Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has revealed the first image from the upcoming Fast and Furious spinoff film, Hobbs & Shaw.
Johnson posted the image on Instagram, saying “We either gonna get along or we gonna get it on. Fuck getting along.”
“Great first week of shooting our Fast & Furious spin-off, ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ with my ace Jason Statham” Johnson said, “We’re havin’ a blast disrupting the norm to deliver something fresh, cool, fun and bad ass for the fans.”
Australian developer Big Ant Studios has announced its next sports game, and it’s a first for the Melbourne-based studio. The team is making a Big Bash Cricket game called Big Bash Boom, and it’s launching on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC soon.
Having already established itself in the simulation-style cricket game market with its Don Bradman Cricket and Ashes Cricket series, Big Bash Boom is an arcade-style game from Big Ant. Developed in partnership with Cricket Australia, the game aims to combine “all the big-hitting thrills of T20 cricket with instantly accessible arcade action.”
The game is fully licensed, so you can expect to see all the teams and players, as well as related brands (hello, KFC), competing this year in the real Big Bash League. The women’s Big Bash League is also represented in Big Bash Boom.
“We wanted to do something different with Big Bash Boom,” Big Ant Studios CEO Ross Symons said in a statement.
As part of its arcade ambitions, Big Bash Boom will feature over-the-top mechanics such as flame trails for sixes, as well as giant cricket ball powerups, and the ability to replace the ball with a potato. What’s more, a dancing duck will show up when you hit a zero.
For bowlers, Big Bash Boom introduces an ability that lets them shrink the bat down to the size of a stump.
Big Bash Boom launches on November 29 for PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. A Steelbook edition will be available exclusively at EB Games.
Marvel Studios Director of Visual Development Andy Park (Thor: Ragnarok, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel) has finally shared a clearer look at his design for Captain Marvel, which we first glimpsed back at San Diego Comic Con 2017.
Park credits artists Jamie McKelvie and Kris Anka as the inspiration for his big screen adaptation.
I absolutely LOVED creating this design of @brielarson as #CaptainMarvel ! Based on the awesome comic book looks by @McKelvie & @kristaferanka It was a pleasure taking those & translating it for the big screen & for the story we are telling on this film. @MarvelStudios pic.twitter.com/4lNWin4Imz
At the world premiere screening of DC Universe’s Titans, executive producer Geoff Johns announced that the series has already been renewed for a second season ahead of its Oct. 12 premiere.
“That shows the faith that DC Universe has in the show and this amazing cast and the property,” Johns said. “To be able to get a get a Season 2 greenlit now means we can just get in the room and keep talking about these crazy ideas.”
“We know
Season 2 already. We actually know all the characters in Season 2. We know the story of Season 2. Marv Wolfman will be very happy when we do Season 2,” Johns teased.
Johns’ fellow executive producer Akiva Goldsman also stated, “We’re blessed with this incredible cast, we want to keep on bringing more and more amazing actors and characters… I don’t want to give anything away, but there are some stories in the books that will appear in Season 2.”
As we learn more about Dragon Ball Super: Broly, fans are coming up with plenty of theories about the new movie and, notably, some believe the upcoming double feature event in the U.S. of Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku and Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn may provide clues for what we’ll see in the upcoming 20th Dragon Ball movie.
In our IGN comments, one reader, Dragon_Ball_Super, theorizes that in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Gogeta, who is first introduced in Fusion Reborn, could make an appearance in the new movie to take on Broly. They also imply that Goku’s origin story will be featured in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, and may include an appearance by his dad, Bardock. Is this plausible?
The Conjuring has a new puppet-master in director Michael Chaves, who will take the reins off James Wan for its third instalment.
Chaves’ most recent film was New Line’s The Curse of La Llorona, which Wan produced and is due to hit theaters in 2019. THR reports that Wan will still have a say on The Conjuring 3 acting as its “godfather.”
“While working closely with Chaves on The Curse of La Llorona, I got to know him as a filmmaker,” said Wan, per THR. “Chaves’ ability to bring emotion to a story, and his understanding of mood and scares, make him a perfect fit to direct the next Conjuring film.”
If you’ve been paying attention to pop culture news lately, chances are you’ve probably seen some casting announcements for one of the new shows headed to the DC Universe streaming service. It’s called Doom Patrol, and if you’re totally unfamiliar with that particular wing of DC’s canon, that probably sounds like a late 1960s Cold War era thriller to you. But–surprise!–it’s actually just a bunch of weird superheroes. Let’s break it down.
The Doom Patrol first appeared in issue #80 of My Greatest Adventure, an anthology style comic that traditionally collected up a bunch of short adventure stories. The Doom Patrol was part of a strategy to make the leap to the superhero genre; the goal was to make a serialized story that would fit in both the adventure and the superheroic wheelhouse and make the whole transition go a lot smoother. The Doom Patrol was billed as “the world’s strangest superheroes” and the creators took that theme to heart. The core idea was a team of heroes who were tortured and made outcasts by their abilities, forced to live their lives as cool, pulpy explorers more in the vein of something like Jonny Quest than Superman.
Now, if you’re thinking, “Wait a second, aren’t ‘outcast and tortured superheroes’ X-Men’s whole brand?” You’re correct! Importantly, the Doom Patrol actually predated the first appearance of the X-Men by several months, and co-creator Arnold Drake is still not totally convinced that the X-Men weren’t a subtle Doom Patrol rip-off to begin with. Comparing the two these days is a lot more apples-and-oranges than it would have been back in the ’60s. And, of course, judging by just name recognition and media franchise pull, it’s pretty obvious which one found more success, but hey, the more you know.
Like most superhero teams, the Doom Patrol’s line-up has fluctuated over the years, but for the most part it’s maintained a level of B and C list (or lower) obscurity. They started out with an original group of characters who had been created specifically to launch the Doom Patrol’s first appearance: Elasti-Girl, whose powers are exactly what you’d expect; Robotman, a human reincarnated as a robot after a terrible car crash; Negative Man, a man who lost his permanent corporeal form in a radioactive accident; and The Chief, a wheelchair using genius who brought the team together. A year or so later, Beast Boy–yes, like the Teen Titans Beast Boy–was introduced and joined the team, rounding out the roster.
Their stories usually involved a healthy amount of in-fighting, soul searching and general ennui, as each person on the team wrestled with personal demons as much as actual villains–all of which were just as weird and esoteric as the heroes themselves. Bad guys like the sentient gorilla Monsieur Mallah and his disembodied brain partner-slash-lover named, aptly, The Brain, and the 100% real, actually published in a real comic book Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, plagued the team at every turn.
The Doom Patrol never really got off the ground popularity wise, and thanks to no shortage of DC continuity reboots like Crisis on Infinite Earths, their position in the larger DC multiverse has always been pretty variable. Famously, they were the first team in DC that ended their book with the entire roster (save Beast Boy) being “killed” in the final issue, Doom Patrol #121, which paved the way for a complicated series of retcons and reboots. They spent their most widely appreciated years as a Vertigo book, but then wound up back in the mainline DCU in the early 2000s, and have since jumped over to the Young Animal imprint for the Rebirth era. Technically, thanks to the fancy footwork of creators like Grant Morrison and Gerard Way, the bulk of the Doom Patrol’s history is within continuity these days, but they’re only ever tangential to bigger teams like the Justice League at the very best–and a total non sequitur at worst.
What does that mean for the upcoming streaming TV show? It’s obviously pretty hard to say. By nature, the Doom Patrol deals with things that veer toward the psychedelic and the trippy, meaning we can expect to see a show that deals in a much more light (or at least surreal) tone than, say, the CW shows or even the Titans TV show. However, we do know that the Doom Patrol will in fact be spinning out of Titans in an episode specifically named after them, so we can assume that the two are definitely going to be sharing an onscreen universe. And, as was just announced at New York Comic Con, Matt Bomer (American Horror Story, Magic Mike) will star as Negative Man.
Also, with Beast Boy as part of the Titans main roster, it’s extremely likely that those early years of Doom Patrol stories, in which he played a major role, are going to be heavily mined for live action adaptation. We also know that some more recent Doom Patrol characters are going to be making the jump to the small screen, specifically Crazy Jane, who was a late addition to the team. Interestingly, Cyborg is also set to appear in the show, which will be a first, as he’s usually associated with the Titans or the Justice League. So when it comes to Doom Patrol, it might just be best to expect the unexpected.
Bethesda’s favourite ice hockey team, the nearby Washington Capitals, opened their 2018-2019 NHL season tonight, and Vault Boy stopped in as part of a Fallout 76 marketing partnership. Someone dressed up as Vault Boy sat on the passenger’s side of the Zamboni during intermissions and treated fans to one of the more unexpected video game marketing campaigns this year.
According to social media reports, Washington Capitals arena announcer Wes Johnson even did Fallout voices over the PA. Pretty cool.
Vault Boy is riding a Zamboni at the @Capitals game! Fantastic! #Fallout76 pic.twitter.com/F16E4cVgih
— Jumpondees (@Jumpondees) October 4, 2018
The Capitals, who are defending Stanley Cup champions, crushed the Boston Bruins by a margin of 7-0 tonight to start their title defence off on the right foot. Bethesda marketing boss Pete Hines said on Twitter that it’s no coincidence that the Caps won big on the same night that Vault Boy made an appearance. Hines, Bethesda game director Todd Howard, and other Bethesda employees are such big Caps fans that they took time out of their E3 prep to catch the Stanley Cup finals in person.
In semi-related news, Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin is coming to World of Tanks as a special playable commander.
Fallout 76 launches in November for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but you may not have to wait that long to play. There will be a beta starting on October 23 for Xbox One, and it will launch a week later for PS4 and PC. You must pre-order Fallout 76 to get into the beta, but if you do, you’ll get to play the entire game, and your progress carries forward.
In other Fallout 76 news, Bethesda has confirmed that the game will not support cross-play. That’s notable because Sony just started allowing this for Epic’s Fortnite. A lot of new gameplay footage for Fallout 76 will be released soon, so keep checking back for that.
To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Capcom has announced that its Mega Man franchise is going to be adapted into a live-action Hollywood movie.
The feature film is tentatively titled MEGA MAN (all caps), and will be written and directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Catfish, Paranormal Activity 3) for 20th Century Fox. Via a press release, Capcom says it aims to “appeal to a diverse audience, including not only game players but action movie fans as well, with an adaptation that maintains the world of the Mega Man games, while incorporating the grand production and entertainment value that Hollywood movies are known for.”