The recent Planet of the Apes trilogy is one of the most consistently fun and thoughtful blockbuster franchise revivals in recent memory. Beginning in an understated fashion with Rupert Wyatt’s 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the series took off when The Batman director Matt Reeves grabbed...
Looper’s experimental soundtrack slapped then, and slaps even harder now
10 years ago this week, Rian Johnson’s Looper burst into theaters with the sheer ventilating force of a blunderbuss shot. The sci-fi action-thriller starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis, which follows an assassin forced to fight a future version of himself, was a far cry from the director’s past films...
Deadpool 3 will bring back Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine
Deadpool is officially joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Deadpool 3, which got a teaser video on Tuesday. The video was released by Wade Wilson himself, Ryan Reynolds, and was more like a real-life tease than an actual trailer. But Reynolds reveals that Deadpool 3 is on the way, and...
HBO’s The Last of Us looks like a faithful adaptation, with an exception
Craig Mazin and HBO’s The Last of Us looks like it’ll largely stick to the story laid out in developer Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, taking Joel and Ellie through a fungus-ravaged United States. But judging from the trailer, there’s at least one major exception: Melanie Lynskey. Monday’s The...
Sorting through House of the Dragon’s many new kid characters
Time jumps are critical to how House of the Dragon is telling its story about a tumultuous moment in Targaryen history. None of those time jumps are as important as the 10-year leap episode 6 takes. While much has changed in King’s Landing in the time the show skipped, one...
The Witcher season 3 slices its way to Netflix in summer 2023
Netflix’s 2022 Tudum event gave fans updates on two upcoming projects in the Witcher universe. The third season of The Witcher, starring Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, will arrive in summer 2023. The limited series prequel spinoff The Witcher: Blood Origin, starring the incomparable Michelle Yeoh, will arrive on...
Sauron’s secret identity takes another step
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has kept one thing secret and safe for the entirety of its production: Who in the show is playing the role of chief antagonist, the infamous Dark Lord Sauron? In the show’s third episode, we got another character to toss into...
To evolve, Law & Order had to ax one of its long-running characters
Law enforcement both real and fictional has undergone a reckoning in recent years, albeit a confusing one. Many wondered, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, if cop shows were over. Law & Order: Organized Crime dumped its showrunner Craig Gore amidst controversial...
How Star Wars has depicted the rise of the Rebel Alliance through the years
From the moment the words “Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire” appeared in the opening crawl of Star Wars, the minds of fans raced, imagining the circumstances surrounding that victory. While 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars story presents...
Once upon a time, you could buy Snow White-themed bleach and ammonia
Beyond Mickey, Disney’s most iconic characters are probably the Disney princesses. From Cinderella and her missing slipper to spunky mermaid Ariel, the Disney princess is a Disney staple, despite not officially being codified into a “Disney Princess” brand until the 2000s. The criteria for who gets to be a Disney...