Month: February 2021

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Skyscraper, Red Notice) will be helming Netflix’s upcoming feature adaptation of Tom Clancy’s The Division, a popular video game franchise. News of Thurber stepping in to direct comes via Deadline. He will be taking over for David Leitch (Deadpool 2), who had to leave the project due to scheduling conflicts with the currently filming thriller Bullet Train.

According to Ubisoft, the movie “is set in the near future, where a virus is spread via paper money on Black Friday, decimating the city of New York… a group of civilians, trained to operate in catastrophic times, are activated to save who and what remains.” Jake Gyllenhaal (Spider-Man: Far from Home, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, Molly’s Game) will co-star, but it’s not yet known what roles they’ll be playing or how they might relate to the original game.

The Division is just one small part of what seems could be a turning tide for video game movie adaptations gaining respect and viability for Hollywood. A recent The Ringer article has broken down how films like Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog proved the formula can work, which in turn led to many studios snapping up adaptation deals.

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Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl are set to release exclusively for Nintendo Switch sometime in late 2021 (see at Best Buy). These are 3D remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, a pair of games that originally released in 2006 on Nintendo DS. Both upcoming remakes are available for preorder now.

Preorder Pokemon Brilliant Diamond

• Get it at Best Buy – $59.99

Preorder Pokemon Shining Pearl

• Get it at Best Buy – $59.99

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl bring players back to the Sinnoh region, where you’ll go on an adventure while collecting, evolving, and battling Pokemon along the way. The Pokemon Company says these are faithful remakes, preserving the towns and routes found in the originals. However, the games will also include some quality-of-life improvements found in more recent games in the series.

And for those who need a reminder, the starter Pokemon are Chimchar, Turtwig, and Piplup. Brilliant Diamon’s Legendary Pokemon is Dialga, while Shining Pearl’s is Palkia.

In IGN’s 2006 Pokemon Diamond and Pearl review the game received an 8.5, thanks to its “strategic depth and gameplay that’s incredibly rewarding.”

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No Preorder Bonus

As yet, no preorder bonuses have been announced for the latest round of Pokemon remakes. If that changes, we’ll drop the information here.

Other Preorder Guides

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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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Zack Snyder’s much-anticipated zombie action movie Army of the Dead has been in the works for many years, but it finally arrives in May and it is foregoing theaters altogether for a streaming release. You’ll be able to watch it on Netflix.

Snyder made his directing debut in 2004 with his remake of George Romero’s zombie classic Dawn of the Dead. But while he moved onto the hit Frank Miller adaptation 300 next, the filmmaker planned to return to the world of the undead soon after, and Army of the Dead was announced in 2007. At that stage Snyder was only planning to co-write and produce, with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. hired as director. Unfortunately the movie didn’t happen–in 2011, Heijningen Jr explained that while it came close to shooting, financing fell through before production could start.

The project sat dormant for a decade, while Snyder went on to make movies such as Watchmen, Man of Steel, and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. But in January 2019, it was announced that Netflix had picked up the project from Warner, and the movie finally started shooting in the summer of that year. With the film now set for release in a few months, here’s everything we know so far about Army of the Dead.

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See the differences between the current gen and previous gen versions of Outriders’ prologue.

A new Max Raid event is now live in Pokemon Sword and Shield. As part of the Pokemon series’ 25th anniversary festivities, Gigantamax Pikachu is appearing in Max Raid battles again until February 28, and you’ll have a chance to encounter a Shiny Gigantamax Pikachu in five-star Raids.

As was the case with the recent Cramorant Max Raid event, the overarching goal of this particular event is to defeat more than 1 million Pikachu. If players can hit that goal, The Pokemon Company will give away 100 Armorite Ore and 100 Dynite Ore, which are used as currency for certain items and services in the Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra areas.

The Gigantamax Pikachu Max Raid event runs until 3:59 PM PT / 6:59 PM ET on February 28. Before you can participate, you’ll first need to refresh your Max Raid dens. You can do so either by connecting your game online or by going into the Mystery Gift menu and selecting Get the Wild Area News.

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A Terminator anime series has been greenlit at Netflix, according to Variety. Details are still pretty sparse at this early stage for the project, but given the franchise’s humble cyberpunk roots with the 1984 original film, an anime adaptation of the series and its world makes sense.

Variety reports that Netflix has partnered with Skydance, the company that holds the rights to the long-running sci-fi franchise, for the series. Mattson Tomlin, who worked on the screenplay for Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman, will serve as showrunner and executive producer for this upcoming series.

“Terminator is one of the most iconic sci-fi stories ever created–and has only grown more relevant to our world over time,” said John Derderian, Netflix’s vice president of Japan and anime. “The new animated series will explore this universe in a way that has never been done before. We can’t wait for fans to experience this amazing new chapter in the epic battle between machines and humans.”

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When two fan-favorite characters do battle on the big screen, the one thing fans want is a definitive winner, even though one isn’t always determined. After all, the debate of who won Freddy vs. Jason rages on. However, with the upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong, which hits theaters on the HBO Max streaming service on March 31, there will be one kaiju left standing.

Speaking during the IGN’s Fan Fest panel for Godzilla vs. Kong, director Adam Wingard made sure to note fans of the monsters won’t leave wondering who the victor was. “I just wanted this to feel like the real matchup. I wanted you to walk away from this–wanted there to be no more arguments on the playground,” he said. “This is the decider, you know, you don’t have to debate it anymore you watch this. That’s Godzilla, that’s King Kong, they’re beating the s*** out of each other, and one wins. And, you know, that’s it.”

Wingard’s reason for wanting a true winner of the war goes back to his own experiences watching the Godzilla franchise growing up. “When I think back to the original movie King Kong Vs Godzilla, I remember having conversations with my friends talking about that when I was a kid, and we were still debating who would win in a fight–Godzilla or King Kong–and that film for one doesn’t really pick a winner,” he explained. “It’s very much a draw. It’s very unclear and muddy who wins.”

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Steven Yeun became a household name as Glenn on AMC’s The Walking Dead, which was based on a comic book by Robert Kirkman. Now, Yeun is starring as Mark Grayson in Amazon Prime’s Invincible, another series based on a comic by Kirkman.

During IGN Fan Fest, Yeun spoke about how he got the role on the upcoming animated show, which arrives on March 26. “Robert just hit me up kind of randomly and said, ‘I’m doing Invincible. Would you come in and kind of like help me realize part of this script?'” said Yeun. “He wanted me to come in and just play around in a booth, and we did this really cool scene that I really enjoyed about two security guards that—I think he’s going to be in it—but it’s a beautiful scene, and it really made me understand like what he was trying to make.

“Not too long after, he asked me if I would play Mark [Grayson] and for me, you know, I love Robert and also like having had that experience reading the some of the script that he wrote, and where the show was going, I was super stoked to be part of it, so I mean who doesn’t want to be Invincible?”

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