Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s belated buddy cop blockbuster Bad Boys for Life is joining the lengthy list of films getting an early digital release amid the current COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, reports Variety.
Bad Boys for Life will hit digital platforms on March 31 (its physical 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD release is slated for several weeks later, on April 21).
Bad Boys for Life originally hit cinemas on January 16 in Australia and January 17 in the UK and North America – so the gap between its theatrical and home release isn’t quite as truncated as other films recently confirmed to be making unusually speedy home releases – but it is still slightly earlier than has previously been typical.
The long-gestating follow-up to 1995’s Bad Boys and 2003’s Bad Boys II, Bad Boys for Life has been well-received by fans and critics and is currently 2020’s highest grossing film. IGN’s review called Bad Boys for Life an outrageous throwback threequel with great cast chemistry and plenty of all-out action.
The Hearthstone team recently revealed its plans for the Year of the Phoenix, and to say they’re huge would be an understatement. We’re talking about the Priest class getting a rework, duplicates being eliminated from card packs, a free deck for new and returning players, Leeroy Jenkins (and others) being sent to the Hall of Fame, and, of course, the biggest news of all – Hearthstone is getting its tenth class: the Demon Hunter.
Demon Hunter will launch alongside the next expansion – Ashes of Outland – and IGN has a brand new Demon Hunter card from that set to reveal today. Introducing, Fel Summoner:
Fel Summoner.
Fel Summoner is a key card in one of the three archetypes Team 5 planned for Demon Hunter out of the gate – its “big demons” deck. That deck plays in a controlling style, attempting to keep its opponent at bay using hero attacks and AOE during the early- to mid-game so that it can start rolling out big threats and dominate the board later on.
Fel Summoner has stats in line with her purpose – dying so that you can pull a big demon, like a Pit Commander or Hulking Overfiend, from hand. It’s an interesting card because while your opponent will likely be able to kill her easily, he or she will also need to have a plan to deal with the demon that may or may not be pulled onto the board. And if Fel Summoner isn’t dealt with, well, that’s a lot of incoming damage.
It remains to be seen just how many “big demons” you’ll need in your deck to reliably take advantage of Fel Summoner’s ability, but I can tell you that it’s very likely to be viable, as the journey to get this archetype to a good place was a long one. Fel Summoner changed quite a bit over the course of final design as the team homed in on how the big demon deck would play. Fel Summoner, in fact, was actually swapped in to replace a spell called “Bind to the Cause”, and then evolved again, into the card that’s shipping with the set. You can see the evolution below.
Fel Summoner actually replaced a spell, and changed along with Demon Hunter’s “big demons” archetype.
Demon Hunter as a whole is shaping up to be a heap of fun, so be sure to check out our exclusive behind the scenes video below, in which we detail how Team 5 brought Demon Hunter to life in terms of art, UI, VFX and storytelling. Also stay tuned for our companion video that tells the story of how the team designed the new class – the hero power, the archetypes and more. It’ll be live on Thursday PDT / Friday in ANZ.
Aquaman writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick has said Aquaman 2 will pull from the Silver Age Black Manta Comics.
Spotted by Batman News, Johnson-McGoldrick took the chance to answer fan questions on his Twitter account and, when asked if he had any recommended reading that might give insight into Aquaman 2, he cited Black Manta Silver Age stories in his reply.
Hmm… Good question. We’re not taking any one particular comic book story and adapting it, but if you want to know the vibe we’re going for, pick up pretty much any Silver Age story featuring Black Manta.
— David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (@bravecarrot) March 21, 2020
Another fan asked about when we might see The Trench spin-off movie and, while he didn’t give a concrete date, Johnson-McGoldrick let us know the setting is potentially slated to fit in between Aquaman 1 and 2.
In the first Aquaman film we saw the Trench appear as amphibious creatures who attack Aquaman and Mera. They’re typically depicted as a vicious race of sea creatures which should fit the light horror tones said to be present in the spin-off.
The first episode of Tim and Eric’s Beef House, a take on the sitcom genre featuring the duo’s unique brand of comedy, has aired well before its intended premiere on March 29. The early premiere was announced on Tim and Eric’s Instagram, with the Adult Swim website now reading: you demanded it, watch the early premiere of BEEF HOUSE.
The first episode, titled Army Buddy Brad, is up now on Adult Swim’s website for everyone to watch for free–even viewers outside of the US.
The show’s announcement called Beef House a “multi-camera sitcom about five men–Tim, Eric, Ron Auster, Ben Hur, Tennessee Luke–and Eric’s wife Megan, all living under one roof. Each week Tim, a laid back rock-and-roll slacker, and his best friend Eric, a high strung stay-at-home husband, find themselves in the middle of a madcap misadventure that can only be traversed with the help of their fellow Beef Boys.”
Devolver Digital has knocked down the price of its absurd puzzle-exploration game Pikuniku, developed by indie collective Sectordub. Normally $12.99, Pikuniku is now available for just $0.99 on Nintendo Switch.
The joyfully nonsensical game is suited for both adults and kids and supports local-multiplayer co-op play for two people, making it perfect for families currently stuck at home. Just watching the trailer should be enough to lift your mood.
GameSpot’s review of Pikuniku said, “With its simple character designs and a game world that often looks like a young kid designed it by cutting up and sticking together different bits of colored paper, Pikuniku sometimes feels like a video game adaption of a children’s book.” With its cute graphics and simple progression, it’s the perfect game to take your mind off world events.
There’s a surreal element to the release of Half-Life: Alyx, as the long-dormant franchise had turned into a meme as the wait for a new game following Half-Life 2: Episode 2 stretched further and further. Now that the new game has finally released, one developer at Valve has spoken about the gap between releases, and while he can’t commit to anything, he’s hopeful that it won’t be as long.
Robin Walker, a long-time programmer at Valve, has spoken to Polygon about the pressures that come with the Half-Life brand. “Half-Life 3 really always needed to answer the question of what is the opportunity, what is the big technological leap that you think we can use in some way to build some really interesting experience for the player?,” he said. “That’s a paralyzing thing to work on.”
Half-Life: Alyx felt right, he says, and once they had a prototype it was clear that it could be the next game in the series. For now, he says, it’s not clear what the next game will be: “We haven’t made any decisions about what to do next, concretely, because there’s no reason to. We can wait a week.”
