t seen the first film — or even if it’s been a while since they have. Below you will find the breakdown of everything you need to know — and we’ll address a potential plothole Smile 2 creates in its opening scene.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!

What Happened at the End of Smile?

Smile followed therapist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), who was infected by the evil entity by one of her graduate students. Rose spends the movie trying to determine what the curse is and how to cure herself — and she gets aided in her investigation by her ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner), a police detective. Rose and Joel follow the chain of smile entity suicides to one survivor: Robert Talley (Rob Morgan), who explains he survived the curse by brutally killing someone in front of a witness and letting the entity pass on to that traumatized onlooker. Rose rejected that idea and instead chose to try to kill herself, ending the chain of traumas with her death. Instead, the entity intervened, and Joel found Rose possessed and watched her set herself on fire, thereby making Joel the new host for the curse.

Smile 2‘s Opening Scene Explained

Smile 2 begins by letting viewers know that six days have passed since Joel got infected. Joel is now an ex-cop (implying the curse’s hallucinations got him fired) who is running out of time before his inevitable possession. Joel finally decides to try Robert Talley’s strategy — while putting a moral twist on it. Using police resources, he tracks down two Eastern European drug dealer brothers at their stash house and tries to kill one in front of the other, passing the curse on to someone who deserves the bad Karma.

The plan quickly goes sideways: the brothers both end up dying in a shootout with Joel, with small-time drug dealer Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage) witnessing their deaths, while there to pick up his drugs. Joel desperately tries to escape the drug den when the brothers’ crew comes in guns blazing but ends up getting hit by a truck while running across the road, leaving a gruesome, bloody smear in the shape of a smile.

Is Smile 2‘s Opening Scene a Major Plothole?

Some viewers have come away wondering about the logic of Smile 2‘s opening scene. By the “rules” of the smile entity’s curse, a witness who sees an infected person kill themselves or someone else then inherits the curse. By those rules, Joel passes the curse to Lewis — who then passes it to pop star Skye Riley, setting the events of the sequel into motion. However, Smile 2 is confusing some viewers, since Joel is seemingly killed by the curse entity, even after he passes it to Lewis.

Is it a pothole? There’s never confirmation that the entity carried out Joel’s death: he’s just running away from gunshots in a panic and doesn’t look where he’s going carefully enough. The detail about Joel’s blood and entrails forming a gruesome smile in the road can be chalked up to writer/director Parker Finn finding a clever way to introduce the Smile 2 title sequence, and quickly sever ties with the dangling threads of the first film.

Smile 2 is now in theaters.

The post Smile 2 Opening Scene Explained – How It Connects to The First Film appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Strangers fans were given the first glimpse of what could be next for the franchise thanks to a first teaser for The Strangers: Chapter 2 being released today. Since the early phases of the reboot’s development, fans were aware that the project would consist of three entries, so while we knew that two more movies would be coming, audiences have largely been kept in the dark about the status of the series since The Strangers: Chapter 1 was released earlier this year. Given the lengthy wait between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, it’s possible we might not get Chapter 3 until sometime in 2026. You can check out the teaser for The Strangers: Chapter 2 above.

Madelaine Petsch returns in Chapter 2 as Maya, having survived the horrific attacks by three masked figures. Her and her boyfriend Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) suffered some car trouble on a road trip, forcing them to take an impromptu stop in a rural Oregon town. Once night fell, Maya and Ryan were visited by masked tormentors, with Ryan suffering seemingly fatal attacks. Maya was luckily able to get to the hospital, though a post-credits scene teased that her tormentors weren’t through with their game.

The original The Strangers came from writer/director Bryan Bertino and was released in 2008. That movie similarly saw a couple in a rural home being attacked by masked intruders, with the figures ultimately revealing this couple was selected solely because they were home. While it wasn’t a major box-office success, the movie earned a passionate following among horror fans and largely set the standard for contemporary home-invasion horrors. The movie earned the sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night in 2018, which similarly featured masked killers tormenting a family, though there was little narrative connection to its predecessor.

Given the nature of the premise and how the first two films didn’t feature direct connections to one another, some audiences have wondered why a reboot approach felt necessary for this project. While Chapter 1 followed many of the same beats as the original movie, part of what set this approach apart was the idea that we would see a journey unfold over three films as opposed to merely getting another isolated experience.

Renny Harlin, who directed all three movies, previously expressed that the whole project was considered one epic journey of terror, feeling like a 4.5-hour movie broken up into chapters as opposed to three disparate adventures.

“We, of course, shot them on top of each other and mixed up, like movies are always made. But we had to keep in mind that this is one story arc,” Harlin detailed to ComicBook earlier this year. “It is one 4.5-hour movie, and the first movie is a first act. It sets up the characters and the terror and the killers and our main character, who will survive the first movie, but then go on a journey for the next two.”

Stay tuned for updates on The Strangers: Chapter 2.

Are you looking forward to the sequel? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror! 

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If you had to choose one word to describe the films of Paddington and Wonka director Paul King, you could do a lot worse than to go with “charming.” Maybe that’s the idea behind his next project, a live-action movie based on the character of Prince Charming. The movie, which hails from Disney, will presumably fill in some blanks for the character in the same way King’s Wonka did. After all, like Wonka, Prince Charming is generally not the lead character in his story, and tends to come into the plot pretty fully-formed.

With King attached, it seems likely that Prince Charming will be a little more traditional and less genre-bending than something like Shrek, which took aim at fairy tale tropes and established a punk-rock sensibility to fantasy that has been echoed throughout other movies, TV, and books.

According to Deadline, who first reported the deal, Simon Farnaby and Jon Croker (Paddington 2) are co-writing the screenplay along with King. In addition to the Paddington movies, Farnaby is known for the Wonka screenplay and as a writer on the U.K. version of the hit sitcom Ghosts.

The question of whether Prince Charming is a character at all, or a kind of archetypal way of describing the royalty who comes in to sweep a heroine off her feet, was at the heart of his depiction in Fables, the DC/Vertigo comic from writer Bill Willingham.

Other projects in recent years have boiled Prince Charming down to being a pretty, dumb, rich guy — something that seems outside the bounds of what King would want to explore. It seems more likely that we will get some insight into what makes a prince so picky that he’ll follow a woman around with half a pair of shoes.

It’s not uncommon for any Disney prince to be called “Prince Charming” colloquially, but they do have names, and Prince Charming is at least in theory the man who eventually marries Cinderella. Deadline reports this movie will not necessarily tie directly to Cinderella.

King has been on a roll since Paddington; both of those movies drew near-universal praise, becoming some of the highest-rated movies ever on Rotten Tomatoes. Wonka didn’t fare quite as well with critics, but was still widely acclaimed and earned over $600 million at the box office.

Prior to Paddington, the only feature film King had directed was the little-remembered Bunny and the Bull, which starred Farnaby (himself a comedian as well as writer) in a lead role.

The post Disney Announces Prince Charming Movie From Paddington and Wonka Director appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Dune: Part Two was only released earlier this year, and while director Denis Villeneuve has often teased how he aimed to take a bit of a break from the franchise before filming an adaptation of Dune Messiah, the filmmaker now teased he could potentially start shooting in 2025. Villeneuve did confirm, though, that the lengthy process of developing such a project could mean that it might have to wait until 2026. With more than a decade having passed between the events of Frank Herbert’s original Dune novel and its sequel Dune Messiah, Villeneuve still has plenty of time to craft a project worthy of its predecessors.

While speaking with Deadline, Villeneuve teased the late 2025 or early 2026 shooting date, while noting, “These movies take a lot of time to be made, so it’s best not to say out loud when I might shoot.” After getting a glance from his publicist, the filmmaker joked, “Unfortunately, I’m supposed to shut up.”

He continued, “Let’s say… that I thought that after Part Two that I will take a break, that I will go back in the woods and stay in the woods for a while to recover. But the woods weren’t really suiting me, and I would go back behind the camera faster than I think. But that’s all I can say.”

The sprawling nature of the original Dune novel has made it a difficult project to adapt. David Lynch first made a feature film inspired by the project back in 1984, and while it earned a passionate cult following over the years, it was considered a disappointment upon its debut, largely due to how dense of a narrative Lynch tried to depict in the two-hour run time. The narrative was subsequently brought to life as miniseries, and while they managed to chronicle the intricate plot points more accurately, they lacked the same production value as a major motion picture.

Ahead of the release of Dune, audiences were aware that the first film would only adapt the first half of the novel. The coronavirus pandemic first saw Dune delayed from 2020 to 2021, while Warner Bros. also made the decision to release its 2021 slate of movies both in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day. Villeneuve was one of the biggest critics of the decision, as he knew this would impact his film’s box-office haul and potentially compromise the possible sequel. Luckily, Dune: Part Two moved forward and was a hit with both audiences and critics alike.

Villeneuve reiterated, however, that his first two movies were two halves of one complete story and what he does with Messiah will take audiences by surprise.

“Like Herbert did with Dune Messiah, I think it’ll be a great idea to do something completely different. The story takes place like 12 years after where we left the characters at the end of Part Two,” the filmmaker detailed. “Their journey, their story is different this time, and that’s why I always say that while it’s the same world it’s a new film with new circumstances … [Messiah] will finish the Paul Atreides arc.”

Messiah won’t be entirely disconnected from the first two films, as he’s hoping to bring back Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Zendaya as Chani, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides.

Stay tuned for updates on Dune Messiah.

Are you looking forward to the third movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The post Dune Director Teases Filming Could Start Sooner Than Anyone Thought appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Avengers: Endgame concluded an 11-year arc for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s founding father. Robert Downey Jr. first began playing Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man and quickly cemented himself as the evolving franchise’s cornerstone, appearing at the end of The Incredible Hulk one month later to remind fans that a team was being assembled. That team came together in The Avengers (2012) and expanded the MCU into the cosmos, setting up a multi-film crossover arc revolving around the Infinity Stones that would not completely culminate until 2019. When that ultimate series finale hit theaters, the Tony Stark that audiences knew from the original Iron Man was almost a completely different person.

Sure, he was still a genius billionaire philanthropist, but the playboy days were long retired. Stark married Pepper Potts and became a father, taking his life far from the pomp and circumstance spotlight and instead to a quiet cabin in upstate New York. Stark’s daughter, Morgan, has only appeared in Avengers: Endgame thus far, where she was four years old for her entire screen time.

Avengers: Endgame Deleted Scene Shocks Fans

In another timeline, audiences would have gotten glimpse into Morgan’s future.

In an Avengers: Endgame deleted scene that recently resurfaced on social media, Tony Stark is transported to the Soul World (Waystation) after snapping his nanotech Infinity Gauntlet. This is the same realm that Thanos was sent to after he snapped his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War. Just as Thanos was confronted by his adopted daughter, Gamora, Tony is confronted by his daughter, Morgan. While Thanos saw a younger version of Gamora, the Gamora he had first met years prior, Tony sees his four-year-old all grown up to her teenage years played by Katherine Langford (13 Reasons Why).

“It worked?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Morgan replies. “It worked for me. I got to live and grow up. For you, I can’t answer.”

“I’m sorry, I think I might have made a bad decision,” Tony says back. “I’m scared that I made a mistake.”

“I know, and I know it’s going to be tough for you to let go,” Morgan responds. “But if someone had to do that so the rest of us could… I’m proud of you. And sad. I’m strong, like mom. And I’m happy. I’m happy that we had the time that we did and that you were there for me until you couldn’t be.”

“If you’re happy, I’m happy,” Tony concludes. “I love you 3000.”

This scene was revealed back in 2019 in the months after Avengers: Endgame hit theaters but is still finding its way to new audiences. When it began cycling through Twitter again earlier this week, many responded by asking “is this real?” and “how haven’t I seen or heard of this scene before?”

Other fans applauded the creativity of the Soul World moment between the father-daughter duo but added that it was smart to cut it from the final Avengers: Endgame product.

“I wish I went the rest of my life having never seen this. Tony’s sacrifice doesn’t need any second guessing by him in limbo essentially. Were extremely fortunate this wasn’t in the Final Cut,” user @SaltyBuc91 wrote.

“The dialogue was so bad! Lmao I know they were making a touchy moment but yeah it’s better without this. Tony being sure of his sacrifice was all these movies were being built up to,” user @ChuckFresco wrote.

Langford herself has also commented on the scene getting axed, noting in November 2019 that it was “such an honor” to play Morgan Stark even if her lone scene wasn’t part of the final cut.

“I’m such a huge fan of the Marvel films,” Langford said. “So when Marvel reached out to me to play Iron Man’s daughter, that was such an honor. Ultimately it didn’t make it into the film and creatively that makes sense and that’s totally fine.”

Avengers: Endgame is available to stream on Disney+. Robert Downey Jr. is set to make his return to the franchise in 2026, this time portraying Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday.

The post Avengers: Endgame Iron Man Deleted Scene Resurfaces and Marvel Fans Are Shocked appeared first on ComicBook.com.

You might be familar with Robosen’s line of super elaborate Transformers robots, but now they’ve parntered with Disney / Pixar to deliver the ultimate Toy Story Buzz Lightyear figure. The figure was initially slated to launch in 2023, but they spent another year getting all of the details right. The result is a super impressive robot that basically makes the idea of your toys magically coming alive very close to reality.

The Buzz Lightyear robot features 23 high precision servo motors, 75 microchips, and ‘ultra-micro programmable joints” that provide subtle eye and lip movements. It even walks! Add in a movie-accurate character voice (which may or may not be Tim Allen) with 34 commands and over 200 original audio clips and you have a unique and lifelike interactive experience. You can even program the robot yourself via an app or PC.

Of course, the big question is – how much is all of this fancy toy tech going to cost? The answer is $599.99, which is actually more on the lower end of the price range when compared to previous Transformers releases from Robosen. If you have the means, you can pick one up here at The Disney Store with free shipping using the code SHIPMAGIC at checkout. It’s expected to arrive on November 11th, which means that it could be one hell of a gift for a very lucky Toy Story fan.

The complete list of features for the Robosen Toy Story Buzz Lightyear robot figure are as follows:

• Interactive robotic Buzz Lightyear figure
• Created by Robosen in collaboration with Disney and Pixar 
• Features 23 built-in high precision servo motors and 75 microchips
• Robosen has custom-designed ‘ultra-micro’ programmable joints for the character, enabling Buzz Lightyear’s subtle eye and lip movements
• Movie-accurate character voice recites memorable Buzz lines 
• Electronic animated joints enable Buzz to walk and move like in the movies
• Amazingly realistic actions, along with dynamic voice and light-up features, provide the most interactive and realistic robotic experience
• Two interaction modes: Voice + App
• Create your own scenes with in-app programming or with your PC
• Features exquisite modeling and classic space suit colors that authentically represent the Space Ranger
• Wings extend and retract
• The pre-installed footplate features Andy’s signature. An official blank foot accessory is provided for players to replace it with their own handwritten signature
• Set also includes two pairs of interchangeable hands to match the Space Ranger’s various poses
• Includes PD fast-charging adapter (Type C)
• Inspired by Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story movies

Don’t forget that Toy Story 5 is set to hit theaters in 2025. You can check out the latest news about the film right here.

The post Robosen Buzz Lightyear Robot Figure Goes to Infinity and Beyond appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Spider-Man movie star Tom Holland is trying to show everyone that he’s a changed man when it comes to leaking secrets of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Holland has finally been cleared to admit that he knew that Robert Downey Jr. was returning to the MCU franchise as Doctor Doom well before it was announced to the world during Marvel’s Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2024. Holland was so determined to turn around his infamous reputation as a leaker of MCU secrets that he claims “I strategically have done no press,” since finding out RDJ was going to be MCU Doom.

In his full breakdown of the situation during the Rich Roll podcast, Tom Holland revealed that “I’ve been speaking to [Robert Downey Jr.] a lot, especially about him making his [Marvel] return, which is super exciting.”

Holland had to admit that getting that hot scoop left him burdened by knowledge like he was Thanos: “That was a tough secret to sit on, because I have a reputation for ruining things and I strategically have done no press,” Holland said.

How Many Marvel Movies Has Tom Holland Spoiled?

Tom Holland’s history of spoiling his Marvel movie projects is extensive. In 2016, during production on Spider-Man: Homecoming Holland told fans on a live Facebook Q&A about a scene they were filming in Homecoming involving helicopter harnesses and a dunk in a lake for his stunt double. This turned out to be the first battle between Spider-Man (Holland) and The Vulture (Michael Keaton), which left Peter Parker getting dropped in a lake by the flying villain. A year later, right before Spider-Man: Homecoming was released, Holland jumped the gun on confirming the new MCU Spider-Man movies would be a trilogy.

When Holland’s Spider-Man became a breakthrough character, Marvel Studios included him in their big two-part Infinity Saga finale, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Holland turned out to be a nightmare for Marvel PR: months after Homecoming was released, Holland did an Instagram live unboxing of a gift from Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo, which included a first print of the Avengers: Infinity War poster, which Holland was not all supposed to reveal. The next year (2018), the massive cast of Infinity War was doing media events around the world to promote the movie. Screenwriter Stephen McFeely gave Holland the wrong tip about one event, making the actor believe it was held after a premiere screening of Infinity War – leading Holland to take the stage exclaiming “I’m alive!” and spoil his death scene as Spider-Man before release day.

Blowing up Infinity War’s big twist ending didn’t teach Tom Holland to be better: during the promotional tour for Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Holland nearly tripped over his words and nearly revealed that there would be more than one Spider-Man in the film – and his beau Zendaya had to stop him from mentioning who bought Avengers Tower after Homecoming – an MCU secret that is still going to this day.

Now it’s 2024 and it seems Tom Holland has finally stepped his game up as a human vault. Tony Stark would be proud of his protege (if he were still alive). However, news that Holland was in the loop on RDJ being Doom – and the recent non-spoiler that a Spider-Man 4 script has him and Zendaya hyped (Venom? Miles Morales?) – makes us wonder if the big plans for an awkward Spider-Man and Doom meeting aren’t already in the works.

Avengers: Doomsday has a release date of May 1, 2026. Spider-Man 4 is in development.

via Variety

The post Tom Holland Knew About Robert Downey Jr. Playing Doom and Somehow Kept It Secret appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Warner Bros hasn’t been shy regarding its plans to further flesh out The Lord of The Rings’ universe. Recently, Amazon’s The Lord of The Rings: Rings of Power brought its second season to a close, continuing to follow the prequel story that explores the characters of Galadriel, Sauron, and Elrond. In a surprising twist, a new prequel movie is on the way for this winter in The Lord of The Rings: The War of The Rohirrim which will be the franchise’s first anime film. In a recent interview, a creator of the franchise talked the series’ anime future.

If you’re unfamiliar with The Lord of The Rings: The War of The Rohirrim, the anime movie is set to hit North American theaters on December 13th this winter. Taking place one hundred and eighty-three years before the events of The Lord of The Rings trilogy, the anime prequel explores the story of Helm Hammerhand and his family as they defend the now legendary locale. For this first anime film in the land of Middle Earth, Warner Bros has teamed up with Sola Entertainment, the production house that has made a name for itself with anime projects including Tower of God, The God of High School, Ninja Kamui, Shenmue: The Animation, and Rick And Morty: The Anime.

The Lord of The Rings’ Anime Future

Screenwriter Philippa Boyens, who was responsible for the first three Lord of The Rings movies along with The Hobbit trilogy, is returning for The Lord of the Rings: The War of The Rohirrim. On top of her time with Middle Earth, Boyens also had a hand in writing The Lovely Bones, Mortal Engines, and 2005’s King Kong. In an interview with outlet Empire, the screenwriter confirmed that they are already thinking of another anime project for the franchise, but it’s going to come down to The War of The Rohirrim’s success.

Boyens states that the upcoming The Hunt For Gollum film might receive a follow-up in the form of an anime, “We have an absolute banger of a second film that would just be incredible as an anime, but let’s see if there’s an appetite for it.” While discussing the upcoming live-action movie focusing on Andy Serkis’ Gollum, the screenwriter confirmed it was always meant to be one movie, “I can tell you definitively it isn’t two films! That was a genuine misunderstanding that happened because we’ve begun to work, conceptually, on two different live-action films. The first being The Hunt For Gollum, the second one still to be confirmed.”

An Anime Gollum?

If you want to see Gollum in an animated format, you don’t have to wait for years to see if The War of The Rohirrim is a success. In 1977, animation studio Rankin/Bass released an animated movie for The Hobbit, following the journey of Bilbo Baggins long before Warner Bros released the trilogy of live-action films that did the same. While this take does focus on Bilbo’s unfortunate first meeting with Gollum, this is a far different-looking beast than the one we saw Andy Serkis portray. Following the success of this initial animated outing, a Lord of The Rings animated movie was released the following year in 1978.

Ironically enough, the Gollum of The Lord of The Rings’ animated movie looked far more like Andy Serkis’ iteration than The Hobbit’s. Considering the franchise’s long history in the animation world, it makes sense that anime would be a perfect fit for Middle Earth.

Want to stay updated on The Lord of The Rings’ place in the anime world? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for the latest updates on the The War of The Rohirrim and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.

Via Empire Online

The post The Lord of The Rings’ Anime Future Depends on One Key Thing appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Sebastian Stan is the latest Marvel actor to say he’s open to a DC role down the line — but in his case, he already has his eye on one in particular. The Captain America franchise regular says he would love to turn up as Batman baddie The Riddler in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s upcoming DC Universe. Of course, while Gunn and Safran definitely have plans for a Batman movie, it seems likely Riddler will be on the back burner for a while, considering that the character was just used in The Batman.

The character of The Riddler is one of the most popular Batman villains in the comics, and has been for decades, but certainly he has been one who has changed a lot over time. Live action interpretations aren’t always tracked to what’s going on in the comics, either.

“I don’t know if Batman’s for me, but never say never,” Stan told Happy Sad Confused when pressed on the idea of a DC role. “I don’t know. There’s so many characters — I told you, I always had a soft spot for that Riddler, but that one’s been done.”

You can see the full interview below.

The character has previously been played in live action by Frank Gorshin on Batman, Jim Carrey in Batman Forever, and Paul Dano in The Batman.

Riddler has, at times, been reinvented as something of an antihero, so that’s something Stan could obviously lean into. He has spent the last decade or so straddling the line of good and evil as Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier.

It seems he will be straddling that line again as part of Thunderbolts, a team that matches him up with a bunch of previous Marvel movie villains on a Suicide Squad-style team of deeply flawed villains and antiheroes being forced into heroism by a government operative (here, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus).

In the interview, Stan seems to confirm long-standing rumors that Thunderbolts was pretty radically reworked, but claims that he is happy with the final product and confident the movie will play well for audiences. He also had nothing but good things to say about working with both Louis-Dreyfus and Wyatt Russell, whom he calls one of the funniest people he’s ever met.

Russell is set to reprise his role as John Walker/U.S. Agent in the film, one that he originated in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It isn’t clear whether Walker will recur in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World.

The post Sebastian Stan Reveals the DC Villain He Wants to Play and We Need It Now appeared first on ComicBook.com.

We now have confirmation of whether the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie The Hunt for Gollum is one or two movies. There was excitement when Warner Bros. revealed it was returning to Middle-earth for more Lord of the Rings, with Andy Serkis reprising his role as Gollum while also directing the first movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Sir Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf, brought some confusion to the festivities when he spoke of The Hunt for Gollum possibly being split into two films. Fans have since wondered what to believe, but one of The Hunt for Gollum writers is setting the record straight.

“I can tell you definitively it isn’t two films!” The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum screenwriter Philippa Boyens told Empire. “That was a genuine misunderstanding that happened because we’ve begun to work, conceptually, on two different live-action films. The first being The Hunt For Gollum, the second one still to be confirmed.”

Boyens even explained why there might have been some confusion on McKellen’s part. It comes down to McKellen’s Gandalf being a core part of multiple The Lord of the Rings films, and not just The Hunt for Gollum.

“We’re playing around with a number of ideas, but most of those ideas do include Gandalf,” she said. “So Gandalf would potentially return for two live-action films.”

For those fans who may be disappointed a Gollum-centric movie isn’t taking up two films, Boyens reassures the fandom there will be a lot to appreciate. “It’s quite an intense story, which falls after the birthday party of Bilbo and before the Mines Of Moria,” Boyens explained. “It’s a specific chunk of incredible untold story, told through the perspective of this incredible creature.”

Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are writing the screenplay for The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, along with Phoebe Gittins and Arty Papageorgiou (Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim). Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is executive produced by Ken Kamins, with Serkis and The Imaginarium’s Jonathan Cavendish. Peter Jackson is producing with Walsh and Boyens.

Even though The Hunt for Gollum will only take up one movie, that shouldn’t be taken as a negative for fans. If there’s one thing The Lord of the Rings franchise is known for, it’s super-long runtimes. Many of the films max out around the three-hour mark, which is a long time to sit in a movie theater when you factor in bathroom breaks. So there shouldn’t be any worry that The Hunt for Gollum will run out of time to tell its story. Plus, we now know Peter Jackson and the team are hard at work developing more Lord of the Rings projects.

If you count The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Prime Video and the upcoming release of The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim anime movie on December 13th, then LOTR fans are eating good.

The post Hunt for Gollum Writer Clarifies Whether It’s Two Films, Teases More LOTR Movies appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Spider-Man 4 star Tom Holland just gave us a hint at his wishes for Miles Morales in the MCU. Since the success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before the younger version of Spidey makes his way into a Marvel Studios project. Morales has only seen that popularity grow in the ensuing years with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and appearances on Disney Jr.’s Spidey and his Amazing Friends. Now, Holland is speaking up to see the hero make his MCU debut sometime in the future. As an added bonus, the Marvel mainstay wants to play a role in that actor’s life like Robert Downey Jr. did for him when he was introduced as Peter Parker. It never hurts to have a role model and the comics have always prized Peter’s relationship to Miles. Check out what the star had to say when he sat down with Rich Roll right here.

Holland said, “If I would be lucky enough to somehow bring Miles Morales into my Spider-Man universe and into the MCU, I’d love to do for a young kid what [Robert] Downey [Jr.] did for me.”

This isn’t the first time that the Spider-Man actor has shown Miles Morales some love. When asked about his favorite Spider-Man movie, Holland has routinely shouted out the Spider-Verse franchise and what it’s done with the character. In fact, he went so far as to say that the first movie in that lane was the best of any offering featuring the character. The Internet really got behind this take and people have fallen in love with Miles Morales in a way that’s genuinely hard to argue with. Check out Holland’s rationale and think about if he has a point with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

“I think the first Spider-Verse movie is the best Spider-Man movie that has ever been made. I am so proud of everyone involved,” the MCU star revealed to the Associated Press. “Amy Pascal is like my mom. I was supposed to go with her as her date. I couldn’t go because I’m here working. But I’m incredibly proud of them. I’m excited for the second one. I’m sure it will live up to every expectation, and I can’t wait to see it.”

With that kind of praise, it’s no wonder he wants to see Miles make the leap to live-action. However, it’s probably more likely we see him, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield make their way over to animation before a live-action Miles Morales project hits theaters. (Marvel fans will remember that Garfield has already appeared in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as a hologram memory…) ComicBook previously asked that movie’s directors, including Justin K. Thompson, about getting the three live-action Peters in there. Thompson argues that all of that would be icing on the cake and what they’re focused on is getting Miles’s story with his family right. So, anything is possible in the multiverse.

“I think, I think as long as we focus on our characters, as long as we focus on why he’s doing what he’s doing and why it matters, I think that will always be our North Star no matter what,” Thompson admitted. “But I can tell you, I can promise you it’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be spectacular. It’s going to be fantastic. It’s going to be Spider Man.”

So, who knows where the crossover with Miles Morales is going to happen. Holland seems very keen on getting to play mentor to whoever ends up wearing that mask in live-action. Sony has made no secret of their intention to get one of their most popular characters on screen with one of these other Spider-Men. (Also, don’t forget about Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider, she’s definitely coming with.) All of these rumblings plus the constant flux of the Spider-Man 4 script hover over any public comments like the one Holland made. It seems like the MCU’s Spidey wants to see this happen before he hangs up his tights. Could we see it before Secret Wars? We hope so. But, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Miles swing onto the scene after the rumored soft reboot of the MCU after that massive crossover.

Do you think we get Miles Morales in Spider-Man 4? Check out all the conversation at @ComicBook!

The post Spider-Man 4: Tom Holland Shares Miles Morales MCU Hopes (And RDJ Is a Factor) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Dune: Part Two undeniably became one of the biggest movies of 2024, with director Denis Villeneuve’s vision for the science fiction epic wowing audiences throughout the world. Ever since the film’s smash success, there have been rumblings about the franchise potentially continuing into a third film, which would adapt Frank Herbert’s controversial follow-up novel Dune Messiah. During a recent panel at Deadline‘s Contenders London summit, Villeneuve confirmed that the subject of war would be at the center of a potential adaptation of Dune: Messiah, adding that in Dune: Part Two, “in order to save his friends, [Paul Atredies] has to start a war.”

For those who are already familiar with Herbert’s 1969 source material for Messiah, this might not be too much of a surprise. Without getting too heavily into spoilers, the story is set over a decade into the rein of Paul as Emperor, as his efforts have led to a holy war with billions of casualties across the entire universe. Messiah then explores the personal and political strife that occurs from that starting point, both as Paul fights to remedy the war caused in his name, and as those around him work to strip him of his power.

This comes as Messiah has only been confirmed to be in development by Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Entertainment, although the former studio has slotted a December 18, 2026 release date for whatever Villeneuve’s next film might be.

“Look, I never take it for granted that I’m going to be back,” franchise editor Joe Walker told ComicBook in an exclusive interview earlier this year. “I hope I am. I don’t know, I haven’t read the script and it’s still being worked on, I’m sure. And I love the fact that [director] Denis [Villeneuve] will keep his cards close to his chest until he’s ready, because it spoils something to talk about something before it’s there. I’m very excited about what Paul becomes in that story. And I love the idea of basically trying to assassinate somebody who’s seen everything in advance. I can’t comment too much about it, but I just know it will be just a brilliant thing to go back into that world.”

As the director has previously explained, he is going out of his way to ensure that a theoretical Messiah adaptation honors the complex nature of its source material, while also being somewhat standalone from the events of the first two Dune movies.

“First, It’s important that people understand that for me, it was really a diptych,” Villeneuve previously said in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. “It was really a pair of movies that will be the adaptation of the first book. That’s done and that’s finished. If I do a third one, which is in the writing process, it’s not like a trilogy. It’s strange to say that, but if I go back there, it’s to do something that feels different and has its own identity.”

Dune Messiah does not currently have a confirmed release date.

The post Denis Villeneuve Gives First Synopsis of Dune 3 Plot (And It Sounds Epic) appeared first on ComicBook.com.